Tuesday 2 August 2016

Lunar and Hazelnut Visit Kansas

My 1st Graders were so excited when our visitors from Australia arrived here at Frank Layden Elementary in Frontenac, Kansas. They arrived in March - just in time to take part in our annual Young Authors Conference, where each student (Kindergarten through 5th Grade) gets the opportunity to share his or her writing samples. Most students write short stories but Lunar and Hazelnut got to see some extremely talented poets as well. Each year, we invite a published author to our conference to observe our talent and to give tips and advice to our students - and this year we were fortunate to have award-winning author Candace Fleming visit our school.




As you can see, Lunar and Hazelnut had no problem making friends - whether it be with the students (above), our beloved principal Mr. Allai (above), or with author Candace Fleming (below).


Our guests were also able to see how our school encourages physical fitness with our Activity Day and with our Walk/Jog-a-thon.




Our students earned a trip to the local bowling alley as a reward for being responsible. We had fun singing songs on the bus and then even more fun showing off our bowling skills.


We had a unit discussing life cycles and we were actually able to incubate chicken eggs in our classroom. We had so much fun learning and experiencing this miracle. Once the eggs hatched, the chicks obviously became close friends with Lunar and Hazelnut.



We feel so blessed to have had the opportunity to host Lunar and Hazelnut here in the center of the United States. We are confident that they enjoyed their time with us as well. We would like to extend our gratitude to the AMAZING students at PLC Sydney for allowing us to be a part of this project.

Thursday 17 March 2016

Hazelnut & Lunar in Ohio

Hazelnut and Lunar have had a wonderful time here in Ohio. They arrived just before our Christmas Break so had a chance to rest before spending time with the students in grades K-8. The K & 1 taught them about internet safety and how to keep their information private. Grade 2 gave them some lessons on the continents while Hazelnut and Lunar taught them all about Australia. Grade 3 kept them busy with with learning how to read the internet. Grade 4 gave them lessons on using Google Drive. Grade 5 had them learning about space. Grade 6 taught them Scratch and grades 7 & 8 worked with them on making their own Google Cardboards.

They have also had time to play in the little snow we had and also helped us when we received some devastating news that our school closing and merging to become a new school. They celebrated many events with us Catholic Schools Week, 100th Day of School and Dr. Seuss's Birthday!

We enjoyed having them stay with us and hope that they take there lessons with them and make some new friends along the way!

Sunday 6 March 2016

Wumbat the Wombat has loved her stay in Sunny Hawkes Bay

Our Intermediate class at Kowhai Special School got a lovely surprise when Wumbat arrived for her stay. She was very popular with the students.

She was lucky enough to be there when we had a  BIG celebration of one of the teachers and 5 of the students all having their birthdays within a week of each other.

Sitting nicely waiting

Look at that YUMMY cake!!!

Presents - Wumbat is on the table








Later on we took Wumbat to the movies

She loved it as she saw lots of other Australian animals in the movie.

We had the whole theatre to ourselves!!



We saw 'Blinky Bill the Movie'

We have loved having Wumbat stay with us.
Room 4 and Room 3
Kowhai Special School
Hastings

Another year begins...

I started this project at PLC Sydney last year not really knowing how big it would get or even if it would work. But it seems to have worked ok so far, and if you check the Participating Schools list and the Where Are We Now? pages on this blog you'll see that our three furry friends have indeed seen quite a bit of the world so far.

I'm no longer working at PLC Sydney but I'd love to keep this project going anyway. I'm sure the Year 2 classes for 2016 (and the Year 3 classes from last year who started the whole thing) will be interested to see how it unfolds.

So if you're on the list of schools to participate I'll be in touch to see if you still want to play. And if you're not, and you'd like to be, just add your name. All the info is on the How to Participate page.

Looking forward to see where these critters end up this year!

Chris