Australia Day flag making

 

You might recognise some of this from our St Andrew’s Day activities where WeeBeastie showed his class that the Scottish flag was incorporated in our very own Australian flag. In fact not just the Scottish flag but the English, Welsh and Northern Irish flags that make up the Union Jack, the flag of the United Kingdom. (Actually the lovely dragon flag of the Welsh doesn’t specifically feature if you deconstruct the Union Jack.)

So this is what you need to make an Australian flag

We started by putting the Union Jack pieces on the background to set up the spacing.

Then last but not least the stars.

The large star at the bottom is the Commonwealth star. The seven points represent the six states (New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland, South Australia, Western Australia and Tasmania) and one for the territories (Northern Territory, Papua Territory, Australian Capitol Territory (known as the ACT which is where our capitol city Canberra can be found)) that make up our country. There are other territories such as the Australian Antarctic Territory which are referred too as External Territories. When I was at school it was only one territory that was mentioned, the Northern Territory. Phew!

The group of 5 stars represent the Southern Cross. This is a symbol that has been used to represent Australia from the very early days. Small but distinctive it is part of the Milky Way which lights up the sky in the Southern Hemisphere.

So there you go. Join in the fun on the 26th Jan when we commemorate Captain Arthur Phillip and the First Fleet landing on Australia, be a ‘true blue’ Aussie and ‘have a go’ at making one!

Lucy