The Garden of Abdul Gasazi Project Ideas

1. Suppose Miss Hester was upset because Fritz really didn't come home? Write a different (but magical) ending to the story.
   
   
2. Make a three-dimensional model of Gasazi the Great's home with trap door, fake food, and other tricky items.
   
   
3. The word is out! Mr. Gasazi is looking for an assistant. Let's write to him telling why we want the job and why we think we'd be especially good for this job. Work in teams.
   
   
4. Gasazi's Greatest Goof! Pretend that we overheard Abdul Gasazi talking about the day when, right on stage, his big trick didn't work. What trick was it? How did he cover it up?
   
   
5. Try to change a dog into a duck by folding and cutting paper. Is it possible?
   
   
6. Start a prop box – students can bring in a cape, top hat, robe, fake moustache, and so on. Put on the Abdul Gasazi outfit and be interviewed by the press after a hat trick.
   
   
7. Get books from the library on magic tricks. Students can learn to do one. Practice before a mirror! Wear the robe and hat when the performance is polished and perform as Gasazi the Great!
   
   
8. Book of tall tales – when someone is believed to have magic powers, stories get started and they grow bigger and bigger and more and more unbelievable. Make a tall-tale book using a cutout of a tall magician's hat. Have students write something unbelievable that Magician Gasazi did. Staple the hat together at the top as a flip-up book. Then, make very big hat shapes as the tales get bigger and more preposterous.
   
   
9. Just suppose that Gasazi the Great was in disguise when he opened the door to let Alan inside. Have the students draw a passport photo likeness of the "real" Abdul Gasazi. Compare the students' versions.
   
   
10. Using glossy paper and printing from magazine advertisements, construct a billboard that advertises Gasazi the Great's next performance. (Who, What, Where, When, a clever title, adjectives on star shapes or rabbit shapes.) Have the children use words like "mind-boggling," "dazzling," "splendiferous." This billboard could become a large book cover.
    
    
11. Make combination words to describe Gasazi the Great. For example, put "wonderful" and "marvelous" together and create a new word like "wonderlous," or "marvelful." "Fantastic" and "entertaining" can come out like "fantaining" or "entertastic." Children enjoy playing with the language and should be encouraged to do so. It is a good exercise for making children more comfortable with words and with reading.

Excerpted from Children's Book Activities Kit.