Sunday, January 25, 2009

Have a Ball Learning About Australia

Finally, I've added photos..


We used this tray to which I taped slips of paper with things
we may like to know about Australia. People,food,sports,
maps,weather etc. Princess rolled the ball down the tray and
we did whatever it landed on. She liked it and we got everything covered.


BALL
That is the theme for this week's Unplug Your Kids Group Project.
Today is Australia Day, and we plan on having a ball
learning a bit about Australia and visiting here

and here
and making a lap book with some of what we learn.

This is Princess's "globe" light. We still need to procure a proper globe for her.


I had originally thought that I would have Princess
roll a ball onto areas we could learn about Australia (see Bex's list "down under"..lol),
but Princess thought that sounded a "little lame" (like my joke?), so that
may not happen after all.
Be sure to pop over and see all the participants at Mom Unplugged's blog
and link with her if you join in.

In the words of Bex, we should look into some of this:

* Australian animals- they're all pretty nutty!



* Our money- it's pretty unique too


* Events happening on Jan 26th

* Seasons in the southern hemisphere

* The fact that it only really snows in one place in OZ.

* The stars! (In the sky that is!)http://www.assa.org.au/observing/nightwatch/
* Cricket

* Ularu

* The Gahn

* Aboriginal Culture & History (we did some Aboriginal "dot" art)

* Saying sorry (Nice little lesson this one)

We used our telling time supplies to learn about the time difference.
Princess was up at 7 am to "celebrate Australia"..she was excited. ;-)
To all our friends "Down Under"..Happy Australia Day!!

We'll be back with some Chinese New Year stuff tomorrow.
I'll do my book post too! ;-) G'Day Mates!!

12 comments:

Jennifer said...

When you see the Southern Cross for the first time,
You understand now why you came this way,
'Cause the truth you might be runnin' from is so small,
But it's as big as the promise, the promise of a coming day...

I realize the song refers to French Polynesia, but I saw the Southern Cross for the first time in Australia -- the constellation is so small you could miss it unless someone pointed it out to you, yet it's been an essential navigational tool.

(My mind's on a walkabout this morning, therefore the little tangent above.)

Kate?

IT'S MINUS FOUR DEGREES OUTSIDE TODAY. I'M STAYING IN!!!

Cheers, anyway!

Tara said...

Looks like fun! Owen would be interested in all the creepy crawly- poisonous critters to be found in Australia for sure ;)

Mrs. Darling said...

What an adventuresome study! Have fun!

Anonymous said...

I always thought it would be fun to have different colored money. A yellow 10 dollar bill, red twenties, purple fives, blue ones, etc. etc.

Think of all the cool color games you could play :)

Thanks for sharing as usual.

sarah said...

I'm not sure why anyone would WANT to learn about Australia (another lesson for you: interTasman rivalry) but if you like I'd be happy to write her a letter about my experiences living on and travelling through the east coast. For example, I could tell her about the first time I saw the Southern Cross (yes, in Australia, despite having lived in NZ all my life) through a ragged canopy of eucalyptus leaves while camping on the dusty red ground, horses tethered at the edge of the camp, billy boiling gently over the fire ... Just email me if you want.

I forgot you guys only have one-coloured money. How sad for you. How do you tell it all apart?

Cher Mere said...

Happy Australia Day. :) We were doing Chinese New Year over here.

Garden State Kate said...

Thank you all!
Sarah..LOL. I will be in touch,
she would LOVE it!
Cher- We're doing that tomorrow..
the Chinese food is already ordered,
but they are closed for the holiday today. P didn't notice..because we were doing Australia.

Butterfly 8)(8 Bungalow said...

That sounds like a really clever way of getting her involved. Very creative-

So Smrt said...

I love the ball/random generator thing! I think that's because I like those chance games at the boardwalk where you throw the ball into a box and whatever number it lands on wins!

Lynn Hasty said...

Wow, Kate, I love all that you are doing with Australia! And you've got some great links there. I am going to go through them all today and bookmark for later use.

Happy Australia!
Lynn

Gottfredsen said...

You know with all of our study's of around the world I never thought to set up the clocks like that. What a great Idea. I mean we talk about time zones (which they are struggling to remember how they work.) This might help reinforce it so thanks.

This Girl loves to Talk said...

Oh I am australian.. I made up a little photo essay "our life in Australia" that I have emailed to several blogging buddies who homeschool... if you are interested I could send it to you too

We went to the beach on Australia day.. ate lamingtons (a sort of chocolate and coconut cake) many people bbq and have sausages on bread (like a poor mans hotdog)and pavlova is a famous australian dessert many people eat (it is pretty much meringue with cream and fruit on the top)

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My homeschool buddies and I are all posting pics of our "home schools" as part of our idea sharing.

Plato said...

Knowledge which is acquired under compulsion has no hold on the mind. Therefore do not use compulsion, but let early education be a sort of amusement; you will then be better able to discover the child's natural bent .