Plan games to complement your students' reading "The Phantom Tollbooth."
Plan engaging games for your students to play as they read "The Phantom Tollbooth," Norton Juster's novel about Milo, "a boy who didn't know what to do with himself," and the magical tollbooth he receives. As a warm-up activity or a fun review, games fit in well with the book's whimsical and imaginative tone. Include plenty of language games to match the book's penchant for wordplay. (Reference 1)
The Phantom Dictionary
To introduce vocabulary from "The Phantom Tollbooth," first produce a list of target words you don't expect students to know. You might include some of the book's more colorful verbiage, including words like doldrums, quagmire, flabbergast and upholstery. Write out one word at the top of the blackboard and ask if any students can identify the word. If nobody knows the word, ask three students to write out imaginative and entirely fictitious definitions. For example, a student might write that "flabbergast" means "a rubbery fruit with red seeds that grows in Australia." Once you have three fictitious definitions, write them up on the board together with the true definition. The rest of the class has to guess which definition is correct. (Reference 2)
Around the World
Just as Milo travels around Dictionopolis, have your students travel around the classroom for a review activity that tests them on their reading comprehension and memory. Begin by having all the students stand at their desks. Beginning at the far end of the classroom, ask one student to move over to stand next to the closest classmate. Direct a question about "The Phantom Tollbooth" to the two students and whoever answers first wins. Progress to the next student to repeat the process, gradually moving around the classroom. Make the activity run smoothly by only asking questions with one-word answers. For example, you could ask, "Who sentenced Milo to six million years in prison?" Don't ask, "What sentence did Officer Shrift give to Milo?" (Reference 3)
Game Maps
Take inspiration from the map of Dictionopolis that Milo receives along with the tollbooth and have your students create maps of their own fictitious lands. Instruct the students to make the maps according to some theme, naming various geographic features accordingly. Once students have brainstormed ideas for their maps, have them develop a "board game" style activity for their classmates to play by traveling around the maps. (Reference 1)
Homonyms
Take a cue from the wordplay in "The Phantom Tollbooth" and create a game based around homonyms and homophones. (Both homophones and homonyms are words that sound the same but have different meanings; homonyms also have the same spelling.) Start the game by saying a sentence that includes at least one word that has a homonym or homophone. Ask one student to pick up the homophone from your sentence and put it into a new sentence, which must contain another word that has a homophone. Continue the chain as long as possible. (References 2 and 4-5.)
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