What are good Matilda lesson activities for teaching English?
Good ways to get the class engaged and interested with the class book is to really focus the lesson activities on the story. You can bring aspects of the book to life with drama, and having the children put themselves into the character’s shoes!
There are so many Matilda lesson ideas – Which is why I wrote this blog post!
Which English topics can I teach with the book Matilda?
There are so many topics that you can use Matilda to cover! I use it cover: Comprehension, Point of view, instruction writing, play scripts, show not tell, diary writing, character descriptions, adjectives and adverbs, punctuation, reports, word choices, editing, dictionary work, figurative language, similes, verb tenses, letter writing, story structures and book reports. These are just the main topics of the lessons, I also throw in lots of other important learning points as we work through the book.
The trick it to try and relate the events in the book to the topic you are trying to teach, for example if you are planning to teach instructions use some of the action in the book as a base – How to scare your headteacher!
I offer lessons on each of these topics here
Should I use the movie when teaching Matilda?
Personally I don’t, although I know that some teachers do like to do this. I think if you are going to show them the movie make sure it is after having read the book. It can take away the enthusiasm for the reading if they have already seen the movie.
How do I plan out a unit of English work on the book Matilda?
Whenever you are planning a unit, start with the learning goals and use the content to fit to them – not the other way around!
Figure out what you need to teach and then from there see how you can use the chapters to work this topics.
Or you can just get my whole Matilda unit here!
What would be a good, guided reading Matilda lesson plan?
It depends on how you set up and run your guided reading sessions, I tend to have lots of individual groups working on different activities at the same time. If you plan to do this then it is a good idea to work out 4 or 5 different activities and have the class circle through them.
What resources are available for teaching the book Matilda?
So many!
I have already mentioned my own, but there are also some great YouTube videos on the book and English lessons.
