My Grandma Lived in Gooligulch by Graeme Base

Graeme Base is one of our FAVORITE authors so of course, he is the one we will start with.

Graeme Base is famous for his amazing illustrations, use of rhyme, and putting little secrets within the pictures of his books.  The Eleventh Hour has clues within its pages for who stole Horace's birthday feast and Enigma has a cypher at the back of the book to find out where the character's favorite things are hidden.  Base's first children's book was My Grandma Lived in Gooligulch, so that is a good one to start with.  It was published in 1983 and is about the animals of Australia, where Graeme Base lives.

Some activities to do with this book:

1)  Conversation Topics: Use the book to introduce different conversation topics and get your kids thinking about "higher level" things other than just the typical "wh" questions we ask.

Get your Conversation Topics here!

2)  Postcards: Find the locations Grandma may have visited on the map.  Research the place and write a postcard from Grandma about what she saw and what she did there.

Get your Postcards here!

3) Rhyme:  Since this is the first Graeme Base book for you to do, spend some time talking about rhyme.  How it can be used in poems, verse, rap, songs, etc.  Try to create your own rhyming story or song about your kids pets or favorite animals.  Each kid can create their own story/song or you can have them make one up collectively by each student adding a line.  They have to pay attention to the previous line so their final word rhymes with the previous student's word.

4) Bush Tucker:  At the end of each book (or book unit depending on if we are using several books together) we like to add a cooking activity.  This way you can throw in some following directions skills and the kids LOVE to cook because that means they get to eat!!!  Bush tucker is a type of food native to Australia.  It is supposed to have an ingredient from Australia, but those are hard to find.  After a lot of research, frozen macadamia dessert was discovered and somewhere linked to Australia, so that is what we are going with because all of the ingredients can be found at your local grocery store. 

Get your Recipe and Permission Slip here!