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Engaging ways to teach the Eureka Stockade

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Bring this historic event to life in your classroom.

I’m not going to lie. Some of the topics in the Australian Curriculum are not very exciting and it can be a challenge to spruce them up and make them fun. Luckily there are other topics that you, and your students, can really sink your teeth into making it highly engaging and their learning rich and your lessons memorable. The Eureka Stockade is one of these events.

What does the Curriculum say?

The Australian Curriculum requires that Year 5 students learn about Australia’s colonial history and several events, people and concepts that impacted the development of the colonies. The Eureka Stockade ties in perfectly with Content Descriptor ACHASSK108 – The impact of a significant development or event on an Australian colony. The elaboration for this Descriptor breaks this down further:
“investigating an event or development and explaining its economic, social and political impact on a colony (for example, the consequences of frontier conflict events such as the Myall Creek Massacre, the Pinjarra Massacre; the impact of South Sea Islanders on sugar farming and the timber industry; the impact of the Eureka Stockade on the development of democracy; the impact of internal exploration and the advent of rail on the expansion of farming)” ACARA

In a nutshell you are required to teach your Year 5 students about a major event in colonial Australia that was so significant that it:

  • changed life for the colonial settlers,
  • impacted on the economy, and/or
  • caused political change.

By studying this event they will have both knowledge and understanding of how individuals or groups of people or major events can bring about social, economic and political change.

Eureka Stockade activity for grade 5 HASS

Why the Eureka Stockade?

The Eureka Stockade is an excellent example of a ‘significant event’ that caused major social and political change in colonial Australia. It’s Australia’s most famous rebellion brought about by the intense frustrations of miners and colonialists with the corruption of lawmakers and the lack of representation for the ordinary people.
While colonialists had already started demanding greater political rights and protesting against the government, the Eureka Stockade brought their frustrations and the government failings into the spotlight. The governing powers in Australia needed to make changes and start to listen to the people. The colonies had reached a point where they demanded greater representation in the government and were prepared to fight for it. The colonial governments needed to establish greater democratic practices or face growing resentment and social unrest.
While the Eureka Stockade ticks all the boxes for the Australian Curriculum it’s also a really interesting event that students find fascinating and we both know what that leads to – maximum learning opportunities! Woo Hoo!

Novels and Class Reading.

There are great books by Australian authors that are written for upper primary age children. Here are some suggestions:

The Night They Stormed Eureka by Jackie French (I love this book, it’s a brilliant story that your students will beg you to read more of)
Journey to Eureka by Kerry Greenwood
The Night We Made The Flag: A Eureka story by Carole Wilkinson (this is a picture book that looks at the role of women in making the Eureka Stockade)

Videos

BTN 2013 Anniversary segment – the story starts from 6:54.
Feature History – Eureka Stockade on YouTube – A very informative video with great background information and links well with the curriculum requirements. Be aware that from 11:18 onwards is an advertisement so you might want to stop it there for your students.
The colonisation of the central Victorian goldfields – ABC Education – This entire video series is outstanding. Chapter 4 focuses on the Eureka Stockade.

Planning and Teaching the Eureka Stockade

Books and videos are an excellent way to capture your students’ attention and give an overview of events. It’s important to back up visual and audio resources with tasks and activities that allow students to interact with the topic encouraging a deeper understanding and genuine skill development. We’ve developed a great range of resources dedicated to Australia’s Gold Rush history and the Eureka Stockade that are hands-on, interactive and aligned with the Australian Curriculum. Each activity pack includes a detailed lesson plan, printables and answer keys (where applicable).

Click Here to Check Out Our Range of Australian Gold Rush Resources

To get you inspired we’ve created our FREE Eureka Stockade Agamograph. Students love creating these and they make an amazing display in your classroom. Each student could write a paragraph to accompany their agamograph explaining the different scenes. Sign up to receive our V.I.T newsletter and you’ll receive the password to our FREE Resource library which includes our Eureka Stockade Agamograph..

