Children come to school dressed up as one of the characters from
Possum Magic. The children can talk about their character and have the
same special food as Hush had to taste to become visible again.
WRITING
- Innovate with class, another story about Grandma Poss
and Hush or with new animal characters. This is
an example written with my class.
- Information reports about Australian
animals or nocturnal animals.
- Use information about animals to write - What
am I's? Here is an example.
- Write an adventure story pretending that you are Hush.
- Writing nonsense verse for magic rhymes.
SPEAKING and LISTENING
- Sharing - What am I's?
- Finding and reading poems about Animals.
- Sharing animal riddles.
- Procedures - How to do things, especially cooking. See
the recipes for food from Possum Magic
- Dramatisation of the story and any innovations made up.
Good for puuppets.
- Picture talks on Australian animals
READING
Reference Books
Possums and other Australian Animals
1. Parish,S "Amazing Facts about Australian Mammals",
Steve Parish Publishing Pty Ltd, Brisbane 1997.ISBN 0 875932 32 1
2.Brick, P "Australian Animals and Their Young",
Lamont Publishing, Ringwood, Australia, 1994. ISBN 0949129 75 5
3. Haddon, F, Oliver, T "The Gould League Book of
Australian Endangered Wildlife", Golden Press, Sydney, 1987. ISBN
0 7302 0535 5
4. Ridyard, D "Australian Wildlife with Their Babies"
Childerset Adelaide 1984 ISBN 0 909404 89 5
5. Niland,K "Feathers, Fur and Frills" Hodder
Children's Books, Sydney, 1997. ISBN 07336 0191 X
Stories
1. Cowley,J "Silly Old Possum" Story Box, Rigby
Heinemann 1983. ISBN 0 86867 178 9
2. Green, S "The Possum Charmers" Martin Books,
NSW, 1988. ISBN 0 7253 1110 X
3. Jensen, K "Possum In The House" Childerset,
Adelaide, 1986. ISBN 0 949130 08 7
4. Carter, M "Possum Goes To School" Childerset,
Cairns, 1992. ISBN 0949130 40 0
5. McClelland,L ., Parker, J "Pavlova and Presents"
Scholastic, Auckland 1996 ISBN 1 86943 356 4
COOKING
Use recipes for food tasted
by Hush, to have a cooking day with parents OR ask parents to bring along
a plate of food of one particular type, similar to what Hush tasted in
all the capitals cities while on her journey to sample peoples' food in
her attempts to become visible again.
ART
- Making postcards from drawings or paintings to send to
friends either by scanning and sending directly as an attachment to an
email message or send card by snail mail.
- Painting - paint pages for class story (see writing)
- Make a possum mask from a stencil for the Possum Magic
Day.
- Use the paint part of Claris or Microsoft or any other
program to draw and paint pictures for individual
or class stories.
SCIENCE
Life
- Classifying animals into groups - legs, fur etc nocturnal
or diurnal, mammals, birds, reptiles etc
- Australian animals - labelling,
matching, grouping, researching.
- From the story find the real facts about possums.
- Allow students to do the Nocturnal
Animal Quiz. This is an interactive quiz in the form of what am I's.
Matter
- Kitchen Chemistry - classifying different types of ingredients
used in cooking.
SOCIAL STUDIES
- Mapping - Rap Map locating towns of different rappers
on a world map and on Australia; tracing a map of Australia and locating
and printing the capitals of the states of Australia as visited by Hush
and Grandma Poss.
- Cultural studies- learning about different foods of Australia
and other countries and different aspects of everyday life.
MATHS
- Time sequencing of daily activities and routines.
- Measuring for cooking
MUSIC
- "Here We Go Round the Lamington Plate" is the
same as "Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush"
