When B-Boy comes to stay overnight, Little J becomes envious of the attention he is getting from everyone. Out walking on Country, Nanna, Little J, Big Cuz and B-Boy find an injured joey. Uncle Mick, a Search and Rescue officer, tells them how to care for the joey that they name ‘Hopalong’. The children feed and look after Hopalong until Mick finds him a place in a wildlife shelter.

Engage - Pose and respond to questions, and make predictions about familiar objects and events

Theme - FAUNA

As a class, revisit Little J’s story within episode 7, ‘Hopalong’, and ask students to recall what type of animal Hopalong was and how the family rescued and cared for it.

As a class, read and/or view an Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander story that tells about an Australian animal, for example:

• Mirram the Kangaroo and Warreen the Wombat 
• Lippo, A. & Lofts, P. (2004). The kangaroo and the porpoise. Sydney : Scholastic (video)
• Mung Mung, G. L. & Lofts, P. (2004). How the kangaroos got their tails. Sydney : Scholastic Press: (video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V0jgi7yDsdE)
• Why Koala Has a Stumpy Tail 

Discuss the significance of each story in respect to the main characters and their actions and values, the moral or meaning of the story, and how the story represents Aboriginal culture and lore and/or Torres Strait Islander culture and lore.

Introduce students to resources where there are various images of Australian animals. A good resource to start with is

• Australia’s cutest baby animals 
• Animals
• Bancroft, B. (2005). An Australian ABC of animals. Surry Hills, NSW : Little Hare Books. (teacher notes)

Explore the different animals in the resources and examine their special physical characteristics, for example: a frog’s big eyes for seeing insects, an echidna’s nose for poking into ant’s nests, kangaroo’s big back legs for jumping, a sugar glider’s flaps of skin, a snake’s scales, a koala’s big claws.

Have students pose questions as to why each of the animals have these characteristics. Start a list of special physical characteristics under common headings and have students enter descriptions of the characteristic for their animal.

Head

Eyes

Nose

Teeth

Tongue

Ears

Hair

Torso

Arms

Legs

Feet

Skin

Emu

Koala

Divide the class into groups of three students and have groups investigate the physicality, preferred environment (habitat), and life cycle the Australian animal/s of their choice.

Once the groups have completed their research, students could create a dance, a freeze-frame picture or a tableau showing something about the animal’s body and how that affects what the animal eats and/or how it moves.

Invite each student to share with the class a sentence or a short statement including the name of the animal, where it lives, how it moves, and what it eats. e.g. “I am a koala and I live in gum trees. My strong arms and big claws help me to climb to get the leaves I eat.”