Mog's Christmas Calamity

Teaching ideas courtesy of @3Edmigos

• Write a dual narrative of the story from the perspectives of Mog – telling the ‘whole truth’ – and the family. How does ‘the truth’ compare with what ‘the humans’ might think?

• Create the report that the Fire Service will complete following an investigation into the fire.  What clues would they see? How would they piece the story back together to discover what truly happened?

• Devise a local newspaper report explaining how Mog the cat saved the day and brought a whole community together. This could then be turned into a news broadcast as a ‘Christmas Good News’ story.

• Anthropomorphise Mog the Cat and create a magazine interview celebrating ‘Mog the Hero’…again, this could be taken further using apps like YAKit or Morfo to actually voice and animate Mog giving her interview as a local hero. This could be done through hot-seating.

• Again, using anthropomorphism, bring Mog to life and debate whether she should tell the truth or take the praise – for instance, do you think she eats the egg she is given at the end of the advert? What would you do, if you were Mog? This could be done through conscience alley as a starting point.

• Taking the concept of Mog the hero further, you could produce a piece of creative writing demonstrating other occasions on which Mog goes on to save the day.

• Using Mog as a celebrity cat, create an ad-campaign for a new Cat food/product using Mog as the celebrity endorsement and taking her achievements into account. E.g ‘Mog’s Magnificent Meals – for Cats who Save the Day’.

• Focus on the theme of community and people coming together to help each other; investigate how you could contribute to the needs of those less fortunate in your own local community.

• The advert has some ambiguity over whether the Turkey is already burning or if Mog triggers the fire itself; you could write the prequel to the story…the night before leading right up to the moment that we see Mr and Mrs. Thomas and Mog sleeping in their respective quarters.