Meerkat Mail

Product Information

Once the children have learnt the text, then innovate with another animal, using facts gathered in the first week. Create a whole class report together orally and practise it, then allow the children to make up their own oral versions about the animal they researched in week one. Carry out some role-play activities with ‘Sunny’ in which he explores how he is feeling at different points in the story. What does this book teach you about meerkats? Use this information (along with your own research) to create a report about them.

Spring 2/ Summer 1 - Growing/Minibeasts - Aaaarrgghh, Spider! Once There were Giants - Celebrations The story begins in the Kalahari Desert. Can you find out where this is? How far is it from where you live?For some real fun and creativity try out this great 3D Meerkat Paper Model Activity.Your class can make their very own Sunny out of paper with this great activity. Encourage your students to keep this Meerkat and take him with them on their own travels. They can take pictures and show the rest of the class where Sunny has been. Who is Sunny the Meerkat? Emily Gravett's colourful yet sparse illustrations cleverly depict a bumbling bear interacting in many different and imaginative ways with the fruit mentioned in the title. An ideal unit of work to cover a short 5 week term. Based on the try use prove method, with Pie Corbett talk for writing. These plans are easily adaptable for a single year group, Y1 or Y2. Each plan is for 2 weeks, but would be easily extended to 3 weeks each for a longer term with extra grammar lessons or short burst writes.

As the teacher read the book to the children she asked them questions such as ‘what do you think will happen next?’ and ‘how do you think he is feeling here?’. This encourages the children to think more deeply and engage with the story which should help them when they come to do the following tasks. Edit * after recently teaching this unit, I changed the plan for current usage. I have added new resources to this bundle A huge load of resources to use, 13 separate uploads. I’ve added some pictures of provision in my classroom as it has really engaged my children in writing!* Using the book as part of a project on ‘amazing animals’, precede the actual reading of it with a week of experiences and research focusing on animals, including some or all of the following.There are lots of really good aspects to this book: the fun illustrations, the great "realistic" postcards, the information garnered from reading the descriptions from the postcards, the cute "postmarks" and the sweet ending.

Sunny thinks that his home is too hot. Can you find out the current temperature where you live? How would you describe this? We turned the narrative poem (The Spider and the Fly) into a playscript, by setting it out correctly and adding detailed stage directions. We then acted them out in assembly, for Years 5 and 6. Read Meerkat Mail with your class and show them the interactive features where your class can pull out and read Sunny's postcards to his family. Once you've got all your students on board with this great story, introduce some of these resources into your teaching to extend your students' learning.Launch your topic with a visit from a wild animal sanctuary (meerkats included, if possible). Discuss and record what the children know about these particular animals and support them in preparing their questions for the visit. Immerse the children in visual images and film clips if there is no animal sanctuary near to you and then role-play a wild animal expert for the children to ‘hot-seat’. There are endless possibilities for using this text, but if you are the kind of person who likes a bit of a sequence, read on… 2 Starting the journey Talk for Writing across the Curriculum, Pie Corbett and Julia Strong (OUP, 2011) *includes Professor Know it All game