These ideas were sent to me by Pam Grieve, a fourth-grade teacher at Rangerville Elementary in San Benito, Texas. Thanks Pam!
“Hello!
I have been using The BFG novel for 7 years to teach context clues, because of all of the nonsense words. The nonsense words don’t have a definition, so the students HAVE to use the context to understand what the words mean.
Another skill I use it for is to teach similies, metaphors, and other figurative language, because it is loaded with them. I have never come across a novel with anywhere near the teaching material loaded in this one novel as far as language devices, and I have read at least 6 novels a year for the past 7 years with my classes. I also use it for it’s descriptive language and characterization of Sophie, BFG, the giants, and the queen.
On a fun note, I have developed a recipe for Frobscottle that smells and tastes like the description in the novel and the students have a grand time actually believing they will have to Whizzpop after drinking it! All you do is mix a little green food coloring with cream soda in a three liter bottle and make your own soda label with a Made in Giant Country and attach it to the bottle. This is a riot every year!”
Sincerely,
Pam Grieve
4th grade teacher
Rangerville Elementary
San Benito, TX 78586