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. 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. Spring 2/ Summer 1 - Growing/Minibeasts - Aaaarrgghh, Spider! Once There were Giants - Celebrations 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.

Education Shed Ltd, Severn House, Severn Bridge, Riverside North, Bewdley, Worcestershire, UK, DY12 1AB 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.The most significant activity that this book inspires is English - writing postcards. In Year 1 classes, I've seen children write postcards *in the style of* Sunny, or writing *as if they were* Sunny, going on new adventures. One teacher took a toy Meerkat to her local park and took pictures of him doing various activities (e.g. climbing the monkey bars), then the children selected one or two of the pictures and wrote a postcard based on that. The older children could write more sophisticated postcards, while younger children could focus on following a pre-set template.

This is a sorry about a meerkat who gets fed up with the hot weather and crowded environment with all the other meerkats so decided to travel around Africa to find somewhere better to live. Sunny thinks that his home is too hot. Can you find out the current temperature where you live? How would you describe this? The other key link is to Geography - learning about the Kalahari Desert, and, in one class, they used that as a starting-off point to compare their local area to different countries which I think was a National Curriculum objective. Older children could perhaps select another animal from another location in the world, research that animal and location on Chromebooks/iPads, and write a series of postcards from that animal's perspective as it discovers unfamiliar environments. Or, perhaps as a September transition activity, children could use the postcard theme to write about their summer holidays. Travel from the desert to the jungle, the beach to the snowy mountains with our list of books that will take you on journeys to many different lands.

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Talk for Writing across the Curriculum, Pie Corbett and Julia Strong (OUP, 2011) *includes Professor Know it All game

I loved everything about this book. Gravett had a great concept and it was executed wonderfully. The postcards hold the interest of younger and older children/readers and the detailed illustrations are both accurate to the biome, intriguing, and add an element of humor to the story. What does this book teach you about meerkats? Use this information (along with your own research) to create a report about them. An exciting and interactive picture book that brings children on a journey alongside Sunny the Meerkat to find out where he belongs. Although, other picture books focus around telling stories like this with animals, the way that Gravett presents the narrative through postcards aids in making this story unique and exciting. 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!* Introduce Sunny – either through an image or a meerkat stuffed toy, it will be a good investment! Read the whole text using a visualiser to amplify the images on your IWB. The illustrations convey as much as the text, and children can be helped to understand events, feelings, character details and motivations by close reading of both.Watch DVD clips of the chosen animals; read texts; play games such as ‘True or False’; and create information sorting, sharing and matching activities. 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. Using this Empty Suitcase Activity your students can draw what they think Sunny the Meerkat would need on his travels around the world. This task gets your class thinking about what items they believe would be essential for travel and what they would like to take. This worksheet provides your students with a sense of independence as they make choices for Sunny. This activity is also a great drawing task and will help develop your students' fine motor skills and allows them to get creative. Meerkat Mail is a lovely children's short story by Emily Gravett that follows Sunny the Meerkat as he goes off on his travels. Meerkat Mail is a favourite amongst lots of young children and using these resources can extend your children's learning.

The title of the book uses alliteration. Can you make up other potential book titles that also use alliteration? I loved this book it was entertaining, heart-warming and engaging. Sunny the meerkat is not happy in his meerkat home so goes to visit his cousins and uncles, who live in various places,in search of the perfect home. Sunny sends his family lots of postcards from all the different places he visits but none of them seem to suit him. Will Sunny ever find his perfect home? 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.But, there were a few bummers: the writing wasn't always incredible (though it was good), and what bothered me the most was how after a while the author quit naming the "relatives" that our meerkat would visit. So, while we started out learning "that is what a meerkat looks like, that is what a mongoose looks like, etc" by the end I was like, "What animal is that?" The story begins in the Kalahari Desert. Can you find out where this is? How far is it from where you live? Take photos of Sunny at the local park, eating something, in different weather, etc. Share these images with the children, explaining they where taken on Sunny’s latest adventure. Model writing a postcard from Sunny to his family, using the information headings to structure the content. The children can then conduct a guided tour of the school with Sunny, taking photos of him in different places, answering any questions he may have and ‘helping’ him join in activities. The children can then write their own postcard from Sunny about his trip to their school. 4 Did you know? An innovated version might involve Sunny trying to find a home at the seaside, in the supermarket, at an indoor play area – choose a place that will be familiar to the children. Or, if you would like to provide a little more challenge, you could also change the main character to another animal. This would mean that children’s versions could draw on information gained in their research. The written stories could then be made into a whole class book and included in the book area, read aloud in a story-share or recorded as a podcast. 6 Develop context & understanding