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’. Watch DVD clips of the chosen animals; read texts; play games such as ‘True or False’; and create information sorting, sharing and matching activities. Talk for Writing across the Curriculum, Pie Corbett and Julia Strong (OUP, 2011) *includes Professor Know it All game

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?

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.

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 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. 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.

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. 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? 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. 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 1ABSunny thinks that his home is too hot. Can you find out the current temperature where you live? How would you describe this?