This post is long overdue! During the last week of school we had a very special visit with our friend Mr. Mannell. Mr. Mannell lives in Australia, but we were able to chat with him through Skype.
Each student in the class came up with questions that they wanted to ask Mr. Mannell. We wanted to know what life was like in Australia and we wanted to learn more about the teacher who had been such a wonderful supporter of our blog this year. If you follow our blog, you will have seen the wonderful comments that Mr. Mannell leaves us. Sometimes he has so much fantastic information to share that he has to write an “extended comment” and leave us a link to the post. Three of our favourite extended comments this year were: the post comparing Canadian and Australian animals, the post about rocks and soil, and the posts about the beaches in Australia and doing our part to clean up the ocean.
It was Tuesday afternoon at 1:30 pm for us when we made the call, but it was 6:30 am on Wednesday morning for Mr. Mannell in Australia. Thank goodness Mr. Mannell is an early riser!
Mr. Mannell wrote three amazing posts about our call and even added extra information! You can read the posts by following the links below:
Dear Mrs. Watson and K/1/2/3,
What a wonderful Skype session we had. 🙂
When I have Skyped with a class, sometimes we have been talking about a topic and sometimes I have had an idea of what will be asked but our session added an extra challenge. I didn’t know what questions might be asked. I found this an exciting idea. Would I be able to answer or, if not, be able to provide extra information later?
One of the important parts of my life is my learning journey. Some people think learning stops when they leave school but our learning journey can be lifelong if we keep our minds open to new experiences and ideas. Any day can be a learning adventure with something new or changed no matter our age.
Whether through blogs or even while out hiking, I like finding something new or interesting. It’s not uncommon to find me with a camera wandering a trail in one of our parks. You never know when there will be something interesting to photograph and possibly use in a blog. The photos I have shared with you show you some of the things I have seen.
On Thursday (July 4) afternoon I visited our local Panboola Wetlands Sanctuary. It’s a floodplain area for the Pambula River and has swampy reedy areas, salt marshland, walking trails and access to the river. I spent around four hours there with camera at the ready. I’ll let you be the first to see what I found…
http://rossmannellcomments.edublogs.org/2013/07/06/visiting-panboola-wetlands-sharing-vacation-experiences-wtih-k123/
Enjoy your vacation. 🙂
Ross Mannell
Teacher (retired), N.S.W., Australia