Michael Rosen s Chocolate Cake Schools Activity Pack Page 1
Polka's production of Michael Rosen's Chocolate Cake was adapted for stage by Pete Glanville and Barb Jungr and is for children aged 4-11 years. The exercises in this pack can be used with Key Stage 1 and 2 although some adaptation might be necessary in some cases. WARM UP GAMES The following Chocolate Cake themed games can help develop a range of skills with your class such as speaking and listening, turn-taking and teamwork. Chocolate Cake! Ask the group to sit in a circle, label the children with one of the following ingredients: eggs, flour, sugar and cocoa powder. When you call one of the ingredients, the children labeled as that ingredient must switch seats. When you call chocolate cake all of the children must switch seats. Buzzy Bees Ask the group to buzz around the room like bees. After a few seconds, shout FREEZE and then a letter of the alphabet, all the children must shape their own bodies into a statue of something beginning with the letter i.e. if you shout D', the children may become dogs/ dinosaurs/ doctor. If the alphabet version of this isn't suitable for your group you could ask the children to freeze as different characters from the play i.e. Michael/ Joe/ Mum/ Teacher/ Haribo. This will encourage pupils to use their imaginations and deepen their understanding of the characters from the performance. Page 2
The game can be played where you ask each statue to tell you who they are. And if two children or more are the same thing, they are 'out' and must sit and watch. This encourages the group to think of words and ideas that no one else will have thought of and not to copy each other. You can engage the children who are out by asking them to provide the next letter. Alternatively, you can play the game without competition. Don't Wake Mum Steal the Chocolate Cake Choose one volunteer to stand at the opposite end of the classroom with an object. This could be a bottle or a something linked to baking such as a wooden spoon) placed at her feet, this person is Michael's Mum from the play. The rest of the group stands in a straight line as if about to compete in a race. The person playing Mum stands with her back to the rest of the group who must work together to take the spoon. The group must move towards the Mum with the aim of retrieving the spoon from her and getting it back to the start line without her realising who has it at any one time. Whenever the Mum turns round (approximately every 3-5 seconds) the rest of the group must freeze. If she sees them move at all, they must go back to the start line. Once someone has retrieved the object, the group must work together to get them back to the start line without the Mum realising. If she guesses who is holding the object correctly, the object must be given to her and everyone must return to the start line and begin the challenge again. Pass the Emotion Sitting in a circle explain that we are going to send a feeling around to the person sitting next to us. Start by sending a smile. You can then send some of the other emotions that the characters in the play experience: Happy Sad Hungry Excited Chewing Gum Warm up your facial muscles by chewing an imaginary ball of gum. As you continue to chew, let it get bigger and bigger. Move your jaw from side to side as you move the ball of gum around in your mouth. Page 3
Tongue Twisters Michael Rosen s Chocolate Cake is full of playful phrases and interesting words. Tongue twisters are a great way to warm up for drama and are also very effective when encouraging children to feel more confident with language. The big beautiful blue balloon burst. Cooks cook cupcakes quickly. Betty bought butter but the butter was bitter, so Betty bought better butter to make the bitter butter better. I wish to wish the wish you wish to wish, but if you wish the wish the witch wishes, I won t wish the wish you wish to wish. Exercises Favourite Foods Ask children to close their eyes and think about their favourite food. Ask them to imagine what it looks like, how it smells, whether it is hot or cold and how they eat it i.e. with their hands or a spoon etc. The children begin to eat their food. The first taste is amazing. Ask them to think about how it feels to take that first bite. As they continue to eat the food something changes. There is something very wrong with this yummy dish it tastes disgusting! What happens to their faces now that it tastes bad? How does their physicality change? Tea Time in my House This improvisation exercise encourages children to use their own experiences and transform the classroom into what dinnertime is like at home. In small groups, ask children to create short scenes where they prepare their favourite foods for dinner and all sit down together to eat. Thinking about their favourite foods from the previous exercise, the children must work together to cook or bake the dish and then sit down to share their feast. You may wish to do this after the recipe writing exercise which can be found later in this pack. Page 4
