This activity is from the new LandLearn teaching and learning resource Fact and Fiction 2 which is found on the LandLearning CD. Activities in this resource are designed to encourage and support teachers with literacy activities that link to school gardens, healthy eating, indigenous culture, farming, climate and changes in the landscape.

Mike Jolley
Koala Books, 1999
ISBN 0-86461-173-0

Summary
Grunter, who lives on a farm, is thoroughly obnoxious.  He makes life miserable for the farmer and all the other animals.  On his birthday he is given a special surprise which launches him into space.  The farm animals think they have solved the problem…or have they?

Suitable for
Lower Primary

Activities

• List all Grunter’s unacceptable behaviours, and chart how Grunter should have behaved towards others.
• Discuss outcomes that could occur if behaviours are unacceptable to others eg. loneliness, sadness, shying away from, not respecting.
• What other means might the animals have used to change Grunter’s bad attitude?
• Ask children to continue the story … ‘Farm life without Grunter’…
• Brainstorm about what Grunter may have seen when he was in space.
• Ask children to continue the story when Grunter returns to the farm.  Would he have changed after his experiences?
• Investigate pig farming in Victoria

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