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.

Sunny thinks that his home is too hot. Can you find out the current temperature where you live? How would you describe this? 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. 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’. 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.

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.

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. 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.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. 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.

Education Shed Ltd, Severn House, Severn Bridge, Riverside North, Bewdley, Worcestershire, UK, DY12 1AB The story begins in the Kalahari Desert. Can you find out where this is? How far is it from where you live? 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.

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? Watch DVD clips of the chosen animals; read texts; play games such as ‘True or False’; and create information sorting, sharing and matching activities. 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. 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?