Westbourne Park Primary School

South Australia, Australia

November Journal

 

November 3, 2000: Tunia has arrived at last. One half-hour before school finished for the weekend, Tunia was delivered to our classroom. We have been waiting in great anticipation all week for her arrival. We were hoping very much she would be here for the start of school next week, as on Monday we are going on an excursion to the Botanical Gardens and the Museum, and we really wanted Tunia to be our guest. So now, on Monday she will have the opportunity to see a little of our beautiful city. As you can imagine, Tunia was exhausted after her very long journey to the Southern Hemisphere so she is spending a restful weekend in our classroom and we're sure she will be fresh and ready for some new adventures on Monday.

November 6, 2000: Today we went on an excursion to the Botanical Gardens and the South Australian Museum. We traveled by train to the city and walked through the city streets until we reached the Gardens. Tunia rode on top of Mrs. Hogben's backpack all the way. She had a great view from up there. At the Botanical Gardens we went on the Aboriginal Plant Trail. On this trail, we looked at the types of plants used by Aboriginal people in their traditional lifestyle. We have included some pictures of these very interesting plants. We had lunch in the gardens, and it was a beautiful spring day. Tunia was really excited when we walked through the herb garden because there were moths, butterflies and dragonflies everywhere. We thought she might fly off! In the afternoon, we walked to the museum and we visited the Aboriginal Cultures Gallery. We were able to see many aboriginal artifacts, like tools used for hunting and gathering food. Tunia especially liked the bark paintings. We are going to do some bark paintings of our own. We had a very interesting day and Tunia just loved it. We think she really likes the spring weather.

Here is Tunia on top of the backpack. She enjoyed traveling this way.

These were some of the Aboriginal bark paintings that Tunia saw in the museum.

Can you see Tunia in front of the bottle tree at left? The Bottle Tree survives long periods of dryness in Northern Australia by storing water during the wet season. The fibrous tissues in the trunk and roots swell up as more and more water is absorbed. Aboriginal people needing water would chop into the bark and squeeze the soft, spongy wood to obtain a drink. The seeds, shoots, and roots are edible. The soft wood was used for firemaking and for shields.

At the left is an Australian River Red Gum. This tree has been growing here for more than 250 years. We saw scratches on the tree, which were made from possums. Possums live in the hollow halfway up the trunk. Up above the possum hollow we saw a colony of bees. Native bees were a source of honey and wax. Hollows in these trees also provide homes for Australian birds like parrots, kookaburras, and wood ducks. At times these trees were used for shelter, or bark was cut from them to make canoes. The hard wood was also used for a range of utensils and weapons including digging sticks, carrying dishes, shields, and boomerangs.

Tunia found a flower which matched her! Here she is sitting on top of a hippeastrum plant. This is not a native Australian plant, but is very colourful in our gardens in spring.

This is a local plant and is a source of sweet nectar in the Autumn when the flowers are in bloom. The shaft of the flower spike was used by the Kaurna and Ngarrinjeri people for light weight spears and for fire sticks. In summer the seeds were ground to make flour.

This plant is a Palmer Spear Lily. The flower stalk was soaked prior to roasting and eating. The leaves were used for weaving mats and baskets.

Here is Tunia on the way back to school by train.

November13,2000: Tunia has settled in very well. She is enjoying our spring weather, which has been more like summer over the past week. We have been experiencing temperatures of 30 degrees centigrade and over. So Tunia is observing what happens to lovely spring gardens in a hot Australian sun! We have made Tunia a school hat to wear while she is staying with us. We have a Hat Policy in our school as do most Australian schools, where the students are expected to wear hats whenever they are outside. This is to make sure we are well protected from our very strong sun. In our school, the winter term is the only term we can go out to play without a hat. In many schools the children wear a hat all year round. The rule is NO HAT - NO PLAY. Children without a hat stay under cover all playtime. Luckily everyone is really good and remembers to wear a hat.

Here is Tunia wearing her hat.

November 18, 2000: Tunia has had a very exciting weekend. Yesterday she went to the big Christmas Pageant, which goes through the city streets of Adelaide at this time every year. We think it's the largest pageant of its kind in the Southern Hemisphere. Children love to go and watch all the floats and see their favourite storybook characters or nursery rhyme characters and, of course, all the Christmas floats. Yesterday over 400,000 children and adults watched the pageant on a very hot November Saturday. Santa rides on the last float. Once the pageant has been to town, everyone gets excited about Christmas. The shops are all decorated and so are the streets. Christmas in Australia is quite different because the weather is usually very hot. Lots of families go to the beach on Christmas Day to cool off. Can you imagine doing that in Rhode Island on December 25th? Tunia especially liked the floats with Australian characters in the Credit Union Christmas Pageant.

The first float in the pageant.

This float was called Gibber Creek Farm. Can you see some Australian animals?

Tunia loved Koala Great.

This is the Candy Carnival float.

Here is an old favourite - Humpty Dumpty!

Tunia liked the Toyville Trolley full of toys.

Tunia is sitting among the flowers we were investigating in Science. Everyone in the class had a chance to look closely at the flowers using a hand lens, magnifying glass and a lightscope. It was very interesting, and we were able to see the nectar, seeds, and different textures and patterns on the leaves. Some of the flowers we looked at were geranium, agapanthus, sages, hawthorn, and Queen Anne's Lace.

Can you see Tunia sitting on the garden seat in our school rose garden? There is a lavender hedge behind her. Of course she is wearing her hat!

Click on the flower to return to Tunia's main page.

Click the arrow to go to Tunia's December journal from Australia.