Please don't cook the wombat

What a wonderful cool morning greeted us and before we knew it, the day had become a truly hot summer’s day. We had gymnastics today so didn’t get a chance to play in the park; however we had a fun water play activity on the balcony with animals.

It seems that animals are the theme so far, in our Summer School Stories themes. Last week a bear was the focus and this week, there is a colourful selection of Australian animals. The story today was so much fun, because it was completely interactive. We were a part of the story and did things as the story evolved. We started off sitting in front of the felt board and we noticed that there was a large plastic bag attached to the board. What was this bag for? As the story unfolded, we soon learnt what it was for.

This is the story; Once upon a time there was a dingo, a wild dog from Australia that caught a wombat, another Australian animal. The dingo wanted to make wombat stew and then eat the wombat. This shocked the animals that heard the dingo announcing what he was going to do. They decided to trick the dingo, as Sofie said, and they all gave him advice on what to add to the billycan, which is what people sometimes call a pot in the Australian countryside. The very first thing that the dingo put into the pot was water. So we too went ahead and added water to the plastic bag hanging on the felt board. We were amazed when we watched Hisami pour the water in, and it stayed in the bag. She was a bit nervous when she poured the water in.

The first animal was the platypus and it suggested to put mud in the pot. The dingo was so happy to be given advice and he let the platypus add mud. Sofie found brown pom poms and she added these to the water. The next animal that came along was the emu. Dominik said: “That’s an ostrich”. It looks similar to an ostrich but has darker feathers. Hana went and found real feathers and threw them into our pot. Each time something was added to the pot, the dingo sang a song:

“Wombat stew, wombat stew

Oeey gooey, yummy chewy,

Wombat stew”

Sometimes the words changed but the tune was always the same. The dingo danced around the pot and showed its sharp teeth…..we weren’t scared, which is just what the family said in “We’re going on a bear hunt”. Then along came the blue tongued lizard with a long blue tongue. The blue tongued lizard said that you cannot make a stew without, flies. We wouldn’t eat flies but ani als sometimes like to eat them. So Griffin went and found some sparkles and threw them into our pot. The sparkles represented flies. We didn’t want the dingo to cook the wombat so we didn’t mind seeing the animals make crazy suggestions to the dingo.

The echidna said that creepy crawlies and bugs make the taste really good so Dominik chose rubber bands and dropped them into our pot. Lina was the lucky last and she chose wooden beads for gumnuts which were what the koala recommended. Suddenly the dingo shouted: “There is something missing. I need to put the wombat in the stew”. Well, the animals could not let this happen. So they shouted: “Wait!” and the dingo looked at them, wanting to know why he should wait. They told him that before he puts the wombat into the stew, he must taste it. So he went ahead and tasted the stew. He screamed that it was not yummy and he said that they had all poisoned him; so he ran away. Phew, the wombat was saved. Hurray for the animals who saved him from becoming “Wombat Stew”.

We made handles for our ‘billycans’ using paper or pipe cleaners. Our billycans are also transparent so we can see what we put inside ours. We will choose whatever we want to put into ours and then on Friday; we are going to have a party with ‘real’ things inside that maybe we can eat.

During the day we had fun with Miyashita sensei and it was our second last gymnastics lesson of the year. We did the same exercises as last week and loved the ball game, where he throws the ball and we have to move out of the way, so that it didn’t touch us. Sofie managed to jump out of the way so quickly, she ended up being the winner both times.

Taiyo was the class doctor and walked around with the stethoscope, pulling the wagon of books. Many of us made animals just like the ones in our story. We will add Popsicle sticks to them so we too can tell the story at home. We added different parts to the animals to make them look like we wanted them to.

We are so excited to be able to listen to the story again tomorrow with our friends and teachers.

Thanks for a great start to this week of summer school.

Love from all the children in summer school.