2. Rivertime
By Trace Balla
• Based on Trace’s own canoeing trip and her diaries
• Numbers
• Variety of animals and plants – I Spy
Themes: Connection to nature, Aboriginal History, River Ecosystems
Audience: Primary.
Notes: and Pocket identification book www.allenandunwin.com
Making Rope
http://www.instructables.com/id/Make-Great-Cordage-Out-Of-Grass/
How much is 50,000? Can a group of kids demonstrate 50,000 in beads,
knots in rope, stickers ?
Local birds identification from Environmental unit of Council
Or
http://www.birdsinbackyards.net/resources/A4-Posters
3. Fire
By Jackie French and Bruce Whatley
Companion book to Flood.
Themes: Bushfire, Loss, Hope and Regrowth, Environment
Notes: Through Scholastic
Audience: Primary School
Use of language: similes, metaphor and personification
Painting fire artwork. Whatley used blank white page to show hottest part of fire
and only silhouettes in red and orange. Black backgrounds make colours more
intense
My Country by Dorothea MacKellar or Said Hanrahan by John O’Brien
4. One Minutes SilenceBy David Metzenthen and Michael Camilleri
• Time –one minute – time past- clockwork – machinery –
contraptions
• Australian Cultural Images e.g., ironbark, wild colonial boys…
Students from Year 12 in battle scenes on both sides
• Very graphic, thankfully no colour. Flies =stench
Themes: Australian and Turkish histories, Gallipoli, the young, time
Notes: Allen and Unwin website
Audience: Year 6 – High School
What can be imagined in a minute?
Ideas for discussions with older students in Notes for Teachers on
the Allen and Unwin website
5. The Stone Lion
By Margaret Wild and Ritva Voutila
The Happy Prince by Oscar Wilde
Fable style of writing, unhurried with a touch of magic
Set loosely in NY city during the great depression.
Themes: Empathy – Selfishness, Transformation, Life
Notes: www.hardiegrant.com.au/Egmont/resources/teachers-resources
Audience: Infants and Primary
Lion made from an origami heart
http://www.origami-instructions.com/easy-origami-heart.html
http://www.origamiway.com/easy-origami-lion.shtml
6. My two blankets
By Irena Kobald and Freya Blackwood
Identity through language
Themes: Language, Belonging/Identity, Refugees
Notes: www.hardiegrant.com.au.Egmont/resources/teachers-resources
Audience: Infants and Primary
How do words make us feel- Bouba/Kiki Effect
http://www.sciencebuddies.org/science-fair-projects
10 ordinary items. Say their names in different languages and see how
many the kids can match
Head and Shoulders knees and toes in Dharug
http://dharug.dalang.com.au/ (under Body)
More ideas from the Spy Words books by Ursula Dubosarsky
7. The Duck and the Darklings
By Glenda Millard and Stephen Michael King
Glenda Millard wrote this book especially for Stephen Michael King
to illustrate.
Theme: Memories, Hope, Letting go, Generosity and Kindness
Notes: www.allenandunwin.com
Audience: Everyone. Primary+
• Explaining colours to someone who’s never seen them. “Black book of colours”
by Menena Cottin
• Colours in the dark. Light very few lights or a few candles. What can you see?
What do colours look like? How would you get around in the dark?
• Make up new words e.g. remember, disremembered, daisly. Check out Charles
Dickens e.g. abuzz, the creeps, flummox, sawbone, whiz-bang
• Scraffito (scratch art)
• Making something out of nothing. Create your own finding fields as a reverse
garbage exercise.
