'Our Island' is written by the Children of Gununa, Alison Lester and Elizabeth Honey and explores the home and surroundings of the children of Mornington Island. This book features many Australian animals and elements of nature in a beautiful, descriptive story.
This activity pack includes activities to support this text, which allow students to discuss, make connections, study the grammatical features and understand the connection between the land and life. There are various activities that can be adapted for various learning levels.
Included in this pack:
* Concept Maps- Students can brainstorm ideas that they relate to an island and the place where they live, and make connections or discuss differences between the two.
* Mapping task- where students can identify different areas on a map of Australia.
* Identify the parts of speech- students can identify noun, adjective, verb and preposition in sentences from the book.
* Make a sentence- Students can choose an animal from the book and use the template to create sentences using the structure of noun- verb- preposition.
* Verbs- Using verbs from the book, students can describe the action in their own words.
* What type of Preposition activity- Students sort the proposition strips into 'time' or 'place' prepositions.
* Reflection activity- students can research and discuss where the children of Gununa live and then make connections between their life and where they live and think about the importance of nature to them.
* Nature Colouring- Students can colour and reflect on how nature makes them feel.
* Animal picture cards- these can be used in multiple ways for different activities.
Australian Curriculum content descriptions
Identify the parts of a simple sentence that represent ‘What’s happening?’, ‘What state is being described?’, ‘Who or what is involved?’ and the surrounding circumstances (ACELA1451)
Explore differences in words that represent people, places and things (nouns, including pronouns), happenings and states (verbs), qualities (adjectives) and details such as when, where and how (adverbs) (ACELA1452)
Discuss characters and events in a range of literary texts and share personal responses to these texts, making connections with students' own experiences (ACELT1582)
Respond to texts drawn from a range of cultures and experiences (ACELY1655)
Understand that different types of texts have identifiable text structures and language features that help the text serve its purpose (ACELA1463)
Understand that the meaning of sentences can be enriched through the use of noun groups/phrases and verb groups/phrases and prepositional phrases (ACELA1493)