- Info
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Edwin Ride gets into the spirit of National Wattle Day
©D.Searle | | Resources & activities for 1 September - National Wattle Day WEAR a sprig of wattle or Australia's colours of green and gold GREET each other with 'Happy Wattle Day' ORGANISE a picnic, lunch, morning/afternoon tea, BBQ or dinner for your family & friends
Schools
Suggested National Wattle Day Activities for Schools Kid's Wattle Games Posters - for National Wattle Day 1 September Two types, both A3 in size but you can print 'to fit page' to get A4 size To print A3 poster click here To print A3 poster with room to write in your own event click here Songs
Wattle Day Song
Golden Wattle Poems
The Wattle Celebrates
Australia's Emblem
The Wattle
The Cootamundra Wattle
Wattle Day Other Resources for National Wattle Day for Schools |
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| | Schools Create your own ways to celebrate Australia and being Australian Suggested National Wattle Day Activities - Take a sprig of wattle or something gold and something green to your Mum and/or Dad
- Collect samples of wattle to decorate your school room
- Plant wattle trees and shrubs around your school grounds every year
- Write a story or poem on what you think National Wattle Day is or what the day means to you
- Visit the local Botanic Gardens
- Hold your own Collectors Show to display and talk about anything that uses wattle as a design or is made from wattle
- Make your own National Wattle Day badge
Write Acrostic Poetry
(Click on words above to see examples provided by Year 6 St Francis Primary School ACT)- Paint an old shirt the green and gold of the wattle and wear it on National Wattle Day
- Organise a BBQ for National Wattle Day
- Try a painting (as thumbnail to the left), a poem, flower arrangement, art or craft activity
Permission is given to print, or download and print, the drawing. If you click on the thumbnail you can then print from your browser (recommended), or alternatively, you can download a bitmap file
(= approx 400k - hold shift key when clicking here) - Decorate the school or classroom
- Sing songs or recite poems on wattle
- Cook food with some wattleseed for your family and learn about the
history of eating wattleseed in Australia in modern times - Make some wattleseed pasta
kid's wattle games Test your wattle knowledge with our three games. The information you need to answer the questions can be found at: Golden Wattle: Australia's national floral emblem' The three games for you to download, print out and fill in are:
'Fill in the answers' 'True or False' 'The Wattle Word Game' Teachers please take photos of your activities and email them to our President so that we can show them to everyone on this website. A great source of material is the book Wattle by Maria Hitchcock (A.G.P.S.) published in 1991. Back to top |
| | | | Songs Wattle Day Song Chorus
We're proud to wear the Green and Gold,
Live the Spirit of Australia,
We welcome Spring on Wattle Day,
From coast to coast, let's all say G'Day. The wattle lies dormant through winter months,
Building her strength for the Spring to come,
When life bursts forth in golden sprays,
Let's get together 'round Australia and say.... At the drop of a hat we'll celebrate,
Go out in the bush with our BBQ plate,
If someone's in need, we'll help them out,
Let's get together 'round Australia and shout.... The wattle shows a way we can live our lives,
An expression of hope, through fire and flood it thrives,
By working together we can beat the odds,
Aussie friendship and courage what more could we want.... ©1999 David Raff and Jan Raff, Canberra ACT Australia Download to listen to the MP3 recording If you want to purchase a CD for $AUS20.00 containing a
recording of the song and a backing track (no vocals) which
can be used to accompany children when they perform, and a
page of sheet music consisting of a melody line and guitar chords,
please contact Mr and Mrs D. J. Raff | 
Golden wattle (Acacia pycnantha)
©S.Searle | | Golden Wattle Golden Wattle, fairy stuff
Little balls of yellow fluff
Hear the bees how loud they hum
To say they're glad that Spring is come
When the stars begin to peep
Then the wattle falls asleep
Like a tired child in bed
It droops its pretty curly head
Anon.
(Song contributed by Mrs Jenny Sayer, who copied it out of her Headmistress' Assembly Book (Miss Leslie Bridle) at Sans Souci Public School in 1956)
Source: Wattle by Maria Hitchcock Back to top |
| | | | Poems | 
Cootamundra Wattle (Acacia baileyana)
©S. Searle | | The Wattle Celebrates In this wide brown land of ours there is a seed that has been sown
with magical properties yet to be known. It blazes gold upon the earth
heralds the passing of winter and the hope and joy of spring to come. Yet before it blooms it must endure the harshness of the environment.
It undergoes the flame of fire before it into the earth transpires and in growth
unfolds its beauty for all to behold. The Master sower has decreed that the wattle will be ours to see and heed. For as with the seasons of our land so how alike are the seasons of man. Please heed the beauty of our land and as with the wattle celebrate,
this season of man. Let the gold of each man shine forth as the land and give to each
other hope and joy. As with the diggers of old let
us go below for the gold.
