The Snail & Whale Project

We’ve had a wonderful time in Florida in Mrs. Donovan’s class. The town is beautiful and the people are friendly. Mrs. Donovan’s class has been so nice to us. They are sweet just like she said.

Mrs. Donovan took us to the beach one morning before school. She snapped some photos to share.

Hi Everyone,

We just arrived in Florida And we are enjoying our time in the United States. We are in a little town of Indialantic And the school we’re going to visit tomorrow is right near the beach. We can hear the ocean waves from Mrs. Donovan’s house. She was so excited when we arrived. She is very nice and has a ton of animals at her house. My favorite is her yellow lab Emma. Once she tried to pick us up her her mouth. Mrs. donovan told her to put us down gently.

We can’t wait tomorrow we are going to visit her classroom and meet her students. She mentioned how sweet they all were.  We’re so glad to hear they are sweet 4th graders. They have a class blog too. We will share it with you at the end of our visit.

We must get some sleep to prepare for our first day at Indialantic Elementary. We will write back soon. 

Wow, what a day at the university! I heard that they had an interesting mascot so I was looking forward to meeting him. The University of California Santa Cruz is located amongst giant redwood trees.

Deep in the redwoods!

The school mascot is acreature very similar to me! It is called a Banana Slug and it lives on the forest floor. I met one living in a dorm room He doesn’t have a shell.

Banana Slug

It was a wonderful trip. We had a chance to meet some college students and eat pizza for lunch. The weather was beautiful. Many of Mr. Miller’s students told us that they want to come to this school when they go off to college. I can see why! Enjoy some more photos below. It has been great in California, but now it is time to head to the east and visit a class in Florida. I wonder what their beaches are like compared to this one?

Some of Mr. Miller’s Students

Today we travelled with Mr. Miller to his school, Chalone Peaks Middle School. It is located in Monterey County, California. His students were wonderful to us. They took us around campus and introduced us to their friends. We also got the chance to visit a university because we arrived just in time to get an invitation.

The university is called the University of California Santa Cruz. It is about a 2 hour drive from Mr. Miller’s classroom. It is located up in the mountains, but near the coast. We were both extremely happy that we got to go!

University of California Santa Cruz

Whale got to see the Pacific Ocean again and heard the call of some migrating California Gray Whales! These whales migrate back and forth between Alaska and Baja California in Mexico. According to Mr. Miller, this has been a very busy year with lots of whales coming very near the shore.

Whale could see the ocean from the campus!

Tomorrow, we will tell you about a special friend Snail got to meet!

We made it to California! Our first stop was to see Mrs. Miller’s class of 3rd graders. All of her students were wonderful and they enjoyed the story of Snail and Whale. Her classroom is located in Paso Robles, California. The weather has been wonderful because Spring has just arrived here in the Northern Hemisphere. Our next visit will be with Mr. Miller. He teaches grade 7 students about 50 miles north from here.

Today on the 14 of  February the snail and the whale arrived at Point View School. We were split into groups of 7 and had 8 Qr codes to scan. Each code had information on where your school might be and what the name is.

It was really tricky but we solved it in the end. The answer was Russel street school, Palmerston North, New Zealand. We had an awesome day!!

Jake, Point View primary school (home of the Gruffalo).

The Giant Swing was a lot of fun but we had to wear the safety gear including a helmet. Whale was very sensible putting his helmet on but Snail was a bit cheeky!

They were both quite hungry with all the activities on camp and we caught them raiding the fruit bowl!

Did you know that Snail and Whale could play chess? No? Me neither! But here they are playing a game whilst we were on camp. I wonder who taught them.

How lucky are Snail and Whale? They have been on another camp! This time they went to El Shaddai Camp at Wellington, on the River Murray in South Australia with the two Year 6/7 classes from Hawthorndene Primary School. They had a wonderful time and had lots of adventures. Unfortunately some of their adventures couldn’t be photographed very easily – one of them was a Giant Swing which was 11 metres high so they were far too small to see in the photos.

