Pistes d'exploration

Discuss and record your prior knowledge of Ben Franklin. Do a picture walk and add to your list. As you read the story, add to and revise your thinking about him.

On cue cards or sticky notes, record the words that appear in special type. Sort the words according to various rules of your choosing. See if a partner or other group can guess your sorting rule.

With teacher assistance, research obstacles and failures made by other famous inventors. In a group, create a motivational slogan for aspiring inventors and record it on a poster, in a video or in a song.

Discuss and make a class list of your prior knowledge of Ben Franklin. Do a picture walk and add to your list. As you read the story, add to and revise your thinking about him.

Draw a character map for Franklin. Use teacher-selected resources to complete his portrait. Explore the qualities that make a great scientist.

List verbs from the text starting with s. Sort them in alphabetical order. Try other ways of sorting them. Which ones pertain to creating a scientific invention?

Read the author’s notes and timeline at the end. Research some of the inventions mentioned. Create a mind map about one of the inventions in order to inform others.

Discuss and make a class list of your prior knowledge of Ben Franklin. Do a picture walk and add to your list. As you read, add to and revise your thinking about him.

Choose a page or two and rewrite it by replacing all the words in bold type, without changing the meaning of the story. Choose your top 10 significant events and add a representative symbol beside each.

Try writing in this style. Choose an inventor and write a short story that is “mostly true.” At the end, complete a T-chart labelled Fact and Fiction. Before showing it to a partner, have him or her guess which parts of your biography fit into which category.

Mots-clés

Biography , alliteration , Benjamin Franklin , inventions , inventors , perseverance , scientific method , swimming

Commentaire descriptif

This innovative “mostly true” take on the boyhood of Benjamin Franklin in Colonial Boston is full of lively alliterative language and vivid movement across the page, making it a great read-aloud story. Readers are up close with eleven-year-old Ben, “the sturdy, saucy, smelly son of a soap-maker”, as he dreams up his first invention. One day he asks himself: “Why can’t I swim like a fish?” And with this question, he launches into a wonderful frenzy of observation, experimentation and problem-solving, testing out wooden swim fins and swim sandals he makes himself. With wonderfully detailed pen-and-ink watercolour illustrations, we see the splash of water, the veins on leaves and the scales on fish. But most of all we see Ben in action, slipping, sloshing and spouting in water and thinking his way through problems. The text is rhythmic and fun, with fonts of various sizes and colours highlighting the many verbs that start with the letter s. Dynamic use of space and beautiful page layout add to the storytelling. This book gives readers a thrilling ride inside Ben Franklin’s young mind, encouraging them to think as individuals, to see mistakes as possibilities rather than closed doors. His flippers may not succeed, but the mind behind them does. Facts are nicely laid out at the back with a pictorial map of Franklin’s inventions and achievements, author’s notes and a timeline.