My Adventure Book (Australia/Oceania)

Hello everyone! I am happy to announce that the link to my newest file:  My Adventure Book (Australia/Oceania) is finally up! It features two countries from the said continent and they are Australia and New Zealand.  We basically use this for our geography/continent/country study.

Backstory:  My son loves travelling, he has been crossing continents for 5 years and because of this he's interested on world maps and locations of the countries we're visiting.  He is fascinated with the cultures, the language and just about anything about a country.  So when we watched the movie UP, he was so inspired by the concept of the adventure book.  He told me if he could have one so he can draw/scribble his adventures whenever we travel.  And that's were I came up with the idea of making a guide or an information booklet of certain countries that he would like to go to (or even with just play pretend).

So first in the series is Australia and New Zealand.  Here are the contents of My Adventure Book:

• Fact sheets
• Meaning and use of the country's flag and coat of arms

• Maps of the country (political/state/regional/territories), biomes and landmark locations

• Description of the landmarks
• Animals of Australia and New Zealand
• Famous people from each country
• Famous cuisine/food from each country or foods originating from each country

•     DIY Postcards, images for coloring (including the flags) and postage stamps, VISA, immigration stamps for play pretend
  

• And lots of activity sheets! 

I am happy of the contents of the mini-book and the topics I have included are not too much or not too little for my son to handle. See how we use it here.

The file has 55 pages.  You can now avail it  if you click on any of the pictures posted above or if you visit my website (see Geography:Australia/Oceania) : The Pinay Homeschooler Shop and Downloads

Thank you so much everyone... and for those who are interested, hope you like it as much as we do!

PS. North America is coming soon ! It will feature three countries so watch out for it as well.

There's nothing like... AUSTRALIA (Part I)

Hello everyone!! It's been a productive week so far :)  I'm so excited to share with you our little adventure to Australia, the homeschooling way.  90% of the ideas here comes from my son, so I am just giving him what he wants.  For him, this is just play pretend but little does he know that he's also learning!

So to start with, here's what I made and prepared for him:   'My Adventure Book (Australia/New Zealand)' which I will launch tomorrow, so please watch out for it :)  and his pretend passport.  The passport is not that fancy.  I simply printed a cover page out of the coat of arms of our country and put titles on it.  I used maroon cardstock as a cover because it is the color of our passport. The information page is also based on our passport and the rest of the pages are just blank.  Sorry if I have to distort the information to keep my son's privacy :)

 

And since we need VISA for Australia, I made Visa and immigration stamps (entry and exit) to make our little adventure more "believable".  These are included in My Adventure Book package. 

I made a map... just the outline and printed it in a brown cardstock.  This way, Mavi will be familiar of the shape of Australia and the flag was just from a random Google search.  The figures are from Safari Toob, and I included a coral and scuba diver to represent the Great Barrier Reef. 

Before setting out for an adventure, we talk about Australia in general.  I have that in My Adventure Book which includes important facts and information about Australia, the flag, the state map and biomes map.

 

Okay, I so made him prepare his luggage / backpack for this trip :)  Made sure that he has his book in his back including his passport.  Promise to next time, take a photo of him with his "paraphernalia" :)

Set-up:  On the first day of his adventure, upon his arrival in Australia (reference to his My Adventure Book) first thing is to travel across the country to see the famous landmarks.  So I place the cards (see Landmarks of Australia/Oceania) around the house for him to "pretend" that he's visiting the different places.  The exact location of these landmarks are included in My Adventure Book.

   (Click the picture for the link)

 

As he discover the cards of the landmarks around the house we discuss what is so special about the place and the activities that we can do there (like in Great Barrier Reef we pretend to go scuba diving).  I made sure that before we embark to another landmark, we review it's location on the map so that he'll be aware of how far these landmarks are from each other.

We got so tired after this activity so I told him that it's time to "fill up some forms" regarding his trip and he'll do the rest of the activities the next day.  In reality, I wanted him to work on the activity sheets LOL.

Example of the sheets that's included in the book are:

Landmark locations.  Mavi here is identifying the locations of the landmark.  I only have 5 landmarks in the activity sheet as I don't want to overwhelm him.  If you want more, you can use the Landmarks of Australia/Oceania Nomenclature Cards for further study of the other places.

 

Favorite Place.  Out of the 5 landmarks, he has to pick his favorite place, draw them and explain why he likes it.

             

The flag. And of course, there's the flag. We discuss the meaning of the country's flag and its colors.    You can also check my Australia/Oceania Pin Map and Nomenclature Cards for further study of the other flag in the Australia/Oceania continent (not just Australia).

   

 

   (Click the picture for the link)

 

 

And lastly, while we rest, we watched a couple of Youtube videos about Australia and the places we've learned so far.  Here are the links:

Sydney Opera House

 

Uluru/Ayers Rock (in the Outback)

 

Great Barrier Reef

 

 

The Pinnacles

Kangaroo Island

 

I have to say that at the end of the day, my son has absorbed all the things that he has learned on this 'pretend' adventure.  He can name 5 landmarks, describe what is Australia, its flag and the colors and the biomes (though we still have to dig deeper on this).  Learning about a country is so much fun if you play pretend of really going on an adventure on that place :)

Next we'll do animals, biomes, food and famous people and crafts/paintings of the Aborigines.  And please do come again tomorrow or follow me on Facebook for the link of My Adventure Book (Australia and New Zealand)... just one of the many series I'm going to publish before the year ends :)

Thank you!

Linking to:

Montessori Monday
TGIF Linky Party
Teach Beside Me
Preschool Corner
Teaching Mama
I Can Teach My Child
All Things Beautiful: History and Geography

Kangaroo Nomenclature Cards

We'll be studying Australia tomorrow and I prepared as a learning aid.  It is now available, just click on the picture below for the link. Hope you like it! Thanks!

For more FREEbies and download, feel free to browse my page The Pinay Homeschooler Shop and Downloads.

Weather and Clouds (FREE Cloud Cards)

We have a brief afterschool activity on clouds and weather.   

We use the same Cloud Cards I have last year and discuss it once again.  It was quite cloudy so we just view the clouds from his room and try to identify the cloud based on his cards. We discuss each type of clouds, whether it tells us if its going to rain or to be sunny. 

For the free cards, click the picture below for the link.

So now to recreate the clouds, we used a blue cardstock paper and some paints. We previously had this activity but used cottons for the cloud formation, this time he wanted to paint.

          

 

That's his handwriting on the label. 

And he wanted to add more details (black ink in the outline). 

            

To recreate contrails, he made an airplane, named it BOEING 767, cut it and stick it on a paper.  He added the contrails using the white paint.

            

For the weather, we watched some videos on Youtube based on the Weather Cards that we have.  We talked about the cause and effect of these weathers and if possible how to avoid calamities.

Then we tried recreating some of them.... first one is the earthquake.  The best that we do was to use his Lego.  He made a city and then he started shaking the plate pretending to have an earthquake.

          

 

And lastly, he wanted drought.  He crumpled some brown art paper, strip them into smaller pieces and stick them individually on a piece of paper.  He made some animals dying due to water loss and made his sun reddish to indicate a very very hot day.

          

We didn't get to recreate some of the weather conditions as we were also doing some school related stuff. 

Linking to:

Montessori Monday
TGIF Linky Party
Teach Beside Me
Preschool Corner
I Can Teach My Child