More of Grizzly in Sydney

Grizzly tries to get a better view of the sights around Sydney, from the Skytower.
It's lucky Grizzly doesn't mind heights!
Time for some sunbaking at one of Sydney's famous beaches.

Grizzly spent the weekend in Sydney with Adrian. Here is Grizzly outside Sydney Hospital
We're sure you can recognise where Grizzly is in this shot - that's the Sydney Opera House behind him.
Grizzly with the famous Sydney Harbour bridge in the background.
More shots to follow soon.

Australian Friends

Thank you for the wonderful assortment of Australian books, souvenirs, and stuffed animals. We have read the stories and enjoyed the language difference with vocabulary words. Thank you for giving us the definitions. Fluffy and Gumleaf are having a good time in America.

Great photos Windsor School!

We loved looking at Gumleaf and Fluffy exploring your school. It seems quite different to our school - Mr Whittle will be able to tell us even more about it when he goes to visit you later this year. You'll be pleased to hear that Grizzly has just set off to spend the weekend in Sydney, with Adrian, one of our classmates. If he takes some photos we'll try to get them on the Blog for you. We need to stop now, as it's time to pack up our bags. We'll add more news for you soon.
Best wishes
Year 2 & Mrs Mattison

GREAT TO SEE OUR GUMLEAF AND FLUFFY VISITING YOUR SCHOOL

It is so good to see diffrent parts of your school - very exciting indeed. I am really looking forward to coming over and visiting in September. Over the next few days I will take some more images around our school and publish them on this blog.

Brad Whittle

Visiting with the Mascot

Chicago Bears and Windsor Wildcats!

Bilingual Classroom

Windsor is the only school in our district with a Bilingual program. Mrs. Swedo teaches the children in Spanish and in English.

Support Staff and Mobile Classrooms

Windsor School loves Mr. Frank! He keeps everything running smoothly and always does it with a smile.



We needed to take a nap after touring the school, so we stopped into the Nurse's office for a rest.



There are two mobile classrooms. One is used as our conference room and the other is used by the PTA.

Playground and Lunch

Look at all the equipment! The children have extended P.E. for a half-hour after lunch.

Speaking of lunch, take a look at the waste-free lunchbox.


What is lunch without a cold glass of milk? Got Milk?


This sculpture of Windsor students hangs in our Commons where we eat lunch in three shifts.

Let's Visit the Fine Arts Programs

ABC/25 Foundation donated the climbing wall. What a fun activity! Mr. Gember, the Physical Education teacher, is off camera spotting us in case we fall.



Mrs. Ziemann is a fantastic music teacher! Every grade level produces and presents a musical performance for the school and gives an evening performance for their families.



The Art program is wonderful here! The walls are covered with Grant Wood's American Gothic works.



Mrs. Olson, the Art teacher, is so creative. She teaches the children to express themselves and love art. The children make their own projects with clay. The kiln gets very hot!

Stories and computers in the LMC

We stopped in the LMC for a story. The Parent Teacher Association bought the new benches and the rug for the children.



A parent painted and decorated it, then donated this bookshelf to the ABC/25 Foundation Gala and Raffle. This bookcase was purchased and then donated to the LMC by Windsor family.



There are 30 computers in the lab. New eMacs are coming over the summer!



It is a beautiful day, so we went outside to the courtyard for a little sunshine.



This statue was donated in memory of a Windsor student, Ema. It represents the joy of childhood and the friendship she shared with her siblings.

The Day Begins Officially at 9:05

1. The Before and After-School program, C.A.P., let us join them for some breakfast!



2. We lined up with the children and waited for the bell to ring.



3. Every morning we have live video announcements. Each day we start with the Pledge of Allegiance to the flag.

A Day at Windsor School

We are getting off the bus with the kids. What a fun ride!



Isn't this a big bus? Some have a white roof to reflect off the heat of the sun so the bus doesn't get too hot. We have 2 busses at Windsor.



Fluffy, Gumleaf and their friends stopped in the Office to chat with Mrs. Rozanski, the Administrative Assistant.



We are waiting to meet with Mr. Kaye, the Principal, and Mr. Dutton.



They just had a team meeting. There is so much to do at the end of the school year.

Some more images from The Knox School

Here are a few more images taken around the school so you can have an idea of what our school is like.

PICTURE 1: Grizzly is visiting the Health Centre just to make sure that all is well.

PICTURE 2: Grizzly is visiting our Primary Library and meeting another bear, perhaps a distant cousin, from the North Pole.

