Today is our last full day in Brisbane. Whale watching was cancelled because of the tall waves. We have had very good weather the whole time we have been here.  There has been no rain and nice temperatures ranging from 18-25. I hear it has been miserably hot at home.  Maybe the new tilt of the axis after the quake is starting to affect our weather. We visited two schools yesterday. One was a real disappointment. The children who were gifted were the ones who were put into multi-age.  They even had a laptop class for one group of students.  We took a look at the classroom and the students were doing worksheets online.  Enrichment?  They were pleased that they had a kinder come to school who was reading chapter books.  But what about comprehension?  Not our idea of multi-age. The second school was more to our liking.  They had each group of about 30-40 students house in their own building with 2 teachers and an aide.   Schools here are rambling.  They woild take up the area of our playground and were gated There would be upwards of 6-10 buildings with walkways between each building. There is a lot of green space but not what they play on. Their play areas are either concrete or blacktop. The Canadian group has been having many good conversations at meals, while walking EVERYWHERE, in the evenings while we are on our computers, IPads, iPods, blackberries, etc in the lobby about how we would see this working in our classrooms. We are going to a wildlife sanctuary today. We are calling it a day after that. We are on the bus at 6:30 in the morning. We leave the airport at around 10:00am on Wednesay and arrive at L.A. at 6:30 am on Wednesday. We have a 5 hour layover then to Toronto and then a 3 hour layover and get to Winnipeg around 11:00 pm. Long day tomorrow. What a whirlwind holiday. Sad to be leaving but also missing home. G'day mates. Sent from my iPad

Woo hoo! Free wifi at the hotel. You have to be in the lobby or by the pool, but whatever. We are now in Brisbane. We arrived here at 5:00 pm. We got a bite to eat and we will soon head up to bed because we need to be on the bus by 7:30 am to head off to our school. We have had so many ideas to use in our classrooms. We have bought many books featuring Australian animals. Excited about sharing when we get back. G'day mates.

Wow! What a day today. We first went on the Kuranda Scenic Railway. We went through numerous tunnels, went into a horseshoe turn that we could see the end of the train and over many bridges. From there we went through the rainforest in an army duck. It could go on land and through water. They were from World War 2. Our tour guide was very entertaining. She had many jokes at the expense of her husband. We then saw an aboriginal dance, learned how to throw a boomerang, and a spear, and then saw native animals. Some were able to have their picture taken with a koala. We then went back down on the Sky Rail. We are all exhausted. We are staying in tonight, catching up on our blogging and emailing, and drinking wine. We head off to Brisbane tomorrow. We don't leave the resort until 11:00 am and get into Brisbane at 2:30. On Monday we have a school visit. Well, need to end for tonight. Need sleep and more wine. G'day.

Things are very good here.  The weather in Sydney was always around 20. When we went up the mountain and on the cable car, the fellow said that it had been -2 just that week.  We arrived in Cairns on Thursday.  Our hotel is a resort.  We have a rainforest just outside our door and have five pools around the complex.   Today we went to the Great  Barrier Reef.  Amazing!  I was not brave enough to go snorkling. I did make a good photographer though. On the way there everyone in the group was concerned about motion sickness. We all loaded up on Graval. No one in our group got sick. But there were others who did. The big joke was that if you felt sick then you should open up the barf bag and then read the instructions inside the bag. Tomorrow we hit the mountains. It is really crazy here.  The only place that has free wifi is McDonalds. In the hotels it costs $10 an hour or $25 for the day.  They don't even have it in the airports. Also, when you get into the room you have a special place to insert your room card in order to turn on the power to the room.  We leave for Brisbane on Sunday. Get back to you again when I am near another McD's. G'day.

This having it go to McDonalds every night is becoming tiresome. Today we went on our two school tour. In the morning we went to St. Paul School. Wonderful group of teachers there. We encountered students who were totally involved. We met a group of Kindergarten students who were learning about shapes and practicing at six different centers. Students were grouped according to abilities during Literacy and Numeracy. The second school we visited handled their Literacy and Numeracy differently. They did show us a program that they run where children can choose a skill or activity that they would like to participate in. This runs for five weeks and occurrs on Friday for about ninety minutes. Interesting concept. Today we also went to a performance at the Syndey Opera House. We are off to Cairns in the morning. It will be warmer than it has been here. G'day.

Wow! What a day! In the morning we went on a tour of the Syndey Opera house . We walked 65 steps just to get into the building. A lot of history in that place. In the afternoon we went on a boat tour of the harbor. We then went to the aquarium, saw many fish, sharks, sting rays, jelly fish, etc.,etc., etc., and the cutest duckbilled platypus. Then... We went shopping. My feet are killing me!!! We went to a performance at the opera house today. We all wanted the experience. Well it cost us $62 to watch contemporary dance. Well is was a very expensive experience. I almost fell asleep a few times. I guess there are those who like that sort of thing. I will post pictures hopefully starting tomorrow. We go the the McDonalds across the street from our hotel to use their wifi because the hotel charges $10/hour and we don't think that it is wifi but plug in. I will create pages at the top which will be tabbed and will publish the pictures according to the day. Tomorrow up the steepest mountain by train and down on a cable car. Right now it is 8:50 pm to your 5:52 am. Need sleep. G'day.

Well, we arrived at 8:00 this morning after 13 hours in the air between L.A. and Sydney.  We were travelling at 580 mph at an altitude of 36 000 feet.  The outside temperature was as low as -60 F. It is hard to fatham that speed and it was a very smooth ride.  We did a little site seeing today. We went to the harbour and will do more site seeing tomorrow, the Opera House and more of the harbour.  We have been up now for 43 hours. We are all dead. We are planning an early night and then head out again in the morning. I will upload pictures tomorrow. G'day to all.