Our Own Backyard

 Cows Create Careers

Students in years 9 and 10 who are studying agriculture, are taking part in the successful ‘cows create careers’ program. Two calves,lhosted to us by local dairy farmers, live at school for 3 weeks. In this time, students are responsible for feeding, caring for them and learning animal husbandry practices. They are weighed twice weekly and reports are made at the completion of the project. At the end of the project, the schools involved in our area get together, and submit their reports to the other schools.

Two young calves were delivered to school yesterday and the proud new ‘parent’ 9/10 students, placed them in an enclosure and tended to their needs. To our horror, they escaped after only one night’s stay, and worked their way down to the back lane behind the school. Two year 8 girls were called upon to bring the escapees back to their home. A bucket of feed was used to cajole back up the dirt track, through the back gate and into their enclosure. Three staff were also on board to help tighten the enclosure, until the supervising teacher returned to school after lunch.

My grade had to write letters to different countries. This is my letter.

Dear student and teachers of Kadena Elementry School

Hi,

My favourite sport is netball, but I like other sports like Basketball and Soccer. I have two brothers , a mum and dad and a sister.

My dad is a shearer which means he makes his living by shearing sheep. I like all the different animals and I like to play with my brothers and sister. I live on a farm just out of Hawkesdale. My parents own 150 acres. My family put a dorset ram over the ewes, the ram gets the ewe in lamb. Sometimes the mother doesn’t look after the lamb. So my dad picks up the lamb and brings it up to the house and we put them in a warm spot and feed them about every 5 hours.

We own one bull and seven cows. We sell the calves when they are about nine months old. We own four ducks, us kids have a duck each. There names are Browny, Troubles, Cuddles and Straunie.

I go to school at Hawkesdale P-12 College. School starts at 9:00 and finishes at 3:30. I get up at 7:30 and get home at 3:40. I catch the bus to school. I ride my bike to the corner of our road to catch the bus. I am on the bus for about 10 minutes.

At school we have different subjects like art, humanities, science, library, sport, ICT, (information communication technology) writing and literacy. There are 22 people in my class.

We have about 250 people go to our school. Our school is just up from the swimming pool.  In the first term the teachers take us up to the pool. My teacher is Ms Murnane. In the first or second term we have a sports day. That is where we do lots of different sport activities like long jump, high jump and other events and races.

Hawkesdale is about 40 minutes away from Warrnambool.

There are lots of different things in Hawkesdale like the pool, Apex Park, the football club rooms, pub, post office, hall, kindergarten and three churches.  The grass is mainly yellow around Hawkesdale at the moment, because we have recently had a drought. Normally, Hawkesdale is a very pretty little town with lots of well mown road sides and beautiful trees.

There are about 500 people that live around Hawkesdale. Most people around Hawkesdale live on farms. Mainly sheep, cattle, dairy and a couple of blue gum plantations.

Victoria’s capital city is Melbourne. Melbourne is the biggest city in Victoria.

It is summer here in Victoria. The weather is mainly sunny, sometimes it rains and thunder storms. Some of Victoria’s best attractions are FlagStaff Hill in Warrnambool, Tower Hill, Lake Pertobe, Sovereign Hill, Grampians, Bendigo mine.

About 2 years ago there was a big fire in the Grampians.  It was close to Hawkesdale. It was horrible seeing all the animals hurt and all the trees black and on the ground.

Australia is the smallest continent but the largest island in the world. Canberra is Australia’s capital city.

There are different animals in Australia such as the Koala, Snake, Possum, Kangaroo, Platypus, Emu, Cockatoo, Kookaburra, Wombats and other interesting animals. There are lots of different native grasses and trees as well.

Students in grade 6 were involved in a global project entitled “From Me To You”, as part of a Valentine’s Day initiative by Jen Wagner. This involved students from 24 schools in various countries from USA, Canada, Italy, United Emirates and Australia. This was an exciting  project to be involved in, and each of our students wrote a note to accompany their homemade greeting card. Here is Georgia’s contribution.

We had to write a letter to an international school and sent them away. This is what I wrote”From Me to You”

Hi,
I live in a small town called Hawkesdale. It is in Victoria which is in Australia. My house used to be a Railway station. My Mum helped there. We still find bits and pieces in our backyard.  Most people live on farms around Hawkesdale but I don’t. But we have a very big backyard. We have a tennis court, a pool, heaps of trees, a garage, a couple of sheds, verandas, BBQ area, games room and cubby house. We have one pet which is a goat. We call it Walter. It is very friendly to people he knows. But when a stranger comes around sometime he might charge at them.  I’m 11 years old and I’m in grade 6 this year. My birthday is on the 30^th of Hawkesdale. I am a family of 5.  Even though I’m the youngest I’m the second tallest. I’m even taller then my Mum. We go to a big city in Australia called Melbourne every holiday because all of Dad’s family lives up there.

At our school we study Chinese at least twice a week. Since I’m in grade 6 this year we have buddies. A buddy is a program where the grade 6’s get buddies in prep or grade 1.

We have a canteen at our school. It sells lollies, chips, pies, pasties, toasted sandwiches, water, fruit boxes and Big M’s. My favourite thing at the canteen is the chicken strips.

In my class there are 22 people. Only 10 are boys.

My Town

The town that I live in is called Hawkesdale. It is a tiny town which only has about 500 citizens.

It doesn’t have many buildings or stores. We only have a Post office, Pool, Pub, 3 Churches, Funky toilets and a park called Apex Park.

Most people who live around Hawkesdale live on farms. Mainly Sheep, Cattle, Dairy and a couple of Blue Gum plantations.

We have a couple of Community group such as HADDAC which is group of people who do working bees around Hawkesdale and do stuff around Hawkesdale. My Dad is the secretary for HADDAC. We have a cert team, CFA group, Hall committee, A football/Netball club and Cricket club.

Victoria

Victoria’s Capital city is a city called Melbourne. It would be the biggest city in Victoria.

Some of Victoria’s best attractions are the Great Ocean Road, the 12 Apostles, Grampians, Sovereign Hill, Flagstaff hill and the Bendigo mine.

2 years ago there was a big fire at Grampians which came pretty close to Hawkesdale. It was horrible seeing all the dead trees and animals.  We used to go to Grampians for holidays.

The Bendigo mine is one of the greatest places I’ve been. If you came to Australia I would recommend you go to the mine.

Australia

Australia is a small continent. Before English people were here there were Aboriginals. The first English to step onto Australia were convicts.

Some great tourist attractions in Australia are Uluru, the Great Barrier Reef, Darwin, theme parks and Canberra.

Canberra is Australia’s capital city. I went there for a school camp. It took 13 hours to get there. Very long! We went to Telstra tower, Old parliament house, new parliament house and a museum. It was the best camp.

Australia’s native animals are the platypus, kookaburras, Kangaroos, Koalas, Echidna and wombats.   

Your sincerely,Georgia