We’d love to hear from you about your experience teaching the Eureka Stockade. Feel free to leave a comment.
Happy Teaching!
Amy

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Australian Federation is essential knowledge for everyone!

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Why you shouldn’t scrimp on teaching this important topic.

I’ve mentioned before that Aussie Star was born from my determination to make teaching Australia’s Federation more engaging and hands-on for students and an easier topic to teach. I didn’t want to dread teaching it anymore and I didn’t want students to switch off in my lessons because the process wasn’t exciting or there weren’t any battles that grabbed their attention. The further I dug into the topic the more passionate I became about it and its role in the curriculum for Year 6. 


In 2020 understanding Australia’s Federation became even more important as we saw for the first time in over a century, the division between the States as more than just geography. We saw State Governments apply lockdowns and border closures to protect their citizens and economies from the impact of Covid-19. As a result, we saw the autonomy and independence of the States that was so fiercely protected in the establishment of Federation. While working as a nation to beat Covid-19 the State Government clearly demonstrated their commitment to their citizens first and foremost. This wasn’t without some controversy of course but it was clear that the Premiers were working with the Federal Government, but their State was their priority.

Like everyone I often chatted with people about what was happening and the latest restrictions or easing of. Often I was surprised to hear comments like “Why doesn’t the PM just tell the states they should lock down?” or on the 
flip-side “They can’t keep the State border closed. They’ve got no right because the PM is in charge, not the Premiers, so he should just tell them to open.” I couldn’t help but wonder if these people hadn’t been taught the basics of Australia’s Federation at school. I certainly didn’t, in fact I don’t remember learning anything about Australia’s government until I studied Legal Studies in Year 12 and I’m ashamed to say I don’t remember much of it. Having a sound understanding of Federation and how our system of Government was established would help people to have a better understanding of the decision making, responsibilities and relationship between the State and Federal Governments. I’m sure they’d still be frustrated and there will always be hot debate between states but the basic knowledge would help to generate informed debate.

Thankfully, we’re now teaching all students (those learning the Australian Curriculum) the fundamentals of Australia’s Federation and the origins of our System of Government. Sure we have to work hard to make it fun and interesting but it’s well worth the effort to know that we’re developing a generation who have a greater understanding of the processes, reasons and justification for Australia’s system of Government and the relationship between the Federal, State and Local Governments.

Have you found any teachable moments related to Federation or Australia’s system of Government from the Covid-19 crisis? Let us know in the comments? If you’re looking for resources to help liven up your Federation unit scroll down to checkout a selection of our Federation activities. On your way past sign up for V.I.T Membership to gain access to our FREE resource library which includes this gorgeous Federation Agamograph.

Wishing you a settled and successful 2021! 

Happy Teaching!
Amy

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How a curriculum topic checklist can ease your workload.

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Get on top of planning with a Curriculum Topic List

Don’t be bamboozled by an overcrowded curriculum!
A curriculum topic list can help you make sense of everything you need to cover.

We’ve all heard that the curriculum is over-crowded. There’s so much to cover that it can be easy for topics to slip through the cracks. Or it can be difficult to know where to start with your planning or to find the opportunities for integration. A curriculum topic list can help with this. When I was in the classroom, I always wished there was a quick, easy to read list I could look at to reference and check off what I had done. I love a good list!

Curriculum topic lists are perfect for this they give you a quick breakdown of subjects and the content that needs to be covered. They can be used in several ways.

  • To help with your planning. You can check them off as you plan.
  • To help find or prepare resources. A quick reference list can give you the keywords you need to do an online search on TPT or Pinterest. Ready made resources are a huge timesaver!
  • To understand what students have covered in previous years to help you gauge their level of prior knowledge and understanding. 
  • To help your teaching team know what’s in the curriculum for your grade. Sometimes there can be some confusion/double up on content which is frustrating for both teachers and students. A topic checklist is a great way to ensure all grades know what they’re responsible for teaching.
  • To give parents an idea of the knowledge and skills their children will be/have been covering at school. I think they’d be quite surprised to see just how much they’ve covered!
  • To find opportunities for integration. Because there’s so much to cover integrating subjects is a fantastic way to consolidate the content and, as they say, kill two birds with one stone. This is a very efficient way of planning and teaching and can also lead to a greater depth of knowledge and understanding.

