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The Colour of Home: ideas

2E: Pupils should be taught to reflect on spiritual, moral, social and cultural issues, using imagination to understand other people's experiences.

4B: Pupils should be taught to think about the lives of people living in other places and times, people with other values and cultures.

Year 3 Term 3:

Text level 4: To consider the credibility of events, e.g. by selecting some real life adventures either written or retold as stories.

Text level 5: To discuss 1) characters' feelings; 2) behaviour

Read the story to the class, and let the children give initial responses. Introduce the term 'refugee', essentially as someone who has had to leave their home and country because it is too dangerous for them there.
Ask the children to orally recap the main parts of Hassan's life story in pairs. Can they tell it in 6 sentences, without missing out anything important? This could be recorded as a series of tableaux, writing, or a line map of his life and travels.
In pairs, they could agree on 5 things that they would take with them if they had to leave in a hurry. They do not know where you are going, or how long they will be away. Discuss as a class. Ideas could be displayed either in individual drawings or as a real display. Ask the children for suggestions as to why the family took the Qu'ran with them.
What would they leave behind? Think about people, places, memories and hopes as well as things.
Look through the book at the pictures and try to work out what Hassan might be feeling at various points of the story. Has anyone ever felt like him?
How could the children help Hassan to feel welcome if he came to your class?

Focus on ways they could help a newcomer to feel welcome. Encourage practical ideas as well as general friendliness, e.g:

These could be made up into a book or poster.

As a comprehension exercise the children could paint their own picture of Hassan's home, as described on the fifth page of the story.
They could then list the things that Hassan found strange about his new school and country. Contrasting pictures could be drawn of his two homes.
Read the poem 'Five Senses' to the class. After discussion, they could make their own class or individual poem. Similarly with other poems.
Find out anything you can about Somalia. Check on the internet, read folk tales, ask the families in your school.
Compare Hassan's story with Sado's story - a real life story. Discuss why the author might have written the book.