PICTURE 3: Here Grizzly is outside the main entrance to our school.

PICTURE 4: Grizzly is at the main Reception area for our school. You can see our crest in the background on the wall.

We are close to the end of our Autumn (your Fall) and we will be starting Winter. It actually snowed today on the mountains, about 3 hours drive away. It certainly rarely snows in Melbourne.

Brad Whittle

Greetings from Grizzly in Australia

Here are some images of your bear, we call him Grizzly, looking around our school - The Knox School. He is having a great time and enjoys spending time with students in their homes also.

PICTURE 1:
Grizzly is with Claudia, my Executive Assistant, in the Junior School Office.

PICTURE 2:
Grizzly is taken in Mrs Mattison's room near her computers. You can see the work these students have been doing on The Human Body.

PICTURE 3:
Grizzly checking out what is happening in the classroom.


We hope our koalas are enjoying their time at Windsor.

Brad Whittle

Mrs. Malinowski's Class

Hello,

We were so happy to get the package with all the great books and animals. We want to use the boomerang and might have to use it in the gym.

Our school is named Windsor and our mascot is a Wildcat. Do you have a school mascot? Do you have spirit wear ? Do you have to wear uniforms every day. Do you have sales at the beginning of the year to buy school clothes?

Did you get any rain yet? We had a little rain yesterday and today we are supposed to get a storm with some hail, but it sure doesn't look like rain is coming since the sun is shining. We are learning about the rainforest and everyone made an animal in the rainforest. A girl in the class made a bee. It is hanging from our ceiling. We have a string coming down from the ceiling. Some of the animals are displayed on the ground and some are on a tree we made from paper. Our whole grade went on a field trip to the zoo last week to see the real animals. We had a perfectly warm and sunny day!

Our class has a lot of moms that come in to help us. Every week we have a special center time and while our teacher reads with us, different moms volunteer and come in to help us with our other activities. Some of our moms get to help us in our library too, by reading to us or helping us in the computer lab. We also have a mom volunteer to teach us a little bit about art each month. And, we had a lot of moms help out at the zoo. Parents also volunteer to help plan parties for our class, on Halloween and Valentine's Day. Even some of the dads get to volunteer at our school too! Do your parents ever get to come to your school to help out?

Do you celebrate Halloween or Valentine's Day?! What are your favorite holidays? Independence Day (on the 4th of July) is coming up soon and it's a big day in our country. There are parades all over in every town, carnivals during the week, and fireworks at night!

We'll all be home for summer vacation by then. We only have a few weeks of school left! Most of us will do things like go to camp or go on a family vacation. For vacations, many kids travel to different states within our own country, but some kids will get to go further, like Mexico or Canada. Some kids are going to Disney World! (Have any of you ever been to Disney World?) All of us are doing some kind of extra activity like swimming lessons, baseball, soccer, dance, or even performing in a play! Otherwise it's just fun to have extra time to ride bikes, play in the yard, or go to the local pool in town to swim. We have 6 different pools in our town that we can go to!

Have a G'Day Mate.

Mrs. Wilson's "Wilsonite" News

Have you ever heard of a dog sled race?! We have! It is called the Iditarod. The Iditarod is held in the State of Alaska (49th state), every March. They start the race with 16 dogs and travel 1,049 miles from Anchorage to Nome. To learn about the race each student researched and tracked a different musher and their dogs throughout the 3 week race. A musher is a person who stands or sits on the sled and guides the dogs throuhout the race. If you would like information about the Iditarod go to http://www.iditarod.com

Last week we conducted research about 8 different habitats at the Brookfield Zoo. We learned all about the Rainforest, Forest, Tundra, Ocean, Ponds, Arctic, Grasslands and Desert. We are now beginning to write our 5 paragraph essay. Boy are we working hard, but having fun and learning a lot along the way!

We also finished writing our Wilsonite News newspaper. We all contribute to include a fun page with jokes, news about sports, classroom happenings, weather etc.

Our Author of the Month is Candice Fleming. She came to our school and talked about how she finds inspiration for her ideas and how she writes and edits. Like us, she always has to revise, revise, revise. Do you?

Thank you for your wonderful Austrialian kit you sent us! We are enjoying learning all about you, and hope you enjoy learning all about us!