Yes Let s Divide your class into two groups. Ask the first group to take the stage. One player in the group starts by saying Let s [ ] and then an activity (i.e. Let s go swimming!, Then all the other players on stage support the action by jumping in and saying Yes! Let s! Everyone then proceeds to do the activity together until another person in the group makes a new Let s [activity]! Everyone else says Yes! Let s! and proceeds to do the activity. (Encourage the players to always be physically active) This pattern continues until everyone has had a chance to suggest an activity. After the first group finishes, ask the second group to take the stage and do the same. Group Environment In a group you decide on an environment (i.e. Michael s kitchen), then one by one children enter the kitchen and create one object (i.e. someone enters and opens a refrigerator) and exits. Each subsequent child that enters must use the object that was created before as well as introduce one new element so that the last child to enter must remember everything that was used before him/her. It is important to emphasize the value of consistency of a physical environment. Has the sink stayed in the same place every time, did someone leave the refrigerator door open and the next player not think to close it? Once the final child has gone, reflect on the environment and have each child vocalize what object they created you may be surprised to see how some things were not as clear as others. Soundscapes First, ask everyone in the group to close their eyes and imagine Michael s house on the night that he eats Joe s birthday chocolate cake. In particular, ask them to think about what sounds they might hear there. Michael mentions that one creaky floorboard. Ask the group what else they can remember about that scene in the play. Other examples could include Joe and Mum snoring, Michael yelping when he stands on the piece of Lego, sounds from outside such as wind and rain. Tell them that, in a moment, you would like them to make one of these sounds; this could be vocal, or made using the body or the floor. When you give the cue, ask everyone to make their sound and to keep repeating it until you tell them to stop. When you have finished, discuss the impact of the soundscape with the group. Was it effective? Did anyone have a particular picture in their mind when you heard the sounds? Page 5
A Day in the Life Ask everyone in the group to choose a character from the play that interests them. Explain that everyone should work alone for this exercise. They must find a space and do their best not to interrupt what others are doing. Tell the group that they are going to act out one day in the life of their character. Explain that you will talk them through different times of day and that they should act out what their character would be doing. Ask them to choose a day in which something unusual or exciting happens to their character. This could be Joe s birthday, the day Michael eats Joe s cake (this is the day we see in play) or the day Mum perhaps wins Bake Off. Start the exercise at around 5 o clock in the morning (this is your best chance that all the characters will be in bed!). You will need to talk the group through the day. Offer prompts at each stage, encouraging the children to think about all of the senses. For example: It s 5 o clock in the morning. Find a space and get into the position your character would be in. Are you in bed? Are you asleep, or have you woken up already? If you re awake, what woke you? Where are you? Think about whether it s warm or cold, light or dark. Are there any sounds? What does the room smell like? Now it s 6 o clock. A few of you are waking up I see. How do you feel? Is this the time you always wake up, or is today special? What do you do now? Do you see anyone else? What do you have for breakfast? It s 7 o clock. Are you still asleep? What are you dreaming about? Maybe some characters are leaving their house already. What is the weather like outside? Where are you going? Do you want to go there? What can you smell and hear when you get outside? How do you feel today? It s 8 o clock. Where are you now? etc. Allow the exercise to go through a whole 24 hours. There will be times of day that you can skip through faster than others, when most people are asleep for example! When you have finished, give everyone the opportunity to give you feedback. Did they learn anything interesting about their character? Page 6
Recipe Writing Ask children to think about their favourite meal and how it s made. If they don t know, they can make it up! Use the template below to think about what ingredients go into the dish and come up with instructions for how to create the meal. You can print out larger versions of this template at the end of this pack. Word Search Puzzles These word search puzzles are a fun way for children to pick out some of the main ingredients of the play. Printable versions of the puzzles can be found at the end of the pack. Ask children to find as many of the words as they can. Michael s Word Search is the simpler of the two puzzles and therefore is more suited to KS1 pupils. Key Stage 1 Key Stage 2 Design a Costume Page 7
