Captain Cook - A Brief History Of Australia

Did you see my introductory post on our Brief History Of Australia Unit? If not you might want to go visit that one first.

We've moved forward a considerable amount of time and are now looking at Captain Cook.

Please note, this is not an exhaustive covering of Australian History, there will be many things left out. This is deliberate for a few reasons.

Firstly I have prepared this to work with our micro school and needed to fit in with our term blocks. Secondly, I wanted to use picture books and therefore most of what I chose has been based on the books I was able to access. Finally, this is purely just an introduction into the history of our nation, these kids have plenty of years ahead of them where they will spend time delving deeper.

Of course you could use these ideas simply as a jumping off point, there is no need to have to finish each topic with a single one hour lesson block.

Captain Cook is such an easy topic when it comes to book choices, there really a good number of picture books out there, for varying age levels. The one I chose is a longer more in depth look at the man himself.

Whilst I read the kids water coloured their timeline page of Captain Cook. You can download this for free via the link at the bottom of this post.

After watching a brief you tube clip we headed off to complete the corresponding art activity I had planned - mapping Cook's expedition to Australia.

I had outlined a map each for them onto brown paper, simply because I knew our time was limited. We wanted the maps to have an aged feel and everyone certainly enjoyed scrunching the maps up to give them that.

They set about adding water colours to their maps. During the drying time we briefly looked at the Compass Rose, discussed compass points and made our own simple one to place onto our map.

Once they were dry we added, first in pencil, the route Captain Cook took on his voyage to Australia. These turned out fabulously well. The kids were all very proud of their maps.

Once again, after all of our discussions were complete each child coloured and added some notes inside their mini Captain Cook booklet, in preparation to add to their lapbook.

Would you like a copy of the A4 Timeline Colouring Page for Captain Cook? Please use this link to download one for your personal use.

Other posts in the Brief History Of Australia Series

• The First Australians

Happy Homeschooling
Kylie

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The First Australians - A Brief History Of Australia

If you've been a reader for a while now you already know that we participate in a small home based micro school or co-op with three other families.

I have been writing down some details to share with you all about how these days work and how simple it is for you to have a go at getting one off the ground. I hope to have that post to share with you soon.

One of the subjects we decided to focus on this year was that of Australian History. We have our kids break into two groups, a lower high school aged group and a primary aged group. I chose to work with the primary kids for this topic.

I really wanted this introduction to Australian History to be as fun and as interactive as possible, so rather than trudge through various texts or long narratives I chose to put together A Brief History Of Australia, using picture books, crafts, You Tube videos and lapbooking activities.

The first topic we covered was the always fun and interesting First Australians. I only have one hour to cover everything that I want to, so it is quite a fast paced block of time, but that generally keeps all interested as we are always changing gears.

I had booked earlier in the year a group visit to the always fabulous Ngutana Lui, preparing for the fact that we would be covering this topic. I had no idea that when I made the booking it would coincide with the exact same week we did this mini study. Don't you just love when things work out like that!

For each brief history lesson I wanted to try and follow a similar predictable pattern, each topic will be based around a picture book. Some of them were tricky to find and if there were any issues all of the topics are covered in The Australia Book, so really you could get by without any of the picture books at all.

There are so many children's books available about our First Australians that I thought it would be a really simple exercise to choose which book would be our focus.

It was not!

I really wanted the story to show the traditional way of life and not just focus on dreamtime stories or a particular topic. In the end I decided on You and Me, Murrawee. It is a lovely story and does cover some way of life elements.

Whilst I read the children water coloured an A4 timeline colouring page. They will continue to add to these with each lesson to create a quick glimpse full colour (brief) timeline of Australian History.

I'm sharing this download with you, via a link at the end of this post.

We spent time chatting about how early Australians lived in comparison to our current day way of life.

From there it was time to get our hands dirty with some dot painting. I encouraged everyone to first watch an artist at work to view their technique and the things they included in their pieces.

Whilst we painted we listened to and watched a few animated Dreamtime stories.