To get you started we’ve got a curriculum topic list that covers HASS, Science and Maths for Grades 5 and 6 that you download from our Free Resource Library. We’d recommend printing it out on A3 paper and putting it on your wall for quick reference. To access our Free Resource Library, join our V.I.T membership and we’ll email it straight to you.

If you can think of any other ways to use these lists we’d love to hear them. Feel free to comment below or send us an email. 


We look forward to hearing from you.

Take Care
Amy

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Let someone else take care of your planning and prep this year. No I’m not kidding!

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When I was teaching full-time, we had a cleaner. Her name is Angela and I miss her every day. Every. Single. Day. I seriously loved every second Friday when I would come home to a beautiful clean house and my weekend was (mostly) free. It was money well spent and definitely made me a nicer person to live with. Sure, we paid for her expertise, but it was worth every single penny to have several big jobs taken off my to-do list each fortnight.
Since then more serviced-based businesses have started and I’m all for them, particularly if you have kids and your time is shared between after school homework, weekend sport and play dates or birthday parties. We’ve recently been ordering the Hello Fresh boxes, and these have been amazing. It’s great food and yes you have to cook but you don’t have to think about what you’re going to cook. It’s all there ready, portioned out with a step by step recipe card to walk you through the process. Hubby particularly liked this aspect because he’s not one to ‘wing-it’ in the kitchen. You can also get meals delivered already done like Lite ‘n’ Easy and YouFoodz. There are services available for everything these days and there’s no shame in taking advantage of them. (BTW I’m not affiliated with any of these companies)

You don’t have to do everything the hard way. Hooray!
So why wouldn’t you do the same with aspects of your planning and prep for school? You have so much on your plate at work that reducing the number of tasks you have to do is necessary, nay essential. There’s no shame in this. We can sometimes be martyrs to our profession but when you’re burnt out and overwhelmed what good is that?
If you need further convincing, I’ve put together 5 great reasons to get help with your planning and prep by purchasing done-for-you resources:
You’ll know what you’re teaching and how you’re going to teach it. Done-for-you resources make your planning and prep so fast. You can purchase plans and lesson activities that are ready to print and teach, that are age appropriate and curriculum aligned. So easy.
You’ll know you’ve got the curriculum covered. By purchasing resources that are curriculum aligned you can be confident that you’ve got the curriculum covered and you’ll be able to demonstrate this to your school leaders and parents.

australian-curriculum-planning-tips-ideas-newsletter-template

Your lessons will be truly engaging. Aussie Star was created out of frustration and need. I needed fun, interesting and hands-on activities to teach topics that were often very boring. I didn’t want another boring worksheet and I know you don’t either. Teacher-authors have the time to make awesome resources because they know you don’t, why not take advantage of this?
You’ll be able to deal with everything else better. Seriously if you’re not stressing about what you’re teaching you’ll be able to cope better with those daily curveballs and demands. There are so many extra tasks you’re required to do every day it’s ridiculous and it can feel like teaching is secondary which should never be the case. Done-for-you planning and lessons will free you up so that you’ll be able catch (or dodge) those curveballs.

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You’ll be less stressed. Just like hiring a cleaner or ordering food delivery, using done-for-you resources will cut out one more (big) task from your busy life and free you up for more enjoyable things.
If you’re feeling overwhelmed and bogged down in your planning and prep I encourage you to check out our store. Our mission statement says ‘making life easier for upper primary teachers’ and every resource is designed with that mission in mind. We want to ease your workload.

One way to stay up to date with our resources is to join our VIT email list. You’ll receive regular free products that are relevant to your teaching and have access to our exclusive sale events and give-aways. Right now, if you sign up you’ll receive our newsletter template that is perfect to keep your parents and care givers up-to-date on what’s happening in the classroom, events, photos and student work. It can be used in PowerPoint so you can use your own fonts and insert photos. Click here to subscribe.

