At a young age it is important to nurture the development of geographical thinking as it is not a skill simply ‘just learnt’. Alternatively, it is a skill developed over years of exposure and allows students to have broader knowledge on an overall worldview (Mathews & Cranby 2016, p.275). The book, Possum Magic, has been selected for its introduction into geographical thinking for Foundation- level 2. Picture story books are as good as having another teacher in the classroom, as the author and illustrator have carefully crafted a beautiful piece of work which reflects expressive language, extended knowledge and woven ideas and themes (Dolan 2013, p.31). Picture story books can bring the world into the classroom in a couple of seconds in a manner…show more content… This exposes the young students to main capital cities around Australia. It also describes features of the places, what it looks like i.e. the beach or shows this visually through the illustrations i.e. Sydney Harbour Bridge. The combination of these text features broadens the minds of the children by introducing ideas and concepts in different ways, opening up their imagination (Dolan 2013, p31). With picture story books, children are able to connect to them on another level. They are able to relive their own personal experiences and deepen their understanding through the personalization. On placement the students were taught three text connections; text-to-self, text-to-word and text-to-text. Acknowledging these connections and asking questions about them had the children thinking deeper as they analysed and personalized what they were reading. When reading Possum Magic, students should be encouraged to make these connections. For example, a student might say they went on a holiday to Darwin but they didn’t eat Vegemite sandwich there. This could set of a beautiful chain reaction of conversations about places, people and culture locally, nationally or worldwide, enhancing their geographical
