The Big List Of ANZAC Day Ideas

ANZAC Day is around the corner. I have been searching the web to gather as many resources as I can for us to help our kids understand what ANZAC Day is all about. I hope the resources listed below help you as much as they have me.

ANZAC KIDS - has a gamut of games and interactive activities all for children.

ANZAC Day.org is an introduction to ANZAC Day for early childhood.

Why Are They Marching Daddy? Is a book we use over and over again here in our home.

ANZAC Websites has a huge amount of ideas and activities over in the classroom area of their website.

Suzie's Home Education Ideas shares ten ways to help children understand ANZAC Day

 The Australians At War website offers a 30 page printable document for primary aged children. This includes a teachers guide, outcomes and worksheets. They also provide documents for secondary students, war games and more.

The Book Chook has shared a collection of ANZAC Day books

K-3 Teacher Resources has a set of ANZAC themed printable words and offers ideas on various ways to use them.

For Teachers For Students has a great deal of information pertaining to the centenary, including printable pdf files.

RIC Publications has a free download available over at Teachers Pay Teachers, the pack contains a craft, writing prompts and other related activities.

 The Learning Curve has this very cool Slouch Hat craft with template available over on her blog.

Art Room With A View shares their Fields of Poppies art piece.

 I shared a glimpse inside a handful of ANZAC picture books here.

You can download my Free Printable ANZAC Day unit for young learners here.

ANZAC LIVE - have you heard of this site? It is brand new this year and sounds like a great idea. Follow the real people as they journey through the ANZAC experience. You have to check this one out.

I think I could continue sharing links and websites for some time. Once you start looking there is a wealth of information out there. I do hope some of what I have gathered though is useful to you over the weeks leading up to ANZAC Day. I have also included my pinterest board below where I have many more ANZAC activities.

Happy Homeschooling,
Kylie

Follow Kylie @ Our Worldwide Classroom's board ANZAC (Australian) Day on Pinterest.

Keys, Leaves, Sandy Toes & Movies ~ Collage Friday

I rarely find the time to document a week in review type post. I love the idea of it and have tried on many occasions to keep it up weekly, it never lasts longs. I just don't have the time or the dedication to write up posts like that.

So I'm letting go of all of that and will share review type posts when the mood strikes, when I have taken enough photo's in the week and when I have the time and inclination to put something together. It just so happens that that time is now.

So here's a little collage of our week, well some of our week anyway. I'm generally too busy during our structured school mornings to take photo's.

I've numbered each photo to make it a bit easier for you to follow along.

1. We try to draw a lot here, most mornings there is some kind of drawing happening. My daughter is heavily invested in drawing animals of all sorts right now. Love to see her budding passions.

2. Who would have thought a pile of sand would evoke so much fun and so much chaos. This pile is right at our front door and whilst the kids have been having a blast with it, there is constantly sand all through my house. Let's just say that that little pile has been the bane of my existence this week.

3. We all had new to us piano lessons for the first time this week. We have a lovely new teacher, that is also a homeschooling mum taking us through our lessons that are all about loving to play, no drill and kill piano lessons here. It was also my first ever piano lesson. I tell you I was petrified and to be honest I still am but I think I have nailed our first song, after plenty of practice and am now ready for next week.

4. Yay a kids movie that I actually enjoyed. We went with a bunch of our homeschool friends to see Home this week.

5. Couldn't resist this cute little pic from the movie.

6. We finally completed our Room To scale drawings, we've been working on these with our art teacher for a few weeks. There is so much work in this than it first appears.

7. The kids tried their hand at some leaf resist art with homeschoolers at our local community gardens. We will be doing more of this at home soon, it was lots of fun and looks very cool.

8/9. It was bring your camera day to the gardens, the kids were snap happy, taking shots of all the weird and wonderful plants.

10. More garden craft.

11. We made a start on our Leonardo da Vinci unit. My eldest is about to tackle him as part of his history program so I thought it was the perfect opportunity for us to all learn a little more about this amazing man.

12. mmmm just realised this is a double up, not sure what happened there

What's not included in the collage, of course there is the regular but not so exciting to take photo's of, math, english, phonics, read alouds. We also had a weekly co-op day, drama classes and SES Cadets, plus there is always plenty of swimming and minecraft fun.

So that's our week in a nutshell. Hope this week has been kind to you!

Happy Homeschooling
Kylie

This post is linked to Collage Friday

An Easter Roundup Of Ideas

Seriously I couldn't believe my eyes when I sat down and looked closely at the calendar. Easter is just about upon us! True, it is! I knew it was getting close but I had no idea it was this close.

I was browsing some of the things we've gotten up to in the past and thought I would do a bit of a roundup post for all of our Easter fun! I've included links to everything so you can easily find the printables and/or instructions.

I can still remember how much he enjoyed using these adorable little Easter Counting Cards.

 We still have this Tin Foil Easter Egg Garland, it was so simple to make and the bright paint really looks great.

 I still smile every time I see this gorgeous little Bilby graphic. Do you think anyone would notice the fact they are practicing multiplication over his cuteness ;-)

These adorable little Marshmallow Easter Bunnies were eaten nearly as quickly as they were assembled.

