charlie and the chocolate factory Archives

Gene Wilder died this week. And, while I didn’t know him personally, I was filled with sadness. I’ve seen Mr. Wilder perform in several films, but he will always be Willy Wonka to me.

Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory was the first movie I watched as a child that really stayed with me throughout adulthood. Even as an eight-year-old, I could sense the film’s message that childhood was fleeting and should be treasured for as long as possible.

Naturally, I wanted to share that message with my kids, so we’ve already read the book and watched the film. But with Mr. Wilder’s passing, I felt like I wanted to revisit the film and its message with the kids while they’re still young.

So here are several Charlie and the Chocolate Factory craft ideas and activities to share with the family! Don’t forget to pick up the classic Charlie and the Chocolate Factory to read with your kids first!

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory Craft Ideas and Activities

1. Turn this book into a unit study with our Charlie and the Chocolate Factory unit!

2. Make a super cute Willy Wonka Pudding Cup Top Hat!

3. Want to make your own chocolate? This recipe for Almond Swirl Chocolate Bark is easy enough for kids to make!

4. Create your own Wonka Play Candy Store complete with playdough candy!

5. Use these Charlie and the Chocolate Factory Notebooking Printables to help kids review what they read in the story!

6. Confession: This isn’t actually for the kids. This Willy Wonka Action Figure is going on my desk at work!

7. Talk about the book around the dinner table with these Charlie and the Chocolate Factory Conversation Starter Ideas!

8. Make your own gooey Chocolate Slime for sensory play!

9. These Charlie and the Chocolate Factory Snacks are fun to snack on during read-aloud time!

10. Serve up a complete Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory dinner with a cabbage soup appetizer and blueberry pie for dessert!

11. Use this Printable Golden Ticket activity to challenge kids to come up with their own Golden Ticket terms!

12. If you’ve never seen Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, please stop the madness and watch it. Immediately.

13. These Charlie and the Chocolate Factory Lesson Plans from the official Roald Dahl website are perfect for extending the story into creative writing activities and more!

14. This Easy Chocolate Play Dough is fun for little hands!

15. These DIY Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory Peg People are such a cute idea for reenacting scenes from the film or the story!

16. This Liquid Chocolate Mixed by Waterfall is the next best thing to the Chocolate River!

17. Let your toddlers fingerpaint with this Edible Chocolate Paint!

18. Wrap a standard chocolate bar with this Wonka Bar Wrapper with Golden Ticket for an extra special treat! (This is the one we used in our unit.)

19. These Eatable Pillow Snacks are a fun and simple snack for kids!

20. Remember the Giant Gummy Bears Wonka knocked down with his cane in the Chocolate Room? Make your own!

21. This Willy Wonka Toilet Paper Roll Craft is super fun and easy! (We used this craft in our unit as well.)

22. Charlie Bucket is easily the perfect child. Prin this Charlie Bucket Coloring Page for kids to color!

23. Want to make a slightly healthier chocolate snack? Try these Banana Chocolate Smoothie Pops!

24. Bring the classic story to life with this special Charlie and the Chocolate Factory Pop-Up Book!

25. Learn how to make your own Fizzy Lifting Drinks! And you won’t have to worry about floating up to the ceiling either. 🙂

26. This printable Charlie and the Chocolate Factory Word Search is a fun word activity for kids!

27. Make a batch of this Salted Chocolate and Peanut Butter Popcorn to enjoy as you watch the movie!

28. Use this recipe for Wonka’s Rainbow Drops to make these colorful candies! (Be sure to tell the kids NOT to try to spit in seven colors.)

And just because I want to mourn my lost childhood – my favorite song from the film:

See our Charlie and the Chocolate Factory unit in action!

Get more ideas for homeschool units from my Unit Studies board on Pinterest!

Remember the first time you read the book Charlie and the Chocolate Factory? Or the first time you saw the movie Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory? Those were basically life-changing experiences for me. So when it was time to introduce our kids to Charlie Bucket, Willy Wonka, Veruca Salt, and all the others, I wanted to make it memorable for them too.

And that’s why we put together this Charlie and the Chocolate Factory unit study! There are crafts, printables, and activities here that relate to both the story and the movie. If you love this one, don’t miss our other homeschool unit studies, including our Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs unit!

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory Unit Study

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We began by reading the book Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl. We split the reading up into three chapters per school day and both Jay and I took turns reading it aloud. The kids were fascinated with it right from the beginning. Probably because of all the talk about candy. 🙂

Tigger looked up some of the unusual vocabulary words along the way and she completed a character map all about Charlie – what kind of personality he had, his family’s living situation, and the way he looked. Charlie is probably one of the most sympathetic characters in all of children’s literature. You really root for him through the whole book.

These free chocolate notebooking pages are a fun way to help kids keep track of their vocabulary words through the book! To get your copy, just click the image or the link below.

>>>>> Chocolate Notebooking Pages <<<<<

Once we finished the book, we did a Willy Wonka toilet paper roll craft using a circusmaster toilet roll craft from DLTK Crafts.

We just printed out three copies – one for each child.

Then we cut out the pieces and slowly began assembling them. I liked this project because there weren’t a lot of pieces and the kids only had to glue a few of them together.

We also found out that liquid glue is much better for this than glue sticks. Just so you know.

Three Wonkas!

We decided to finish the unit by watching the original movie Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. Of course, we couldn’t enter the factory without finding a golden ticket in a Wonka bar.

The problem is that we couldn’t find any Wonka bars for sale. (I remember seeing them when I was younger, but I guess they stopped making them.) Amazon.com to the rescue!

We bought a super cute Willy Wonka Chocolate Bar wrapper with a copy of the Golden Ticket and used a regular 4.3 ounce chocolate bar as the candy.

The golden ticket actually uses the exact wording from the story. Awww…

We wrapped the chocolate bar and placed the golden ticket inside. Then we opened it as a family and shared the chocolate. The kids don’t eat a lot of candy, so that was a real treat for them.

Time to watch the movie! We rented it through Amazon Instant Video. Took about 30 seconds.

I literally get nostalgic whenever I see Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. I watched it along with my third grade class and it just instantly transports me back to my childhood when imagination was truly the most important thing I had.