Winter Break by Maëlle

Winter Break- Lennox Head, Byron Bay, North Stradbroke Island, Cairns and Daintree Rainforest 

Diary by Maëlle

July 1st and 2nd

We did a lot of driving. I saw some kind kangaroos hopping across the road when the google maps took us on a bit of a detour. We arrived in Lennox Head at night. The house has a trampoline and books for us. We went to the beach at Lennox Head was a lot of fun. We got to play in the sand and the ocean.

July 3rd

We went to Byron Bay Lighthouse. The best was the beach at the bottom. We took off our pants and playing in the waves. There were dolphins swimming by as we were playing. We had to leave the beach to go drive to the ferry.

July 5 and 6, 2017.

We are on North Stradbroke island in Queensland. Yesterday we saw at least 1000 Fox Bats. The sky was black with bats. They make a high pitched squeaking sound. In the morning we went for a hike along the ocean. We saw lots of whales and some cute dolphins and a turtle. Breakfast this morning smells delicious and good. We have been so busy. We got to see koalas in the trees at Amnity Point. I have seen so much wildlife. When I was with mommy and nana, mom had to pull over because kangaroos were on the side of the road. We went to the beach near our house. Malia decided she didn't like the waves or the ocean but we got her swimming in the little ponds that where left from the ocean.

July 7, 2017 North Stradbroke Island, Queensland

It is a rainy today, but we are still going outside! We put on our raincoats and set off in the car. Daddy wore his funny raincoat and hat. Nana called him Captain High liner. On our walk we saw two kangaroos! We think the mama kangaroo had a Joey in her pouch. We continued down the path and I saw some whales and dolphins. They were amazing. The kangaroo went under the house. We think he has some friends under it. 

July 8, 2017. North Stradbroke Island Queensland 

It is sunny today on North Stradbroke Island. We haven't had breakfast yet and I am getting hungry! I would like some blueberry and cranberry cereal with flakes mixed in with it.Today is Daniels birthday. We went to a lake called Brown Lake. It was brown from the tea tree trees. We made sand castles and jumped in the lake. Mommy and Nana liked the smell of the leaves. Hopefully it will get rid of our colds.

July 11, 2017 Daintree Wild B & B and Zoo

We arrived at the Daintree rain forest after a night in Cairns. In Cairns we woke up and got into our bathing suits and went for a swim. The water had some water slides. I was a bit cold at first. I went down the waterslide. It was very fun. I beat dad to the clam shell every time. and I rode a walrus.

 July 12, 2017 Daintree Wild B & B and Zoo 

We are staying at the zoo! We went to the zoo at 7:00 but it started to pour! Nana and I got really soaked! The crocodiles were massive. The man fed them meat. They were a bit funny. We saw a cassowary it was beautiful. We got some bread to feed the joeys. We had so much fun. We were living at a zoo! We went out and had ice cream, my kind of ice cream was coconut. My sister kind of ice cream was mango, passionfruit and something that tasted like strawberries. Then we went to the old shop. It had lots of old machines. I liked old phones the best. They were dial phones. Mom and dad had dial phones. We went on a crocodile cruise. We saw baby crocs and big crocs. We saw a tree snake in the tree. Nana liked the blue kingfisher bird. When we went back to our hotel room we went back to the zoo for our supper. I really liked supper. It was scrumdiliousious. Arnie is a parrot at the front of the zoo. He talked to us. He was really funny he even followed our bobs. It was first time I ever heard a bird talk! 

July 13, 2017 

We took a very small cable ferry across the crocodile watching river called Daintree. The road was really bumpy and really curvy. On our first stop we thought we saw cassowary eggs until one fell out of the tree then we knew they were not cassowary eggs but some kind of fruit! The cassowary eats them. It was really humid . We drove to the end of the road as far as we could go because we didn't have 4x4 driving to get across the river. We went for a walk to a swimming hole that didn't have crocodiles. Dad almost stepped on a python while he was carrying Malia to the rocks on the other side of the river. We played in the river and dad went off a rope swing and dropped into the river. We later went to another beach for lunch but couldn't swim. I jumped and looked for shells on the beach.

July 14, 2017

We went on a drive to get some Lunch and supper. We stopped in a town and played at the park. Today we are at the airport in Cairns. Our flight got delayed twice. We will be going on the plane at 8 o'clock. It is 7:08 so we still have a long wait.

July 15, 2017

We have a long drive to Oatlands. We stopped at a pie place and had a delicious breakfast. We stopped for dinner at a Chinese Restaurant and then made it home around 10 at night.

Term 3: Athletics Carnival

2K ready for the day.

