The Magic Finger - Medium Term Plan

The Magic Finger by Roald Dahl serves as the core text for an engaging English unit designed to enhance students' reading and comprehension skills, along with creative expression. The unit begins with a lesson that assesses students' prior knowledge through a speaking and listening activity, followed by a biography reading and video clip about Roald Dahl. Students then delve into a spider diagram activity and answer comprehension questions to better understand the author's background. Lesson two encourages each pupil to share a fact about Roald Dahl, fostering a collaborative learning environment. The class then examines the book's title, cover, and blurb, making predictions about the story before reading the first section and drawing the narrator.

Subsequent lessons build on the students' understanding of the novel and its characters, with activities such as reading and discussion, making class notes on the Gregg family, and writing descriptive paragraphs. The unit also includes creative tasks like producing a comic book version of 'The Magic Finger' and exploring language through identifying adjectives and verbs to create powerful sentences. A lesson on endangered species ties in with the themes of the novel, where students conduct research and design informative posters. The unit concludes with a full reading of the book, a cloze exercise to recap the story, and a choice of completing the comic strip or designing a new book cover. Each lesson is supported by PowerPoint presentations and worksheets to facilitate a comprehensive learning experience.