Novel Unit - Chocolate Unit

hi lina,
i did a whole unit on CHOCOLATE based on reading "charlie and the chocolate factory" to my Grade 4 class during my student teaching. i would read one chapter every lesson and have them do a corresponding activity based on the chapter. we first made "chocolate journals" - a journal specifically for this unit. (decorated a notebook cover with "chocolately designs and titled it with our own chocolately title.
we did everything from character sketches (in groups), "what would you do if..." (you found money on the street); inventing your own chocolate bar/candy bar (making an advertisement for it including a list of ingredients); writing a chocolate poem; to making some chocolate goodies in class. there is so much you can do with this and the kids LOVE IT! Have fun!

(if you have any questions, you can email me: sypanda5yahoo.ca)

GOOD LUCK!

I read this to my first graders for the first time this year at Christmas time. They also really enjoyed it. I basically made a behavior/reward system from the book. I put 5 "golden tickets" made from yellow construction paper inside of 5 of the Hershey's miniature candy bars. Another teacher made "Wonka Bucks" for us on the computer. Students had to earn 10 "Wonka Bucks" in order to buy a Wonka Bar. I bought 5 prizes and wrapped them up for the winners to open as the tickets were found. I also posted a picture of the winner with their golden ticket on a poster board for all to see. At the end of the book, usually the last day before Christmas Break, we have a chocolate party and each of the students brings in something chocolate to share. We enjoy our treats as we watch the movie. Hope this helps!

I teach 6th grade; however, you can adapt these activities for 4th graders.
Making chocolate pudding in class is very easy. Have the students bring a box of chocolate pudding and a plastic spoon. Talk to your cafeteria about getting some of those little cartons of milk that they serve to the students. That is all you will need. Then you write a recipe by using the instructions on the back of the box. Then, let the students practice "following directions" by reading your recipe and creating chocolate pudding. You can even tie in math skills with measuring. The kids love it and you can even use plastic zip lock bags instead of bowls or open the milk cartons so that they make a little bowl. Good luck.-amy

Hi! I have enjoyed teaching Chocolate Touch. I have my students design their own candy wrappers and then write a commercial to present to the class. They can be as creative as they like. Some of the students even write musical commercials! We also learn to write a business leter to the 4 main candy companies requesting information. We always get a reply. We also have a chocolate tasting party at the end of the unit and share our recipes. I have a lot of ideas for this unit. If you need more, just e-mail me!

Another good chocolate book is The Chocolate Touch. (I try to read The Midas Touch to them first so we can compare them.)

After reading Charlie and the Chocolate Factory we watch the movie and compare. During the movie I pass out chocolate bars. Inside 5 bars are golden tickets (pieces of gold foil wrapping paper that I write on and carefully wrap around the chocolate before rewrapping the candy) that entitle the bearer to a classroom coupon pack...one homework-free night, free drink pass, 20 minutes of computer time during a seatwork time (with teacher's approval), 15 minutes of free time during seatwork time, one lunch with the teacher, etc. I have learned to mark the bars with the golden tickets. I prepare them in advance and have had students absent on the day of the activity, so I don't pass out all the candy bars. Once I ended up not passing out one of the golden ticket bars. Since then I color in one 0 on the bar code on the lucky bars. It's discrete enough that the kids don't pick up on it, but I can tell if necessary.

Once I start reading chocolate books to my third graders, the word chocolate goes on their spelling list. After that they are never again allowed to misspell such an important word! (At least not without some teasing from me about doing such an awful thing to my favorite food.)

This is a science activity that was done at an AMSTI training workshop:
You will need miniature Babe Ruth, Snicker, Milky Way, and Three Musketeer bars. You'll also need a clear tub of water. Have students work in small groups to make a prediction about what will happen to each candy bar when dropped in the water(unwrapped). Have them drop each candy bar in the water. They will notice that one of the candy bars will float and the others will sink to the bottom. They will record these observations in a notebook and come up with why they think this happened. Do candy bars with nuts weigh more than candy bars without? Does the sugar content affect the candy bar's weight? They may have to eat a few candy bars to determine their contents.

You can make your students chocolate suckers. It is really easy. All you need is a mold, and melting chocolate. You melt the chocolate and fill in the mold. Then you put it in the freezer for 10 min. You can buy different color chocolate to make the suckers colored also. I am giving my students green Christmas trees as part of their Christmas gift. There are sites that explain the process more in depth. Good luck!

