Following on from yesterdays Australia Day post, today I have three wonderful games for Children of all ages.  This year I've created a series of games focusing on our wonderful Australian Animals, these games are great to keep children of all ages occupied while learning some new facts on some of our favourite native friends.

The games include:

• Scavenger Hunt for Australian Animals
• Australian Animal Word Search
• Australian Coat of Arms - word maker game

The above links will download the files, but keep reading for game instructions.

Enjoy

Scavenger Hunt for Australian Animals

The highlight of many of my children's parties is the scavenger hunt, and I'm sure it will work equally well for Australia Day.

For this hunt I've created 27 cards for each child to find.  Nine cards have pictures of Australian animals, nine cards have facts about a specific Australian animal and nine cards have the regular name and the scientific name for each Australian animal.  Once a child has found all 27 cards they have to group the cards so the picture, name and facts are all together for each animal.

If you have younger children I'd just use the picture cards or you could place children in a group.

Scoring: The winner of the game should be the first to collect all cards and correctly match the picture, name and facts.

Hint: If you are having trouble with the fact cards, the Animal picture, fact card and name are in the same position on each sheet.

To make this game simply download the file, using the link above, cut around each card and then hide the cards around your house or garden.  I use a mixture of tapeing cards to skewers and placing at ground level, or using string to tie from trees and even blu-Tack to fix to harder items.  

Note: I have printed the cards on 200 gsm Bond paper, but normal printer paper will work.

Australian Animal Word Search

This classic word search does not require any explanation, this puzzle if full of Australian Animals to find.  It could be a bit tricky for younger children, so you may want to reduce some of the words.

Scoring: If you would like to add a competitive edge to this game you could award prizes for the first to finish, or count the most number of words found within a specified time period. 

Australian Coat of Arms - Word Maker Game

We are all used to seeing the proud Kangaroo and Emu that grace the Australian coat of arms, but how many words can you make from such fine Australian Animals.  I’ve included the scientific name of each animal as Kangaroo are Emu are really tough words to work with and the scientific names have an amazing amount of letters. 

 To even out this challenge I allow younger children to make words from one letter eg: A and I.  As the ages increase set a minimum of 3 and / or 4 letter words for the older children.

Make sure you place either a time limit or the first to an agreed number of words.

 Scoring:  You could take two approaches for scoring.   You can either use the raw count of words, or the raw count of unique words.  For example if more than one person found the word menu then points do not count. 

Prizes:  

While not necessary, I do find that children like a prize at the end.  This time of you you can find a lot of Australian products at good prices at supermarkets or discount stores, these make great prizes.