Meerkat Mail

Product Information

This is a story of selfexploration, of believing that the grass is greener, of leaving home and coming back again.

Once the children have learnt the text, then innovate with another animal, using facts gathered in the first week.He journeys through rain and shine and light and dark, reporting back to his family via a series of postcards. Meerkat mobs tends to stick together - playing together, eating together, even sleeping together - and Sunny's family, living in the hot, dry Kalahari Desert, is no exception. I’ve added some pictures of provision in my classroom as it has really engaged my children in writing! Our hero, Sunny the meerkat, lives with his extended family in the Kalahari Desert and he is fed up with two things – the place where he lives and the people (or meerkats) he lives with.

I like how some words have a change of font size, I think this would be good for children when reading aloud so that they can work on their expression when reading aloud.Sunny the meerkat is dissatisfied with the hot, dry climate of the Kalahari desert where he lives, so he decides to visit his relatives to see if their habitats are any better. After having a discussion about the book it was pointed out to me, that there are facts about the different animals Sunny goes to stay with on his journey. When we had found all of the key features we started to discuss what we could put in our own postcards to Sunny.

I picked out this book because it is quite unorthodox because the majority of the story is told through a series of pop-up post-cards from the travelling meerkat, Sunny, to his family. The illustrations are cute and show the emotions on Sunny’s face pretty clearly about what he thinks of them. Watch DVD clips of the chosen animals; read texts; play games such as ‘True or False’; and create information sorting, sharing and matching activities. I love meerkats and I love getting mail, so perhaps my expectations were a tad too high for this book as I didn't quite love it as much as I wanted to. Children who like lift-the-flap books will love lifting the post cards to see what is written on the other side.

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. Each postcard also has information about each type of meerkat, mongoose, weasel or whatever Sunny visits. Sunny presents a cheery personality that children can easily connect with, and the humour within his postcards carry a lighthearted feeling throughout the narrative. He decides to visit other relatives during the next week, and sends post cards telling how things are going.