karen p

Ages ago someone said that before the kids went to their
new schools, it was a good idea to give them some books
on Australian history, geography, etc.

Has anyone got some actual recommendations or websites
where I could find some. I thought it might be nice to have some
for them to do on the plane.

ABCDiamond mentioned some books for fonts used in schools
in Queensland, but any other ideas would be great. On the
subject of fonts, would my oldest daughter (11) have to relearn
her handwriting or would it only be the younger one (8) who is
still in the process of learning joined up writing.

Thanks Karen

Loopy

Hi Karen,

I think a lot depends on actual schools re handwriting. We're in Perth but things seem to vary slightly between schools. My 8 year old who was already doing joined up writing had to go back to printing which he found tough, but she insisted. My then 12 year old just carried on as before.

I can't really recommend any specific reading material but one thing I have seen which would be useful is a little book of lots of Aussie facts - different states & their capitals, sporting heros, mountains & rivers etc. I'm not saying they should sit & learn it off by heart but sometimes a bit of background can help sometimes. The book I saw was published by penguin over here but I can't remember the title.

On the subject of books bring lots of books with you if you can as they are expensive over here, even second hand ones. I typically pay about $12 for a second hand novel published in the last couple of years. Shops like K-Mart & Target have books at lower prices but only a small range, mainly new releases.

All the best

Loopy

bondipom

Just watch out for the ones written by Chopper Reed. Hooky the cripple was one of the titles.

Jacqui

Yes that might have been me, I remember responding on a thread to someone with children, and said that for the flight over we packed the kids with a backpack full of books about Oz, then for the few weeks here before enrolling them at school, we bought some workbooks with some facts about Oz we felt they should know, eg capital cities, history of Captian Cook's landing, etc.


[/QUOTE] Has anyone got some actual recommendations or websites where I could find some. I thought it might be nice to have some for them to do on the plane. [/QUOTE]


I just went over the kids bookshelves and picked one at random. There is a good "Amazing Facts" series by Steve Parish, and I think I did see them in the UK too, all about various topics on Oz. The one I have in front of me is called "Amazing Facts About Australia" so it's a general one, but there are other more specific ones we have too, like Australian Mammals, Australian Heritage, Australian Insects and Spiders, Australian Landforms, you get the idea. The ISBN of the one I picked out is 1-87628-257-6, do a search on Amazon and see what it brings up.



[/QUOTE] ABCDiamond mentioned some books for fonts used in schools in Queensland, but any other ideas would be great. On the subject of fonts, would my oldest daughter (11) have to relearn her handwriting or would it only be the younger one (8) who is still in the process of learning joined up writing. Thanks Karen [/QUOTE]


The writing style here is slightly different, but it depends on individual teachers as well as the kids age. Other mums here have complained about the "new" writing style, so it must have been introduced fairly recently. My 13 year old is old enough to have developed her own unique writing style, and being at High School the emphasis is more on the quality of work she is producing, as long as the writing is neat and readable, it's ok. Many of the homework assignments can be done on the PC too. My 11-year old has very neat and tidy writing anyway, so although still in primary, she doesn't get picked up on the fact it doesn't follow these new rules, because it's really ok as it is and anyway I would accuse the teacher of nit-picking if she tried to make her change styles. My 9-year old is still at the age where his writing is big and scruffy. He was 7 when we arrived, so it was worse then. But he's the one who has had to adapt to writing in the new style, because he's at that "still learning to write" stage and has to do it the way the teacher is teaching the others.

There is a good series of "Excel Basic Skills" workbooks, similar to the type you would buy in the UK, where children can practise maths, spelling, handwriting, science, whatever and all in books according to their age group. The one I've got in front of me is "Spelling and Vocabulary, years 5-6, ages 10-12". Here is the ISBN in case you can order them through Amazon 1-86441-283-6. There is also a website listed www.pascalpress.com.au

Talking of Amazon and books, we have found the books here to be expensive, the big chainstores stock the latest novels and suchlike at discounted prices, but the bookshops tend to be over-priced. My daughter bought a Jacqueline Wilson book today, it had £5.99 on the back, I said I would only buy it if it was $15 or less, otherwise it would be cheaper to get my hubby to pick it up for us (he's currently in England). Personally I tend to browse in the bookshops, then go home and log on to Amazon, where they are much cheaper, even allowing for postage. There isn't an Aussie Amazon (yet). We've ordered books for Christmas presents and hubby has also ordered some of those big boring computer software books and we've found it cheaper to order via the US website rather than the UK one.

karen p

Thanks, thats been really helpful

Karen