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

Christmas Books: Oliver Moon's Christmas Cracker

This cute little book is from Usborne, Oliver Moon is a Junior Wizard and Usborne have several other adventures about him.

"Oliver Moon loves Christmas - sledging with his best friend, Jake and eating loads of yummy minced eyes. But this year his family is going to stay with his horrible cousins at Toadstool Towers and Oliver's not looking forward to it at all. Will a magical Christmas cracker save the day?"

And mean his cousins really were! Setting Oliver up to take the blame for things they had done, but Oliver rose above them in the end and had a wonderful Christmas afterall.

This short 92 page, 6 Chapter book would be perfect as a child's early entry into chapter book reading.

Authored by Sue Mongredien, there at least 6 other stories written about Oliver Moon and his wizard family. We read this is in one quick sitting, not that that's how I had it planned, but no one would let me stop reading ;-)

Whilst I read the kids coloured from pages printed at this site.

Don't forget to visit Christmas Fun, for Crafts, Advent Activities, Traditions, Cooking and more.

The King With Horse's Ears

The King With Horse's Ears is a folk tale that is believed to have been linked to the Ancient Greek legend of King Midas.

A slightly longer read when it comes to picture books, the story of King Mark is one to be heard by all!

King Mark keeps a secret, a secret about himself that he is utterly ashamed of. He fears the thoughts of others, if his secret is revealed. 

Don't we all have a secret about ourselves that we keep hidden, far within, untouchable by no one, simply because of our fear of what others may think of us?

 

There is one person, however that knows of King Mark's secret and he too is trapped by it. This secret causes him ill health, as I am sure many a secret has done to others over the course of time.

Eventually the secret is revealed and as generally occurs in real life, the beholder of the secret experiences the lifting of a burden. A burden they have often carried with them for years. He realises that he had nothing to be ashamed of after all.

If only we could guide our children to believe in themselves no matter how 'different' they may appear to be. I know this is something that I strive for with my children, especially after realising later in life (ok I'm not that old, but....) how your opinions of yourself really do shape and mould who you become as an adult. 

Breaking free of negative thoughts  that we have carried with us throughout our lives is truly freeing. But what if we didn't have those negative thoughts to begin with? Do you think that is even possible?

I was pleasantly surprised to see that this book is written and illustrated by Australians, although they are both living overseas. The illustrations are intriguing and the story even more so.

I think this is one that will be kept in the, 'too read regularly pile.'

I am linking this to What My Child Is Reading.

Review: Time 4 Learning - Level 3 - Part One

You might remember that we had received One Month's Free Trial to Time 4 Learning  in return for our honest feedback on the curriculum. Well we have had access for one week now and I thought I'd update you on the progress.

I think I'll start by showing a little of what B covered this week. Bear in mind that all of the Time 4 Learning work is in addition to our regular work. Although I believe that T4L is a stand alone curriculum.

This week in Language Arts the focus was Synonyms and Antonyms. I was very impressed with how thorough this work was. There was plenty of opportunity for review without the feeling of it being too repititous.

Many examples were given of synonyms for the particular word (the same lay out applies for the antonym work).

The definition for each word is supplied. All of this is done via voice over by entertaining animated characters.

Then the word is used in a sentence.

After which the child is required to put what they have learned into action, by choosing the appropriate answer. B really enjoyed this and although we have touched on synonyms and antonyms in his Language Arts program he now has a very thorough understanding of them.

Each lesson also includes reading comprehension tied into the learning objective, which in this instance is synonyms. Initially the child only sees the green comprehension piece across the top of the page. This image is the second screen shot, with the question and possible answers to choose from.

And the big tick of approval.

In the math area most of the lessons focused on Place Value Beyond A Thousand, Recognising and Writing those numbers.

A voice over gave a number (it was not shown on the screen) the child then has to use the 'combination lock' to enter the correct number to open the Safe Deposit. This was a little tricky at first (especially if the number contains zeros) but once you get the hang of place values for larger numbers it was quite an enjoyable task.

Being on the 3rd Level B also has access to other subjects like Science and Social Studies. We did look at the science area one afternoon but found it was just far too much reading so we skipped it for now. I will try to spend some time in those subject areas this week.

