Hands-on Learning: Biomes of Australia

A few weeks ago, while were doing an Australia Unit, Mavi and I talked about the animals in Australia and in which habitat they belong. We’ve done this years ago but it’s always nice to revisit and add a little depth in the topic. 

Instead of using felt papers for demonstration, I printed out pictures (paid for this) of the different biomes in Australia:  desert, temperate forest, tropical forest, wetland and grassland.  We also used the map that we have here to see where each of these are located.

Looking at the pictures, we talked about the difference of each biome, the temperature, the plants that grows in there and the animals. After which, we sorted out our Safari Toob Down Under figures and identified which animal/s lives in the desert, forests, grassland and wetland. We used our Animals in  Australia cards for reference.

I made him work on this activity sheet, he loves coloring so he’s happy to obliged   While doing this activity, he asked me “So Mom, where do the people live in this map?”  I just have to explain  that of course, they live everywhere in Australia (except in the desert), and mostly near the water!

I love this kind of activity, spontaneous and can be done while sitting down just like having an ordinary talk with your kid.  The photos helped.  I understand that you can also Google these images in mobile gadgets but I am trying to avoid using our tablets when the boys are around so I just printed the pictures.

Materials we used are from our Australia/ Oceania Adventure Book, Safari Toobs Down Under and Animals of Australia Cards.

Follow us on Facebook, Pinterest, Google Plus, Instagram or Twitter for updates!  More learning materials at Pinay Homeschooler Shop.

Australia/Oceania in a Nutshell

Finally, my Australia in a Nutshell is finally up!  It took me awhile to complete this set because of the holiday season.  I’ve been receiving a lot of requests from readers to publish this set but I’ve been too preoccupied for the past weeks. 

Buy now

I am currently printing and laminating this for our Australia Unit just in time for Australia day in January 26. 

So here are the contents of the file:

1.  Maps.  I included two maps in this file: [1] map of Australia and [2] map of Oceania.

2. 3 Part Cards of the Australian States.

3.  Country Fact Cards of Australia and Oceania.  There are 27 fact cards provided to learn about the climate, currency, government, etc of the countries that composes Oceania.

4. Fact Cards.  Everything you needed to know about Australia and other countries in Oceania is provided in these 56 fact cards. Mavi loves to read this and learn about the people and their culture in different continents.  I bet your kids will love this too! 

5.  Platypus and Frilled Lizard Nomenclature Cards. I always include these in my Nutshell series as they are my kids favourite (when Mavi was younger).  Kids love to learn about animals especially those that only thrives in a specific continent/country.

 

Follow us on Facebook, Pinterest, Google Plus, Instagram or Twitter for updates!

Other Nutshell files available:

                                   

                                    

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

This post is waaaay past its due date LOL  We've been busy for the past few days and I can't seem to include this in my schedule.  Good thing, it is a school day today and the little guy is in school and that gives me enough time to write about the second part of our Australia study.

To start with, we discuss about the animals that can be seen in Australia. 

Animals

Using the Animals of Australia/Oceania Nomenclature and Fact Cards and the Safari Toob Down Under, we talked about the habitats and the diets of these animals, juxtaposed to the biomes as well.

 

And there's the Parts of a Kangaroo (Nomenclature and Definition Booklet).  (Click the picture for the link)

And Mavi continued working on the identification of the body parts and added labels onto it.

          

 

Biomes

We discuss biomes as well, which is something new to him and he loves it! Read about here.

We work on the activity sheets that is included in My Adventure Book: Australia

 

 

Map works

For the studying the map, again using My Adventure Book: Australia, we talked about the different states and territories of Australia and he worked on the activity sheet which I provided. (He's obsessed with coloring as of the moment) i 

Flag

I gave him options on how to go about the flag and he wanted to paint it :) 

Aboriginal Arts

We did these few days ago.

Postcard from Australia

And lastly,we created our postcard to send it to a friend.

              

Activity sheets, maps and information pages of Australia that was used in this study is all in My Adventure Book (Australia/Oceania).

Other related stories for studying Australia as a country and continent:

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

Biomes of Australia

Aboriginal Arts

Continent Study: Australia

My Adventure Book (Australia/Oceania)

 

For more FREEbies, learning aids and downloads, please visit The Pinay Homeschooler Shop and Downloads. 

Linking to:

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

Biomes of Australia

I made these "biomes mat" based on the My Adventure Book (Australia/Oceania) for hands-on learning.  It's made up of felt paper glued on a cardstock for durability.  Then I printed pictures for each biomes so my son will have an idea how they actually look like.  I also added handwritten labels.

The objects of the activity are:

• to identify the biomes of Australia
• to distinguish the difference of each biome (I used the description chart included in the book I mentioned above)
• to sort out the the animals of Australia based on its habitat-biome it thrives (Animals of Australia / Oceania)

These are the animals cards we used (Animals of Australia / Oceania).

And for the animals, I used the Safari Toob Down Under.

And here's my son working on the activity.  I looooovee how effective this technique is, because if I would just use worksheets first and just talk about biomes without a hands-on activity, for sure I won't get his attention.  But this one, he loves sorting the animals and the felt mats really helped!

              

For more printables and downloads, you can visit The Pinay Homeschooler Shop and Downloads.

Linking to:

Montessori Monday
TGIF Linky Party
Teach Beside Me
Preschool Corner
Teaching Mama

Aboriginal Arts

You've been following me on Facebook, I've shared pictures of our work of Aboriginal arts.  This is still in line with our Australia study (Part I here). Sorry if some pictures are dark as we've been doing the activities late in the afternoon.

To start with, we talked about the Aborigines of Australia and how they use paintings or artworks to communicate.  I used our trusted iPad to check some pictures of the artworks and made my son choose which one he wanted to replicate (he wanted the turtle).

 

I also pointed out that most arts of the Aborigine people uses the technique of Pointillism.  We talked about how we can execute it using the back of pencils or using Qtips/buds. 

When we're done studying the pictures, we started making our version as well.  Here we used red background with contrasting colors for the dots.

            

Another day he asked if we could do it again.  And this time I printed out from a random Google search a ready made art for him to color.

We allowed all the artworks to dry and here's how they look like now that they're dry.  The one on the upper left is my work :)

My son enjoyed the painting, especially with animals on it.   The problem is that he doesn't like pointillism, for he gets tired after making a few dots. 

Linking to:

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

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