Dingoes at Dinnertime By Mary Pope Osborne Presentation by Selah Riehl

Dingo Theme Australia Australia kangaroo With emus that don’t fly Koalas sleep in gum trees With dingoes chasing joeys Dingoes at dinner Dingoes at dinnertime

My Choices for Dingo Theme I chose to write song because I play the violin and I It would be challenging to write a song based on a book. I chose the words for my song by looking for keywords in the book Dingoes at Dinnertime. For example, I chose the word kangaroo because in this story a kangaroo gave Jack and Annie, who are the main characters, a gift of bark that helped them change a dog named Ted back into a boy. I also chose the words “Dingoes chasing Joeys”, because joeys are baby kangaroos and this is what it says on page 30 of the book: “The biggest enemy of the kangaroo is the dingo, the wild dog of Australia. When a mother kangaroo is chased by dingoes, she may throw her joey out of her pouch. Without the extra weight in her pouch she can leap faster and farther. She then leads the dingoes away from her baby. If she escapes the dingoes, she returns to the joey.”

I chose the melody called Waltzing Matilda because it is a famous folk song from Australia. It’s about people who carry their “matilda”, which is all their belongings or “swag” with them when they travel the country on foot. This reminded me of Jack and Annie and their exploring in Australia I chose to have didgeridoo music in the background, because it sounded cool and this is the music that the Australian Aboriginees play. This is a picture of David Hudson, a famous didgeridoo player. My Research

The Rainbow Serpent From page 57 of the book: The first people of Australia are called “Aboriginees”. They have lived there for 40,000 years. Their myths take place in a time they call “Dreamtime.” In Dreamtime, there is a Rainbow Serpent who sends life giving rain. Aborigine artists paint the Rainbow Serpent on cave walls or on pieces of bark. In special ceremonies, they sometimes honor the Rainbow Serpent by painting their handprints on the magic snake. In the book, Jack and Annie find a kangaroo who gives them a painting on a piece of bark that has the Rainbow Serpent on it.

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