Mrs. Kertz's News

We had a great time at the zoo. We saw a giraffe. We did not see a koala, but we wished we did. We saw Emus and camels. We saw a lot of bats. We did see a wombat. We saw a baby polar bear. It was so cute. The mom was doing a dance! We saw sea lions, zebras, lions, hippos, monkeys, and tigers. It would be interesting to be in a smaller school. Even with 3 buses, many of us had to sit 3 kids to a seat. We had a lot of moms come with us on the field trip to help lead our groups.

We are looking forward to many end of the year activities. 2nd grade is going to have a "beach day" in a couple weeks. We get to go ouside and bring bubbles, beach blankets, chalk, and many other things to do outside. On that day, the older kids in our school get to go to the park and pool down the street from the school.

Looking forward to your next post.

Your friends in America.

Miss Christiansen's Class

Good Day Mate,

We are going to try and answer your questions. We call felt tip pens, "markers." When we went to the zoo and looked for Australian animals. We saw koalas, wombats, emus, and kangaroos. We just finished reading Wombat Stew, the book you sent us and we wondered what some of those words mean. What is a billybong and what is a billy?

We have Character Counts in our school district. There are 6 pillars, Trustworthiness, Respect, Responsibility, Fairness, Caring, and Citizenship. Do you have Character Counts pillars at Knox School?

What do you call ice cream? What kind of brands do you have? What is your favorite snack? Are you allowed to have a snack at school?

Do you have a library in your school? How many computers are in your computer lab? We have 30 in the lab and 2 or 3 in each classroom.

Have you ever been to the Sydney Opera House? What does it look like? Have you ever seen a Tasmanian devil?

Do you get an allowance? How much money do you get and what chores do you have to do? What is your favorite toy?

Looking forward to hearing from you.

Your firends.

Ms. Kertz's Class Comments

G'Day Mates,

We saw a movie about Australia today with Dark Marker, Buzz, Penny, Atonio, Flo and Mr. A.R.T.I.S.T. It was about punctuation using periods and commas.

In our room we have Koala Roo. Our Koala has a backpack that he wears. He sits on a beanbag on our teacher's desk. We work to earn coins and on Friday, we count the coins and if we have 60 coins, we get an extra recess on Friday. He gets a new outfit each month and right now he is wearing sunglasses, a hat, a short-sleeved shirt, and shorts for the warmer weather. Today is around 80 degrees fahrenheit.

We are learning about habitats and one of them is the rainforest. We are writing animal reports. We get to pick the animal.

We are going to Brookfield Zoo tomorrow. Our class will be going by bus. All five 2nd grade classes will be going in 3 buses. We are packing our lunches.

After school some of us have soccer, baseball, or running club to go to. One of us has tennis lessons today.

I hope you get some rain. LOTS OF RAIN!!

From your friends

Mrs. Conway's Class comments

We have a Writing Club that started this year. Close to 60 students participated. It was after school on Monday's once a month. Students in 2nd through 5th grade participated.

Our class is reading Because of Winn-Dixie by Kate DiCamillo. Mrs. Conway is almost done reading it to the class. It is a read-aloud.

May 18th is Olumpics Day at the school. We rotate to different athletic competitions and get a lot of exercise. PTA, the Parent Teacher Association gives up a popsicle as a treat at the end of the day.

We celebrate Memorial Day on the last Monday of the month of May. We do not attend school. There is a parade in town that many of us will be marching in as part of the Cub Scouts or Girl Scouts or Indian Guides or Indian Princesses. Memorial Day honors the memory of all who have died for our country.

Our last day of school is June 6th, 2007. On July 4th, we celebrate America's independence from England. There are parades, picnics, and fireworks.

Package from Australia!

We are so excited! Your package arrived safe and sound. What a surprise to see that the koala brought her friends, platypus and wombat, along for the trip to America. Fluffy and Gumleaf are going to enjoy Springtime in the Midwest.The grass is green and the flowers are all blooming. We have had rain which helped everything to grow.

The Wildlife Encyclopedia of Australian Animals has beautiful pictures and great information. We are going to read the stories together as a class. The postcards and the travel map will help us to locate any towns that we read about or you mention to us. Next week, we are taking a trip to the Brookfield Zoo. Now we will have to look for koalas, wombats, kangaroos, and playtpus!

Many of you mentioned the drought that you are in. Have you gotten any rain yet? We get our drinking water from Lake Michigan. It is one of the five Great Lakes. They are all fresh water lakes. Any easy way to remember them is to think of the word HOMES. Lake Huron, Lake Ontario, Lake Michigan, Lake Erie, and Lake Superior.