My initial thoughts -

Negatives -  Too much clicking for us. You seem to be forever opening windows. I think the site navigation could do with some improvement. The 'time to move on' or 'click the go forward button' needs improving, even I struggled in a couple of places to see clearly where we needed to click to go on.

In many areas there is also too much reading for an online program. What I mean by that is in many places the option to have a voice over read the information to you is simply not there. What happens with the kids that aren't reading at that level? I think a voice over option should always be included, especially in the non Language Arts activities.

I also need to bear in mind that we are not using T4L to its full potential, only as a supplement.

Positives - The majority of this week's work was 'right on the money' for B this week. It was challenging enough without being too difficult, it introduced him to work that he hasn't done in depth and he got alot out of the program this week. The program so far seems engaging, colourful, interactive and thorough. At this level, overall I have been quite impressed.

B's verdict - I really like it. It is better than doing bookwork for school.

Check out Time 4 Learning for yourself.

Vote for us. One click is all you need!

Time 4 Learning

I’ve been invited to try Time4Learning for one month in exchange for a candid review. My opinion will be entirely my own, so be sure to come back and read about my experience. Time4Learning can be used as a homeschool curriculum, for afterschool enrichment and for summer skill sharpening. Find out how to write your own curriculum review for Time4Learning.

Book Review: The Shape game

I took a visit to Borders over the weekend and well we all know that you simpy can't step inside a bookstore like that without buying something.

This story is The Shape Game by Anthony Browne.

It is the story of a little boy that takes a visit to an Art Gallery with his family, for his mother's birthday. The wander the gallery, looking at all of the works of art, his brother is bored and so his is dad until finally they find some pieces that are engaging, funny and bring about memories for the family.

At the end of the visit they stop by the gallery gift shop and purchase two pens and a sketchbook. On the train journey home their mums shows them a game that her dad used to play with her. She draws a shape on the page, nothing in particular just a random shape. The next person then has to change that shape and make it into something. The proceed to play the shape game for their entire journey home.

We enjoyed this story, it was a little slow in the beginning and did have you guessing where they were going. This was a really good exercise though in looking at and thinking about the illustrations.Tthe first reponse from my kids was they were at a museum, so we kept reading just to find out exactly where they were.

The illustrations are well thought out and they use actual gallery paintings to compare, mixed with the story these opened the flood gates to many conversations between us. Of course once we got to the end of the story everyone wanted to play the shape game.

B loved this, it does take a little while to warm up and to be able to see things differently through the shapes but it was a lot of fun and lots of learning (and they weren't even aware of it happening because they were too busy laughing)


K did really well, she struggled at first and whined and said she couldn't do it but once I whispered one idea into her ear for a shape she was off and running.

This is super idea for train rides, waiting rooms, rainy days!

Book Review: Percy The Peacful Platypus

Percy The Peacful Platypus is An Australian Golden Book publication. It was published first in 1972 and the copy I have was a reprint from 1984. So I have no idea if it is still available or has since gone out of print.

I was lucky enough to pick my copy up for $1.00 at a charity book sale (where I get most of my books).

Although this is a Golden Book and generally they are aimed at a young audience this particular story is aimed at the slightly older child. K5 sat through the story, however I feel that B8 gained more from it than she did.

This is the story of an Australian Platypus, an ORNITHORHYNCHUS, they are part of the Montreme group of animals, that are mammals but also lay eggs, have a ducks bill and webbed feet. To read more about the platypus you can download a fact sheet from the Victorian State Government.

The story begins with Percy's mother nesting in her burrow with her eggs, it covers the hatching, the growing and feeding activities of the playtpus.

From there Percy grows large enough to leave home, he needs to dig his own burrow in a new secluded pool of water. However disaster strikes as the weather forecast predicts a cyclone and a flood follows shortly after.

The story follows Percy through that treacherous time and his journey to safety.

We found this an engaging, thoughtful story, that not only discusses some of the intricacies of the playtpus but also how we as humans can help to assist animals during times of flood and other disaters.

B drew this image of the platypus swimming and his burrow during our reading of the story. He definitely got the burrow length fairly accurate.


Sites of Interest

Platypus Fact Sheet
Lesson Plans & Activities
All About The Platypus
Platypus Puppet
Stuffed Playtpus
Aboriginal Dreamtime Story - The Special Platypus
Platypus Images
Other Platypus Books