Australia Unit

I have a friend from church who moved to Australia and she writes about their life there.  One of the things I noticed is a lot of cook outs and barbecues.  This works well with my cooking and eating style, so barbecue it was for this trip in our cooking around the world.  I did a quick search and found a couple of recipes, and then proceeded to completely ignore their recipes. I’m not a good example in following recipes for our geography lessons.

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Australia Unit resources

Hi! Future Ticia 2023 is updating this post and adding in all of the cool stuff from various other things we did when recreating this unit in high school.

To start off, here are the internet resources for our Australia Unit.

• Australia Facts for kids from National Geographic
• Kids’ World Travel: Australia

Then let’s grab my videos. Since Australia is really early in the alphabet, it is a relatively short video.

It’s so early in the alphabet there is not even a Flag Friday video because he covers it in the video itself. Wow.

Okay, now on to the Australia booklist, which I’m going to collapse down into this post! What! Can you do that Future Ticia? Yes, yes I can. As a matter of fact, I have already done it.

But wait! There’s more, I had to come back and add in our favorite war ever. Much joked about in our house. I almost think I need to figure out how to create a LEGO history lesson for it.

Australia Unit booklist

Actually, Past Ticia 2024 of 5 minutes is incorrect, I did not steal that post, because that post is If I can combine the Italy Unit into one ginormous post, I can combine this. Grrrr!!!!! I am mighty!

One quick copy paste later:

Growing up in the 80s Australia was the land down under and we knew about Crocodile Dundee and the Crocodile Hunter. And maybe they were walking on their heads because they were in the Southern hemisphere. It didn’t take too long for me to figure out that idea was wrong, but it’s still a magical land to my mind. So when we decided to study Australia for our geography lessons I headed to our library and picked up a great stash of Australia books to add to my ultimate booklist.

And then Future Ticia 2022 decided to study Australia again as I’m trying to get my kids to have formal geography lessons for all of the countries, and I’m adding yet more books that my library picked up when we studied it this time.

Primarily I’m adding more fiction books that I found and a few more nonfiction books. There was another delightful Aboriginal folktale to add in.

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A WORD ABOUT THE AUSTRALIA BOOKLIST

I’m updating this Australia booklist from when I first wrote it over 10 years ago, the book titles in bold were the ones from when we first learned about Australia when the kids were in kindergarten. The other books are the ones I’ve found since then, or the ones I apparently didn’t write about originally (I can’t believe some of the books I missed)

