This boy lived for a long time and a very joyful one it was. He may have travelled around the world and spoke different languages. Matthew could drive a team of dogs across the ice or hunt wolves and seals and could make anything out of wood or metal. Once he arrived, he did not receive a hero’s welcome as nobody believed the deeds he had done. But why? Well, because of his skin colour since he was a person of colour and no one liked people of colour. Well, heroes come in all sorts of sizes, shapes and colours but I have no clue why he did not receive any praise when he arrived. When he was 61, he got a better job by the government, and Matthew was a clerk and at least he got to sit down. This is a gripping tale of the life and adventures of the American explorer, Matthew Henson, of whom I'd never heard of before. The introduction explains my ignorance: "Why was he forgotten and ignored for so many years? The reason was the colour of his skin ..." Each version of this Matthew Henson Reading Comprehension Activity has a reading sheet and a question sheet, and each version of this resource is differentiated based on difficulty. There are three versions of this resource, and you can determine the difficulty rating of each using the number of stars in the bottom-left corner. One star indicates the simplest version of this resource, and three stars indicates the most complex version of the resource. What is Matthew Henson best known for? Race to the Frozen North is a story which remembers the famous Matthew Henson – the first man to reach the North Pole successfully – and his lifelong struggles due to the colour of his skin.

Race to the Frozen North: the virtual book club | Activities

Whilst the story depicts scenes of death and hardship, it is not overall an emotionally difficult book to read (probably due to language and pace), and I believe would be suitable for anyone in Y4+. However, racism is a theme throughout and should, as always, be discussed in a sensitive manner with children.Sawbones’s narration was as clean cut and objective as the scalpel and the mind of he that wields them.’ Big Book Little Book www.bigbooklittlebook.com/2014/01/sawbones/ Armistice Day: A Collection of Remembrance - Spark Interest and Educate Children about Historical Moments From there there are a range of more challenging questions (based on the KS2 reading content domains) for children to explore together and individually. The person leading the activity should remind everyone that Matthew Henson was the first person to reach the North Pole. Explorers like him need an array of skills to help them achieve their goals. Barrington Stoke is the foremost publisher of dyslexia friendly books and those for reluctant readers. Here on Lovereading4kids we are constantly selecting new titles and refreshing our special dyslexia friendly category.

Race to the Frozen North: The Matthew Henson Story

Decide how you’ll show everyone the list of questions for Roll and recap and get the list ready – we’ve suggested some example questions, but you could add your own. Chapters 1 – 3 were the ones I found most boring as there was no action in the story, although Chapters 5 – 7 was far more interesting and I enjoyed it a lot more than the previous chapters as I had more for imagination when it came to imagine the image in my head. The last few chapters include the expedition to the North Pole, which I really liked.Matthew Henson did something incredible: he was the first person to set foot on the north pole. Explorers like Matthew usually go down in history – they get awards, books and films are made about them, and their names appear on university buildings, libraries and street signs. Can anyone think of any examples of this? Perhaps there’s a school nearby named after someone famous or they’ve seen a film about a historical figure who did something amazing. Monday is focused on your class novel and has a starter activity based on the front covers of the books we will be looking at this week which involves 4 questions using the Retrieve, Infer and Predict skills. Friday’s lesson should be an at-distance comprehension which you will need to resource yourself. Sawbones won the 2014 Young Quills Award for best historical fiction for over 12s. It has been shortlisted for the Rotherham Book Award, the Salford Children’s Book Prize and the Hoo Kids Book Award. When there’s an appropriate time to pause (for example, at the end of a sentence or paragraph) everyone else should help explain the answers to the questions. But old age is slowing Mother Hopkins down, and she wants to carry out one last con, a con to outdo all the cons that have gone before. And so the gang set about bringing ruin upon Captain Walker, a proud and cruel slave captain, who deserves to be taught a lesson or two . . .