Celebrating Australia Day - READ, PLAY, CREATE AND TALK (and a chance to win)
During the month of January we are celebrating PLAY. As Australia Day falls this month, our play for the next couple of weeks is going to be inspired by our wonderful country.
READ
The first thing I am going to do is share this collection of books with my girls.
They are all books that they are familiar with so we are not going to read them at this stage. We will look at the covers, revisit the title and share what we remember and thought about the book. After we have talked about the books I will ask them if they can think of something that is the same about all of these books – I am hoping that they will understand that they are all, in their own way, about Australia.
These books will be our ‘go to’ books for the next couple of weeks. I will also encourage the girls to add to the collection from their bookshelves.
There are many, many wonderful picture books about Australia. As it is 2012, I am going to list our favourite 12 here.
I have added links to any resources that LBBC has for the above titles as well as Teacher Notes from publishers which have great ideas, many of which can be adapted to the home and the age of your children.
Possum Magic by Mem Fox and Julie Vivas
http://www.scholastic.com.au/schools/bookclub/pdf/pm_teaching_notes.pdf
Koala Lou by Mem Fox and Pamela Lofts Hear Mem Fox read here http://www.memfox.com/mem-reads-aloud
Possum and Wattle by Bronwyn Bancroft
Why I Love Australia by Bronwyn Bancroft
http://www.scool.scholastic.com.au/schoolzone/toolkit/Why_I_Love%20Australia_Teacher%20Notes.pdf
Baby Wombat’s Week by Jackie French
http://www.harpercollins.com/harperimages/ommoverride/Baby_Wombats_Week.pdf
Bobbie Dazzler by Margaret Wild and Janine Dawson
http://www.workingtitlepress.com.au/teachers_notes.html
Wombat Stew by Marica K Vaughan and Pamela
http://www.scholastic.com.au/schools/bookclub/pdf/toolkit_downloads/wombat_stew_TN.pdf
All Through the Year by Jane Godwin and Anna Walker
http://www.lamontbooks.com.au/info/files/October%202010%20-%20All%20Through%20The%20Year.pdf
My Place by Nadia Wheatley and Donna Rawlins
http://www.walkerbooks.com.au/statics/dyn/1218001059961/My-Place-Classroom-Ideas.pdf
Mirror by Jeannie Baker
http://www.walker.co.uk/UserFiles/file/Downloads/Mirror%20Classroom%20Ideas.pdf
Look See, Look At Me! By Leonie Norrington and Dee Huxley
http://www.thelittlebigbookclub.com.au/titles/look-see-look-at-me
Ernie Dances to the Didgeridoo by Alison Lester
http://www.thelittlebigbookclub.com.au/titles/ernie-dances-to-the-didgeridoo
The Crow and the Waterhole by Ambelin Kwaymullina
The Grug Series by Ted Prior
http://www.thelittlebigbookclub.com.au/titles/grug
It was hard to stop there! I know that was actually 14 books but I figured that if they were by the same author it only counted as 1!
You can find more of our recommended Australiana books here.
Our recommended Indigenous titles are here.
For books that feature Australian animals click here.
PLAY
I have then collected our Australian animals and some natural objects for the girls to play with. They both love imaginative play with small figures and are very used to me creating mini play areas for them. This time I decided to provide them with some materials and will let them create the playscape. I also thought it would be interesting to add a photo of where we live. I am not sure what they will 'do' with this but I can't wait to see!
After a few days, depending on the weather, I am planning on moving this playset out to the garden, which I am sure will inspire a whole different type of play.
CREATE
PRINTABLES
Did you know that Australia Day has two great websites full of fun ideas for children?
www.australiaday.org.au has lots of great colouring in sheets for little ones and activities for older children too.
www.australiaday.com.au Look under the HAVING FUN tab for:
Lots of fantastic pintables’ for children including:
- NEW - Colouring-in sheets - State Birds & Fauna
- Colouring In Sheets
- Flag Activities
- State Floral Emblems
- Puzzles
- Cut & Paste
- Crossword
- Find a Word
- How well do you know Australia?
