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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Looking for more captain Cook related activities?
Have a look at my Australian History Themed Board on Pinterest.

Follow Kylie @ Our Worldwide Classroom's board AUSTRALIA {History} on Pinterest.

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

Come on over and join me at

Facebook ~ Pinterest ~ Instagram ~ Google + 

Looking for more Aboriginal related activities?
Have a look at my Aboriginal Themed Board on Pinterest.

Follow Kylie @ Our Worldwide Classroom's board ABORIGINAL {Australian} Unit on Pinterest.  

This post is linked up to:

 

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:

Free Printable Anzac Unit For Young Learners

This has moved.

You can find the unit and details here -----> CLICK HERE

Easter Mulitplication Printable

I found a super cute Easter Egg addition printable which is perfect for independent work over at Mrs Lirette's Learning blog.

So I set about putting something similar together for multiplication.

This bilby is so adorable I need to find as many ways to use him as possible between now and Easter, don't you think ;-) !!

Simply print, grab a couple of die, roll and multiply them. Then write the number sentence in the space provided. I think we will laminate ours and use it with a dry erase that way it can be used several times before Easter.

Download by clicking here.

Easter Bilby Printable Bambino Pack

It's time for some Easter fun and there's no better way to do that here in Australia than with our adorable little Bilby!

Unfortunately the poor old Easter Bunny doesn't get a good wrap here in Australia. To put it simply they are an introduced pest that causes widespread havoc on our native lands and farming crops.

For several years there has been a push for our native Bilby to take the Easter Bunny's place here in Australia.

We will spend the next couple of weeks prior to Easter learning a little more about our Bilby friends.

For the little one among us I have put together a few simple Bambino Academy activities for him.

Inside the Easter Bilby pack you will find:

Easter Bilby puzzles.

Easter Egg Basket Playdough Mat

Handwriting Practice

Patterning Strips

Pre-writing Tracing

Colours with Easter Eggs

Scissor Work with cutting strips

Dot Marker—B is for Bilby

Handwriting Practice—B is for Bilby

Colouring Pages

Simply click here to download the pack.

My cute graphics are from Melonheadz :-)

Australian States Printable

These have been available on my Printables page for some time, however I received a message letting me know that I had accidentally uploaded the publisher file instead of a the PDF, making it more difficult for some people to grab these.

I have since rectified that, please visit this link to download a copy of these 3 part cards.

If you have never used 3 part cards before and are wondering what on earth you do with them, the following may assist:

How To Present 3 Part Cards Video

5 Ways To Use 3 Part Cards

Classic Australian Songs with Printable

In the lead up to Australia Day we are working through our Printable Australia Day unit and learning the words to some classic Australian songs.

The kids basically know these, just from growing up and hearing them over the years, but we are practicing daily at getting those lyrics down.









Some of these classic songs have recently been published into children's picture books, with CD's on the inside cover. I thought this was a great way to keep these songs alive with the younger generation.

Waltzing Matilda, often regarded as Australia's unofficial National Anthem, tells the story of the struggles endured by shearers in the outback in the 1800's.

Advance Australia Fair, Australia's official National Anthem, was first sung in Sydney in 1878. This picture book version contains paintings from some of Australia's finest artists.








I thought this was a great way to capture the essence of the anthem, through the images of Australian artists.









A Home Among The Gum Trees, is an iconic Australian song. I doubt there would be an Australian adult, that grew up in Australia, that doesn't know this song.

It was remiss of me to not include it in the Australia Day Printable unit, so I have included a download here.

Download the file by clicking here.

Free Printable Australia Day Learning Packet

With Australia Day just around the corner I thought it was about time we did a little learning about places much closer to home.

January 26th commemorates the landing of the First Fleet into Sydney Cove in 1788.

This printable overview packet will be used by all of my children in varying ways, they are aged 10, 7 and 3.

The download includes some research questions which will assist in completing these notebook pages.

Printable songs to learn and have on hand during Australia Day festivities.

Colouring pages of the Australian Flag, Coat of Arms and Golden Wattle.

3 part Montessori style cards. I have also included a snippet of information for each card, so that in effect they are 4 part cards. These can used for vocabulary work and making small booklets with the information.

Copywork in both print and cursive.

Aussie Slang cards, use as a matching activity or for a game of snap.

Clip the beginning sounds, for early phonics practice.

Tracing pages for early handwriting practice.

Do a Dot Marker pages or laminate and use on a cookie tray with magnets, coloured smarties, pom poms or something similar.

 

The Australian Flag size sequencing activity.

A couple of picture books that your children may enjoy that would work well with an Australia Day Theme are:

Join Grace and her family as they hit the road camping, experiencing, and meeting all the people and places that make up Australia. (from Amazon)

Grandma Poss uses her best bush magic to make Hush invisible. But when Hush longs to be able to see herself again, the two possums must make their way across Australia to find the magic food that will make Hush visible once more. “Another treat from Mem Fox that is sure to be treasured. The whimsical illustrations are a wonderful complement.” (from Amazon)

Download the Australia Day Printables by clicking here.

Free Printable: Australian Flags 3 Part Cards

This printable includes 3 part cards for the Australian State and National Flags.

It can also be used in conjunction with the Australian States 3 part cards.


I hope you enjoy using them and learning more about Australia.

Download them by clicking here.