As a child I loved to read books and some
of the ones that influenced me the most were written by the master storyteller
Roald Dahl. His ability to fire the
imagination through creative tales where small children are often pitted
against terrifying adults is something that I think all children should have
the opportunity to enjoy.
However, for the children with SEN in my
early years class accessing Roald Dahl’s stories in traditional book format
presented a challenge as they found it difficult to process too much language
so I had to be creative in thinking how to involve them in these stories.
So I decided to create some Roald Dahl
messy play opportunities.
From ‘Matilda’ I recreated the iconic Bruce
Bogtrotter versus the giant chocolate cake scene. First we watched the Matilda film trailer on YouTube
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pnzLRDDijW0) to set the scene then on the
table I had set up a tray of mud in the middle of the table, cake cases, bowls,
spoons, jugs with a little bit of water in them and we made giant mud cakes. Some of the children were also able to
pretend to feed our dolls the cake, we all celebrated when it was all gone!
For ‘George’s Marvellous Medicine’ we first
watched a brief clip of the amazing Rik Mayall retelling the story on YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dTx-mCriQOE)
to give the children context. I then
modeled for the children making my own ‘marvellous medicine’ adding different
coloured water, bubble bath and food flavouring. When I pretend tasted the medicine and
uncontrollably hopped around the children thought it was hilarious!
At the table I had set up lots of little
bottles (plastic food colouring bottles are good for this) full of different
coloured water, bubble bath, corn flour and anything else colourful and
messy! We also had large clear tubs and
wooden spoons. The children were then
able to create their own marvellous medicine with lots of different textures,
colours and smells. One little girl with
autism asked me to taste her medicine, when it made me act like a chicken she
really laughed.
Stories are so important for all children to help them understand their worlds, to think about things in different ways and to inspire their imaginations and sometimes we have to be more creative in immersing children in stories when books are not as accessible for them. Through using different strategies such as
video, modeling and messy play I was able to introduce my class to the magic of
Roald Dahl’s stories and immerse them in his imaginative world.
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