Topical Tuesdays: Man’s best friend - Key Stage 2 News Story and Reading and Writing Activity Sheet from The Week Junior

We know that spending time with dogs can help you feel better, but now scientists have discovered that our furry friends are more in touch with human emotions than we realised. Thanks to a series of experiments, researchers found that dogs can smell when people are stressed. This resources pack includes an article from The Week Junior magazine, along with a sheet of activities designed to get children thinking, talking and writing about what the story means to them.

Oracy

Dogs – indeed many animals – have extraordinary abilities, often due to the fact that they have evolved more attuned senses than ours. Does that really mean we have the right to experiment on them, just because we think they might be able to help us? Shouldn’t we be working to solve our own problems by ourselves? Or do you think there is no problem in using animals for research, as long as they are not harmed? In any case, doesn’t it help to strengthen the bonds between humans and animals when they work together? What do you think?

Writing skills

Write a promotional leaflet for a new wellbeing centre that uses animals to provide different forms of assessment and treatment, such as dogs identifying stress and sloths offering relaxation therapy.

OR

Write a news report about a dog using its ability to detect its owner’s stress to save the day.

Investigate

Research as many different ways in which dogs have been trained to help humans as you can. For each one, give a brief explanation of what they do and how long they have been working with us in this way.

Find the entire series of Topical Tuesday resources to download in our Topical Tuesdays collection.

What is The Week Junior?

The Week Junior magazine looks at current affairs and helps children make sense of the world, provides context and clarity to complex issues, improves general knowledge and encourages discussion and debate.

To find out more about The Week Junior and to download its free resources, please go to The Week Junior website.

This resource is part of the News Activities Archive collection.
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• News story
• Activities sheet