The second day of this term we had our Athletics Carnival. I had been still not feeling great, but had luckily been assigned to be a floater for the whole day so I could experience the most of the day so I could not pass up this chance to see another great event for the kids at Girraween Public School. It was one full day 9:15 to 2:50 of activities and games. I love sport day at school and have been really missing that part of teaching here in Australia so this was going to be a fun day for me. The schedule for the day was 6 activities for 30 min and the students from K to 2 moved around in groups by grade of boys and girls. Students are also allocated to house groups: Gould, Newcomb, Cuthbert and Bradman for the year and they were to wear their house colours for the day and they got to earn points for their house for cooperations, sportsmanship and hard work. I am on Gould so I was dressed in blue for the day.

Over under/ Tunnel ball

The first activity that I landed up helping with was the K boys at tunnel ball. Picture lines of 10-12 4/5 year old boys trying to pass a ball from the front of their line to the back and then repeat by running to the front until every person has ran to the front. Well, this group had not played this before and I had a great time repeating "spread your legs" and "push the ball through your legs." I did make it back to see the Year Two's at this groups and they had progressed to Over/ Under version of this same game. 

Sack races

Sack races

Next up was sack races. Awesome traditional jump in a sack and hop as fast as you can. I followed that up with some time at the egg and spoon races. Very simple games that these group of students had a great time doing. 

Egg and Spoon

Egg and Spoon

Running Races

Next up was the Rob the Nest game that got very competitive with the Year Two boys. The teams were made by house groups so each team was out to win point for their team by playing fair and winning the game. After that I watched a bunch of races on the top grass area which were traditional running races. They went through heats and semi's, and eventually a final heat with the fastest runners earning more points for their house group. 

Bean Bag Shotput

The last rotation that I watched was bean bag shot put. Shot put style launch the bean bag as far as you can and perhaps hit the wall or the teacher standing in the way.

The big finale was the Tug-O-War. Class versus Class. 2K and Mrs. Bowkowy versus all the other Year Two classes. It was serious. Round One: 2K succeeds with a quick victory over the first class we faced. We were onto the next round. Our strategy was girls and one side and boys on the other. Seemed to work for us. The 8 Year Two classes had been broken down to 4 remaining classes. Semi Finals was much harder and we fought through nearly being pulled over off the start to remain in the contest. We were onto the finals! It was a quick turn around, the students were complaining that their legs were tired and their hands hurt. In all honesty my hands hurt too! But me being just slightly competitive got them pumped up and ready to go! Final round here we come! It was a long back and forth battle between us and 2HD. We got the upper hand and came away victorious!  Here is the celebration:

I really enjoyed today! I love getting out and having fun with the kids. Lots of laughs and smiles all around today!

Visitor 2! A big surprise for the girls

 We have another visitor! Girls had no idea she was coming before her visit in October.  We treated her to whale watching and vivid in her first few days! Nana gets to join us on our winter holiday trip. We are so lucky to have her here!

Kids are Kids and Teaching is Teaching- End of Term 2

It has taken me a while to really stop and think about what I am learning about myself as a teacher. Change is always hard and I knew coming to teach in Australia would be different, but I do not really think that I really anticipated sometimes how different it would feel to not have the comfort of my classroom and my routine that I was used to. It was challenging to pick up new and different programs at first and try to fit the mold of what it was supposed to look like.  I realized, but not so quickly, that I was already doing all these things but just not calling it the same. I am really excited for the ideas I have for my classroom.

I have made a brief comparison of the differences teaching at my school in Canada and here at my school in Australia:

Australia	Canada
Uniforms	No uniforms
5 Day weeks all but one week of the year	Lots of short weeks
Sport once a week	P.E. 3/4 days a week
2 Reports a Year	3 Reports a Year
2 or 3 Assemblies a Week	1 or 2 Assemblies a Month
Teacher Librarians	EA’s are librarians
3 scheduled meetings a week	1 scheduled meeting a month
PD done both at school and after school in the meetings	PD done on PD days where students get days off.
Teaching all KLA’s	Have some specialist teachers to teach some KLA’s
A lot of accountability for programming	Not as much accountability for programming
Relief from class given for interviews and planning days	Interviews are done after school and planning days are done without students at school
Year round schooling (4 terms of approx. 10 weeks with a 2 week break in-between)	Not year round schooling (3 terms with one 2 month break at the end of the year, spring break (1 week) and Christmas Break (2 weeks approx.)

One of the things I am liking each morning is the morning song instead of a bell. I am enjoying having a little dance on my steps to greet the students and parents in the morning.


I finished off the term with another teachers versus student touch footy game. We won again! I think I even got the hang of the game.







Canada Day in 2K- As it was the last day of the term, my class had a great finish to the term with a day all about CANADA! They loved learning about maple syrup and that it actually comes from trees! We read Robert Mucsch books and laughed a lot. We sang some Michael Mitchell songs   and some Raffi too!

Moose from one of my students.

 Term 2 has been a big learning curve for me. I have really enjoyed my class and have made good friendships at school. I am ready for the break and really can not believe we are half way through this part of our adventure.