Polish / Australian Homeschooling Family Living in Tasmania, Australia.
This beautiful postcard came all the way from Katrin in Germany. Katrin took the photograph herself and says it is of the peacock Butterfly, which is very common in Germany.
Thanks Katrin for showing us the beautiful Butterfly and also for obviously having a keen photographic eye!
Our Butterfly flew 16,690 kilometres over 10 days to land in our garden!
Katrin's butterfly!
Today we received two wonderful cards. One from China it was of the Giant Panda’s. WangLi explained on the back of the card how to write ‘Giant Panda’ in Chinese characters, which was really cool! Today I want to try and encourage the children to write it themselves in the Chinese characters – Maybe if they see me trying they will attempt it themselves! – If they do I shall be sure to add their attempts here…
This card travelled 8,616 Kilometres over 11 days to land in our mail box!
Giant Panda's - China
The second postcard we received was from Cindy in Taiwan. It shows the ‘Cave of the eight immortals’. This is a very interesting place and yet information was not easy to find for us.
We did however learn the following after reading on the following website – www.taiwan.com.au
Basiandong is located in the north of Huatung Mountain by the coast of Changbin Township. “Basian”, or the Eight Immortals, are famous Chinese deities. Fogs drift perpetually around the caves and the interior is damp and misty. As the environment resembles that in the folklore when the eight deities cross the ocean, the caves were named Basian. In the caves, Taiwan’s first prehistoric site was discovered. As the earth’s crusts elevated, the mountains were constantly eroded by the sea and 16 caves of different sizes were formed along the cliff as high as 100 meters
For more information about this interesting place please visit www.taiwan.com.au
Cave of the Eight Immortals - Taiwan
Today as part of our home ed group we visited Bonorong Wildlife Conservation Centre. The weather did not look the greatest to start out with and after a number of really wet days prior I was a bit worried that the outing may not go ahead. A friend of our had been there yesterday (they were over from Victoria) and had said the paths were quite muddy, so the girlsd and I prepared ourselves for the day out and wore good shoes and took out coats with us.
Thankfully the weather managed to keep the rain away while we were at the centre, but our coats came in handy due to the cold wind blowing through the trees!
On arrival we were greeted by other home ed families and also our guide Greg. The children where told some house keeping rules, like don’t run, keep on the paths, don’t pat the animals unless we are told to for our own safety etc.
Then Greg talked to us about the different animals, allowed the children to have hands on experiences and then left us to explore and enjoy the wildlife part for ourselves.
We had a great day out!
After SZG finished work today we went for a walk along the Burnie Boardwalk. It was just before sunset as we wanted to try and grab a glimpse of the fairy penguin colony that actively live in Burnie. Apparently the colony is very big and from around an hour before sunset to about an hour after dark, the adult fairy penguins start to return from the sea, to look after and feed their young.
The children where very excited to be going down by the beach to see if we could see any penguins. We were initially greeted by a tour guide at the Penguin Centre, who voluntarily gave us a short talk about the life and times of the fairy penguin and told us their life cycle and other interesting facts. They also showed us Boris, the freeze dried and stuffed Fairy Penguin, who is available for photographs! The children enjoyed being able to get up close with a ‘real’ penguin – even though he was obviously not alive! They had a very hands on experience and got to touch Boris, which was great.
Once Sunset started we went for a short walk along the boardwalk to see if we could grab a glimpse of some live penguins – and we were not disappointed at all. There where a number of small chicks who came out to await the return of their parents. Then after some strange noises, which we were informed were the penguins talking to each other we could start to see the adult penguins emerging from the water and making their way across the rocks to their young. It was all very exciting and interesting. Unfortunately the penguins hate light, so we were unable to use a flash on the camera, and therefore did not manage to get any good shots to share of the live penguins and their chicks, but the experience was great none the less and the children enjoyed it immensely as did SZG and I!
Here are some photos we did get to take of Boris!
