I am sharing this guided reading resource with you in the hopes that it will save you some bit of time and enhance your guided reading lesson. I know I lose countless hours looking up resources, creating resources and copying resources myself, so if this helps you in any way, then I count that as a small victory for our educating community. Poor Ellie is horrified when Tuffy drags a dead bird into the house. Then a mouse. But Tuffy can't understand what all the fuss is about. The comical aspect of this book makes it an extremely useful tool in aiding the development of both children’s reading and writing skills: Find all of the words that the author uses to describe how something is said (e.g. asked, muttered, cried). Make a poster to teach other children about good vocabulary to use in their writing.

Diary of a Killer Cat Grange Primary School - Diary of a Killer Cat

The chapters are named after each day of the week. Could you write a story where a different event / paragraph / chapter takes place on a new day?Who on earth will be the next victim to arrive through the cat-flap? Can soft-hearted Ellie manage to get her beloved pet to change his wild, wild ways before he ends up in even deeper trouble? Because let's face the facts here, Tuffy is able to be such an unrelenting hunter and "killer cat" because Ellie and her family in The Diary of a Killer Cat are shown by Anne Fine as obviously having no qualms whatsoever regarding letting their pet freely and continuously roam outside and with there even being a designated cat door so that Tuffy can freely enter and exit at will. And well, for me personally (and as someone who is increasingly aware of the fact that domestic cats are an invasive species and can be a major threat to and for birds), permitting pet felines to be outside cats or even both outside and inside cats is (at least for me) totally unacceptable and also environmentally problematic behaviour and that at the very least, there should be in The Diary of a Killer Cat more attempts being made to keep Tuffy inside, with me also thinking that Anne Fine as an author and as a person probably seems to think that outside cats are acceptable (with which I beg to differ and that this kind of even makes me, makes my adult self see a bit proverbially red regarding The Diary of a Killer Cat, and that my five star rating for my inner child is lowered to only three stars when my adult reading self thinks about Tuffy being continuously outside in The Diary of a Killer Cat and this all being pretty much considered tolerably unproblematic by Anne Fine). Though readers often find themselves inadvertently laughing aloud as they read Anne Fine's novels, as she herself admits, "a lot of my work, even for fairly young readers, raises serious social issues. Growing up is a long and confusing business. I try to show that the battle through the chaos is worthwhile and can, at times, be seen as very funny." In 1994, this unique combination of humour and realism inspired the hit movie MRS. DOUBTFIRE, based on Anne's novel MADAME DOUBTFIRE and starring the late comedic genius Robin Williams. The hilarious antics of Tuffy and his family are told by the killer cat himself. Teaching Ideas and Resources: English

The Diary of a Killer Cat (The Killer Cat Series Book 1)

Anne has written more than sixty books for children and young people. Amongst numerous other awards, she is twice winner of both the Carnegie Medal, Britain's most prestigious children's book award, and the Whitbread Award. Twice chosen as Children's Author of the Year in the British Book Awards, Anne Fine was also the first novelist to be honoured as Children's Laureate in the United Kingdom. In 2003, Anne became a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and was awarded an OBE. Her work has been translated into forty five languages. The book can be used to inspire creative writing. As it is from the perspective of a cat (in first person), children could use this technique to practice writing from different points of view. From the point of view of their own pet to the point of view of Ellie in the book there are a range of different perspectives that can be explored. I took great pleasure in reading this book. Throughout the twists and turns of the cats cheeky comments and actions I had a smile on my face, and I believe that children would thoroughly enjoy reading this book also. The familiar settings of the book causes readers to consider what their own cat (pet) is thinking about their family, and what they could potentially get up to when they go off into the garden and beyond.What does ‘woe betide you’ mean? Can you find other examples of older language that isn’t used much any more? Tuffy is grounded for his behaviour. Can you write a new story about a pet who is grounded for their bad behaviour? I’m the English Coordinator at a small little school and I took on the task last year of developing a guided reading programme for KS2 as I noticed this was missing from the school.

The Diary of a Killer Cat by Anne Fine Group and guided reading

This is a humorous book about a cat that kills yet cannot understand why his family are upset with this. He is a ‘cheeky’ kind of character always trying to justify his actions, which the children would like. The illustrations are funny which would be useful in class to keep children engaged. It also has as great sense of sarcasm about it, again useful when introducing the notion of sarcasm as it gives great examples. Write a diary entry from the point of view of your own (or a friend’s) pet. How does it feel about living with the family? What does it like? What does it dislike?The story is written in the first person. Can you write a story from somebody else’s point of view?

Guided Reading: Diary of a Killer Cat | Teaching Resources Guided Reading: Diary of a Killer Cat | Teaching Resources

There are a number of books in the ‘Killer Cat’ series. Can you write a new story involving the character?

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The punctuation, repetition and use of various lengths of sentences enable the book to be an easy yet interesting read, and therefore can be used to help children develop their writing skills. Lessons involving an examination of the writing can be followed up with a lesson in which the children are asked to write an account from the point of view of their own pet involving repetition, exclamation marks, speech marks and the use of both long and short sentences.