Do your kids daydream about golden tickets, shrinking grandparents, or nasty encounters with The Trunchbull? If so, here are three whimsical ways to homeschool with Roald Dahl.
If your kids are anything like mine, all it took was one Roald Dahl book to get them hooked on his fantastical stories. Lucky for all of us, Dahl wrote plenty of books throughout his career to keep our readers busy. After all, it was Dahl who gifted children all over the world with stories like Matlida, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, The Twits, James and the Giant Peach, and my son’s favorite, Danny, the Champion of the World.
Homeschool with Roald Dahl
Whenever my kids get on a reading kick, I take advantage of that by working it into our homeschool plans. Thankfully there’s no shortage of wonderful ways to homeschool with Roald Dahl. Here are a few of my favorites.
Roald Dahl Author Study
Author studies are one of our favorite ways to work our interests into our homeschool plans. We do this by reading biographies, watching interviews when possible, and looking for extension activities.
We usually start our author studies with biographies because they provide great insight on the writer’s characters and stories. For kid-friendly Roald Dahl biographies, I recommend Who Is Roald Dahl?, Fantastic Mr. Dahl, and Boy and Going Solo.
As for videos for Roald Dahl, the Roald Dahl channel on YouTube is my favorite source. This channel has video clips about Dahl’s charity, his museum, movie and play adaptations, and impact on readers.
Lastly, BBC has several short Roald Dahl clips available for viewing. The Quentin Blake clip alone is worth checking out in this link. It’s interesting to hear about Dahl from someone who worked with him. Blake illustrated most of Dahl’s books and, in many ways, helped bring Dahl’s stories to life. If you’d like to learn more about him, see my Quentin Blake Unit Study or pin it for later.
Roald Dahl-Inspired Lessons & Activities
If you’re looking for ways to homeschool with Roald Dahl, you’ve got to spend time perusing RoaldDahl.com. The Create and Learn section is a gold mine full of free Dahl-inspired lesson plans, craft ideas, and recipes.
Additionally, Puffin books has a free Dahl lesson guide. You can find The Scrumdiddlyumptious World of Roald Dahl in the middle grades listings of Teaching Guides and Activity Kits. The calendar portion of this download is from 2012, but rest of the pack contains extension activities, discussion prompts, and printables that are good to use at any time.
Book and a Movie Studies
You can do Book and a Movie studies through read-alouds or independent reading and then watch the matching movies as a family. We all know that movies and the books that inspired them are often quite different. By reading some of Dahl’s books and watching the movies, you’ll have opportunities for discussion and to compare and contrast.
Not sure where to start? Karyn has a great Compare & Contrast printable for Matlida over at Teach Beside Me. After Matilda, take a look at Adventures in Mommydom’s Roald Dahl Unit. In this unit, Ticia highlights several of her favorite Dahl books and movies, but also shares the best ones to choose to understand Dahl as a writer.
Regardless of how you choose to do it, I hope you’ll include Roald Dahl and his fantastical world in your homeschool plans.
Roald Dahl’s stories are the best!! I love all these resources for them…I think I feel a unit study coming on perhaps! 😉