G’Day Mate! Welcome to our Expedition Earth week in Australia! Of course we started off by stamping our passports!
This was probably the easiest country to find on the map, especially since we review it constantly considering it is also a continent!
What We Learned This Week:
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Where Australia is on the world map & located Canberra and the Great Barrier Reef
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Learned an Australian song
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How to say “Hello” in Aussie! G’day Mate!
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Learned about the Australian Flag and colored our worksheet
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Prayed for the Australian people
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About children in Australia
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Read Living World Encyclopedia on Coral Reefs, Estuaries, shore lines and Australia’s dry forests.
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Learned about Uluru (Ayers Rock)
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Learn about the Boomerang and made our own.
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Went on a “walk-a-bout” cuz’ it was nice out!
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Completed an Australian lap book activity
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Completed and classified animals of Australia
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Explored the great barrier reef, and watched this Great Barrier Reef video
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Learned new Geography vocab.
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Read the Usborne Encyclopedia of World Geography on Australia
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Learned major landmarks and other fun facts about Australia
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Made a dreamtime art display using magnetic dot mosaics
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Closed out the week at Outback Steakhouse! (Hey, it was the closest thing I could find!)
And here are what I managed to take pictures of ;o)
Here is my white board for the week, along with our Australian song:
We created an Aboriginal Dreamtime art mosaic using Orb Factory Magnetic Dreamings kit. I loved this idea, but it really took forever with all those little dots so the kids got bored quickly. If I did it again, I’d do a painting instead.
One of our favorite parts of the week is “animal day”. We learn about 6 animals found in the country, then add them to our animal classification wall (left). Next they get to display their favorite animals (right). They’ve taken to “funny face” pictures…its out of my control now…they’ve lost it.
We made a boomerang. This was cardboard covered with duct tape. It didn’t fly too well though, but we still had fun flinging it around!
Lastly we learned about the Great Barrier Reef, then made these fun sponges to paint with. (Tutorial on this coming in a full post) 
Here were some of our results:
We were supposed to make Pavlova (recipe in my curriculum) but never got to it, instead we ate at Outback Steak House!
And that my friends wraps up our week on Australia. See you next week for New Zealand!
Click here to learn more about my Expedition Earth World Geography curriculum!
I Love that you went to Outback, we just finished up Australia too, and all my kids could talk about was getting a steak from Australia 😉
AS an aussie i think its fantastic you explored our beautiful country however hardly anyone says G'day its very stereotypical i know LOL we all just say Hi or hello oh and a sausage on the BBQ if you cant find a good steak 🙂 hope you enjoyed Australia!
hooray for Australia! I'm an Aussie so thank you for praying for us today! Just a note that there is an ongoing dispute between Aussies and Kiwis as to who invented the pavlova! Not that it really matters we're both "downunder" anyway 🙂
Looks like fun! Can't wait to see your post on the sponge painting. My kids love to paint. I ordered your Road Trip curricula and look forward to using it in the fall. Thanks again!
You have got to the be the coolest person I don't really know (unless you count webstalking). I can't wait to order Expedition Earth! I went into my husband's budget worksheet and started plugging in things I must have for homeschooling. Expedition Earth and LOTW are on the list and coming up soon.
I was coming to leave a comment too – about the dispute regarding whether pavlova 'belongs' to Australia or New Zealand. Of course, it's New Zealand's 😉 Kim, I respectfully disagree with you, I think it depends on where you are in Australia as to how many 'G'days' you get. We notice it particularly as we're from New Zealand, so hearing 'G'day' always makes us crack up! The song I know as "Kookaburra sits in the old gum tree eating all the gum drops he can see, laugh, kookaburra laugh, kookaburra how gay your life must be" (albeit 35 yrs or so ago since learned).
Yay! Thanks for coming to visit us, and for praying for us.Of course, there is a cheeky second version of the Kookaburra song, too…Kookaburra sits on the electric wire,Jumping up and down 'cos his tail's on fire.Hot! Kookaburra, hot!Kookaburra, hot your life must be!Glad you enjoyed the unit.
We're studying Australia this week too! We were able to find a ton of Australia books from the library and watched "Finding Nemo" and "Rescuers Down Under".