To the kids, the most famous Australians are the koala bears and kangaroos! We learn some cool things about them and all the other animals of the outback from the fact-filled book Australia’s Amazing Birds and Animals.
We decide to have some fun with the book and make it into a game.
First the girls take turns reading sections to each other.
And then each pick a type of word game to make for the other.
AZ picks her 10 favorite animals and hides them in a word search.
CZ decides to make a crossword puzzle and uses her favorite animal fun facts as clues. The finished product:
And AZ’s:
Now for the fun part! Solving each others!
HZ wants to get in on the fun.
Both puzzles are actually pretty challenging! Good job girls!
Here are some cool things that we learned about Australian animals:
-Koalas are marsupials just like kangaroos and they also carry their babies in a pouch but their pouch opens backwards to protect the baby from tree branches, since koalas spend almost all of their time in eucalyptus trees.
-A platypus is a monotreme, a rare form of mammal that lays eggs. The male platypus has a poison spur in each of his hind legs.
-The frogmouth bird is nocturnal and camouflages itself to look like a tree stump during the day as protection.
-There are over 100 types of snakes in Australia but the longest is the pipe on that can grow to over 20 feet in length.
-The flying fox is actually a bat that gets its name from its pointy ears and nose.
-Small wallabies and padmelon can look like rats but hop upright on their hind legs like kangaroos.
-While the Australian marsupials rear one baby a season, estuarine crocodile can lay up to eighty eggs at a time!
Globe Scouts 