I thought I would introduce myself and my grade 6/7 class from Tasmania, Australia.  My name is Miss W.  (this is what I use on our blogs) and I have only been blogging since January this year.  I introduced my new class to blogging when school began in February and many of them are very keen to have their own blogging page - maybe in term 2.

 We are in a school in a rural town but only about half an hour from Hobart, the capital city of Tasmania.  Many people don’t think Tasmania is a part of Australia, but we were the second state to be settled back in 1803.  Like Mrs Mirtschin’s class, we are in a high fire danger area, and in fact, tomorrow the temperature is supposed to get to 34 degrees Celsius so it is total fire ban from midnight tonight over the whole state.

The grade 6 students will be out on the oval at their school running carnival so I hope they all remember to bring their water and to “Slip, slop and slap”. With the grade 7 students back in class, I will have to bring in a fan as our room gets very hot and we don’t have any air conditioning. 

We have recently had a smartboard installed in our room and have just finished a series of activities about being internet safe.  I used many of the activities and cartoons from Cyberquoll.

I hope some of you will come and visit us on our class blog and join in the activities mentioned there.

Yesterday, was Shrove Tuesday or Pancake Day in Australia. This marks the beginning of the Lenten season in the Christian world. As usual our students in the primary school levels were busy making pancakes - a happy fun time and then enjoyed eating the results of their hard labour.  Below is a video showing our virtual pet, Patch, enjoying part of the action. The photos above are students in grade 5.  What do you do on Shrove Tuesday?

Download Video: Posted by murch

Our school started yesterday, with teachers returning and planning lessons for our first term. We have 5 weeks holiday over summer then 4 terms, with a two week break between each of the terms. How many terms and holidays do you have?
It was with great interest that I read your comments and my class will love looking at them as well, so thank you. Now to answer some of them and the class will answer others when we get settled in.
We live in a temperate climate which means that we do not have snow, live 30mins drive from the Southern Ocean and have had temperatures of 40-42 degrees this summer. (I think that is about 105deg Fahrenheit).
Our students live mostly on farms, so they have lots of pets, especially pet lambs. Sometimes we see kangaroos and there are quite a few snakes on our farms. We do not have any dingoes near us but we have lots of possums who come out at night and eat all our fruit, some garden plants and roses.
Hawkesdale is a very small town of 150 people so most of our students come in on buses. Our school goes from  prep to year 12 so we have 5 year old through to 18 year old students. The closest city is Warrnambool which is on the Great Ocean Road.

As it is summer here now, bushfires are always a danger. We had a powerpole near us catch on fire on Monday, so volunteer firefighters and 8 fire trucks had to go and fight the blaze. The power people had to switch our electricity off for 1 ½ hours to make sure that the pole was dead. Police closed our road. Lucky the wind was not blowing so we were able to put the fire out quite quickly.  Below are some photos taken.

Hello to the Global Bloggers. I am Mrs Mirtschin (murcha) and we hope to work with you on some collaborative projects this year. Our students return to school on January 30th. It has been very hot here and we have had a number of days over 40 degrees. Fortunately, we have a lovely swimming pool in Hawkesdale and the beach is only a 30 minute drive away.
We would be interested in hearing what your typical school day involves and perhaps you would like to think about some questions you could ask us. Unfortunately, my voki could not be added to your blog page but if you can got to http://technoglobe.wikispaces.com/Introductions you will hear me tell you a little more.
See you later.