AUSTRALIA PICTURE BOOKS

• Over in Australia: amazing animals Down Under– A nice book on the animals in Australia, and a great overall introduction. It looks like this is part of a series covering several different locations.
• Tough Boris– Honestly, this isn’t particularly an Australia book, but Mem Fox is from Australia, and I love this book. It’s such a great book about grief (I cry when I read it)
• Koala Lou– I saw this featured on a couple of blogs recently, sadly I don’t remember where.  As we were reading it I came up with all sorts of ideas I’d like to do with this book.  Overall it was very cute, fun and appropriate on so many levels.  It’s about Australia, koalas, and the Olympics.  Poor little Koala Lou is worried her mother doesn’t love her anymore, so she decides to compete in the Olympics.  Very cute.
• Hunwick’s Egg– very cute story about a (totally forgetting the type of animal, something that burrows and is only in Australia) that find an egg and decides to care for it.  Very cute, with a bit of a surprise ending.  My kids liked it, but weren’t thrilled with it.
• Possum Magic– magic, Australian animals, and a journey, what’s not to like?
• Diary of a baby wombat– Baby wombat trains his new neighbors (a family of humans) how to live next door to him
• On the farm: our holiday with Uncle Kev– a fun silly book from the looks of it, it wasn’t available when I was getting books, so I can’t say for sure
• Noni the Pony rescues a joey– A fun adventure book exploring the Australian countryside as Noni wanders around
• Kersplatypus– Since the platypus was thought to be a fake animal when a stuffed sample was brought over, this seems rather appropriate
• Sam’s Bush Journey– I love stories of this sort with intergenerational stories, this time between a grandma and grandson
• Living in Australia– A nice easy to read (hence being an Easy Reader) book covering what it’s like to live in Australia
• The Biggest Frog in Australia– I’m surprised this wasn’t nonfiction since this should be with the fairy tale/folktale area of books. My kids were convinced this was going to be another When Beaver brought Fire book or Hungry Cat, but the frog was just thirsty
• Old shell, new shell: a coral reef tale– this would be great to add in if you want to focus on the animals or for a study of Coral reefs. Also, she wrote one of our Christmas stories: Animal Christmas Carol
• Bobbie Dazzler– a fun silly kangaroo book
• Puffling– and this one is a cute and sweet Puffin book, I love the illustrations
• Sam’s Bush Journey– this was checked out, so I can’t comment on it, but the cover and illustrations look interesting
• Wombat Goes Walkabout– I loved the illustrations in this one
• Henry the Dog with no Tail– this was checked out when I went to the library, so wasn’t able to read it, I suspect it’s more just happens to be in Australia, than really focusing on the country
• The Pumpkin Runner– a fun look at a local festival
• My Grandma lived in Gogoligulch– any time a book is by Graeme Base it’s going to be good
• Big Rain Coming– I love the illustrations in this one, not so keen on the poetry, but that’s because I’m not big on poetry
• Mirror– I loved the concept of this book, It mirrors life in Australia and life in Morocco, basically two books at the same time, and it’s a brilliant idea
• Lizzie Nonsense– I loved this because it covered more of the “colonial” time in Australia, and felt so much like Oregon Trail books in the United States
• Ready to Dream– a great story of a young girl who wants to be an artist interacting with a local Aboriginal artist

AUSTRALIA NONFICTION BOOKS

• Birrarung wilam: a story from Aboriginal Australia– I didn’t see this initially when I was getting books for Australia, so I’m going to pick it up when I go back again.
• Sun Mother wakes the world: an Australian creation story– I love reading different creation myths, so of course I loved this book
• Mermaid Queen: the spectacular true story of Annette Kellerman, who swam her way to fame, fortune, and swimsuit history– having heard a Stuff You Missed in History Class episode on her, of course I like this one
• Australia and Oceania– This focuses more on Australia as a continent and area then as a country
• Australia: all around the world– perfect if you’re doing a country report
• The Singing Snake– The illustrations are amazing and the story had us all amused as we were waiting for the worst to happen to Lark
• Birarung wilam: a story from Aboriginal Australia– This was checked out, and I wish it wasn’t because it looks like a great Aboriginal story

THIS STARTS A LONG SERIES OF ANIMAL BOOKS, MY KIDS LOVED THEM

Seriously, back when my kids were in preschool, that’s what most of our country studies consisted of, what animals can you find there. Most of the animals there was more than one book for the animal, so I’ve picked a wide variety, and if that particular author had several in the series, I’ll note it.

• Endangered Animals of Australia– a nice generic book about Australian animals
• Australian animals– I like this particular author, and it’s her signature style but with pictures
• Destination, Australia– another generic Australia animal book, seriously there are so many great books in this particular area
• Emu– I’ve recently read so many crazy stories about emus, that they have come to greatly amuse me
• A koala’s world– When I wrote about our Australia booklist 10+ years ago, I just referred to the “Caroline Arnold animal books that my kids love,” so these are well worth getting if you can find them
• Wombats– this is part of a series, it may not all be the same author, but they’re nicely put together (it also looks to be out of print, look at that price! So check your used bookstores)
• Jimmy the joey: the true story of an amazing koala rescue– having read lots of stories of koala rescues after the recent bushfires, this book looks especially good
• It’s a baby spiny anteater– any book about baby animals is popular

AUSTRALIA CHRISTMAS BOOKS

Our library had exactly two, wait no, one more is Christmas, so three Australia Christmas books, and neither of them are particularly how Australians celebrate Christmas, more of cute animal from Australia celebrates Christmas.

I’m not going to complain really. Just don’t use this as “This is how they celebrate,” because I mean animals.

