Roald Dahl
Lesson plans for James and the Giant Peach and other books

|Biography and Background| |"Beware of the Dog"| |The BFG| |Charlie and the Chocolate Factory| |Danny -- Champion of the World| |Fantastic Mr. Fox| |James and the Giant Peach| |"Lamb to the Slaughter"| |"The Landlady"| |Little Red Riding Hood and the Wolf| |"Man from the South"| |Matilda| |The Twits|

Biography and Background

The Official Roald Dahl Website
Colorful, engaging, and full of ideas for readers and teachers alike.

Roald Dahl: His Life and Work
Students read a brief biography and answer some comprehension questions.

Roald Dahl: The Story of the 'Storyteller'
This article includes an excerpt from the 2010 book, Storyteller: The Authorized Biography of Roald Dahl by Donald Sturrock.

Teacher Ideas
This page lists activities to support a wide variety of Dahl stories and includes ideas for Roald Dahl day.

Vague Pronouns
Students read and analyze a mentor text (an excerpt from Roald Dahl's "Boy: Tales of Childhood," included), write their own narrative vignette, and analyze their use of pronouns in their vignette. Designed for high school

"Beware of the Dog"

"Beware of the Dog"
Text of Dahl's story about an English pilot shot down during WWII.

The BFG

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Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

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James and the Giant Peach

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Danny -- Champion of the World

Danny -- Champion of the World
This resource includes chapter-by-chapter vocabulary words and comprehension questions.

Fantastic Mr. Fox

Fantastic Mr. Fox
How might students use storyboards to demonstrate and to extend their learning? Check the resources here. Includessummary, essential questions, character maps, vocabulary, more. Note: Storyboard That helps sponsor this site.

Fantastic Mr. Fox
Comprehension questions divided by chapters and online reinforcement activities.

Fantastic Mr. Fox
Summary, analysis, and 4 sets of discussion questions based on themes in the story.

"Lamb to the Slaughter"

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"The Landlady"

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"Man from the South"

"Man from the South"
Text of Dahl's classic horror story.

Little Red Riding Hood and the Wolf

Little Red Riding Hood and the Wolf
How might students use storyboards to demonstrate and to extend their learning? Check the resources here. Students work with vocabulary, character maps, comparing and contrasting, more. Note: Storyboard That helps sponsor this site.

Matilda

Matilda
Students read an excerpt from the text and answer comprehension questions.

Teacher Guide to Matila
How might students use storyboards to demonstrate and to extend their learning? Check the resources here. Includes Plot summary, essential questions, learning activities, figurative language, vocabulary, a character map, more. Note: Storyboard That helps sponsor this site.

Sorting out Homophones in Roald Dahl's Matilda
In this lesson, students learn how to identify homophones in a reading passage and how to best use the Visual Thesaurus to help them decide on the appropriate homophones to complete quotations from the popular children's book Matilda.

The Twits

The Twits
"Show, don't tell" is something we often say to student writers, but this writing activity asks writers to consider both showing and telling as they create a well-rounded paragraph. Inspired by a telling sentence (with a linking verb), the writer will create a descriptive paragraph that contains four or five showing sentences and one telling sentence. These showing sentences will contain action verbs and interesting adjectives, and the telling sentence might become the paragraph's introduction or conclusion. This lesson focuses on organization and sentence fluency.