Let us know if you need any help with finding resources or have any requests for resources you need to make your life easier. We’re just an email away at amy@aussiestarresources.com.au. We look forward to hearing from you!

Happy Teaching
Amy

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Sure your classroom looks great – but how’s your planning looking?

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Curriculum Planning –More important than classroom decoration.


Sure your classroom looks great but how’s your planning going?

Now, don’t get me wrong I love a gorgeous classroom as much as the next teacher. But when I scroll through Instagram or Pinterest I can’t help but wonder if, when it comes to classrooms, beauty is only ‘skin’ deep?

Ok I’m not saying you shouldn’t give your classroom an Insta-worthy makeover if you want to. Having a beautiful classroom can make you, and your students, feel excited for the year ahead. I know there’s pressure to make your room look great. I’ve felt the shame that my classroom is not as beautiful as the other teachers. I’ve also sat up until all hours laminating and cutting labels, displays and motifs. Ugh. What I’m saying is your curriculum planning and prep for teaching and learning should be your first priority. Having the perfect cactus motif on the hessian covered pinboard, above your funky park bench, sitting on a mat of artificial grass, is not creating the ideal learning environment if you’re not ready for the learning to start. So here are my top 3 must-dos before you start decorating your classroom.

1. Curriculum Planning

You know I’m all about planning. Even if you’ve been teaching for 20+ years you should have clear, written, plans for the year ahead. And I’m not talking about the yearly curriculum overview that your school has on the server. I’m talking about curriculum planning that is specific. Genuine planning documents will demonstrate the following:
a. How you will bring the curriculum to life in your classroom
b. How you will ensure you’re covering the whole curriculum across the year and then term
c. How you will assess each achievement standard and the criteria for each assessment

I could go on but for now I’ll leave it at that. Planning is a huge topic that I’ll break down later.

2. Resources

If your curriculum planning is in place you won’t need to do the morning scramble to organise resources for lessons. Of course, there will be times when you forget things or a lesson changes at the last minute. But if you’ve located and organised resources clearly you shouldn’t have to do this as often. As a result, your stress levels will go down because you’re ready to deal with any issues. Being super organised will help you be more flexible and deal with the curve balls that get thrown at you each day. How you organise your resources is up to you but here are some suggestions to get you started:

a. Curriculum folders on your computer.
Create a filing system on your computer that breaks down each component of your planning. This doesn’t need to be a big task. By creating a master folder you can simply copy and rename it for each subject and topic.

b. Google Drive
I love that Google Drive is accessible from anywhere you have internet connection. If you’ve already saved your planning on your hard drive that’s not a problem. You can also upload your curriculum files straight from your computer. It’s so easy! Google Drive will maintain the same filing system of folders and sub folders.

Still don’t have the time? No problem! We’ve created a master folder system and cheat sheet for you. It comes with step by step instructions to set up your own curriculum filing system on your PC and Google Drive. Subscribe to our email list to receive it straight to your inbox.

3. Administration

This is all the nuts and bolts stuff of running your classroom. Having these tasks organised and ready to go early means you’ll be ready to start the year off right. Some of these can be created, laminated and used for years. Sure, you might have seen them for years, but they’ll be new to your students each year.

  • Weekly timetable
  • Book covers
  • Back to school newsletters
  • Tray labels
  • Birthday charts
  • Your desk and drawers
  • Stationery – for you and your students
  • Resource cupboards or storage
  • Art supplies

So, before you go looking for the perfect Llama motif ask yourself if you’re ready to teach for the year ahead. Is your curriculum planning in place? It may not be as fun, but it will reduce your workload and help you cope with the unexpected.

If you’re keen to set up your own curriculum planning filing system, we have created a master file for you already. Sign up to our VIT membership and we’ll email it to you straight away. When you sign up, you’ll also receive our regular email. These emails often include freebies designed especially for upper primary teachers.

All the best for the year ahead!

Happy Teaching

Amy

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