Inspired by: Traction Man Meets Turbodog - Week 6

The 'Best Friends' activity is an engaging classroom exercise that explores the theme of friendship through the lens of the book 'Traction Man Meets Turbodog'. Students are encouraged to reflect on their understanding of what makes a best friend by recalling notes from their 'Best of Friends' theme study. They discuss in groups the essential qualities of a best friend, such as the ability to forgive, and work together to identify the top four characteristics they value most. The activity culminates in a class debate titled 'Best Friends Should Always Put You First', prompting students to consider and articulate their views on the prioritisation of friendship, potentially drawing inspiration from the characters Traction Man and Scrubbing Brush to support their arguments.

In the 'Me And My Pet' task, students focus on the use of tense in writing, taking 'Traction Man Meets Turbodog' as a case study. The book is noted for its use of various present tense forms, and students are tasked with identifying examples of these tenses. They then face the challenge of rewriting the story in the first person past tense, altering the narrative perspective and tense to practice their understanding of grammatical consistency. The 'Rusty Batteries' activity further enhances their grammatical knowledge by examining the use of brackets for parenthesis within the same book. Through discussion and investigation of examples, students aim to deduce a general rule for the use of brackets, enhancing their comprehension of punctuation in the context of written English.