"Charlie and the Chocolate Factory"

We were happy to come together again after a two-weeks break due to heavy rains in the city and the security issues due to the protests against the video made about our Prophet (sa). 

Today's reading for the group of elder kids: "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" by Roald Dahl (chapters 1 & 2). 

As we got in mood for starting our first chapter book in book club, all of us had to admit that we do love chocolate (except Uzair, who is not fond of chocolate at all). When asked, if we had heard before of this Roald Dahl's book, some of us replied that we were familiar with it, some had seen the movie version of it, while for others it was the first time they heard of it. We made ourselves comfortable for the reading and the story began... As Umm Uzair was reading the first two chapters, we  met Charlie's family - his parents and two sets of grandparents - and, of course, Charlie himself. We learned that Charlie's family was very poor, they barely had enough food to eat and that Charlie absolutely adored chocolate, which he got to taste only once a year - on his birthday. We tried to visualize, what it was like for Charlie to live in such poor conditions and what he must have felt like, when he saw other kids eating candies daily, while he knew his parents could not afford to buy any for him. We also learned that the town Charlie lived in had the biggest chocolate factory in the world, owned by Mr Willy Wonka - a great inventor of all sorts of sweets.

After reading, we worked on book-based word search, competing with each other, as to who will get all the words first. The grid was huge and the task was not easy, but many of us successfully managed to find all the words.


As the elder children began their journey through a mouth watering novel, the younger kids accompanied a little bird through his quest in search for his mother. This baby bird could not fly but he could walked and eventually he ran to seek out his beloved mum though he did not know what she looked like. Our little Book Worms enjoyed this story by the ever popular Dr. Seuss.



Next the little Books Worms put together a short story about a little boy who manages to get out of a tangle (of hair) with the help of his father. After viewing the book and discussing the images their though were put together and narrated as a story by Umm Abdullah.

The session was wrapped up with the children making paper tulips using their hands as a stencil for the flower. You too can make this simple and elegant bouquet by following the instructions here: http://www.enchantedlearning.com/crafts/flowers/handprintflower/