- Join the Dots
You can also find an Australian flag printable here
http://www.quality-kids-crafts.com/support-files/flagtemplate_australia.pdf
I added some of these printables to our writing/drawing area as well as some other Australian themed puzzles and books.
CREATIVE PLAY
We are also going to have some yellow and green fun, including:
- Making yellow and green play dough.
- Mixing yellow and green paint to see what happens.
- Painting with different shades of yellow and green.
- Having a yellow lunch one day and a green lunch the next day.
- Making yellow and green jelly.
- Go on a yellow and green toy treasure hunt. How many toys can we find in our house that are yellow or green?
- Making yellow and green paper chains or bunting.
TALK
This year I am going to ‘interview’ my girls on Australia Day. Some of the questions I am going to ask them will be:
- What can you tell me about Australia?
- What places in Australia do you know?
- Do you know any animals that only live in Australia?
- What do you like about living in Australia?
- What do you think it means to be Australian?
I am planning to ask them the same questions every year on Australia Day and see how their responses change over time.
WIN
We would love to hear how you are going to READ, PLAY, CREATE or TALK this Australia Day with your little ones.
Post some of your ideas here for a chance to win a beautiful picture book about Australia.
Glo Digital
Comments (8)
Happy Australia Day! Our day started with the Australian flag being flown outside our house. We then went for a bike ride at the park complete with our Australia Day hats, followed by joining in with our local council's Australia Day celebrations, complete with damper and games (sack race, three legged race) ... the only trouble was the rain brought these celebrations to an early finish so we have come home and started to read our favourite Australia books - Koala Lou (Mem Fox), Wombat Stew (Marcia K Vaughan) and There Was an Old Bloke Who Swallowed a Chook (P Crumble Louis Shea). And if the weather permits we will have a bbq for lunch!
Thanks heaps for some wonderful ideas! For Australia day my girls aged 5 and 2.5 have had homemade ANZAC biscuits with their morning tea and for lunch we might have vegemite sandwhiches! We are reading some of our favourite Australian books, Possum Magic & Wombat Stew, we also borrowed Look see, Look at me from the library the other day so will read it too! If it gets warmer this afternoon I think I will turn the sprinkler on for them to play under! To me thats a lovely memory of Australian summers! Its so nice that water restrictions have eased and my girls can enjoy the fun and simplicity of playing under a sprinkler! Happy Australia Day! xx
Was just looking in the notes for Mirror as provided on your link - and I love the idea of making a book box. On Australia day it would be fun to make a book box of Australian things (could be money, gum leaf, vegemite label, newspaper) as a treasure trove of things Australian and great for us to make a Tonga box that we can take home full of memories too (wish I was off to collect some shells right now).
Having just left Australia to return to Tonga I think we will celebrate with some lamingtons (maybe even a pav) and a few activities with our Aussie and Kiwi friends over here. Ideally a game of cricket if the rain holds up. Most definitely a few songs – including ‘Give me a home among the gum trees’ and ‘Kookaburra sits in the Old Gumtree’ and of course reading. Our favourites this Australia Day will be All Through the Year (and we had great fun with activities there as you will see on the LBBC blog), Once there was a Boy (I agree with Sunflowers that this is a truly beautiful book by a talented Australian which we should all celebrate) and Mirror . I love Mirror as it celebrates differences and similarities between cultures and my project for this year is to create a Mirror type book for the kids so that we can record, celebrate and remember the differences and similarities between our lives here in Tonga and our life in Aus. Happy Australia Day to all – where ever you may be!
I highly recommend you putting 'Once there was a boy" by Dub Leffler (Magbala books) on your list of books to read. Its a universal story of sharing but written by an Australian and its a beautiful book. My daughter loves it.