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Celebrating Roald Dahl Day with Purple Mash
Sept. 6, 2021
September 13th marks the birthday of Roald Dahl (born 1916). From The Twits, to Matilda, to Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and George’s Marvelous medicine, Dahls books with their humorous approach have been entertaining children and adults worldwide for decades.
We have a range of phizz-whizzingly brilliant Purple Mash activities that can be used on Roald Dahl day to celebrate his books. We’re going to start with one of our personal favourites, Charlie, and the Chocolate Factory! We all know the story of Charlie finding a golden ticket and going to Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory so using our newspaper template, why not ask students to write a newspaper article all about him winning his golden ticket. They can also test their writing skills even further by writing a leaflet on the factory guidelines looking at how to behave in Willy Wonka's famous factory after all nobody wants to end up like Augustus Gloop! Students can also put themselves in the shoes of one of the characters and use our template to write an apology letter to Willy Wonka. They could unleash their creative side and come up with a design and describe three new Wonka creations or imagine they have been inside the chocolate room and write a detailed description. Our final activity related to the book is focused on our favourite characters the Oompa Loompas and they can use our Mashcam to imagine they are an Oompa Loompa and write their thoughts and characters in the speech bubble.
Another of our favourites is the wonderful George’s Marvellous Medicine. George’s nasty old Grandma needs teaching a lesson, and George decides the best remedy for her grumpiness is a special home-made medicine, but Grandma gets more than she bargained for! If you’ve read George’s Marvellous Medicine yourself, write a book review detailing why your friends should also read the book. You could also use our writing template to describe George and Grandma! George creates a special medicine for his grandma, if we were creating one it would include something purple, and something mash, but we would love to see what recipes that your students would come up. Test your writing skills by writing a diary entry from George including all the details of his day and what he’s thinking.
On Roald Dahl day, students can also research into the life of this famous author, did they know he was also a fighter pilot? There are lots of interesting facts about Roald Dahl that you could use to write a Roald Dahl biography to celebrate his special day.