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

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O is for Owl

We recently spent time learning and having loads of fun with Owls. The kids really got into this topic, considering that seeing an owl in the wild for us here is pretty rare, they were really very engaged.

We read the delightful story of Owl Moon on several occasions. Heading out into the moonlight on a snowy winters night is not something that my kids will get to experience any time soon, so this was quite a magical way for us to experience this through the story.

We completed some of the lapbooking activities found over at Homeschool Share. I hope to post on that one soon.

I found these super cute Paper Plate Owls online and knew we had to make some. They look great hanging from the ceiling and would have to be one of the simplest crafts we've done.

Owl Babies by Martin Wardell, this is a truly delightful story and whilst aimed at the younger crowd I'm fortunate enough to have an 11 year old that can still see the beauty in such a story.

This fabulous little guy is thanks to my delightful friend that played with us as we learned about owls. Once again a simple craft, found via google, but very effective. Although the help of a glue gun for this one is quite useful!

They each researched an owl of choice using the internet. Generally after a little looking around we tend to always come back to our favourite sites for animal research, Wikipedia and Animals A-Z.

I have been very pleasantly surprised as to the level of enthusiasm the kids have with these research documents. It's wonderful too watch.

We read Owls by Gail Gibbons. Yet another informative and interesting book by Gail. A couple of the pages focus mainly on American Owls, which is expected, but thought I should mention for any Australian readers. This book is full of facts and information presented with great illustrations.

Each of the kids water coloured an owl page and gave a brief narration on some of what they learned about owls. We still have some work to do on narrations, but they are improving and making progress in this area.

I purchased an Owl Puke kit for each of them to dissect. This was a little bit gross, but a whole lot of fun too! I would have to put it up there as something every child should do. The oohs and ahhs were running hot during the dissecting.

Whilst we have completed the dissection and found what creatures were devoured by our owls, I would love to reconstruct the skeletons. It's a big job as the pieces are so tiny and fine. Will see how we go.

Finally we rounded it all out with some art, as we always try to do with our units.

Fairy Princess 8 was very proud of this piece and so am I. Not necessarily for the finished product, but for her stamina and perseverance. She spent a great deal of time working on this, made a huge effort when it came to filling the entire page and finished with a smile. Often her art attempts end up in tears as what she has in her head isn't replicated on her paper. We've been spending a great deal of time talking about this and I think those discussions are starting to pay off.

Owls are such interesting creatures, we all learned so much from our time spent exploring them.

>>> Check out my Owl Themed Pinterest board for lots of ideas and links.

>>> Download the Animal Notebooking pages by clicking here.


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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!

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