The costumes in the show were created by Theatre Designer, Verity Quinn. Please share Verity s costume designs with your class and then ask the children to use the template below to create their own costume design. Ask them to design an alternative costume for their favourite character from the show. You can print both the Key Stage 1 and Key Stage 2 design templates at the end of the pack. Key Stage1 Key Stage 2 Page 8
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You can watch Michael Rosen perform Chocolate Cake, as well as many of his other poems by following this link https://www.youtube.com/michaelrosenofficial Page 17 Chocolate Cake - Poem by Michael Rosen I love chocolate cake. And when I was a boy I loved it even more. Sometimes we used to have it for tea and Mum used to say, 'If there's any left over you can have it to take to school tomorrow to have at playtime.' And the next day I would take it to school wrapped up in tin foil open it up at playtime and sit in the corner of the playground eating it, you know how the icing on top is all shiny and it cracks as you bite into it, and there's that other kind of icing in the middle and it sticks to your hands and you can lick your fingers and lick your lips oh it's lovely. yeah. Anyway, once we had this chocolate cake for tea and later I went to bed but while I was in bed I found myself waking up licking my lips and smiling. I woke up proper. 'The chocolate cake.' It was the first thing 1 thought of. I could almost see it so I thought, what if I go downstairs
and have a little nibble, yeah? It was all dark everyone was in bed so it must have been really late but I got out of bed, crept out of the door there's always a creaky floorboard, isn't there? Past Mum and Dad's room, careful not to tread on bits of broken toys or bits of Lego you know what it's like treading on Lego with your bare feet, yowwww shhhhhhh downstairs into the kitchen open the cupboard and there it is all shining. So I take it out of the cupboard put it on the table and I see that there's a few crumbs lying about on the plate, so I lick my finger and run my finger all over the crumbs scooping them up and put them into my mouth. oooooooommmmmmmmm nice. < br>then I look again and on one side where it's been cut, it's all crumbly. So I take a knife I think I'll just tidy that up a bit, cut off the crumbly bits scoop them all up and into the mouth Page 18
oooooommm mmmm nice. Look at the cake again. That looks a bit funny now, one side doesn't match the other I'll just even it up a bit, eh? Take the knife and slice. This time the knife makes a little cracky noise as it goes through that hard icing on top. A whole slice this time, into the mouth. Oh the icing on top and the icing in the middle ohhhhhh oooo mmmmmm. But now I can't stop myself Knife - 1 just take any old slice at it and I've got this great big chunk and I'm cramming it in what a greedy pig but it's so nice, and there's another and another and I'm squealing and I'm smacking my lips and I'm stuffing myself with it and before I know I've eaten the lot. The whole lot. I look at the plate. It's all gone. Oh no they're bound to notice, aren't they, a whole chocolate cake doesn't just disappear does it? Page 19
What shall 1 do? I know. I'll wash the plate up, and the knife and put them away and maybe no one will notice, eh? So I do that and creep creep creep back to bed into bed doze off licking my lips with a lovely feeling in my belly. Mmmmrnmmmmm. In the morning I get up, downstairs, have breakfast, Mum's saying, 'Have you got your dinner money?' and I say, 'Yes.' 'And don't forget to take some chocolate cake with you.' I stopped breathing. 'What's the matter,' she says, 'you normally jump at chocolate cake?' I'm still not breathing, and she's looking at me very closely now. She's looking at me just below my mouth. 'What's that?' she says. 'What's what?' I say. Page 20 'What's that there?' 'Where?' 'There,' she says, pointing at my chin. 'I don't know,' I say. 'It looks like chocolate,' she says. 'It's not chocolate is it?' No answer. 'Is it?' 'I don't know.' She goes to the cupboard
looks in, up, top, middle, bottom, turns back to me. 'It's gone. It's gone. You haven't eaten it, have you?' 'I don't know.' 'You don't know. You don't know if you've eaten a whole chocolate cake or not? When? When did you eat it?' So I told her, and she said well what could she say? 'That's the last time I give you any cake to take to school. Now go. Get out no wait not before you've washed your dirty sticky face.' I went upstairs looked in the mirror and there it was, just below my mouth, a chocolate smudge. The give-away. Maybe she'll forget about it by next week. Michael Rosen Page 21