We no longer have a Bambino among us but I shared a few of our Easter themed trays that he used over and over again. You really don't need to go over the top with these things, simple is most generally best and easiest on you.

I don't know any one that can resist a play in a sensory tub!

Here's another lot of Easter themed trays for the little bambino's.

I have a small range of Bilby Easter themed printables, more suited to the younger age groups.

 Have a look at the fun we got up to with the story, The Bilbies First Easter.

You can also make a little Bilby Pencil Topper, with instructions on how to put him together.

Visit my Pinterest Easter Themed Board where I've pinned  many more fun ideas.


Follow Kylie @ Our Worldwide Classroom's board Easter Theme on Pinterest.

I hope you have a lovely Easter and lots of crafty fun in the lead up.

Happy Homeschooling,
Kylie 

ANZAC Picture Books

ANZAC day is fast approaching so I thought I would share a small selection of picture books with you.

ANZAC Biscuits, by Phil Cummings & Owen Swan

This is the touching story of a little girl named Rachel. Whom along with her mother, bakes biscuits to send to her father whilst he is away at war.

Page by page the stark contrast is bitterly obvious between what the solider is experiencing in comparison to the warm quiet evening Rachel spends indoors.

The reader absolutely experiences the hardship and sacrifice made by the men, women and their families. However the harsher, more gruesome realities of war are left out here. Making this a perfect picture book for younger children.

The ANZAC Puppy, by Peter Millett & Trish Bowles

When a young soldier name Sam finds a puppy being given away he decides to take her to war with him.

This is the fictional story of Sam and Freda's time spent at war, the good, the bad and the ugly. Sam believed that Freda was his good luck charm and that she was most definitely protecting him, ensuring that he made it home safely.

Whilst a slightly longer book it is still most definitely suitable for a younger audience.

Jack's Bugle, by Krista Bell & Belinda Elliott

The story of 19 year old Aidan Jackson, an excellent bugle player, that went to war. It begins with Jack saying farewell to his loved ones, then shows a basic overview of their time spent training in Egypt.

From there the story solemnly moves to ANZAC Cove, Gallipoli.

Aidan, never returns home from the war but his bugle does and it ends up in the hands of a very unlikely character.

I would recommend this story for a slightly older age group than the earlier two books. It is somewhat longer and talks of the death and despair of Gallipoli.

The Beach They Called Gallipoli, by Jackie French & Bruce Whatley

This is the story of Gallipoli, as seen from the cove, the story of the beach.

French and Whatley worked superbly together to create the gruseome images of the months of bloodshed at Gallipoli.

Written in a journal format, with real photgraphs interspersed between haunting illustrations, this is definitely one for the slightly older child.

I reviewed, Why Are They Marching Daddy, couple of years back. You can see my thoughts and a few of the inside pages by clicking here.

Lest We Forget,
Kylie

My Other Posts About The ANZAC's

Free Printable Unit For Younger Learners

Knight Lapbook & Go Along Books

Towards the end of last year, when we came to the realisation that the very popular program we had been using was no longer meeting our needs, we went looking for something else.

That elusive something else! We were already deep within the Medieval time period and had covered Vikings earlier in the year and I didn't really want to go it alone.

I did however know that I wanted to move forward with all things Medieval. Things like Knights, Chivalry, Jousting and all the fun that that contains.

So I was quite elated when I stumbled onto the Knight Lap-Pak over at Homeschool In The Woods. Yes the targeted age is K - 2 but all three of my kids did this at varying levels.

The images are a little cutesy and young looking, but they were all ok with that. There really is very little writing so I just ramped it up for mine by adding in some written reporting requirements.

This Lap-Pak is available on CD or via a download. Given that HITW is an American company I chose the download option.

We decided to put our mini books together on sheets of A4 coloured card, that way they can be hole punched and placed directly into a ring binder, or protected with plastic sleeves first. We enjoy lapbooks but I always struggle with storing them.

The Knight Lap-Pak includes an MP3 Audio story to listen to as you work through the many mini books and activities that it includes. It covers pretty much all there is to know about Knights for younger kids, weaponry, chivalry, ceremonies etc Here after reading about their shields and what the symbols on them represent they each had to design their own shield.

There are several colouring pages throughout the pack and the entire MP3 Audio story can also be printed to use as a read aloud and/or to include in your lap pak if you wish.

My kids especially liked the interactive mini books, here on The Tournament one, where my son spent a massive amount of time getting the colours just right, you can move the jousting knight along the page and the castle draw bridge on the book below it really does go up and down.

After completing the Knight Lap Pak and reading our pile of books about Knights my eldest wrote a brief report covering all of the main points on Knights.

There are so many great medieval knight books out there, but I thought I would share just a few. To see inside and more details on these please see my post, Books About Knights. (coming soon)

Do you have any other great books or activities you have done when learning about knights?  I'd love to hear about them if you do.

Happy Homeschooling,
Kylie

P.S I was NOT compensated in any way for this post. Simply sharing a product I purchased that we enjoyed using.