Reply To: Roald Dahl’s five books:The Twits etc
Summary for lesson 8:
What did we cover
– Discussed the homework tasks and what we did well on/could improve
– Reflected on last lesson
– Discussed some ‘fun facts’
– Studied what we can tell about a character from their name
– Worked through the questions for the second half of Matilda
– Debated whether we could want to keep the superpowers or be put in a higher class
Class report
Today we completed our second and last lesson on Matilda; this has been the longest and most dense book we have studied so far, and I was really impressed by how all the students managed this change.
We began our session by recapping what happened in the story so far, then we spent some time discussing what we can tell about the characters from the names they have (i.e. Miss
Honey being sweet, Miss Trunchbull being bullish). Following this, we learned some fun facts about the book; the students seemed to particularly enjoy the facts about the earlier versions of the book.
The students all provided some wonderful answers to the VIPER questions we discussed. I have continued to notice how students who were initially more shy have been making a marked effort to volunteer their thoughts; this has been so wonderful to see, and it shows how much more comfortable and confident the students are becoming. We spent some extra time with certain questions in order to discuss the students’ different opinions on certain matters (i.e. what makes a ‘good’ punishment).
We finished off by debating whether, if we were Matilda, we would keep the powers and stay in the lower class or go to the class which challenges us but lose our powers. This was a
really fascinating way to end the lesson, as the students had many different ideas and gave some excellent reasons for their answers.
The students were very excited to start on Fantastic Mr Fox; I too am very much looking forward to continuing our work together.
Home work for lesson 8:
Write a story about another magic trick that Matilda does.
OR
Do you think this book is entertaining? Explain why.
