The Witches

'''THE WITCHES '''

Overview: This book by Roald Dahl is about witches. They disguise themselves as ladies and try to secretly catch and squash children. Luckily, one boy and his grandmother know how to recognise witches. It’s up to them to get rid of the witches for good.

Number of classes: 3 reading activities + Any 2 activities

Resource material: “The Witches” by Roald Dahl, Puffin Books''' '''

Story summary: The story is told by a young boy who lives with his grandmother in Norway. His grandmother tells him how to recognize a real witch. The boy and his grandmother go on a holiday to Bournemouth. When he goes to the hotel ballroom, members of the "Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children" show up for their meeting. The boy discovers that the "RSPCC" is the yearly convention of England's witches. The Grand High Witch unveils a master plan calling for the witches to purchase sweet shops and give away free chocolate laced with a potion which will change anyone who eats it into a mouse.

The witches discover the boy and turn him into a mouse. But he retains his personality and voice. He plots and manages to turn the witches into mice. The hotel staff panic and kill the mice, thus eliminating England’s witches. The boy and his grandmother travel to the Grand High Witch's Norwegian castle, use the potion to change her successor and retainers into mice, then release cats into the castle to kill them. Using the Grand High Witch's money-making machine and information on the whereabouts of all of the world's witches, they repeat the process all over the world.

Preparation for the class: Read “The Witches”. Prepare tips on poster making and writing a newspaper report. You might also have to make a list of words that students might find difficult and introduce them to those words before you start the story. You can include some of the words from Activity 4. Read up on Roald Dahl and his style of writing.

Class description: Begin the class by asking the children what they think of witches. Discuss some popular fairy tales that talk about witches. You can also read them Chapter 1 of “The Witches” titled “A Note about Witches”.

Tell the students the story of “The Witches”. You could also read out Chapter 3 (How to Recognize a Witch), Chapter 8 (Formula 86 Delayed Action Mouse-Maker), Chapter 9 (The Recipe), Chapter 18 (In the Kitchen) and Chapter 20 (The Triumph). Summarise the gaps between these chapters in your own words.

'''Related activities: '''

1.      '''Beware of the witches (Art, During reading, Whole class)* '''

Read the chapter on how to recognise witches. Get the entire class to design a poster on the board warning children about witches. As a class, compile a list of characteristics that could help you spot a witch. Students draw a picture of a witch in disguise. Give them coloured chalk to add a few warning words to the poster. Remind students that in a poster, important information needs to be highlighted and that they must avoid long sentences. Now, get the students to make individual posters in their activity book. Conclude by summarising the activity and its objective. [Worksheet]

Variation: Ask students to choose a child who went missing (based on the grandmother’s stories) and make a missing poster for the child. Bruno Jenkins could be included in this list. Students must mention details such as name, age, last seen at, least seen wearing, physical description, birthmarks etc. Children work on their posters and present it to the class. [Worksheet]

2.      '''Recipe for disaster (Writing, After reading, Whole class) '''

Read the chapter “The Recipe”. Tell the students that you are the Grand High Witch and that they (boys too!) are the witches. The class has to plan out the preparation of Formula 86 Delayed Action Mouse-Maker. Discuss the ingredients. You can write the ingredients on the board. Now, ask them to come up with similar magical recipes, something a witch could use. (It need not necessarily be a recipe for turning children into vermin – it could also be a cure for the witches’ itchy heads). Students read out their recipes to the class. [Worksheet]

3.      '''Newspaper Report (Writing, After reading, Individual)* '''

After you read the chapter “The Triumph” out to the class, ask the students to pretend they were journalists at the restaurant where all the witches got turned into mice. Ask them to write a newspaper report on the same. Before they write their reports, read out a sample report to the class. Get them to include details such as the byline, dateline, blurb, intro, headline etc. Get a few students to read out their reports to the class as well. [Worksheet]

4.      '''Bang! Bang! (Comprehension, After reading, Small groups)* '''

Divide the class into teams of 10 students each. Tell them that they are all cowboys and that they are going to have a duel. One person steps forward from each team. Give the duellists the definition of a word. (For instance, “A large grey animal with a long nose”) The first child to give you the answer (“Elephant”) can point to the other and say “Bang! Bang!” He remains standing and the other one sits down. The next two duellists come up. You should ideally have one word for everyone in the team. The team with most number of members standing at the end of the round wins. If there are a lot of students in the class, you can do this activity in sets, while the rest of the class watches. At the end, discuss how easy or difficult it was for the students to come up with the answers.

Here is a list of words you can use:

Detestable                         Disguise                               Vile                        Cunning                               Sensational

Spectacular                        Gruesome                          Monstrous          Unanimous                         Deliciously

Plotting                               Scheming                            Churning              Murderous                         Squelching

Stalking                               Shrivels                                Ghoul                    Peculiar                                                Fluent

Enthralled                          Billow                                    Vicious                  Tommyrot                           Consolation

Variation: Instead of the definition, you can dictate the word, and the students can spell it.

5.      '''Creative Writing (Writing, After reading, Individual) '''

The boy and his grandmother turned all the witches into mice and therefore got rid of all the witches in England. The students write a short story on how they plotted and got rid of all the witches in their town/city. Some of the students read out their stories to the class. [Worksheet]''' '''

6.      '''Draw Grandma (Art, After reading, Individual) '''

Ask students to draw a picture of the grandmother and label her distinguishing features. The students pass their drawings around at the end of the class. [Worksheet]

7.      '''How did Grandma lose her thumb? (Discussion, During reading, Whole class) '''

If there’s one thing the grandmother will never talk about, it is how she lost her thumb. Discuss with the class the story behind how she might have lost her thumb. Write down the reasons on the board. Now, ask the children to write a diary entry from the point of view of the grandmother as to how she lost her thumb. Remind students to include:

·       What was the date? What time of the day did it happen?

·       First person pronoun

·       Past tense

Some entries could be read out in class. [Worksheet]

'''Recommended Reading '''

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“George’s Marvellous Medicine” by Roald Dahl, Puffin Books

“The BFG” by Roald Dahl, Puffin Books

Now Check the Activities out..