Room 3.2

Alison is now in Week 4 of Term 2, and is really enjoying her schoolwork and her schoolmates. We scooter and bike up to the school every morning, joining in with other mums, dads, and grandparents heading toward the school. The ten minutes between the 1st bell (allowing students to enter the classroom) and the 2nd bell (signaling that students are officially late) are a time when parents mingle around the classroom, chatting with other parents and the teacher or helping their children with sight or spelling words. It's a nice gradual start to the day.


The end of Term 1 came with a flurry of activity just before Easter. The class took a half-day field trip to the beach, where the kids dug around in the sand and were allowed into the water up to their ankles. The class also hosted their very own pet for a few weeks, Tickles the Turtle, who lived in the classroom and went out at recess onto the grass for a bit of playtime of his own.


The biggest event at end of term, though, was sports day. Every single student was divided into houses, which were led by upper class students. Alison was assigned to the red house weeks in advance, and came home talking about house meetings where she had learned the house cheer. Students were allowed to wear house colors on the big day, which is a huge thing, of course, in a student body that wears mostly black, grey and yellow the rest of the year. We bought a cheap bottle of red hairspray to get into the spirit of things, and boy, was Alison excited.

With classmates Tam Anh and Filipe

The opening event was a gathering on the oval, with all the kids divided into their houses. Each set of leaders led their respective houses in their cheer, and everyone did the muscle hustle to warm up. At several points, the school principal awarded points for best team cheer, organization, proper hat wearage. Chris and I had already joked about how Harry Potter-esque it was all starting to sound, but this made it even more so.

Ali returning with her "spike"

Red team adds to the Echidna

Following the opening, the lower primary school split off for their own events with each class rotating with their teacher through the series of events. These included the classics that are familiar to us, like the running relay, spoon race, and sack races. But the one that caught my eye was Spike the Echidna. It turned out to be another relay style race, with each team member running to pick up a popsicle stick to be added to their "echidna", a bowl filled with sand. Sadly, the Red Team was last in terms of points by the end of the day, but first in my heart for spirit and enthusiasm.

By the time Alison's birthday rolled around, I knew all of the girls in Alison's class by name from having been in the classroom most mornings and from helping on a few field trips. It was impossible to identify just a few to invite to her party, because she's been playing with nearly everyone at recess. So we bit the bullet and sent out twelve invitations to her girl mates in room 3.2 for a party at a local reserve with good green space and playground. And then set about trying to figure out how to keep them entertained for 2 hours.

The girls had a great time, both playing the organized games and then on the playground after we ate cupcakes and opened gifts. What a great crew in 3.2 - we'll miss having them as classmates!