Zoo and Skyping!

Mrs N has been extra busy writing lots of nice things about us in our Semester 1 reports, so she hasn't had time to update our blog for a while. Lots has been happening!

Last Friday, we all hopped on a bus and travelled to the Perth Zoo. When we arrived, we carried all of our lunches to the grassed area and had our morning snack. After that, we went off in groups of three or four, with a parent helper and we visited as many animals as we could! There was a special section just for Australian animals, so most of us headed there first. We saw kangaroos, emus, quokkas, echidnas, wombats, dingoes, cockatoos, wallabies and numbats, which are many of the animals we've been learning about in class! We also saw lots of snakes and lizards, nocturnal animals like possums and bilbies, as well as animals from other countries, like lions, sunbears and otters. It was a fantastic day!

This morning, we Skyped with 2MK in Victoria. Their class is learning about Australia this term too, so our teachers organised to video chat so that we could teach each other about our states. We asked each other lots of interesting questions and we learned some new things about Victoria.

• Their state animal is the Leadbeater's Possum.
• Their state bird is the Helmeted Honeyeater.
• The aquatic emblem is the Weedy Seadragon.
• The body of water closest to Victoria, is Bass Strait, which is a channel that sits between Victoria and Tasmania.
• People in Victoria are crazy about Australian Rules Football (AFL) and they invented the big competition that now has teams from most of our states competing in each season.
• The Victorian flag looks like this:

Victorian State Flag

Tamarillos

Our Monday Munchies food this week was a really pretty fruit called a Tamarillo. None of us had ever tried one before and at first, we didn't know what it was. It had a smooth, dark red skin and was shaped like an egg. We thought it looked a bit like a passionfruit and a bit like a tomato. When Mrs N cut into it, we could see lots of seeds and pulp, a bit like a tomato. In fact, tamarillos used to be called tree tomatoes, so our guess was pretty good! We used spoons to scoop out some of the seeds, pulp and flesh and we all had a taste. Some of us came back for seconds and thirds, because it was so delicious!

Stephany has some gorgeous new glasses. Her eyes had been getting sore, so her mum took her to the optometrist, who is someone that checks eyesight. He said she needed glasses, so Stephany picked the ones she liked and the optometrist put the right sort of lenses in them. Now her eyes shouldn't get so sore and she looks great too!

Love from The Smarties and Mrs N