DLTK's Crafts for Kids
All About Australia Paper Quilt Craft

This is a great cut and paste paper craft project for learning about Australia.  It includes some symbolic icons, the flag and a map of Australia.

This turns out to be quite a large project (about 25 inches x 25 inches) and there are lots of templates to print.

Note:  If you'd like a smaller project (both in size and time) do a 4 square quilt instead of a 9 square quilt:  only print templates 1, 2, 4 and 5.

Alternatively, you might like to have a group of children each make a quilt piece or two and then assembling everyone's pieces into one quilt.

Materials:

• paper,
• printer,
• something to color with,
• scissors,
• glue
• Optional:  gold or green construction paper

Notes about the images:

Image 1:  The kangaroo is a marsupial and the national animal of Australia.

Image 2:  The boomerang is a simple weapon that's been used in Australia for 10,000 years.  The boomerang is mostly used for sport now.  It is shaped in such a way that if you throw it properly it will return to you.

Image 3:  The emu is the national bird of Australia.  It is the largest bird native to Australia and the only living member of the genus Dromaius.  Although emus cannot fly, they can travel great distances at a fast trot and can sprint at 50 km/h (31 mph)

Image 4:  Sydney Opera House is a famous Australian building and a UNESCO World Heritage Site.  It houses multiple performance venues.  As one of the busiest performing arts centres in the world, the Sydney Opera House provides a venue for many performing arts companies including the four key resident companies Opera Australia, The Australian Ballet, the Sydney Theatre Company and the Sydney Symphony Orchestra.

Image 5:  Australia's flag has a blue field with the Union Flag in the upper left quarter and a large white seven-pointed star known as the Commonwealth Star in the lower left quarter and the Southern Cross on the right hand side.

Image 6:  Australia's national flower is the golden wattle.  It is a tree which flowers in late winter and spring, producing a mass of fragrant, fluffy, golden flowers.

Image 7:  Australia has a lot of sheep and cattle farms.

Image 8:  Australia is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the large island continent of Australia, the island of Tasmania and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans.  Australia has 6 states and 2 major territories.

Image 9:  The Great Barrier Reef is one of the seven national wonders of the world.  The Great Barrier Reef is the world's largest reef system composed of over 2,900 individual reefs and 900 islands stretching for over 2,600 kilometres (1,600 mi) over an area of approximately 344,400 square kilometres (133,000 sq mi).  The reef is located in the Coral Sea, off the coast of Queensland in north-east Australia.  The Great Barrier Reef can be seen from outer space and is the world's biggest single structure made by living organisms.  This reef structure is composed of and built by billions of tiny organisms, known as coral polyps.

Instructions:

• Optional:  This is optional, but I really like to include it as part of the craft if I'm making the 9 square quilt.
  • Print the "Top Border Template" in either color or B&W.  This is the bit that says AUSTRALIA along the top.
  • Color the template pieces if using B&W
  • Cut out the template pieces
  • Assemble the pieces to make a strip about 20 inches long and 3 inches tall.
• Print templates 1 to 9 to make a 9 square quilt  
   
  OR print templates 1, 2, 4 and 5 if you're making a 4 square quilt.
• Color each template piece if using B&W
  • this can be quite time consuming and can be done over two weeks of learning about the country (a square per day and 1 day for assembly = 10 days)
        OR
  • this can be done as a group project with each child completing a square and then assembling it as a group.
• Cut out the template pieces.
• Apply glue to the gray parts of the template and assemble (you can look at the image at the top of this page to see what piece goes where)  After assembling, there should be no gray left showing.
• Optional:  I was torn whether to add this as the project is already quite time consuming.  It's up to you whether you want to do it!
  • Glue 4 inch wide strips of red or green construction paper all around the outside of your project to form a border.  Use scissors to cut a slight wave in this border so it looks like a quilt.
     
    OR
  • Print 3 copies of the fringe template for a 9 square quilt or 2 copies for a 4 square quilt.  Cut out the pieces and glue them around the outside of the quilt as a border, overlapping the pieces slightly so there are no gaps.

Templates:

• Close template window when done printing to return to this screen.
• Set page margins to zero if you have trouble fitting the template on one page (FILE, PAGE SETUP or FILE, PRINTER SETUP in most browsers).

Top Border Template       color  or   B&W

Quilt Square Template 1       color  or   B&W

Quilt Square Template 2       color  or   B&W

Quilt Square Template 3       color  or   B&W

Quilt Square Template 4       color  or   B&W

Quilt Square Template 5       color  or   B&W

Quilt Square Template 6       color  or   B&W

Quilt Square Template 7       color  or   B&W

Quilt Square Template 8       color  or   B&W

Quilt Square Template 9       color  or   B&W

Optional Fringe Template       color  or   B&W

Optional Info About the Images        B&W only

Print friendly version of these instructions