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Flamingo Boy This is one of 16 activities to try during Michael Morpurgo Month, each of which explores an extract from a different book written by the world famous author. The books are grouped into four themes: natural world, animal adventures, tales retold, and times of war. All the activities can be usedt as either a quick starter or a longer lesson and provide a great opportunity to develop children’s comprehension and vocabulary - not to mention a love of Michael Morpurgo’s books.
Flamingo Boy
A young autistic boy lives on his parents’ farm among the salt flats of the Camargue in the South of France. There are lots of things he doesn’t understand: but he does know how to heal animals. Every week he goes to market with his mother, to ride his special horse on the town carousel. But then the Germans come, a soldier shoots a flamingo from the sky. The carousel is damaged, the horses broken. For this vulnerable boy, everything is falling apart. Only there’s a kind sergeant among the Germans – a man with a young boy of his own at home, a man who trained as a carpenter. Between them, perhaps boy and man can mend what has been broken – and maybe even the whole town…
Using the resource This resource shares an extract from the story, describing the flamingos that live on the salt flats of the Camargue. After reading the text, there are suggested discussion activities considering: • Author’s craft and effective features of descriptive writing • Specific vocabulary choices made by an author, introducing unfamiliar vocabulary Depending on time and the needs of your class, you may want to work through all of these interrelated activities or focus on just one.
There is also a sheet with a writing challenge based on the extract. For Flamingo Boy it focuses on effective descriptive writing. This could be used as a short classroom activity or as homework to consolidate the learning in the teaching session. After reading and discussing the extract some children may be inspired to read the book itself. You could read it aloud as a class novel or direct children to where they can find a copy to read themselves: the book corner, school library, local library or a local bookshop.
Teacher’s notes for the PowerPoint Slide 2 • Share the front cover and blurb to introduce the book and give context. • Ask children if anyone has read the book before. Does the blurb make them want to read on?
Slide 3 • Read aloud together (either with the teacher reading aloud and children following, children reading together as a class or children reading together in pairs).
• Ask the children what animal the extract is about.
Slide 4 • Ask the children to imagine they are describing a flamingo to someone who has never seen one before. Working with a partner, ask them to list some of the things that make flamingos different to other birds (pink colour, curved bills, legs that seem to bend backwards, etc).
• Share ideas as a class, jotting down
pupils’ suggestions on the whiteboard.
• Go back to Michael Morpurgo’s
description again. Which particular features of flamingos has he described?
• Are there any the class thought of that he has not used?
• Ask the children if there are any phrases or words that Michael Morpurgo has used to describe the flamingos that they do not understand completely or that a younger child might find difficult.
Slide 5 • Highlight the children’s choices from the previous exercise or use the words and phrases highlighted here.
• Challenge the children to use context to try and work out what the words might mean.
Slide 6
• Share the definitions and ask children to use them in another sentence to check their understanding.
• Ask the children to look back at their
descriptions of flamingos. Would knowing any of these words be useful to improve their descriptions? Ask the class to add these words into their descriptions where they think they would improve them.
• Display the words in class. Challenge
children to use them in their speech or writing this week.
Slide 7
• Return to the front cover and blurb. • Ask the children if they would like to
read Flamingo Boy having looked at this extract in detail and thought about Michael Morpurgo’s skillful writing.
• Point children to where they can find a
copy (either any copies you have in the classroom, the school library, or suggest the local library or a bookshop).