March 2016

Our March meeting was about AUSTRALIA!!

                                            

G'day!! A big thank you to Aki and her family for sharing their experience with us about their time when living in Australia. 

Our meeting started with our ball game where children and adults could introduce themselves in their own language. A great way to warm up and get the children involved sitting in a big circle and interacting with everyone.

 

Then we all sat down to listen to to Aki, Ivor, Myako and Enzo to show us some pictures of their place in Australia - Bundaberg.

Bundaberg is a city in Queensland, Australia. It is part of the local government area of the Bundaberg Region and is a major centre within Queensland's broader Wide Bay-Burnett geographical region. 

It is also the place where the factory for Bundaberg is!! Hmmm.... Love their Ginger Beer!!

                                                                          

                               

And of course, we need to talk about creepy crawlers, when talking about Australia!! Argh!! Spiders, snakes and big bugs.... 

                        

It was great to see the children showing a lot of interest on this subject!! I guess we're all a bit fascinated about these bugs!! And... snakes! 

Australia has over 140 species of land snake - and 32 species of sea snakes have been recorded in its waters-. Of these 100 species are venomous, although only a dozen are considered venomous enough to be fatal to humans.

However, though Australian snakes are currently viewed as the most venomous in the world, they are, by no means, the most dangerous.

One reason for this is perhaps that having had very little time to adapt to the short human presence on their continent, Australian snakes are generally very shy and have not developed means to defend themselves against human predation, unlike, for example, the spitting cobras of Asia and Africa.

Another reason is that Australia is big and not densely populated by humans. As a result, snake bites are anything but common in Australia.

I certainly learned a lot about the Eastern Brown Snake!!! Gotta watch out next time we go to Gold Coast!!

The Eastern Brown Snake can be found in most of eastern Australia from the desert to the coast; it usually inhabits open grasslands, pastures or woodlands.

This large snake - it can exceed 2 meters - can move extremely fast and is responsible for more than half the deaths due to snake bites in Australia. This is partly due to the fact that its favorite preys are mice and rats which brings it into close contact with humans as it hunts around farm buildings.

However, thanks to efficient first-aid treatment and antivenin, the Eastern Brown Snake causes now only 1 or 2 human deaths a year. This snake is considered the second most venomous snake in the world. Its venom contains neurotoxins and procoagulants.

Bites are still quite uncommon, and given the opportunity, the Eastern Brown Snake, though reputed to be ill-tempered, will rather flee than attack. Most of the the time too, bites are warning ones where the snake does not inject its venom. If it does, though, and if the victim is not treated rapidly and correctly, a bite is likely to be fatal.

After all this learning about Australia, it was time to do a bit of Geography and locate countries around the world, do a quiz on the flags, capital cities, Continents etc.... these children are rocking the world!!

Right, this was awesome but there's still time for some activities!!! Let's have some fun painting our faces like the aborigines and building a didgeridoo too!!

And even the adults had some fun with face-painting!!

It's always great to have our lunch together after the meetings. Thank you so much to everyone who came and helped to make today great fun! And a very hearted goodbye to Aki and her family who are moving back to Japan... we will miss you guys!!