Free Printable: Christmas Vocabulary Cards

Wow, can't believe I created these 3 years ago now. Thought I'd repost for any newer readers that may not have seen some of my Christmas activities.

My first set of Montessori Printables for you!

I am actually very excited about these, yeah I know it doesn't take much to excite me. I really enjoyed putting them together and I did get a little buzz when they were placed on the shelf for the kids to use.

They really didn't look out of place right alongside the professionally made items.....pretty chuffed I was hehehe

Anyway enough of that.

As promised in my first Christmas Fun Post, this is a set of 16 Montessori 3 Part Cards for Christmas.

The file includes 16 cards with labels, 16 picture cards and 16 labels.


They depict the following images:

Bell
Wreath
Candle
Gift
Pudding
Santa
Decoration
Stocking
Tree
Lights
Star
Bon Bon
Nativity
Mince Pies
Reindeer
Candy Cane

Even if you do not use Montessori these cards are suitable for anyone to implement into their Christmas Activities. You can also easily leave out an cards that may be unsuitable for your family. We found that 16 was alot of cards to work with in one sitting so have split ours into 2 separate groups.

I'll be posting some photo's of my kids using them in my next Christmas Fun Post early next week.

I hope you enjoy using these cards as much as I enjoyed making them. If you do print them off and use them I'd love to hear from you or see them in a blog post somewhere. Please leave a comment letting me know and feel free to include a link to your blog post.

Download the 3 Part Christmas Cards here.

Wellington’s Mega Fauna

We decided to follow the road less travelled for our journey between Parkes and Dubbo and take the more eastern road stopping off at Wellington.



Whilst not as well known as the more famous area of Jenolan, Wellington is also home to caves.
It was also a bustling hive of activity, filled with Mega Fauna some 20 000 – 30 000 years ago, which means that today it is a fabulous place to find bones and fossils.

The Diprotodon (meaning two forward teeth), was one such creature that roamed the area. In fact it is often referred to as the ‘giant wombat’ and is the largest known marsupial to have ever lived.



Inside the small visitors centre, they have dedicated the space to the archaeological finds from the area.

Fairy Princess is blown away by the size of the skull from the ‘giant wombat’.
There are many other fossil finds showcased within the visitor centre.



Megalania, referred to as the ‘giant lizard’ was in fact a very large goanna or monitor lizard.
Just before the caves entrance is this large, striking, life like creature that unexpectedly greets you as you walk up the hill.



An artists rendition of what the area may have looked liked during the Pleistocene Period (16 000 – 50 000 years ago).

Fossils of Mega Fauna such as, giant wombats, giant kangaroos, giant tassie devils, giant lizards, giant marsupial lions and giant bandicoots, have all been found in caves in the Wellington area.

Quite sad really to think that these animals once walked with humans, but are now extinct. The debate is still on surrounding their extinction, but many do feel that humans were the ultimate cause of extinction, probably from hunting and over burning of the landscape.

The Dish

CSIRO's Parkes radio telescope is a 64 metre diameter parabolic dish used for radio astronomy.

Australia’s famous Dish, that played a role during ‘Man’s Walk On The Moon’ expedition is very well known to us down under and even has a movie made about it.

In all honesty though, I felt that we could possibly be driving hundreds of miles to see this thing and simply wind up very disappointed.



The drive from Jenolan to Parkes was quite spectacular though, with bright yellow canola farms as far as the eye can see, certainly makes for some pretty colourful scenery.



Can you see where we are headed? This thing really appears to be in the middle of no where.



There it is! Yay! And there is a Visitors Discovery Centre attached, even better.



Out front are two largish white dishes facing each other a couple of hundred metres apart.



Whispering Dishes, so much fun. Simply turn and face the dish, speak into it quietly and your friend standing at the other dish can hear you perfectly. The kids could’ve played here for hours. This experience alone was nearly worth the drive to Parkes, it blew their minds!



Inside the visitor’s centre we are instantly met with large scale informational boards and their souvenir store, which sells all manner of ‘sciencey’ things.



Detailed information about the role The Dish played in the Apollo 11 Mission gives Lego Lover a better understanding.



Little Surfer Dude loved this interactive dish model, that he could turn as much as he wished.



The visitor’s centre is chocked full of information, all of which is very well presented. Scattered throughout the room are also a few smaller interactive activities to keep younger children entertained.



Entry to the visitors centre is free. They do offer a 30 minute 3D documentary which we found interesting.($20 family) It showed  Mars exploration and gave us a much closer look at the ‘little things’ in outer space – comets and asteroids.

The documentary did not hold the interest of our younger two, though Lego Lover (10) thoroughly enjoyed it.



Outside we spent a considerable amount of time just watching the dish being maneuvered in all myriad of directions.

One of the guides informed us that this treat simply doesn’t happy every day.




So we were pretty lucky to be able to take photographs of the dish from many different angles.



The Dish Cafe, situated just outside from the visitors centre prepared us a lovely lunch too.