The Last Day of Term

Today is the last day of Term 1. We're starting two weeks holidays, yay! It's a tradition at our school to have a gigantic Easter raffle on the last day of school before Easter. We had it this afternoon and there were 64 prizes!

This morning, our school held an ANZAC Day service. It's usually commemorated on April 25th, but we'll be on holidays, so we did it today. ANZAC stands for "Australian and New Zealand Army Corps". It's a day where we remember the Australians and New Zealanders who have died in wartime. Some representives from the local Returned and Services League visited our school and Chief Petty Officer Aaron came to our classroom to talk to us. He showed us his medals and talked about what it's like living on a ship in the navy. Here are some of the things we learned:

• his ship is an ANZAC class frigate and it's 118 metres long
• sometimes they can go fishing from the boat
• he has a lot of badges on his uniform and some of them show what his job and rank are
• he has some medals for helping in Iraq and Afghanistan
• the army, navy and airforce have different uniforms
• he has to share a room with 14 other people on the ship
• pirates stay away from the ship because they're scared
• the bullets from the gun on the ship weigh 20 kilograms
• he had to sit some exams to be promoted
• some people keep photos of their families inside their hats
• it's noisy down below when it's rough and sometimes it's hard to sleep when the water crashes against the side of the ship
• everyone on the ship has a special job and Aaron's job is working with radars
• he gets sea sick and sometimes has to go outside for some fresh air
• he's never seen a shark but he's seen snakes, turtles, dolphins, whales and jellyfish

For Monday Munchies yesterday, our healthy food was pepitas, or pumpkin seeds. They were small and green and yummy. Some of us thought they smelled like bird or guinea pig food, which is true, because birds and guinea pigs like to eat them too! It's a super-healthy people food and is nice sprinkled on salads.

We've been doing lots of Easter arts and crafts (as well as some Mother's Day activities which need to remain secret for now!). We really love using oil pastels and water colours.

  

Love from The Smarties and Mrs N