They also did indoor rock climbing, trampolining and played some games. They didn’t like the canoeing as there was a thunderstorm and lots of lightning!

We will post some photos tomorrow of Snail and Whale on camp.

Hello to all of our friends around the globe,
It was another exciting day in class today. We combined science and social studies and made some delicious butter. We put heavy cream in glass jars, sealed them up tightly, and shook them up.  It took longer than I thought it would but it was worth it in the end. Half way through, we had to drain off some of the liquid. Mr.. T. told us that it was just buttermilk.  I tried some and it tasted sweet. Whale wasn’t as brave as I was so he didn’t try any.  I drank his share and it was yummy.

Whale had to help some of the students because their arms were getting tired. We learned that butter is an emulsion. It’s when you agitate molecules and they get tricked into joining up with other molecules that they don’t usually hang around with. It was a lot of fun and we learned a lot too. We are off to celebrate our first Thanksgiving. We can’t wait to share it all with you.
Snail and Whale

Check out the video of the kids shaking away.

What a special treat we had today. We joined Mr. T.’s class and the rest of the 5^th graders and traveled to the New Bedford Whaling Museum in New Bedford, Massachusetts.  We took a short 15-minute school bus ride from Mattapoisett to New Bedford. It was a lot of fun riding on the bus. We got to sit in the back of the bus and boy was it loud. When we arrived at the museum, Whale started to get a little nervous because he wasn’t sure what to expect at a whaling museum.

Kate, Bethany, and Heather did a great job taking care of Whale and making him feel safe.  When we entered the museum we could see three huge whale skeletons hanging from the ceiling. Whale closed his eyes because he just couldn’t bear to look.  Our docent took us through the museum and told us all about the whaling industry and the historic impact it had on the city and the surrounding towns. We learned that Mattapoisett has a rich connection to whaling because it was one the largest shipbuilding ports in New England.

The bark Wanderer was the last whaling ship launched from Mattapoisett in 1878. In the late 19^th century, New Bedford was the richest whaling port in the world. Whale suggested that we put a few links on so you can learn more about this part of the world.

It was a perfect day with our new friends. Signing off for now.

Snail and Whale

Hello everyone, We are happy to report that the weekend is here. We’ve had an amazing week and the students are keeping us busy.  Today we learned about matter, atoms, and the elements that make up all the things in our world.  The students picked elements off of the Periodic Table of Elements and did research to learn more about them.

Whale was amazed to learn that the ice that floats in the ocean is just water that has changed it’s state. Water turns from a liquid to a solid, and when it melts it turns back into a liquid. We had to help some of the students draw their elements too. We kept reminding them that the nucleus is in the center of the atom and that is where the protons and neutrons live.

Whale helped a few color in all of their electrons because some elements have so many spinning around in the shells. I was on spell check patrol making sure that everyone spelled the element name correctly. Mr. T. said he is going to be doing a lab next week and he wants us to be his assistants.  We haven’t got a clue what he is going to do, but check back next week because I can’t wait to share it with all of you.

I hope that everyone has a nice weekend.

Snail and Whale

Hello to all our friends,

It was another busy day at Old Hammondtown School. We got to go to lunch with the students and boy was it a treat.  We had to wait in a line for a little while because popcorn chicken and mashed potatoes were on the menu. The yummy smells from the kitchen made the wait seem even longer. Once we got inside, Mrs. Daniel’s handed us our tray with our food. Down the line we went until it was time to pay. We walked out into the cafeteria and looked for a good place to sit.

The students are fortunate because they can sit where they like, and they can sit with their friends from other classrooms too. We had 25 minutes to eat our lunch. Some students bring their lunch, and some buy lunch. The time went by quickly and then it was off to recess which is like playtime. We had 15 minutes to run around and play games.

The whistle blew and it was back off to class.

To see more photos from our lunch adventure visit http://mrtohs.weebly.com.

We’ll keep you posted as our adventure continues.

