Roald Dahl's James and the Giant Peach

Show the students a picture of a spike.

• As a class, create a mindmap of associative words around the picture, using these questions:

- What can a spike do?

- Where might we see spikes?

- How would you feel if you saw this spike in front of you?

• What might the spike tell us about the type of person Aunt Spiker is?

• Show objects or pictures of a pig, a sponge, a witch/hag and a cabbage to continue the discussion.

• Elicit more ideas associated with each word to add more dimensions to the discussion; for example, pigs are greedy; an overboiled cabbage wouldn’t smell very nice; witches/hags cast spells on people.

• Pairs could be allocated one picture each and then feedback ideas.

Group or Independent Activities:

Working in pairs, the children create another awful aunt for James, following these questions:

- If the aunt was an animal, what animal would she be? Why?

- If the aunt was a vegetable, what vegetable would she be? Why?

- If the aunt was a thing, what thing would she be? Why?

- What does she do and what does she talk about? Why?

- What is the aunt’s name? (you could use one of your above answers to help you) Explain your answer.

• Independently, the children draw a picture of the new Aunt and write some words to describe her around the picture.

Extension Activities:

The awful aunts are put in a hotseat in turn. The rest of the class ask the hotseated aunt questions in order to find out more about their character.

• The class vote for the most awful aunt.

• Read to the end of Chapter 2, looking at the dialogue and the way Aunt Sponge and Aunt Spiker speak to James (“you disgusting little worm”.) In groups of 3 or 4, the children role play a continuation of the scene. This could show Aunt Spiker, Aunt Sponge and James and could also include the new aunt.

Minecraft Extension Activity:

“Come right up close to me and I will show you something wonderful.” The curious old man gives James a magical bag which transforms his life forever.

Ask your students to recreate a scene of their choice from this wonderful book in Minecraft. Now ask them to describe their creation using details, metaphors, and other literary devices.