My Australia Notebook

I've started pulling together an Australian Notebook for the kids to create in, add to and build on whenever we do something relating to this country of ours!

So basically along the same lines as their Animal Notebooks, these will be added to on a continual basis, and will grow into a notebook full of memories all about Australia.

For now I simply have the cover sheet and divider pages for our states. Various notebooking pages to go inside will hopefully happen some time soon. But I also know that we can begin on this today and so can you, just download, print and enjoy!

>>>> Download My Australia Notebook page dividers here.

>>>> Check my Australian Themed board over at Pinterest

This post is linked to:

Our Animal Kingdom Notebooks With Printable Materials

You may recall me mentioning that we've been working on an Animal Kingdom Notebook over the past few weeks. This is not being completed as one big giant unit. The plan is that we will add to it slowly, little by little, as we come across an animal that fascinates us or as it relates to other units of work we are doing.

For example when my youngest worked on activities for the picture book Caps For Sale, the older two chose a monkey each to research. We recently spent some time with Owls, so they have featured in the Animal Kingdom Notebook also.

Currently we are looking at Ocean Life and everyone is trying to decide which sea animals are 'notebook worthy'. After all there is such an abundance of sea life we can't possibly notebook all of them.

However, with our notebooks set up the way they are, in simple 2 ring binders, we can continue to add to these for years to come. Each child building their very own researched Animal Kingdom Reference binder. This gives each of them the freedom to add any animal they wish whenever they wish, along with anything we all do together.

I am really looking forward to watching this project grow and develop with the children.

I've kept it simple, the cover page above slides into the front clear cover of the 2 ring binder. Inside it is broken into two main categories, that of Vertebrates and Invertebrates.

These are the divider sheets for the Vertebrate section of the binder,

along with divider pages for the Invertebrate section.

Currently I have prepared two 'Animal Notebooking Pages', one with less detail for a younger child and the other covers classification and allows more space for research.

At some point I will probably need to add to these again as the children enter their high school years. I have been tossing around a simple way to do this with our preschooler also. If I do come up with something I'm happy with I'll be sure to share with you though.

If you'd like to begin an Animal Notebook Binder with your children you can download the full colour binder pages by clicking here.

You can also download the blank Animal Notebooking page by clicking here. The notebooking page for younger children can be found at this link.

If your children keep or begin an Animal Notebook I'd love to see it!

Linking this to:

St Patrick's Day: Learning Fun Part 3, Wrap Up

We had a our small St Patrick's Day Morning Tea this morning. It was green, green and more green.


Green vegies and dips, green drinks, green cakes, green chips, green lollies, green jelly and even green cream for our scones!


The kids smothered biscuits with green icing and green sprinkles.....just for a bit of extra sugar!!



A lovely morning with family, swiming, catching up and having fun.

We also put together the lapbook and notebook that the kids have been working on.

B's St Patrick's Day Notebook

He chose his water colour map of Ireland for the front page.

Inside the Irish Flag and his mini booklets about St Patrick's Day and Saint Patrick himself.

The Leprechaun's Walk and Finding Ireland on a World Map.

Symbols of Ireland Mini Books, B wrote a small piece about each symbol.

A detailed hand drawn map of Ireland and the surrounding area, plus a spot of colouring in.

And yes, another Irish Map, do you kind of get the feeling he likes map work?!

We have left a couple of blank pages to include some photo's of the morning tea.

At this stage the plan is combine all of B's work into one large spiral bound notebook at the end of the year. We may change our mind, it will depend on how much there is, but we won't include all of the mundane maths and language worksheets, maybe just a few tests he completes as part of his math and language programs.

K's St Patrick's Day Lapbook

She chose a colouring page for her cover image.

Inside on the left hand flap is the Paddy's ABC's booklet, we've been going over these daily to help with initial sounds. Plus her Leprechaun's Walk, she really enjoyed this activity. The yellow piece on the right is a flap that lifts up, she has glued her Irish Flag to this side.

Underneath the yellow flap (right side of the file folder) is her symbols booklets. We discussed each symbol and K wrote the name of each symbol inside the little booklet.

On the under side of the yellow flap she glude her rainbow and shamrock suncatchers.

On the back cover is her 'Where Is Ireland?" Map.

We just need to find a spot to include a couple of the morning tea photo's from today.

We had fun with this and learned quite a bit along the way, both me and the kids.