Preschool ideas for Roald Dahl Day

Who doesn’t love Roald Dahl? Just because my girls can’t read, doesn’t mean they can’t celebrate Roald Dahl Day.

As part of my education degree, I remember sitting in a seminar discussing children’s literature and being told that regardless of Roald Dahl popularity, his characters were pretty two dimensional. They lacked depth and could be characterised at either bad or good. At the time, I didn’t question this. Thinking about it now though, I have to disagree. One of the incredible talents Dahl had was to make his book accessible for even the youngest readers or listeners but also include enough substance to engage and challenge older readers.

So as we approach the annual Roald Dahl Day on the 13th of September, I decided to choose a few activities to do with my almost three year old girls to mark the day. Even though they are far too young to have read or even listened to his stories, I knew I’d be able excite them with my own oral retelling of some of my favourites. I also dived onto YouTube to find some short clips they would enjoy watching and I’ve linked these below.

 

  • 1) BFG: Dream Jars

After looking at the front cover, I told them about The BFG and explained that he was a dream catching giant. We then watched this dream catching clip which they loved. Afterwards I gave them a jar each to fill with a selection of shiny bits found in my craft stash. This included glitter, sequins, sparkly pom-poms and small metallic buttons. Finally we filled the jars with water, screwed on the lids and had fun shaking our dreams.

  • 2) Fantastic Mr Fox: Paper Plates

Firstly, to introduce Mr Fox, I read the second chapter to them. It’s very short and has lots of illustrations.  Looking for inspiration, I searched on Pinterest and found this great tutorial from artsycraftsymom. My girls enjoyed painting their plates orange and helping to construct Mr Fox. When they were dry, I did have to cut out all the bits but I did this with them and they then glued them in place.

 

  • 3) Charlie and the Chocolate Factory: Chocolate Making

I saved this activity until last. Again we looked at the front cover and I told them all about Charlie and Willy Wonka. We read the start of chapter 5, when the golden tickets are announced and then watched this pure imagination clip. I asked the girls if they’d like to make some of their own chocolate like Willy Wonka. Unsuprisingly, they couldn’t wait. I used Candymelts which I had left over but this would work just as well with regular chocolate. As I didn’t want to make too much, I just added a handful of the buttons in different colours into small sandwich bags. Tipping them into a corner, I placed them in a bowl of hot water for a few minutes to melt. We added a few sprinkles into the moulds. I then snipped a tiny corner and the girls squeezed the melted chocolate on top.

We managed to do all three of these activities in one afternoon but I was prepped and had everything I needed ready to go. Although they’d probably say the chocolate making was their favourite, I think they actually really enjoyed the dream jars. It was amazing how much they remembered about the three stories seeing as we only spent about 20 minutes talking about each.

I’d love to hear if you are doing anything to celebrate Roald Dahl Day with your littlies. Which of these activities is your favourite?

18 thoughts on “Preschool ideas for Roald Dahl Day

  1. I love Dahl, these are fabulous ways to bring his books alive! Thanks so much for sharing with #Blogstravaganza xx

    1. Thanks. I wanted to think of ways that’d make the long texts accessible to my little ones. They loved it.

    1. Thanks – we had a fun afternoon.

  2. What fab ideas! We love the Enormous Crocodile, The Twits and Esio Trot here. The illustrated books with the colour pictures are fab. We like your dream jars best 🙂

    1. You know what,I don’t think I’ve actually read the enormous crocoldile. I must do so soon.

  3. I love the Fantastic Mr Fox plates. A lovely idea.
    #TriumphantTales

    1. They did too so glad a snapped a pic as they were destroyed in half an hour

  4. Love Roald Dahl. To call his writing two dimensional is so far from the mark it’s almost funny. I guess he isn’t “literary” enough for some people, but I think that’s a bonus for children’s writers.
    Thanks for linking up to #AnythingGoes 🙂
    Debbie

    1. I know ridiculous but at the time I just took in what I was told.

  5. These are really fun ideas you’ve done with your little ones here. I particularly love the dream jars #HumpDayLinky

    1. Now sitting pride ofplace on our bookshelf

  6. I love this man so much, my childhood was full of his books to the point people called me Matilda! I cannot wait till Ben is old enough to appreciate his work of art!
    Thank you for sharing this with us at #TriumphantTales. I hope to see you back tomorrow.

    1. Such a great author who stands the test of time.

What do you think?

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.