Willy Wonka Interactive Movie

It's been a few months since we tried our first interactive family movie, but I thought I would take a few minutes now to share. In September, we created a huge Roald Dahl book display and as an extension program we hosted an interactive showing of the "Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory" (the 1971 edition, thank you very much). Thanks to all the great collaborative sharing on the ALSC blog, I was able to gather up some beginning ideas (and courage) that we modified to our community. Now that holiday and winter breaks are fast approaching, I hope to try this type of fun family interactive event again soon.
(Need a movie license? We use: Movie Licensing USA )

Here is what our interactive movie event looked like:

We wore costumes, welcomed our participants, and explained what our interactive program would look like. We decided to guide our participants through the movie by passing out props as the scenes came up (rather than give a bag of stuff out in the beginning). We had hoped to have a big pretend contract for everyone to sign in the beginning while people are getting settled, but we ran out of time.

We explained that each time:

• you hear the word "scrumpdiddlyumptious”, you eat some candy
• The Oompa Loompas come out, you stand up and dance and hit your rhythm sticks to the beat.
• the bad guy comes on, you scream!
• a song comes up, we will project the words on the wall so that you can sing along if you choose

Here is a list of what we did :

• In the beginning when the kids are running from school, we all stomped and ran in place. This helped to get everyone excited for all the upcoming fun!
• "Candy Man" song – we sang along and passed out Wonka candy 
• Science experiment scene – we walked around with talcum powder to make the bang come to life (this was a huge cleanup and we will skip this next time for sure!)
• Every time a golden ticket is found, we held up a huge sign with the corresponding number on it and yelled out "1!" (or 2 or 3 or 4 or 5!)
• Blue/yellow/orange crepe paper for “Cheer up Charlie”. This is a very slow song so we gave crepe paper out to shake so everyone could sing and try to cheer up Charlie. (Passed out during song.)
• Charlie’s golden ticket – everyone cheers and hoots and claps
• Grandpa dancing song – we all got up and danced  (we passed out rhythm sticks during the dance)
• Clock strikes 10 – Rhythm sticks beats with ticks. Celebrate with crepe paper and cheering when the crowd celebrates.
• Imagination song – we sang along and passed out beach balls to hit around during this slow song
• Chocolate river scene– we handed out hot chocolate 
• Oompa loompa song – sing along and use rhythm sticks
• Scary boat scene – We had planned to use a disco light during this scene, but it was actually really scary to lots of kiddos so we handed out glow in the dark bugs. This helped distract a bit from the actual scene. 
• Oompa loompa room – We pedaled our pretend bicycles while Wonka is peddling. (We passed out blue balloons for next scene)
• When Violet starts eating and describing the food the candy tastes like, start blowing the blue balloon.  Let them go when she gets rolled away.
• Oompa loompa song - sing along and use rhythm sticks
• Fizzy lifting drink scene- we used a bubble machine and passed out bubbles to blow 
• Golden eggs – We handed out plastic eggs filled with a gold coin and a little note that says good egg or bad egg. It was fun to see if you got a good or bad egg.   
• Oompa loompa song -  sing along and use rhythm sticks
• Car wash – we used silly string 
• TV scene – we passed out 3D glasses to wear during the scene. 
• When Willy Wonka hugs Charlie for the good deed, hug a friend/grown up/yourself
• When they get in the elevator, kids bend down and rise up with the elevator and fly around with the crepe paper

Overall, this was a super fun day! We turned on the sing along feature to play all songs while we cleaned up. We also created a golden ticket hunt in the children's department by hiding 5 golden tickets throughout.

We hope to try this again soon!