This reading comprehension is a brilliant way to prepare your Year 6 students for their KS2 SATs exams. The Butterfly Lion transports the reader/listener to two very different continents and several different stages in time. It takes you on a rich journey of adventure,loneliness,loss,sadness,hope,love,friendship,determination and joy. Bertie wanted to run away from his boarding school in Wiltshire to London. On a map can you find Wiltshire? London? If you were going to travel to Timbavati, how would you get there? Can you plot the journey on a map? You can also read about his life in War Child to War Horse,a collaborative biography with Maggie Fergusson.

At the start of the book, the boy is at a boarding school in Wiltshire. Write a diary entry from his point of view, explaining how he feels about being there. Well, you've probably never seen a lion live in a house before, but that's what he ends up doing. He even sleeps at the end of Bertie's bed. Michael Morpurgo has thrilled and delighted huge numbers of young readers since becoming a children’s author in the early 1970s," Wood said. "Action for Children’s Arts is delighted to recognise Michael’s outstanding contribution by presenting him with the J M Barrie Award 2016. His work will undoubtedly, like Peter Pan, stand the test of time, making him a truly worthy recipient of this award." This lovely reading comprehension also comes with a set of questions, which test how well the children have understood the text. Clare Pearson is deputy headteacher at Summerbank Primary School in Stoke. Previously, Clare was the Primary Advisory English Teacher for Stoke-on-Trent. Share your best topic

Looking for something different

Bertie had grown up in South Africa and one day found and saved a white lion cub. The book, I was happy to discover, takes its time showing us Bertie's life in Africa, how lonely he was, and then how his friendship with the lion blossomed and he learned about companionship. Eventually, Bertie had to return to England to attend a boarding school, and the lion - not deemed fit to survive in the wild on its own - was sold to a circus. This Michael Morpurgo ( war horse and other stories) resources ks2 reading comprehension is designed to prepare students for their KS2 SATs English exam. The war horse resources ks2 fact file is presented in the same way as the reading material which students will encounter in their SATs exams.

This is a great resource about a great man and our year 6 very much enjoyed learning about Michael Morpurgo. We did notice, however, a few mistakes in the two star text and thought you might like to know about them. The protagonist of the story is a young boy who is well characterised by Morpurgo allowing the reader to get on board and feel the emotions of the character. However, he is carefully ambiguous enough to allow a wide verity of readers to identify directly with him. David Wood, chair of Action for Children’s Arts, said Morpurgo is “one of our greatest storytellers”. Bertie escapes from his school and meets Millie, and the two become fast friends, flying kites together. He tells Millie all about his life in South Africa, and his white lion cub. When the pair leave school, they continue to write until war breaks out, and a letter arrives from Bertie informing Millie that he has joined the army.Could you conduct a survey to find out your friends favourite animals and show the results in different types of table / graph? A young boy named Michael runs away from a boarding school and meets an old lady living in a big cottage. She tells him about a boy named Bertie who lived in South Africa. As a boy, Bertie had found an orphaned white lion cub, but was eventually forced to send the lion away to the circus and leave South Africa to attend boarding school in Wiltshire, England. Michael Morpurgo was unhappy at boarding school, and, when he was seven, he ran away. These experiences made it into The Butterfly Lion. The story begins in the present, with a boy running away from school. As readers, we never learn the name of this boy, whose main role is to be our advocate inside the narrative, asking the questions we would like to ask and delving further into Bertie’s life.

The KS2 SATs style reading material covers his early life, his involvement with charities and his many achievements.Look at a picture of a white lion cub and think of vocabulary to describe it? (see Resources below). This, in and of itself, would be heartbreaking and infuriating. But knowing how much the two cared about one another just made it worse (or better, from a storyteller's point of view). In the second paragraph the text says that Morpurgo was born in 1943. It then goes on to say 'When the Second World War broke out Michael.... was evacuated'. However, the war began in 1939 so Michael's evacuation cannot have been triggered by the start of the war. Invite into school a representative from a local animal rescue centre to talk his/her work on returning animals to the wild. This is illustrated when Bertie who has no siblings or friends befriended the white lion but is then sent away to boarding school “It was the best year of Bertie’s young life. But …show more content…

Some books make you laugh, don't they? And other books make you hold your breath, because you can't believe what's about to happen next. Other books make you feel sad, because, the writer has made you care for the characters so much. Well, I have to tell you, that this book has all of that. I'm never going to forget reading this book. Write a diary entry from Bertie’s point of view at different points in the story (e.g. as he grows up with his dad away working and his mum teaching him on their compound, when he first sees the white lion and her cub, when he is allowed to keep the cub when he is told that he will be going to England). A son and grandson of actors, Michael has acting in his blood and enjoys collaborating and performing live adaptations of his books at festivals, concerts and theatres. Write / tell one of the stories that the men might share when they come home from their time away guarding the cattle. That was when the shot rang out. The hyenas bolted into the long grass and were gone. When Bertie turned around, he saw his mother in her night gown, rifle in hand, running towards him down the hill. He had never seen her run before. Between them, they gathered up the mud-matted cub and brought him home."

Give AI a Try!

There was impala meat, whenever he wanted it. And as he grew, and he grew fast, he wanted more and more of it. For the first time in his life, Bertie was totally happy." But... it doesn't last. Soon, Bertie is sent away to a school in England, and the lion cub is sold, to a circus in France.