If you’re looking for handmade Valentine’s Day gifts, these Valentine Felt Bracelets are fun and easy to make. You can find out how to make these @ Holiday Crafts and Creations.

 

To dress up your house for Valentine’s Day, you can make these Hanging Glitter Hearts.

Step by step instructions can be found @ Skip to my Lou.

Even though Australia Day was yesterday, this koala bookmark is so gorgeous it can be made anytime.

The downloadable pattern and tutorial is available @ Wee Folk Art.

A puzzle loving child’s dream is this Handmade Geometric Puzzle. The amount of designs which can be constructed is truly endless. Information on how to make the handmade geometric puzzle can be found @ Mer Mag.

These heart hand stamps are a super simple Valentine’s Day craft to do with your children.

The tutorial for this activity can be found @ Bloesem Kids.

These Valentine Lacing Cards are great for developing fine motor skills.

Downloadable templates and instructions are available @ The Mother Huddle.

 

Chinese dragons are a key symbol for the Chinese New Year celebrations. To help learn about the Chinese New Year, make this Chinese Dragon Paper Puppet. Instructions and a downloadable template are available @ Craft Jr.

 

These Chinese New Year tiger lanterns are a great twist on the original paper lantern craft.

Instructions on how to create them can be found @ 4 Crazy Kings.

Here is a gift you can make for your toddler for Valentine’s Day – A Valentine’s Day Busy Book.

A step by step tutorial is available @ Lavender and Limes.

Print these gorgeous Valentine Bag Patterns directly on to paper bags or labels and fill them with your own homemade gifts. The patterns are available @ Tangled & True.

 

This Valentine Lollipop Flowers craft makes a cute Valentine gift or decoration for a Valentine’s Day party.

Instructions on how to make these flowers can be found @ Little. Lovely.

This handmade Valentine’s Day felt envelope is perfect for children to play with on Valentine’s Day.

Detailed instructions on how to make it are available @ Roots & Wings Co.

 

Show how much you love someone by creating a Clay Heart Necklace. This is a great activity for children and adults. Instructions available @ Her Cup Overfloweth.

 

Use packing bubble sheets and heart doilies to create these heart prints for Valentine’s Day.

Once dry let kids add doilies, tissue paper, glitter, and gems to create a heart collage.

Idea from 4 Crazy Kings.

 

This Australian Flag lapbook covers the symbolism behind the Australian Flag. It teaches a few flag facts and introduces a flag poem. You can download it for free @ Downunder Literature

Homeschool Share has a free lapbook on Marsupials available for download. Marsupials covered include kangaroos, koalas, opossums, the Tasmanian devil, wombats, numbats, wallabies, and bandicoots.

The Wombat Stew Lapbook is another free lapbook available @ Homeschool Share.  In this lively story, a very clever dingo is thwarted in his attempts to make a wombat stew, when the other Australian bush animals successfully band together to trick him. There are also teaching notes available for this book from Scholastic Australia.

Lastly, In the Hands of a Child has a whole Lapbook pack about Australia available for purchase. There are 27 activities in this pack which cover the different cities and states in Australia, native animals, music, poems and recipes.

Even though Australia is an island, it is so large it is also a continent. It's not surprising then that Australian nature is so diverse. Habitats include ancient forests, mountains, waterfalls, farmland, and the outback. Australian animals are so unique that they are not found anywhere else in the world. These animals include the kangaroo, koala, wombat, platypus, kookaburra and emu. Learn more about the Australian land and animals through this selection of free books and printables.

Books

• A bush calendar (1909) by Amy Mack
• Bush days by Amy Mack
• Nature studies in Australia, with a natural history calendar, summaries of the chapters and complete index (1903) by William Gillies
• The wilderness (1922) by Amy Mack
• Australian botany, specially designed for the use of schools (1884) by William Robert Guilfoyle

Printables

The Australia Day Council of NSW has free printables available for download. These printables include colouring pages of Australian birds & fauna. state floral emblems, and Australian animal masks. A small sample of what’s available is provided below.

 

 

1. Sausage Rolls 2. Meat Pie 3. Anzac Biscuits

4. Damper 5. Pavlova 6. Lamingtons

Australia Day, the official National Day of Australia, is celebrated annually on the 26th of January. This public holiday commemorates the founding of the first white settlement in Australia in 1788. This is a perfect time to teach your children about Australia and perhaps try some Australian food.