A Recap Day & Australian Animals
Good morning everyone! I hope you have been enjoying Art Camp so far. It has been so wonderful to see photos on our Facebook group, and by email and messages, of the things that you have been making! Honestly, it really warms my heart to think my posts are encouraging other families to make art… please keep the updates and pictures coming!
Wednesdays are going to be a quieter day for Art Camp. Our first two days are full of activities, artists and inspiration, so its good to have a quiet day to reflect on all that, catch up, and to revisit things you might have missed.
Today, I am basically not offering up any new activities, but instead asking you to use the activities from Monday and Tuesday again (not for the first time if you didn’t get round to them), but with the option of being inspired by the wonderful wildlife of Australia!
Its a great topic to move onto after exploring our African animals and Tingatinga art yesterday. Australian Aboriginal art is very similar to traditional African art, and the more contemporary Tingatinga art, so we can use lots of the same techniques and ideas!
If we look back on Monday’s posts, we can easily use the collage and painting activities inspired by Romero Britto and Karla Schuster, along with the clay animals.
So feel free to go back on the last two days and pick any of the activities and see what you come up with!
If you do need more ideas, check out this awesome post from Australian blogger Danya Banya!
Lunchtime Viewing
Ok, Im going to admit that this is a hilarious, but weird little video! It doesn’t just have Australian animals in it, but is made by an Australian film maker. Take it for what it is, I know your kids will love it!! Animal Beatbox is an award winning animation!
Afternoon Reading
Your reading today is a poem called Fur and Feathers by Ben Patterson. I love the image of all the different animals running around playing football… do you like it? Maybe you could draw a picture of what you think the game would look like? Perhaps you could make up your own sports team of Aussie animals?
The emus formed a football team
Up Walgett way;
Their dark-brown sweaters were a dream
But kangaroos would sit and scream
To watch them play.
‘Now, butterfingers,’ they would call,
And suck-like names;
The emus couldn’t hold the ball
They had no hands, but hands aren’t all
In football games.
A match against the kangaroos
They played one day.
The kangaroos were forced to choose
Some wallabies and wallaroos
That played in grey.
The rules that in the west prevail
Would shock the town;
For when a kangaroo set sail
An emu jumped upon his tail
And fetched him down.
A whistler duck as referee
Was not admired.
He whistled so incessantly
The teams rebelled, and up a tree
He soon retired.
The old marsupial captain said,
‘It’s do or die!’
So down the ground like fire he fled
And leaped above an emu’s head
And scored a try.
Then shouting, ‘Keep it on the toes!’
The emus came.
Fierce as the flooded Bogan flows
They laid their foemen out in rows
And saved the game.
In native bear and Darling pea
They dined that night:
But one man was an absentee:
The whistler duck, their referee,
Had taken flight.
Journal Prompts
You can use our regular reflection questions to journal today, plus:
- Which Australian animal would you most like to see or be, and why?
- Did you know that since the bush fires in January that Koalas are now functionally extinct in Australia? Isn’t that sad? Think about what you could do to help with the conservation and protection of animals across the world…
- Did you also know that Koalas are not bears, despite many people calling them Koala Bears? They are actually marsupials, like Kangaroos and Wallabies. But, if you could combine two kinds of animals together like a Koala and a Bear, for example, what would it be? Draw a picture or write about it… I think a Zebra Bird would be pretty cool… Or what about a Kanga Pig?