For it will come from within.
You have but to find the provider. In this season I am sure there will be another you meet by thought,
word or deed try to satisfy his need. For the dejected, a smile, the weary, a hand, the foe, a friend,
the successful, a clap or the meek, a wink.
Perhaps your neighbour needs a beer or the passerby, a 'Gaday'. Be your giving big or small it matters not at all. But this I do charge
it is of the essence at the start tell no one of your gift and do not feel proud of it. In this way I plead
as the wattle blossoms gold to celebrate the changing seasons of our land
let us blossom gold to celebrate the changing seasons of man. An Australian Back to top
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Wattle basket arranged by Dawn Searle
©S.Searle | | Australia's Emblem The wattle is our emblem.
The wattle is gold,
gold signifies richness, the richness of spirit,
the spirit of the aborigines, who knew and loved the wattle
long, but before the white man came; the spirit they
expressed in sharing and caring; the richness of friendship. The wattle symbolises the spirit of the mountains,
the valleys, the forests, the rocks and rivers, the golden
warmth of sunshine, the richness of the soil, the wealth
of the minerals of the earth, the burnished sand of the
desert, the yellow native grasses, the setting sun
over endless horizons. The wattle spreads a golden pathway in the
spring. It reminds us there is hope where the past
and present meet, a bright promise for the future. The wattle weaves all nationalities in Australia,
into one golden web of love and fellowship,
of unity and peace. Margaret Shaw Margaret Shaw of Longueville, New South Wales, remembered drawing pictures of wattle with sticks of yellow chalk in her schoolbook and then blowing the excess chalk off her book 'in golden swirls of powdery dust'. This was in the 1920s at the tiny Bostonbrick bush school near Dorrigo, New South Wales, where there were no crayons, paints or coloured pencils. On Wattle Day the children sang 'The Wattle Song' accompanied by a tuning fork Source: Wattle by Maria Hitchcock Back to top
| | | | The Wattle I saw it in the days gone by,
When the dead girl lay at rest,
And the wattle and the native rose
We placed upon her breast. I saw it in the long ago
(And I've seen strong men die),
And who, to wear the wattle,
Hath better right than I? I've fought it through the world since then,
And seen the best and worst,
But always in the lands of men
I held Australia first. I wrote for her, I fought for her,
And when at last I lie,
Then who, to wear the wattle, has
A better right than I? Henry Lawson Back to top
|  Cootamundra wattle (Acacia baileyana) in profuse flower
©S. Searle | | The Cootamundra Wattle The Cootamundra wattle the commonest of trees
They sucker all around the place and multiply like bees
In scrubland and steep gullies, in paddocks brown and bare
And in urban parks and gardens, you see them everywhere. 'Acacia baileyana' their species Latin name
And botanists and arboriculturist and other tree experts claim
That though native to Australia they grow too easily
And that they outgrow and outcompete rarer breeds of native tree. On frosty August morning the paddock looking gray
But Cootamundra wattle help brighten up the day
They bloom when growth is dormant on Winter's coldest hours
The Cootamundra wattle laden with yellow flowers. Once indigenous to Cootamundra till introduced down south
And the wattles then took over and found their way about
They can grow on the poorest soils resistant to disease
The Cootamundra wattle is the hardiest of trees. On coldest days of Winter great beauty they display
But a weed in their own Country the experts on trees say
The Cootamundra wattles you see them everywhere
In urban parks and gardens and paddocks brown and bare. Francis Duggan Back to top
| | | | Wattle Day In this great Land of Australia today is Wattle Day
And in South Gippsland in Victoria the morning sky is gray
On the first day of September the first of the calendar Spring
Upon the flowering wattle tree the gray butcherbird sing. The colours of Australia as it often has been told
Were inspired by the green wattles in their flowers the color of gold
From mid Winter to early Spring it is a marvellous sight to see
The golden blossoms blooming on a lovely wattle tree. Before dawn it was raining and a slight chill in the breeze
But the morning it is not cold around nine or ten degrees
And overnight across the parks and paddocks whilst many were asleep
The beautiful Goddess of Spring in her green dress into the Town did creep. She arrived without fanfare the Town band for her did not play
But the wild birds sang to greet her in the dawn of Wattle Day
The frogs sing in the roadside drain a sign that rain is near
But balmy days not far off since Spring herself is here. Francis Duggan Back to top |
| | | | Resources for National Wattle Day World Wide Wattle - Wattles are wonderful - For Schools
http://www.worldwidewattle.com/schools.php |
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