Never a Dahl Moment

There are tons of Dahl-ing things happening right now in the library this week in commemoration of Roald Dahl's birthday.  In each of my classes, I have been teaching a "Roald Dahl 101" lesson, just to let students know the background on one of their favorite authors.  The response so far has been pretty interesting, especially in the upper elementary grades.  They are flabbergasted by the amount of sadness that surrounded Roald's life, both in his early years and married life.  They adored the story of 8 year old Roald placing the dead rat in the jar of Gobstoppers in a candy store.  If only they could be so bold! :)  Many have been surprised, while listing his "books made to movies,"  that he indeed was the author of The Fantastic Mr. Fox.  So fun to watch their enlightenment before my very eyes!

Students have been told there will be a birthday celebration during lunch next week.  I, of course, couldn't divulge all the details of the party. I can't even do it here.  It is completely top secret.  But there is a tasty treat of an activity that we will participate in together as an entire school.  I just can't wait to share it with you next week. 

To bide our time until next week and to continue students' discovery of Dahl, we are participating in the Roald Dahl-athon, a reading challenge sponsored by Penguin Publishers.  If students read 3 Dahl books before the end of December, Penguin will send them three Dahl-ing prizes.  Students are all over this!  http://www.roalddahl.com/Default.aspx?referrer=dahlathon&region=US

The younger grades have been more challenging to introduce Roald Dahl because he doesn't seem to have anything available in picture books or early readers.  I read the beginning of The Enormous Crocodile to them today.  They seemed to enjoy it, even though there were few pictures in the story.  It let their imaginations soar. 

Stretching Roald Dahl into more subjects than just library, I have collaborated with our art teacher and she has created some ultra fun art lessons for our students as well.  Our older students have designed their own candy bar wrappers (think Charlie and the Chocolate Factory) and they have done such a nice job with these!  We will be choosing 3 "wrappers" as winners as part of our birthday celebration next week. 

Stay tuned for the revealing of our birthday celebration next Tuesday!!