Australian emblems and mapping

We've found that the children have actually been working on very similar themes with their Social Studies this term, even though they both have two different books.

I use Homeschooling Supplies Aust. books called Succeeding in Social Studies. These books have quite a lot of work in them, but we pace ourselves, collecting lots of non-fiction books from the library to make it all a lot more fun.

Mariposa is now working through the 2nd book, looking at all the Australian state flags and emblems, really enjoying learning about the symbolism and colouring in. We're focusing on one state a week.

It was great that we had an opportunity to go to Canberra earlier in the year and take the guided tour through Parliment House. The guide spoke a lot about the symbolism there and I was surprised at how attentive both the children were. I also took advantage of their shop and bought this great poster which is coming into it's own now:

Here's a close-up of the NSW information, as that's what we've just covered. (Click on the image/s for a better look).

I really need to now keep an eye out for some of the actual flowers (florists may need to come to my aid with the Waratah!) so we can get a little collection happening on our display cupboard. Mariposa is enjoying learning about the Australian animals and birds this way too.

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Maestro is using the 5th book for Social Studies, focusing a lot on map work, but still with the Australian focus. Latitude and longtitude, climate and topography. LOTS of atlas work, and I'm needing to stretch this out so he can have other input/activities.

He has almost finished this section of the book, so I think I'll expand on this a little by getting more mapping information. I know that there's a very interesting documentary series called The Map Makers we can try and get from the library. Captain Cook - Obession & Discovery is also very good, having already seen the first 2 episodes (* may I point out, though, that this does have adult themes, so only selected sections will be viewed).

Here's another FREE resource, which I wish I'd found sooner, called Mapping the World with Art. Quite a lot of the first few chapters were covered in the 4th Social Studies book, and having this information then would have been wonderful. However, it's never too harmful to review, so now I've downloaded the freebies and hope to go through this with Maestro at the beginning of next term, picking up the drawing / mapping skills we didn't cover and expanding. We'll return to the book again later.