Mike Teavee is sent by Television (Part 1 of Chapter 27)

We returned up the hill to Boston Street on a glorious day and started by taking advantage of the great weather and having our snack outside!  One of the conversations en route was about movies the kids had seen….one of which was referred to as “Despicable whatever the rest of it is called” …

Once inside, I started reading and the kids began to decorate some eyeglasses (templates here) for the dazzlingly bright and dazzlingly white Television-Chocolate Room.

“Put these on quick! And don’t take them off in here whatever you do! This light could blind you!’ (Chapt 26)

We were all ears when we heard that Mike Teavee was sending himself into the television.  There was general consensus that if only half of Mike Teavee made it, it wouldn’t be so bad since he wouldn’t have to go to school.

After I finished reading, the kids resumed work on their television sets, which they started last week.  We talked about how Mr Wonka adjusted some knobs to tune in the flickering television set in the hopes of finding Mike.  There was a lively discussion about TV sets…some kids were excited to tell me that their parents had no TV, or their parents had grown up in the time of no remote controls. Some of the kids were experts on “old” TV shows like the Brady Bunch. Delia asked me, “Do you know Bing Crosby?” in the way she would ask, “Do you know my mom?”

I had various supplies set aside so that everyone could either continue working on their TVs – either the channel/scene on the screen or to add controls to the sets.  To give everyone some ideas, we teased out what kinds of controls one might need.

Delia made a CD for her TV. Once Emilia loaded the CD, the show began!

The show is over

Some children insisted on making remote controls for their tv sets.

Here Roisin shows her control buttons (on/off, volume and two channel buttons).

Jonah describes a scene for a show set in the Triassic period.

Once we were as-finished-as-we-were-going-to-get with the TV sets, I sent all the kids into the bathroom and told them to count to twenty so I could get a little surprise ready.  Then they had to count to twenty one more time.  It was very quiet in the living room…

There was a Mike-Teavee-esque surprise awaiting when they burst out!

The kids found themselves actually on TV!

A perfect solution – sent by TV but remaining intact 🙂

It was great fun watching the kids present the TV shows they had built on the TV…which quickly turned to goofing around and looking at themselves.  I meant to record a few minutes of this mayhem but since it just so happened that this was exactly when we had a glue disaster on the couch which was inadvertently semi-cleaned up by someone sitting on the glue puddle, it’s just as well it was a live show only.

[Also, Courtney can’t load videos onto this blog, so there you go. It was a TV show that was destined never to rerun!]

Afterwards everyone got their tv sets to bring home, along with their eyeglasses and glass elevator lanterns from December 9.

It was much brighter at 4:30pm than even a couple weeks ago. The lantern effect was a little lost once we got out of the stairwell.  If any of you have real tea light candles at home, these are really beautiful with a flame glowing.

Finally the treat!  Candy Coated Pencils for Sucking (from one of the rooms we passed when riding the great glass elevator in chapter 25).

CANDY-COATED PENCILS FOR SUCKING – the room after INVISIBLE CHOCOLATE BARS FOR EATING IN CLASS and before FIZZY LEMONADE SWIMMING POOLS

Next week…we will finish up Chapter 27 and tune in again to Mike Teavee, who we had to leave hanging today:

“Hooray!” cried Mr. Wonka. “He’s all in one piece!  He’s completely unharmed!”
“You call that unharmed?” snapped Mrs. Teavee, peering at the little speck of a boy who was no running to and fro across the palm of her hand, waving his pistols in the air.

– Tara