My kids are not first timers to the dot painting technique. Not only did they complete some lovely art during their visit to Ngutana Lui but they've also explored dot painting during art lessons, like this one here and this particular post, which is still one of my most visited blog posts.

During the last few minutes of our lesson we recapped all that we had learned by completing the first mini book in the series. I gave the kids total autonomy as to what they added in terms of written details inside their booklet. I wanted them to record things that were important to them.

We will continue adding to the mini books with each history lesson and will compile them into a lapbook at the end of our unit.

To download the First Australians Colouring Timeline Page please visit this link.

Be sure to keep an eye out for future posts in this Brief History Of Australia series.

Happy Homeschooling,
Kylie

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Ngutana Lui - Aborignal Culture Centre

This post has been sitting in my drafts for some time now, so I figured I should get around to actually sharing it with you all.

Earlier in the year we took a large group of home schooled children to spend a day immersed in Aboriginal Culture at the educational centre - Ngutana Lui.

During that same week we were studying the Aboriginal Culture with our micro school group at home, so it was perfect timing!

Everyone got to try their hand at boomerang throwing, some of them were really very good at it too.

They had fun with ochre face paint, traditional story telling, song and dance. This was such fun and was so nice to see each and every one of them having a great time!

Of course no day spent learning about Aboriginal Culture is complete without a spot of dot painting.

Throughout the day the kids were broken into 4 groups of approximately 20 children in each. They rotated through the various workshops. A couple I didn't get the opportunity to photograph, were a bush tucker walk, where they learn and understand all about the various native foods and a hands on interactive lesson on clothing, fibres and animals.

At the end of the day everyone came together to hear the majestical sounds of the didgeridoo.

If you live in south east Queensland, I highly recommend arranging a group visit to Ngutana Lui. This was our second visit and it won't be our last. Considering it only costs a few dollars per child, it is one of the most well organised and well run educational days that we have ever attended.

Visit the Ngutana Lui website here.

Happy Homeschooling,
Kylie

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Looking for more Aboriginal related activities?
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Follow Kylie @ Our Worldwide Classroom's board ABORIGINAL {Australian} Unit on Pinterest.

ANZAC Day 2015 Picture Diary

We spent some time each day this week on the importance of ANZAC Day and remembering the sacrifices made by others.

I've put together what we covered this week in pictures.

Our picture book collection grows each and every year. We were particularly moved by The Red Poppy this year.

We completed our WW1 Coin collection that was put out and distributed through our local newsagent.


This 45 minute mini documentary retraces some of the steps from the landing in ANZAC Cove and the battles that followed in the hills. Very informative, we all learned a great deal from this one.

My eldest has been reading My Fathers War.


We watched several you tube clips.

During read alouds we painted our own version of a field of poppy's.

The kids purchased a badge each to wear during the march.


This is a Scottish clip, but still explains the story of the Poppy quite well.

Made ANZAC Biscuits.

We received a great pack put out by Veteran Affairs and spent some time looking through some of what it included.

The ABC interactive Gallipoli website is a wealth of information and we watched several of the clips on this site.




This song, The Little Red Poppy, was actually on a disc in the back of the book, The Red Poppy. It is very beautiful and extremely moving.

We visited our national War Memorial a couple of years ago and we spent some time looking back over the photographs and talking in detail about the various exhibits on display there.

Utilised our Skwirk subscription to extend the learning further.

Attended our local ANZAC March to cheer on the diggers and other participants, including my son, who marched with his Cadets Troop.


Shed many a tear as we imagined what an absolutely horrible experience it must of been.

 I do feel it is important we continue to remember, without glorifying war. Our younger generations need to know these stories, the complete stories, and so we will continue delving deeper into the ANZAC legend with each coming year.

Lest We Forget

More ANZAC themed posts:

• The Big List of ANZAC Day Ideas

• ANZAC Picture Books

• Printable ANZAC Unit for Young Learners

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


Happy Homeschooling,
Kylie

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.

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