We enjoyed learning about the land down under. Our highlights include a trip to the Utica Zoo, a fun sewing project, and good food. We also enjoyed trying to hop like kangaroos :)
Fun Food -
We ate kiwis from New Zealand by themselves and in a fruit salad. For lunch one day I surprised Lindsey with a tuna sandwich made to look like a koala with raisins for eyes and sliced kiwi in his hands for eucalyptus leaves.
We had a surf and turf dinner of steak and coconut fried shrimp with steak fries. My Dad grilled the steak on the "barbie". We made Lamingtons for dessert - yummy sponge cake squares covered with chocolate and sprinkled with coconut. We used the Lamington recipe in our Usborne Children's World Cookbook.
We studied marsupials of coarse! We learned all about kangaroos, wallabies, bettongs, potoroos, koalas, wombats, possums, Virginia opossums, sugar gliders, bilbies, bandicoots, marsupial moles, and Tasmanian devils.
We visited the Utica Zoo to see a wallaby, but the wallaby wasn't very active when we were there and we could only see it sitting in it's shelter from a distance. We did see emus up close and they were very vocal, the noises they made surprised us. Watching them feed the sea lions was our favorite part of our visit. We had read about both emus and sea lions in Top To Bottom Down Under by Ted and Betsy Lewin. She got a stuffed wallaby from the zoo gift shop, complete with a joey in it's pouch.
Lindsey created a pouch by cutting the pocket off an old pair of pants and sewing an apron like tie-on waistband to it. Then she sewed and stuffed a fun dot patterned kangaroo to go in the pouch. She drew a face on with a permanent marker. As a bonus, she has plans to use her pouch for holding Nerf darts (arrows) for her bow during archery adventures.
We had a surf and turf dinner of steak and coconut fried shrimp with steak fries. My Dad grilled the steak on the "barbie". We made Lamingtons for dessert - yummy sponge cake squares covered with chocolate and sprinkled with coconut. We used the Lamington recipe in our Usborne Children's World Cookbook.
Zoology -
We studied marsupials of coarse! We learned all about kangaroos, wallabies, bettongs, potoroos, koalas, wombats, possums, Virginia opossums, sugar gliders, bilbies, bandicoots, marsupial moles, and Tasmanian devils.
We visited the Utica Zoo to see a wallaby, but the wallaby wasn't very active when we were there and we could only see it sitting in it's shelter from a distance. We did see emus up close and they were very vocal, the noises they made surprised us. Watching them feed the sea lions was our favorite part of our visit. We had read about both emus and sea lions in Top To Bottom Down Under by Ted and Betsy Lewin. She got a stuffed wallaby from the zoo gift shop, complete with a joey in it's pouch.
Sewing -
Lindsey created a pouch by cutting the pocket off an old pair of pants and sewing an apron like tie-on waistband to it. Then she sewed and stuffed a fun dot patterned kangaroo to go in the pouch. She drew a face on with a permanent marker. As a bonus, she has plans to use her pouch for holding Nerf darts (arrows) for her bow during archery adventures.
Books We Read -
Top To Bottom Down Under by Ted and Betsy Lewin
Australia by Ann Weil
Australia by Sarah Tieck
Global Cities Sydney by Paul Mason
Marsupials by Nic Bishop
Tasmanian Devils by Ruth Bjorklund
Koala by Dee Phillips
Pocket Babies and Other Amazing Marsupials by Sneed B. Collard III
One Night In The Coral Sea by Sneed B. Collard III
Everything Dolphins by Elizabeth Carney
New Zealand by Ellen Frazel
The Maori Of New Zealand by Steve Theunissen
We also watched Finding Nemo and a few episodes of Wild Kratts.
Posts
