Meerkat Mail

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Sunny thinks that his home is too hot. Can you find out the current temperature where you live? How would you describe this? In the words of a certain car insurance obsessed meerkat, a book project using Meerkat Mailby Emily Gravett is ‘simples!’, especially if you use the Talk for Writing process. As a core story for a half term it is perfect for KS1 – with plenty of text types to focus on, captivating illustrations, quirky characters and lots of humour. It’s also a fabulous way to develop geography, PSHE, art and history through a theme such as ‘amazing animals’. 1 There’s no place like home? 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. 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. 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?

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. Spring 2/ Summer 1 - Growing/Minibeasts - Aaaarrgghh, Spider! Once There were Giants - Celebrations Read examples of nonchronological reports about animals and start to develop a bank of common features. Use role-play and games such as ‘Professor Know it All’* to develop the language and sentence constructions of reports. Carry out some role-play activities with ‘Sunny’ in which he explores how he is feeling at different points in the story.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 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 story begins in the Kalahari Desert. Can you find out where this is? How far is it from where you live?

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 journeyRead 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. This is an entertaining and humourous account of Sunny the Meerkat's journey to visit his relatives. Similar in content (if not in style) to the story Marsupial Sue Book and CD, the story explores the differences between the related animals. We liked learning about the various animals and their habitats and we loved reading the postcards. Overall, we really enjoyed reading this book together. 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!*

What does this book teach you about meerkats? Use this information (along with your own research) to create a report about them. 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 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. 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.

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. With a huge range of resources, you can bring Meerkat Mail into different subjects and use this great story to engage your students' learning. What do these Meerkat Mail resources teach? Whole Class Reading resources and planning for Year 2 in a zip file based on Emily Gravett’s ‘Meerkat Mail’ book based on early inference skills. 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. 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.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. Absolutely loved this book! Meerkat Mail is a wonderful picture book highlighting, for me, the importance of home and family and how nothing will ever come close no matter how hard you try (bless Sunny!) The thought put into this book is amazing and is definitely worth sharing with children. 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’.