We’re travelling from Melbourne on a birthday trip west, our aunty is sixty and we’re off on a quest.
Written in fun filled rhyme, children will love exploring Australia as this dedicated family try to find the perfect spot to celebrate their Auntie’s 60th birthday with cake!
Exploring Australia is a dream many of us have or once we learn more about the magnificent places on offer, it becomes one.
Students in Stage 1 in the Australian Curriculum learn about Australia and this book fits perfectly into the curriculum as a springboard into learning more about the diverse places to go – beyond the obvious.
Rhyming is also a skill that is quite hard to grasp so exposure to high quality rhyming books, such as this one, children will start to build a foundation or what it means to write in rhyme.
Many children have laughed along as Lesley Vamos’ illustrations with the extra detail she has put in – especially of the antics Aunty is getting up to so this is a fantastic book in so many ways.
Lesson ideas
Links to geography.
- As you read the book have a map of Australia on the board to look at and trace over to see where the different places are.
- Compare and contrast the different places to explore how they are the same and different.
- Measure the distances between different places.
- Explore one of the places you would like to go to and why.
Links to literacy
- Look at rhyme and how words rhyme and how sentences keep a meter.
- Create a rhyme as a class – We’re travelling from _____(your home town) on a birthday trip ___choose direction depending on where you live. THEN explore where you would go in rhyme. Children then create their own!
- Consider visual literacy – look at the images in detail and how they tell us a lot more about what is happening.
- Consider inferencing – how is the Aunty feeling & why. What would you feel? Why does she like the TV the best and did the family need to go on this trip?