Ideas that we have used is to make a class "Chocolate Recipe Book" to share with the families. Each student contributes one of their families favorite chocolate recipes and we include each recipe in the book with the family's name. Each student gets a copy for home as a fun and yummy reminder of our unit. Also we have fraction practice with chocolate bars, graphing with M&Ms and worked on probablity with them also.
Hope these ideas are useful

How about having your students write letters to different chocolate bar companies asking for information about the company, factory etc. I know a class that did this and they recieved tons of free samples etc. They could also do a survey within the school about favorite chocolate bars or how people like to eat chocolate (cake, cookies etc). Another idea would be to create new recipes using chocolate (chocolate soup, roast beef and chocolate etc) Hope you have fun!

THIS IS A GREAT BOOK! I READ IT TO MY CLASS EVERY YEAR.

IF YOU ARE READING/DOING THIS BOOK DURING THE 100TH DAY OF SCHOOL THIS IDEA WOULD WORK.

I HIDE 100 CANDY KISSES AROUND THE ROOM. THEN MY STUDENTS GO ON A CHOCOLATE HUNT. EACH KISS HAS A ROUND NUMBER STICKER ON THE BOTTOM. WHEN THEY FIND THE KISS THEN WE PUT IT ON A 100 BOARD MADE ON POSTER. ONCE ALL OF THEM ARE FOUND WE DO SOME FUN PROBLEMS WITH THE KISSES. (USUALLY VALENTINES KISSES COME IN DIFFERENT COLORS OR YOU CAN USE HUGS AND KISSES TO HAVE DIFFERENT COLORS). THE PROBLEMS ARE LIKE THE CALENDAR MATH ACTIVITIES BUT USING THE 100'S BOARD. THEN WE EAT OUR MATH!

A Chocolate Moose for Dinner by Fred Gwynne is a favorite amongst my second graders. It's a play on words book. I read it to the class without showing the pictures. We listed the phrases heard in the story and then the children picked a phrase and illustrated it based on what they thought it meant. Once done I read the book again and we discussed the actual meaning of each phrase.

I LOVE Charlie and the Chocolate Factory!(And I also teach third grade..in VA) Have them work in small groups to create another character who could also go through the factory and come to a bad end. Also, they can create another candy with magical powers and an unusual taste. I used this book in conjunction with several more with a chocolate theme such as Chocolate Fever, The Chocolate Touch, Cam Jansen and the Chocolate Fudge Mystery( I THINK that's the name) and there's even a Carmen San Diego chapter book with chocolate in the title. We received a kit from Hershey's with a great video that shows how chocolate is grown and how it is processed into candy bars.I tied that into geography by finding the countries on the map where cocoa beans are grown. We graphed which countries in the world eat the most chocolate too. There is a wealth of information on line! We also used the M&M's and Hershey's bars books that help to teach graphing and fractions and other math concepts. There's even a riddle sheet with different candy bars as the answers. We had a wonderful time. Hope this helps!

*Get different kinds of chocolate (dark, milk, white, etc...) and do a taste-testing activity, then graph the results.

*I have a great non-fiction book about how chocolate is made - but I forget the author. There is also a video that tells about it. It's great for bringing non-fiction and fiction together.

We do The Chocolate Touch in third grade as well. We create the box that John Midas found his one piece of chocolate in. I get small boxes and all the "stuff" mentioned in the book and they make the chocolate box. They get one piece of candy to put in the center of all that stuff just like in the book. Then they take this home and present it to someone special. They have to write about that person's reaction when they open this pretty box, pull back layer after layer after layer of stuff, just to find this one little piece. They share the next day.

I just buy the cheap brand of hot chocolate and buy the tubs of it. I put in the the crockpot and then add water and mix. I want to say that it took one tub and then I filled the crockpot with water and it tasted right. I just experimented until I got it right.

I have my students do this book as a Lit. Study Group and they always love it. In the end, they researched the ants and had an ant farm. They educated the rest of the class on the variations of ants, poster of the body parts, and other facts. They also made snacks where they take purple grapes, put three on a toothpick. For legs they used either licorice whips or pretzels and attached with peanut butter. They also made ants on a log (celery, peanut butter, and raisins). They really enjoyed them!

The book is about a fourth/fifth grade level. Two brothers make a bet about whether they can find anyone who eats chocolate covered ants. It is a great story about relationships with siblings and making dares. Very humorous!