• Kangaroo for Christmas– Kathryn gets a kangaroo for Christmas (title, obviously), and hijinks ensue.
• Wombat Divine– poor Wombat just can’t get the part he wants, will he get a part in the Christmas play? I super loved this book, it’s ridiculously cute.
• Christmas Wombat– Wombat competes with Santa’s reindeer to get the carrots

Future Ticia 2022 now cedes back to Past Ticia of 2012.

Australia Unit recipe: Barbecue Chicken and Smashed Potatoes

I found these recipes for for barbecue chicken and smashed potatoes, but I’m gonna be honest, I did not really follow the recipes. I just used it as a jumping-off point.

Are you ready?  This is super simple.  Defrost about 6 or so chicken breasts in a ziploc bag.  Pour in a bottle of barbecue sauce and a half cup or so of honey.  Let marinate for a while.  Start the grill and grill those babies.  Super hard, I know.

Future Ticia 2024 is reading this and thinking, I really want to make this again.

Smashed Potatoes

Does anyone else call their mashed potatoes smushed potatoes?  I do because it amuses me.

Smashed potatoes Ingredients

several small potatoes (I like the red ones)
butter
salt, garlic, other topping type of things
parmesan

1.  Wash your potatoes and put them in a pan filled with water.  Boil for about 20 minutes or so, until the potatoes are fork tender.  I did not cook mine long enough because I was hungry.  So make sure it’s fairly tender.  Preheat oven to 250.

2.  Smush the potatoes with a potato masher.  This is where I had undercooked it a little, so they didn’t smoosh too well.  More of tried to roll away or fly away and hit unaware people in the face.  Make sure to try any random pieces that fall off and say “Mmmmmm potato.”

3.  Add the butter, garlic powder, salt, whatever toppings you’re putting on.  Cook for 15-20 minutes.  Ours were a hair under done because of my earlier mistake, but the chicken was ready and I was HUNGRY!

4.  After you take them out sprinkle some parmesan cheese on.  Yummy.

5.  Eat.  My boys would say bonus points for stuffing the entire potato or chicken into your mouth.

Maybe enjoy some dinnertime reading as you eat (years later we read Misty of Chincoteague again and made it into a movie night).  By the end of the meal, there was nothing left.  Superman ate 3 potatoes and 2 small chicken breasts.  Batman ate 2 potatoes and all of his chicken.  Princess ate large amounts of meat.  At the end of the meal, they were scavenging and stealing from other people’s plates.

Smashed Potatoes

Print

This smashed potatoes recipe is a nice side dish to go with your barbecue dinner

Prep Time 10 minutes

Cook Time 45 minutes

Total Time 55 minutes

Ingredients

• 6-10 small golden potatoes
• kosher salt
• garlic
• shredded parmesan

Instructions

1. Wash your potatoes, then put them in a pot of salted water. Bring to a boil and boil for about 20 minutes or until the potatoes are fork-tender.
2. While the potatoes are boiling, warm the oven to 250 degrees Fahrenheit.
3. Take the potatoes out of the water and put on baking sheet. Using a potato masher or large flat object smash the potatoes to make them flatter.
4. Drizzle olive oil over the potatoes, sprinkle minced garlic and parmesan over the potatoes and then put it in the oven to cook for 20 minutes.

Future Ticia 2024 taking over again.

Australia Unit notebooking pages

When we studied Australia back in kindergarten, we created a large number of animal minibooks because as far as the kids are concerned that is the only thing interesting about the country. I don’t blame them it has some very unique animals. I need to fiddle with the pages I have because right now they are not in the best of shape. Some of the formatting got messed up in the transition to the most recent version of MS Word.

Either way, in high school we filled out the Oceania notebooking pages.

Excuse me, I need to go back up there and add in a video to my video list.

• Emu War
• 83% of the population lives within 50 kilometers of the coast
• there is a pink lake!
• there are 50 invasive species introduced by Europeans

If you’d like some other Australia activities, here are some more we’ve done:

• Books on Australia
• Kangaroo craft
• Koala Lou
• Australian animal reports
• How far can a kangaroo jump?

“Photo by DAVID ILIFF. License: CC BY-SA 3.0”Diliff, CC BY-SA 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Originally published August 6, 2012