Dreams and The BFG

We have all been enjoying our read-aloud book, The BFG by Roald Dahl. We try to find a time each day to read a chapter or two.

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 phizzwizzards in his cave - these are the good dreams and bad dreams that he collects. 

After our shared reading time today, I started telling a story about a very bad 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 wonderful dream and did the same thing. It was very interesting and challenging to do this type of group story telling activity - the stories took some very unusual twists and turns. 

I showed the children two labeled jars. These will be kept in the classroom for them to add their trogglehumpers and phizzwizzards to, as inspiration strikes. Any time we have free writing time, they may decide to write or draw about a real or imagined dream or nightmare and add it to the jar. If they want, we can take time to act out each dream, which is also a great deal of fun.

This is an example of a language exercise that may encompass listening, group storytelling, writing, illustrating, and theater! How wonderful is that? I hope we will find lots of opportunities to do this type of activity throughout the year – one where every child can find success, and find joy with literature and language.