I’m glad to see all of you after the long holiday. I hope you had a good time and had lots of fun and adventures. Now, it’s time to get back to work and become serious about learning once again.
There are a lot of changes in Term 2. I’ve already talked about how we are changing the Reading class from reading one novel each term to doing a variety of reading and writing activities each week. We will alternate text books from week to week. One week, we will be working from Way Ahead – Pupil’s Book 5. This is the book that Teacher Mal uses for his English Grammar lessons. My lessons will complement and expand on what Teacher Mal is doing; we will work on the “Reading for Fun” sections for each Unit in the book.
The weeks were aren’t using Way Ahead, we will work from a brand-new book called Writing Composition 5. The book is full of fun activities to do while we are learning to read and write better. Teacher Robyn also assures me that there will be a third student book coming later in the term which deals with poetry. So, we will be learning to read (and write) many different types of texts – from informational material to short stories to poetry to advertising and many others. I think the new course outline is much better than when we’d just read one book for the entire term – it will give more variety for the teacher and never become routine for the kids. The only real problem will be trying to fit everything into one 50-minute lesson per classroom each week!
After weeks of preparing to teach Charlie And The Chocolate Factory during Term 2, I have been informed that we will not be doing that. The P4 Reading course – along with those at almost every grade level — has been changed due because of our acceptance as a Cambridge International Centre. The new program will, I believe, be a lot better for the students as they will be exposed to different forms of reading including short stories, instructions, poetry, etc. There will also be a fair amount of writing included in the Reading lessons each week. In fact, I think we should call the class "Literacy" rather than "Reading."
We will be using the same course books (Way Ahead Pupil’s Book) as Teacher Mal uses for his English Grammar classes. Also, we will have a brand-new Writing textbook.
I am really looking forward to teaching the new curriculum and I think the kids will find it interesting and a lot of fun. For now, I will be spending a fair amount of my holiday writing new lesson plans…
Did you know that Roald Dahl’s birthday is the 13th of September? He was born way back in 1916. Every year, children around the world (and a great many grownups, too!) celebrate Roald Dahl Day with games, quizzes, parties, and by reading his books. It’s easy for me to to remember his birthday because it’s my daughter’s birthday, too (she’ll turn one year old on 13 September 2010).
P4/Red student Bam Bam gave me a picture today that she drew of Charlie and Willy Wonka. She’s very excited that we’ll be reading Charlie and the Chocolate Factory next term (which will start at the end of October).
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory was published in America the year before I was born – way back in 1964. That’s almost forty-six years ago! The drawings in that very first edition were by a man named Joseph Schindelman. The two original covers (one hardcover, the other for the paperback) looked like this:
The book was made into a movie in 1971. It was called Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory and starred Gene Wilder. I first saw this movie when I was a young boy living in Texas; the thing that I remember most are the Oompa Loompas with the orange skin and green hair. I still like the first version of the movie better than the one made five years ago with Johnny Depp as Willy Wonka. The poster for the original movie looked like this:
The very next year (1972), Roald Dahl published a new book that continued the story of Charlie Bucket. It was called Charlie and the Glass Elevator. He also started to write a third “Charlie” book (Charliein the White House) but quit after writing only one chapter.
In 1973, Roald Dahl re-wrote parts of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. In the original book, the Oompa Loompa were described as African pygmies (small, weak people) who are paid in cacao beans, sing war-like songs, and let themselves be experimented on like laboratory animals. Many people didn’t like this; they thought it was racist. The movie had already made some changes so Roald Dahl changed the book, too. For one thing, the place the Oompa Loompas came from was changed from Africa to the imaginary Loompaland. Even the money was changed (from pre-decimal to decimal currency). Joseph Schindelman made new drawings for the new edition. This was the cover:
The first edition illustrated by a different artist – Michael Foreman – was published in paperback in 1985. Here are a few of the covers published in the next few years before Quentin Blake began drawing the pictures:
The best-known illustrations for Charlieand the Chocolate Factory, indeed for all of Roald Dahl’s books (and for many other authors as well!) have been drawn by Quentin Blake since 1998. I’ve collected a bunch of his Chocolate Factory covers:
The Complete Adventures of Charlie and Mr. Willy Wonka – published in 2001 – contains both Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Charlie and the Glass Elevator:
A couple of new covers for the 40th anniversary of the original book in 2004:
Some really cool special editions (my favorite is the slipcase boxed edition):
Here are a couple of different covers from Norway (the country where Roald Dahl was born):
The cover on the left is from France, the one on the right is in Spanish:
And the covers from Russia and Thailand are a lot different:
When Charlie and the Chocolate Factory was originally written, it included an extra chapter. It was removed during the editing of the book and featured a character called Miranda Piker and a candy called Spotty Powder. This “lost chapter” wasn’t published until 23 July 2005 in The Times of London. It was later included in a book called Spotty Powder and Other Splendiferous Secrets:
Also in 2005, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory was made into a movie for a second time. Roald Dahl had hated the 1971 original and refused to let Charlie and the Glass Elevator be filmed. He died in 1990 and the following year Warner Bros. began talking with his family about a new movie. They finally gave their permission in 1998 with his widow, Liccy, and his daughter, Lucy, being given total artistic control. They were even given final say on the choices of actors, directors, and writers. Martin Scorsese was involved for a short while and possible actors talked about to play Willy Wonka included Nicholas Cage, Michael Keaton, Brad Pitt, Will Smith, Adam Sandler and Jim Carrey. In the end, Tim Burton was hired to direct the movie and he brought along his friends Johnny Depp to star and Danny Elfman to write the music. New editions of the book were published to help promote the movie:
Finally, here is the cover of the new Willy Wonka’s Whipplecrumptious Annual for 2011 which was published today:
How many different covers for Charlie and the Chocolate Factory can you find? Teacher Mark would love to see more!
Salutations and Congratulations! You’ve made it to the second term of P4!
This term, we will be reading Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl. We’re truly going to immerse ourselves in a world of fantasy by following the adventures of Charlie Bucket as he explores Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory.
Along the way, we’ll discover fun facts about chocolate and even come up with ideas for new candy bars (did you know that there is a REAL Wonka Chocolate Company?). You’ll come to appreciate the often clever and witty sayings that Willy Wonka speaks in the story (most of them have hidden meanings). I will encourage you to look for and read other books written by Roald Dahl – he’s written some great ones including James and the Giant Peach, The BFG, The Witches, and Matilda. We’ll fall in love with the drawings of artist Quentin Blake who illustrates all of Roald Dahl’s books (plus many more!).
Most of all, we’re going to have a lot of fun this term! You might even find your own Golden Ticket…
