‘In a gentle way, you can shake the world.’
Before Reading
Sparks for thinking – Activating Prior knowledge/making connections
Optional hook (s) to explore and discuss before the main drama:
Julia Samuel’s significant belongings: shopping bag containing some roses, masking tape, sticky boiled sweet attached to a handkerchief, post Its (some with reminders on e.g. feed cat); door key attached to a string necklace; walking frame; photograph of a family in the 60’s- Mum/Dad/Boy; 60’s/70’s vinyl e.g. Elvis, ABBA and/or a turntable; model of a butterfly; model of a robin; small vase.
Sparks for drama-building up character
Tell the children that we are going to meet one of the characters from the book (you could add that we won’t meet this character for a while).
Show them a photograph of a young woman from the 60’s.
In order to build up a character profile of the woman, you could do all or some of the following:
- simply telling them about her
- prepare statements about her and key events from her life on pieces of card-creating a timeline of her life so far.
- create a Role-on-the-Wall
- hot-seat an adult using prepared questions
Please find a full unit of learning for this book under our free resources section. It is suitable for Years 5 and 6- particularly to support transition to Y7 and to explore themes of loss and dementia.
Spotlight on: Role-on-the-Wall
Role-on-the-Wall asks participants to infer and deduce ideas about character and to place them on an outline.
The circus is coming!
A poster like this could spark many opportunities for oracy, reading and writing across the curriculum.
