Mark Greenwood brings the unexplained to history classes with free teaching activities inspired by his History Hunter series

Mark Greenwood shares mysterious true Australian stories in his junior fiction series, beginning with The Dragon’s Treasure and The Vanishing.

In the teaching activity for The Dragon’s Treasure, budding reporters share the story of discovering treasure on a remote West Australian beach, using the newspaper template for the Pirate Times.

For The Vanishing, kids create their own comic strip: drawing the moment when Frederich Valentich saw a strange unidentified object hovering above his aircraft.

And keep the creative writing juices flowing with more activity ideas:

• Write a short story involving dragons, treasure or both.
• Write a fictional recount as if you were with the Edwards children on the day they found the ancient coins, or, with sixteen-year-old Graeme Henderson when he discovered the ancient shipwreck of the Gilt Dragon.
• Write a short story that involves a UFO or alien encounter.
• Write an extraterrestrial character description. Include a physical description, personality traits and skills/abilities.

You can download the activity sheets here and, for more teaching activities, download the free teaching notes here.