This week’s theme:
Mysterious People: Roald Dahl
Fact of the day:
The Big Friendly Giant is unlike other giants. He doesn’t like to eat people, and he captures dreams and keeps them in jars for people to enjoy while they were asleep.
Resources list:
Colouring pens and decorative bits and pieces; empty jar and either tissue paper and glue, cotton wool and paint or food colouring and glitter; Youtube; paper pieces and a hat/bag/bowl to catch in; paper and pens, pencils, crayons or paints.
Activity 1:
The BFG speaks in quite a turned-around way, but we always understand him. His language is called gobblefunk. He tells Sophie: “Words…is oh such a twitch-tickling problem to me all my life. So you must simply try to be patient and stop squibbling. As I am telling you before, I know exactly what words I am wanting to say, but somehow or other they is always getting squiff-squiddled around.”
Try writing and saying some words, such as your name, backwards (‘James’ would be ‘Semaj’, ‘Lorna’ would be ‘Anrol’, ‘Bronia would be ‘Ainorb’, Lisa would be ‘Asil’).
Then try saying these tongue twisters and see how squiff-squiddled you get!
‘I wish to wash my Irish wristwatch’
‘She sells sea shells by the sea shore’
‘Unique New York, New York unique, unique New York, New York unique’.
Activity 2:
The BFG keeps dreams in jars (he has a huge collection on shelves in his cave) and uses his trumpet to blow them into bedrooms and into the heads of people who are sleeping at night. The BFG takes a deep breath and whoof, he blows the dreams through the trumpet. ‘I is a dream-blowing giant,’ the BFG said. ‘When all the other giants is galloping off every what way and which to swollop human beans, I is scuddling away to other places to blow dreams into the bedrooms of sleeping children. Nice dreams. Lovely golden dreams. Dreams that is giving the dreamers a happy time.’
Create your own dream jars! You can either download and colour this dream jar print-out or decorate it with glued shiny dream bits and bobs. Or, if you have an empty jar, create a dream jar like this one using tissue paper, this one using cotton wool, or this one using water & glitter.
As you decorate your jar think about what dreams you would like to come true. The BFG names nice dreams names like “WinkSquibblers” and Golden Fizzwiggs” and he locks away any unwanted “TroggleHumpers” or Nightmares. What name would you give the dream you want to come true?
Activity 3:
Imagine you’re a giant. Practice walking like a giant, making big steps as you try to avoid standing on the rooftops and trees below you. Make sure you don’t squash any people under your feet, tread carefully on your tip toes! Make giant strides to cross over rivers in one step. Peer out to see for miles as you’re so high up.
Listen to this giant song as you make your giant steps around your house.
Activity 4:
The BFG uses his huge ears to locate the invisible dreams and then catches them with a net at the end of a long pole. Try a dream-catching game; cut out some ‘dream’ shapes from different materials (paper, cardboard, tin foil, tissue paper) and throw them into the air like confetti. With a hat, pan, bowl or bag (unless you have a net) try catching as many dreams as you can in 30 seconds. Keep practicing until you become a master dreamcatcher.
Activity 5:
The BFG catches his dreams in Dream Country which is found on top of a mountain, hidden by fog. In Dream Country there is a mighty ‘Dream Tree’, which sits under a bright starry sky in the middle of a grassy marsh. Dream Country is accessed by jumping through a reflective pool of water at the tree’s base. The sky is full of lightning bolts creating dreams when they strike one of the Dream Tree’s leaves.
What do you imagine the dream tree looks like from this description? Draw or paint it and share a photo of it with us! You can share it on our Facebook, Instagram or Twitter or send it to melanie@purplepatcharts.org and we’ll put it online for you!
Add-on Activity:
If you have the ingredients, you could make your own Frobscottle drink!