Bye Luna and Hazelnut. Welcome Koko and Kev.

Today was Luna and Hazelnut's last day at Faraday School. We have had such a great time with them and reception will miss them a lot but we are very happy to be sending them to Rowandale School in Auckland NZ. We hope they continue to have lots of fun adventures at lots of different schools around the world.

Today Koko the Koala arrived and she had a surprise visitor with her…Kev the Kiwi stowaway who wanted to keep Koko company on her journey. Thank you to the children from Clyde School for sharing Koko with us. We have lots more exciting learning to share with them both this week.

Wumbat in WA

Thank you so much Year 2's at PLC in Sydney for sending Wumbat to visit us. We are a school in the suburbs of Perth way across the country from you. We have students from Pre-Kindy to Year 6's.

So, we have lots of little kids here who love cuddly toys. Our local unique animal is the Quokka and only found on Rottnest Island, so no time to cross the ocean to have them meet. Instead school students will have to do.

Wumbat was greeted enthusiastically by our Year 4 students. Hope you didn't mind the big kids giving her some attention. She had been watching the different classes as they came into the Library and she just seemed to take a shine to them and vice versa.

The Year 4's decided she needed a bit of fun and relaxation after her journey from Sydney. They suspected she may have muscle cramp from being stuffed into a padded post bag for several days. Exercise is what she needed. On the Friday after she arrived, our school was raising money through a Lapathon. Our students had to walk around and around the school oval - there was music, there was skipping, there was backward walking and a whole lot of fun considering it was a school day.

So they collected some sponsors for Wumbat and away she went. A particular group of girls made her life a little too easy as she was cuddled and carried the entire way, with a little smirk on her face. "How will those little legs ever get strong?" demanded the boys who secretly wanted to have her company. Well, the good news is she survived the exercise campaign and even donated $10 to the cause.

We decided that day that her time in sunny Western Australia was about to be over - I mean how much fun can one little wombat have? We looked down the list to find a new destination. We picked Clarkville School in New Zealand. Time to meet a unique animal - the Kiwi bird. We packed her off on a Qantas jet and sent her to another group of students who could share their love. Going the long way, we think, considering the way the plane is heading.

Reception, Luna and Hazelnut visit Pizza Express

Today the reception class took Luna and Hazelnut to Pizza Express in Wapping. We were so lucky as we got to learn about where different pizza ingredients come from and how they grow as well as making some delicious pizza!

First we talked about how to make pizza dough. We thought that you might need to add baking soda to make the dough rise but it is actually another ingredient called yeast. We got to roll and stretch the dough to see what it felt like.

Then we looked at some different ingredients that are used as pizza toppings. We didn’t know what some of the ingredients were like oregano or mozzarella so Maria taught us lots new information. 

We got to taste the different ingredients and reception were amazing risk takers, trying new things.

Xavier and YoYo didn’t think they would like the sun-dried tomato, but when they tried it they did! Amone also took a risk and tried some artichoke, which she really enjoyed and even wanted more. Kian wasn’t so keen on the artichoke but was proud of himself for trying it anyway.

We thought that pizza was invented in Italy but do you know where it was actually invented?

In Egypt.

Then we got to be pizza chefs. We pressed the dough in the dishes to make our bases. Next we swirled the tomato sauce around our bases until they were all covered. We spread out the cheese evenly over our pizza and finished them off with a sprinkle of oil and oregano.

Lastly we put them in the oven. The ovens are so hot at Pizza Express that they only need to cook the pizza for 5 minutes.

 We took our pizza back to school and had a big pizza feast. 

Thank you very much to Maria who taught us lots about making pizza today and to our wonderful helpers Dee and Vivienne. We had a great time!

Wombat Stew

Today we looked at a picture of the other teddy bears that are travelling around the world just like Luna and Hazelnut. Reception weren’t sure what a wombat was so we looked at some pictures on the Internet to find out.

Then we read the story ‘Wombat Stew’ and we found some other animals that are native to Australia. We decided it would be fun to make our own ‘Wombat Stew’ recipe to trick the clever Dingo.

What does a kangaroo eat?

Today during snack time, Taylor wondered what a Kangaroo eats? 

We asked the class what they thought a kangaroo might eat and they shared their ideas.

Taylor said “apple”

Mia said “carrot”

Zak said “grass”

Elsie said, “hay”

Christopher said “leaves”

We then realised that we didn’t know very much about kangaroos and decided to find out some information by looking on the Internet.

We found out that Kangaroos are native to Australia. They are herbivores and only eat plants. There are four different species of Kangaroo and reception thought that maybe Luna and Hazelnut were Eastern Grey Kangaroos because they live where more people live and Sydney is a big city.

Luna and Hazelnut arrive in London

The reception class at Faraday School were so excited to have Luna and Hazelnut arrive on Monday afternoon. It was a big surprise! We loved the picture that class 2G from Garden International School in Malaysia drew us. We are very impressed with your drawing skills. It even inspired some children in reception to draw their own pictures of Luna and Hazelnut too. Thank you for sharing Luna and Hazelnut with us. We look forward to having them with us this week.

Bye bye Luna and Hazelnut

We are so sad to say goodbye. We have loved having Luna and Hazelnut to stay, we are going to miss them. Hopefully we get to see them again next year. They are now on their way to The Faraday school, London, England.

Our last few days with Luna and Hazelnut!

Fun on World Maths day

Learning to play the recorder in our Music lesson.

Last night we had our Book at Bedtime event. The children came back to school in the evening wearing their pyjamas and listened to stories in our library.

Ms Emma (our head of KS1) read us Where The Wild Things Are.

Around Garden International School

We took Luna and Hazelnut on a tour of our school.

Our lovely library. 

Ms Sheela works in our office.

We love our adventure playground.