Aspley East State School and Clay Elementary School

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Yesterday all the grade three's got together and we recorded two songs for you. One is called "I Still Call Australia Home" which is an absolutely beautiful song and makes me cry when i hear it. We also recorded another called "I am Australian". I will include the words for you so that your kids can understand what we are singing about. We were so excited recording the songs for you. I am also going to fill up the rest of the cassette with the kids speaking to their penpals and i will speak as well.  MY KIDS ARE LOVING THIS!!!!!! Bucky Badger Countdown to connecting!! Debbie and Leah are getting ready for the first meeting of classes. Debbie made journals and enlarged Leah's e-mails to the size of a real letter. Her students are going to be thrilled to get a letter from a friend in Australia on their first day of school. . Postcards sent by Debbie arrived Australia in only nine days.  " I am excited about our Class Connect Project and I am positive the kids will be, too. We start school in one week." - Debbie 'Bucky Badger' Bucky Badger is the mascot for the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Debbie decided to send a small Bucky Badger (our class mascot) so that it could include Bucky in photos and stories. She has also included a Tshirt for the aussie class The Tshirt has Wisconsin Badgers printed on it.  Bucky will go home at night with a student. The student will write a few sentences and draw a picture about Bucky's visit. Then Bucky will be off to Australia. Learn about Australian coins! To answer your questions about the coins. The one that has a 50 on it (it also has a picture of an emu, a kangaroo and the coat of arms) is worth 50 cents. It is the same as your half dollar. The one with the echidna on it is worth 5 cents which is the same as your nickel (Millie is the Olympic Mascot who is an echidna). The coin with the lyre bird on it is worth 10 cents which is the same as your dime. The 20 cent piece has a picture of a platypus (Syd from the Olympic Mascots). The biggest gold coin is the the one dollar piece. We use to have a one dollar note and it was a browny red colour but we don't have them anymore. The smallest gold is a $2 coin. at the moment is worth $1 AUS is worth 60cents US. It is not a very good exchange rate but we hope that it improves. Hi Ms. Perry and class,   We just finished having Parent/Teacher conferences on Thursday and Friday. We had been busy decorating the room and hallway and getting all of our papers and tests done for conference time.   Now our student teacher is teaching us about Australia for two weeks. We have learned about kangaroos and koalas. We made a giant map of Australia and labeled the states and the surrounding oceans. We made Australian bread one day and listened to your tape. The songs were wonderful. We enjoyed listening to you talking to us, too. We want to learn the words to the song Waltzing Matilda. Learn the words of Waltzing Matilda		The Parcel arrived!! Dear Ms. Perry and Class, We received your package and postcards today. Everything was so cool!   We absolutely loved the postcards of the kangaroos, koala, lorikeets, possum, wombats, kookaburras, echidnas and platypus. Many of us had never heard of some of these animals. We can't wait to learn more about them. Thank you so much for taking the time to find postcards of all of these animals! Can you identify these Aussie animals? We are going to try very hard to find more postcards for you. We liked looking at all of your coins. We want to find out how much they are worth in Australia and in the United States. We will have to do some research. Can you tell us what the coins are called in Australia? For instance, is the one dollar coin called that? How about the one that has a 50 on it? Everyone liked the calendar you sent. The pictures are beautiful. Australia must really be a beautiful continent. We will hang the calendar up in our classroom. Our teacher liked the pens, socks, bookmarks, place mat and Olympic pin you sent us. It seemed just like Christmas when we were opening your package!! Mrs. Coats just kept pulling things out of the envelope. Your email arrived yesterday and we will begin answering your questions right away. We probably will answer a few each day by sending you an e-mail. That way we can keep in touch every day. You sure have a lot of questions for us! We will probably have lots for you, too. We just wanted to let you know that your package arrived and that we loved everything in it. We will be answering your letters very soon. Your friends, Mrs. Coats' Class     Submit your school site for our 'Cool School' Award today! Leah Perry and her 3rd Grade class live in Queensland, Australia. Check out their school's home page to see the fun things they get up to at school. The name of their school is Aspley East State School. The school has approximately 600 students and is located on the north side of Brisbane, the capital of Queensland. The First Contact "I just read your letter to my class and they screams of joy could be heard from a mile away. I would love to write to you and your class, my kids are so excited about writing to new people using email. We are just about to have morning tea so i have promised the children that i would get an atlas and show them where Wisconsin is. They can't wait!!!! I must admit that i am quite excited as well."		Questions! Questions! Dear Mrs Coats and class,  How are you? We are all well. We thought we would send you an email telling you more about life in Australia. We are currently in Winter (but it finishes in a couple of days) and then we go into Spring. The weather is changing here..the days are getting warmer and the nights are still a little chilly. We have 21 people in our class, 9 girls and 12 boys. In winter here in Australia, the temperature normally reaches about 18 degrees celcius and overnight it can drop to 3-5 degrees. At the moment the nights are getting down to only about 10 degrees and days are reaching as high as 25 degrees. It is beautiful weather. What temperatures does it get down to in Wisconsin during the winter? Doyou get lots of snow? We don't get any snow in Brisbane. How do you normally get to school? Most people in our class get dropped off by mum or dad. Douglas sometimes catches the bus home from school. Regan, Samantha, and Ephraim all walk to school.  How many people do you have in your class? How many people do you have at your school? We have about 560 students with 21 teachers plus a lot of other support teacher/ aides and admin staff. Out school runs from preschool through to year 7. In year 7 you turn 12 years old  What are the names of your class blocks. Our class is in Block C of our school. Miss Perry will email a copy of the school grounds to you so you can see where our class is.  In year 3 we have 4 teachers. There names are Miss Perry, Mrs Harbison, Mrs Unwin and Mrs Jeffs (Judge Judy Jeffs- because she likes to have the final ruling on bad behaviour). The teachers move from room to room each week so that the teachers have to prepare less work. Miss Perry teaches Science to all of the year three classes. Mrs Harbison teaches Social Studies, Mrs Unwin teaches Art and Judge Judy Jeffs teaches Health. It seems to work really well.  What grade do you start school? From Miss Perry, Christina, Jasmine, Tiffany, Amanda, Arif, Samantha, Ephraim, Greig, Conor, Broden, Ben A, Ben R, Lewis, Douglas, Regan, Elonie, Justina, Monica, Ivana, Brendon, Jake! Debbie Coats and her second grade live in Wisconsin, USA. See the great web site Debbie has made about her class. The name of their school is Clay Lamberton Elementary. This class has 19 students in all, 11 girls and 8 boys. They have an Internet lab in their school, and would like to receive emails frequently from the United States. The First Contact "I hope you haven't found a class in the USA to write to yet because I would like to be your epal. This project sounds great and I would love to participate.   I also love to learn about technology and try to get my kids on the computers as much as possible. We have a computer hooked to the internet in the classroom and an Internet lab with about 30 computers next to the library. I am very interested in setting up an exchange program with another class. I think it would be awesome to have Australian epals! I hope you are interested in teaming up with my class. "
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