When Stars are Scattered

When Stars are Scattered

Told in graphic novel form, this is the true story of Omar Mohamed’s childhood in Dadaab. Searing and poignant, we see how hope is built, and lost, and built again; how the days can be never ending and then one thing can change everything; how your future can be reformulated and then reformulated again.

When Stars Are Scattered explores themes of empathy, appreciating one’s gifts, and balancing dreams, hard work, and faith.

Chapter 1

In Chapter 1 of “When Stars are Scattered,” readers are introduced to Omar and his younger brother, Hassan, who lived in the Dadaab refugee camp in Kenya after fleeing Somalia. Omar, the older brother, takes care of Hassan, who is nonverbal and has seizures. The chapter follows their daily struggles in the camp, including waiting in long lines for food and water, dealing with harsh living conditions, and Omar’s longing for education and a better life.

Chapter 2

In Chapter 2 of “When Stars are Scattered,” several key events unfold:

– Omar reflects and ponders on the idea of going to school and the impact this has on Hassan.
– Omar meets Fatuma, a kind teacher who takes an interest in his education and Tall Salan.
– The boys receive news that their long-lost mother may be alive, sparking hope and uncertainty about their future.
– Omar continues to take on responsibilities to care for Hassan while balancing his desire for education and the search for their mother.

As well as the content of the chapter, your class will also look at synonyms, find spelling and punctuation errors, learn about chevron symbols, look at a lovely metaphor used to describe Omar, and more.

Chapter 3

In Chapter 3 of When Stars are Scattered, the following key events take place:

– The kindness of Fatuma as she sacrifices some of her breakfast for Omar.
– Omar’s first day of school.
– Hassan’s interaction with Omar as he leaves for school.
– We learn a bit about Omar’s nature and strengths.

Your class will also explore personification, sentence openers, be able to choose an appropriate summary of the chapter, identify missing punctuation, find antonyms and more.

Chapter 4

Chapter 4 Summary

In this comprehension of 12 questions, your KS2 class will focus on Omar, his character traits, his viewpoints on school, life lessons he feels school teachers and also touches on his curiosity when Fatima begins to talk about her life back in Somalia. It also looks briefly at Nimo and Maryam and your Year 5 / Year 6 class will decide what their attitude towards learning is based on evidence provided from the chapter 4.

Your class cover retrieval based questions for the first four questions, mainly linked to Omar. The next four focus on: Word class, extending vocabulary, homophones and finding spelling errors. The final four questions focus on using evidence to make deductions, inference, summarising and more.

Chapter 5

Chapter 5 Summary

The chapter begins with Omar chatting to Fatuma about how hungry he is. We learn a lot about Omar’s maturity when he mentions that going to school will get his Brian full and act as a distraction – Although today is a day that EVERYONE is grumpy.

As our first four retrieval questions begin, we explore why some kids aren’t at school, the feelings of the children in the class and the reason why and some more key information about life in a refugee camp, which would make a great compare and contrast lesson for your class to complete.

The next four questions focus on some key vocabulary from the next section of the chapter that includes the distribution centre, the foods that are available etc. ration cards and their importance. Our questions are linked to homophones, extending vocabulary, spelling and a punctuation question.

The final four questions designed for your class encourages them to think of why there is a need to secret hiding place for the ration cards, make inferences about why Omar is really upset, sequencing the events of the chapter in chronological order and finally, making a prediction about Omar’s future with school.

Chapter 6

Chapter 6

Chapter 6 begins with the end of the semester, results day and the beginning of a month-long break. We gain insight to Omar’s thoughts and attitude as he believe although his results were pretty poor, he wasn’t last and he still had time as he has only just started school.

This chapter also includes some goading from Amina towards Nimo, it follows the kids playing ‘hide and seek’ when it got SUPER dark and focuses in on Hassan. Hassan causes a stir when he plays the game and this time is no different. They kids also visit Nimo’s house and see Nimo’s mother weaving, they listen to a story about Somalia as she weaves. Omar also comes across Nimo and Maryam, who are still working on their sums and they have a great chat about their plans for the future.

Our question set begins with retrieval questions about the results and rankings, Nimo and Maryam, and Omar’s feelings towards the break.

Our questions also cover: vocabulary, prefixes, contractions, punctuation, descriptions, sequencing and more.

Chapter 7

Chapter 7

Chapter 7 begins with the talk about exams, every teacher, which causes a bit of a stir. This is for good reason as there is only one middle school and only the best get to go. Omar is worried, but he and Jeri make a deal.

During the evenings, they begin to study in Omar’s tent and they gain a few more boys from their class. This causes an issue with Hassan who is feeling left out. A major incident occurs and Omar’ switches his attention to Hassan, opposed to studying.

Meanwhile, Maryam finds out she is due to be married and is no longer required to take the exams and Omar is considering quitting school too.

Chapters Overview

Chapters Overview
In When Stars are Scattered we have created 17 question sets.

Each set consists of:
– 4 retrieval questions
– 4 SPAG questions
– 4 Deeper questions (authorial technique, inference, sequencing, summarising, similes, metaphors etc.)

How does our website work?

1. You will assign each child in your class the questions of a particular chapter.
2. They will login and complete the questions online.
3. You will view the ‘Results’ section and see how each child did.

Results
Green means that the child got the question right first time.

Orange means that the child got it right but it took a few attempts – a number will be displayed inside to show how many attempts.

Red means that the child didn’t get the question correct – a number will be inside the red box to show how many failed attempts.

Interpreting the Results
Select a range of chapter question sets in the results section and choose a child. Next you will be able to see all completed activities and look for patterns, areas of strength and areas for improvement.