Trogglehumpers and Phizzwizards

We have all been enjoying our read-aloud book, The BFG by Roald Dahl. The first 15 minutes of each day is spent with me reading my copy of this book while the children follow along in their very own copy. On Friday mornings, we can read even longer, which is a nice treat.

The Big Friendly Giant has a lot of his own funny language (or "langwich", as he would say). This definitely adds to the humor of the story. The BFG has jars and jars of trogglehumpers and phizzwizards in his cave - these are the good dreams and bad dreams that he collects.

After our morning reading time today, I started telling a story about a very good dream. After setting the story up, I handed it over to each child in turn to add a sentence or two. Great fun! Then I started a story about a horrible dream and did the same thing. It was very interesting and challenging to do this type of group story telling activity - sometimes the story took some unusual twists and turns.

Then the children had a few moments to tell their tablemates some real dreams and/or nightmares they have had. After a few minutes, I turned them loose with paper and pencils and each child wrote a good dream or a bad dream. They rolled up their papers when they were done and put them in the appropriate jar.

Finally, we spent a good deal of time acting out each dream (if the author wanted to, and most everyone did).

This was a valuable exercise and one that I hope to do many times this year. It encompassed listening, group storytelling, writing, illustrating, and theater! How wonderful is that? I know the children want to make this a regular event - yes, they are begging to write!