Getting Started with Our Everyday Explorers: Australia and New Zealand Homeschool Geography Course

The Everyday Explorers: Australia and New Zealand homeschool geography course allows students of all ages to study interesting facts about Australia and New Zealand and the history of these nations. A different state or territory of Australia is visited in each homeschool geography unit, with detours to explore New Zealand, the Cook Islands, and Niue. There are activities, interesting facts, and links that can help the student virtually explore the areas being discussed in the day’s lesson. A study of native Australian animals is included in the “Build a Zoo” feature. Activities to study the animals are included and targeted to different grade levels so any age student can benefit from this geography course. Answer keys are included where appropriate.

Overview

•   32 weeks, 5 days a week
•   Includes text-based lessons, activities, notebooking pages, links to additional information, and answer keys
•   Grades Kindergarten – 12th

Supplies Needed

Corresponding lessons on SchoolhouseTeachers.com; 3-ring binder for writing assignments, notetaking, research, and Build a Zoo project; Zookeeper’s journal download under “Build a Zoo Instructions – Bilby: Week One” for appropriate grade level

What to Do

Go to Class Lessons and download the lesson plan. Start with the Day 1 instructions to download additional files for the first lesson. Follow the instructions each day on the lesson plan and check them off when completed.

Course Sample for Our Everyday Explorers: Australia and New Zealand Homeschool Geography Course

Explore the history of a different state of Australia or area of New Zealand one unit at a time. This section covered two days of our adventure in Tasmania.

The Cadbury Chocolate Factory, Day One

We have one more place I really want to show you in Tasmania. It’s quite possibly the tastiest stop of all—the Cadbury chocolate factory! We won’t be allowed into the areas where they actually make the chocolates, but we can spend some time in the visitor’s centre, taste-test a few things, and learn a bit about chocolate. Do you want to go?

Chocolate has had many different uses throughout history. It was a special drink for the Mayan Indians (who even used it as a type of money). Of course, we all know it as a favorite dessert of people all over the world.

Cocoa trees grow in the tropical regions of the world. The trees grow cocoa pods that are harvested twice a year. Each tree will produce twenty or thirty pods each year, and it takes everything one tree can grow in a year to yield just 450 mgs of chocolate!

Before those cocoa beans become tasty chocolate, they have to be harvested, fermented, dried, bagged, winnowed, roasted, and grinded—all before the beans can be pressed to make cocoa butter. Cocoa butter is just one of the key ingredients in the chocolates we enjoy today.

Here is a website that will get you started exploring.

The notebooking pages in your Explorer Pack (found below lesson two) will guide you through the next two days of our expedition!

To view a full sample of this class, click here.