Pancake Day

Today is Pancake day or Shrove Tuesday. This is the day before Ash Wednesday or the beginning of Lent in the Christian World. Our class made yummy pancakes, as is customary, just before lunch. Of course, I, Patch was right amongst it.
Below is a little movie to show you how the pancakes went.

Christmas Presents in January!!!

Such excitement in the classroom for the new grades 4 and 5. Christmas presents for them arrived in January from their Canadian penpals. So, when school resumed this week, the cards were opened. Further, to their delight was the fact that a second parcel had arrived and it contained gorgeous little presents, wrapped so nicely in red and green tissue paper. Upon opening them,students found little handcrafted reindeers, made from pegs and again decorated so beautifully. Of course Patch was there amongst all the action. It is so interesting that a vitural pet, introudced us to and brought us penpals from another country. How fabulous all this technology is and what powerful learning it creates.
From Patch....
I had to start back at school on January 29th with the other students. I had a good holiday over 5 weeks and went to the beach and the pool. Some days it was very hot. It even got to 107.6 deg farhenheit, or 42 deg celsius in Australia. Anyway, it is good to be back and I liked watching the students open their presents from Canada. I know some of the pets from webkinz that belong to those students, so I found it really interesting. Anyway, the bell has gone and I have to get back to class. I hope you can see the little Christmas reindeer around my neck.

Two Very Special Days!!

My class celebrated two very special days this past week. January 29th was Kansas' 147th birthday! Happy Birthday Kansas! We celebrated by having an open house and wax museum so that people from our town could come and learn more about famous people from Kansas. Some students chose sport stars from Kansas like Barry Sanders or Jackie Stiles. Some students chose historical figures from Kansas like Buffalo Bill Cody or Carrie Nation. Some students chose musicians like Martina McBride or Charlie Parker. But my favorite was a fictional character from Kansas...Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz! She let me hang out with her. See the picture?

We also celebrated out 100th day of school. Can you believe we've been in school for 100 days? The students worked hard putting together 100 Legos to create a really neat project.

Well, I need to get back to my friends. We still have lots to learn before the end of the year.

Radar

An Explosive Experiment

Hey everyone! My class has been studying volcanoes. So on a cold snowy day, we used a water bottle with homemade play dough to make a model of an active volcano. We poured water, vinegar and a drop of liquid soap into the bottle. Then we put baking soda in a small piece of tissue and dropped it into the bottle. Mrs. K thought it would have been better to do outside, but the weather kept us inside. It wasn't as messy as we thought, but it was sure fun to see the "lava" erupt from the volcano!

Radar

It's Winter Already!

WOW! We had a snow storm this weekend! Today the kids took me out with them at recess so that I could play in the snow. Do you have snow at your school?

Love AlleyCat

The Race that Stops a Nation

“A race that stops a nation or the whole country,” I couldn’t believe it. I arrived at school Tuesday morning and saw all the kids dressed up in fancy clothes. I didn’t know anything about this thing called the Melbourne Cup.

The Melbourne Cup is a horse race that is held on the 2nd Tuesday in November. Most businesses and schools in Melbourne close for the day. My class had to come to school so they dressed up as race-goers, jockeys, horses and strappers. It was a very colourful parade.

At 3 o’clock everyone went to find a TV to watch the race. We went to the Library and cheered our horses on (if they hadn’t been “scratched”). The winner this year was Efficient. The most famous winner was Pharlap.

(Melbourne is the capital city of Victoria in Australia. I am living with the students in Hawkesdale, which is in Vitoria.)

Patch at the Footy

In September I went to the Mininera and District Football Grand Final to watch the footy at Lake Bolac which is a small town near us. Football, or footy as Australians call it, is a game played on a grass oval field, with 22 people on a team and 18 people on the field. The other players are on the bench and can be swapped with someone on the field at any time. AFL football is our national sport.
Netball is also played. Many of the Hawkesdale Macarthur teams were in the grand final and although we lost, I liked being at the footy because I knew some people and Mrs H took lots of photos of us. There were lots of yellow and blue balloons for the team's colours. Overall it was a great and exciting day.
My teacher is having trouble uploading the photos so we shall put them up another time.