Today we Skyped with our blogging buddies in Australia, 4KM and 4KJ. It was Tuesday at 2:00 P.M. for us, but for the Australians, it was Wednesday at 9:00 A.M.
It was about 77˚ F (25˚C) in both of our suburbs!
Skyping With 4KM and 4KJ on PhotoPeach
Here are some interesting comparisons:
Area
U.S.A. 9, 826, 675 sq. km (≈ 10 million sq. km)
Australia 2, 967, 892 sq. miles (≈ 3 million sq. miles)
U.S.A. 3,794,101 sq. mi (≈ 4 million sq. mi.)
Population
Americans 312,000,000 million (2011 estimate)
National Flags
National Seal or Coat of Arms
National Facts
Australia became a federation on January 1, 1901, and Canberra became the capital in 1927.
The United States became a country on July 4, 1776, and Washington, D.C. became the capital city on July 16, 1790.
National Birds
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| Emu photo by Kathleen Morris |
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| Photo by Todd Yollis |
What are some Australian or American facts that are not mentioned in this post?
What questions would you like to discover when we Skype again?
What was your favorite part about the Skype call?
Posts
Dear Mrs Yollis and class,
ReplyDeleteWow how wonderful that you were able to skpye with your buddies down under.
I still find it amazing how you are able to skype from different ends of the world. What a great way to learn about each others country.
I wish I had skpye when I was at school.
I do believe you would have loved it because it is always so nice to put a name to a face.
From your blogging pal down under,
AA
What are some Australian or American facts that are not mentioned in this post?
ReplyDeleteAs you can see, Australia is about 2 million square kilometres smaller than U.S.A. but, if we consider population, U.S.A. has 13.66 times the population of Australia.
This means for every American, there is about 0.03 square kilometres.
For every Australian, there is about 3.36 square kilometres per person., about 112 times as much.
That sounds a big advantage but a very great deal of Australia is desert or very dry and not suitable for many people to live.
The flags…
The stars on the Star Spangled Banner each represent a U.S. state.
The big star at the bottom left of the Australian flag has a similar idea. Six of the seven points each represent one of the six Australian states. The seventh point represents Australian territories.
I think the Hawaiian state flag also has the Union Jack (U.K. flag) in its top left corner just like Australia.
Having a similar heritage, both of our flags use red, white and blue.
Your country is known as the United States of America whereas ours is the Commonwealth of Australia. A commonwealth is a community founded for the common good. It’s similar to the joining of the U.S. states. In our history, each state government agreed to be a part of the Commonwealth. Australia came into existence in 1901. Imagine the confusion if back then they had decided not to use Commonwealth in our full title. We might have been the United States of Australia. Two countries named U.S.A. simply wouldn't have worked. U.S.A. has first claim to the title and we would have had to change. Maybe that’s why they decided on Commonwealth. ☺
What questions would you like to discover when we Skype again?
One of the best parts of skyping is the session allows discussion to diverge when interesting sharing occurs. Whatever each class asks, I know there will be great learning.
Keep blogging and skyping. Our world is pretty amazing. ☺
@RossMannell
Taecher, NSW, Australia
Dear Mrs Yollis and Grade 3
ReplyDeleteIt was interesting tio read that the temperatures were similar in both California and in Victoria when you skyped with 4KM and 4KJ, because we are having similar temperatures where we are in New Zealand at the moment too. We are moving towards autumn (fall) and your season is moving towards spring!
Both USA and Australia have much larger populations than here in New Zealand - we only have about 4,000,000 people.
Maybe the children in B4 will get to skype with you this term.
your blogging buddies
Mrs M♔Kenzie and B4
Dear Mrs Yollis and class,
ReplyDeleteThank you so much for skyping with us yesterday! All the students loved it. Many students went home and told their parents about it because we had a number of parent comments on our blog after school. How wonderful!
I loved your PhotoPeach. Did you know that Geelong isn't actually a suburb of Melbourne? It is a separate regional city. Leopold is a suburb of Geelong. Melbourne is the capital city of Victoria and it takes us about an hour to travel there.
I meant to apologise that we forgot to write our facts on whiteboards so you could see them. We were meaning to do that but after all our research it slipped our minds. We will do that next time! :-)
I can't wait for lots more learning with you and I hope we can skype again really soon!
Your friend,
Mrs M☀rris
Dear Mrs. Yollis and class,
ReplyDeleteHow wonderful it was to Skype with Australia, I just loved it,
and I am sure everyone else did. It’s great to learn about different countries in the world.
I am looking forward to skype again, maybe this time with another country.
From,
Etai
Dear Mrs Yollis,
ReplyDeleteIt's me Patrick I was one of the greeters I also said good bye with Leo,I also want to tell you I might be coming over there in a few years to go to Lego land, I hope to meet you soon.
from
Patrick :D