Bye for now.

Snail and Whale

Hello to all of our friends, what a very busy day it has been. It’s hard to believe that we are here in Massachusetts.  After Ping Pong Club ended Mr. T. took us by the Mattapoisett Town Wharf. He said that this was the site where many whaling ships were built.

Over the next few days the students will be telling us more about this seaside town. We will be sure to share what we learn as the days go by. As you can tell from the picture, there aren’t any boats in the harbor. Hurricane Sandy just came rolling through the other day so many boat owners pulled their boats out of the water for safety sake.

There is a Nor’easter battering the coast right now. A Nor’easter is a special kind of storm that gets its name from the direction the wind is coming from. They impact the North East coast of the United States and can cause lots of damage. The blowing wind and driving rain was making for a very gloomy day. The wind gusts from this storm equaled those of the hurricane.  (96-112 kph)

Good night to all.

Snail and Whale

Snail and Whale helped out in math class today. We were investigating prime and composite numbers so Snail and Whale jumped right in to give us a hand.

In their travels around the world, they both learned a few things about prime and composite numbers.  They lead the discussion and told us that prime numbers are positive integers that have only one pair of factors. Whale was a big help explaining that composite numbers are positive integers that have more than one pair of factors.

When we broke up into groups to find the prime numbers in our zero to one hundred grids, they visited each group and answered questions.  They even helped out making prime and composite posters for the wall.

We sure are glad Snail and Whale stopped by the classroom when they did. We can’t wait to see what else they have to teach us.

After 1,274 miles, Snail and Whale made it safely from Marion, IA to our classroom in Mattapoisett. This is the last leg of a very long journey for Snail and Whale which began in Palmerston North, New Zealand.

The Snail and Whale Project is coordinated by the R3 class from the Russell Street School in New Zealand.
The idea came from the picture book called ‘The Snail and the Whale’ by Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler. In the story the snail longs to sail the world so he hitches a ride on top of the whale.

The idea of this project is for different classes around the world to host R3′s Snail and Whale and post their adventures on this blog.
We can’t wait to learn more about New Zealand, and take Snail and Whale all around Mattapoisett.

Today 3D skyped our friends at Upper Plenty Primary School in Victoria, Australia. Upper Plenty currently have our class mascots the snail and whale and are also part of our Quad Blog.

It was great fun talking to them and finding out all about their school and area.

Thanks Upper Plenty for being such awesome hosts of the snail and whale and thanks for taking time out to talk to us today! You rock!

This weekend was the 153rd Whittlesea Show.  Whittlesea is only about 12km from Upper Plenty and every year students at UPPS enter one piece of writing and some people also enter art work.    This year Upper Plenty students also competed in some of the horse classes, baked delicious goodies for the homecrafts sections and even performed on stage!  Over 50 000 people (and one snail and one whale) visited the show.

What shows do you have in your local area?

Have you ever been to an agricultural show? What was it like?

Snail and Whale have just returned from a three day camp with the 3/4s at Queenscliff in Victoria.  Queenscliff is a coastal town famous for its historical buildings.  In the 1800s it was the most heavily armed defence base in the Southern Hemisphere.

 Snail and Whale on Camp on PhotoPeach

The 3/4s and Snail and Whale are looking forward to Skyping with Room 3 later this week.

Snail and Whale 2 were invited to a Kid’s Trivia Night being held at Upper Plenty P.S.  We think it is probably the first Trivia Night they have ever been to.  It was a fundraiser for Upper Plenty.  Students all wore their house colours and had to answer questions.

Snail and Whale were in Green team.  They had a terrific time answering questions and helping Green team earn points.  Some of the questions they had to answer were:

How many people can ride a tandem bike?

What is the name Liz short for?

What is the opposite of Duke?

What is New Zealand’s native bird?

What is heavier, a kilogram of feathers or a kilogram of bricks?

Do you know the answers to the above questions?

Have you got a suggested trivia question for the next challenge?