Farewell Malden, Hello Honeymoon!

In the wee hours of Monday morning we crossed the creek for the last time and headed out of Malden Station, leaving behind us lots of fond memories and experience a'plenty from our time as jackaroo and governess for the Sparrow family.

When we decided we were going to embark on this crazy adventure we were lucky enough to get in touch with Kristy and Alex through the wonderful blogosphere - I'm so glad we did, as we couldn't have wished for a better working environment or family to work for. We learnt so much during our time at Malden, me in the schoolroom and Matt in the yards or mustering. My teaching skills were honed (I hope...) with the twins as my not-so-willing students, and Matt fulfilled his dreams of chopper rides and chasing mickeys through the scrub.

We first talked about our aspirations of governessing/jackarooing on outback properties probably way back in 2008 - it seemed like such a distant dream and it was such a journey to get to the point, we moved a few times and got married in between! Now we can tick it off our bucket list with pride and we will always look back at our time spent at Malden with a lot of fondness. For me it really broadened my horizons, especially in regards to distance education and the dedicated families behind the school which sacrifice and work extremely hard to give their kids every opportunity available to them. Impressive. The amazing families and teachers of central west Queensland will always have a special spot in my heart.

We headed east to Rockhampton again then south for a few more hours before finally arriving at Rainbow Beach after 12 hours driving. At the local pub we met up with our best friends Tyler and Kate - best man and bridesmaid at our wedding, and who we stayed with earlier in the year at the start of our travels. The Nelson's made the trek north to chase some sun in the school holidays and we were only too happy to oblige as holiday companions. On Monday night we stayed in a cabin at Rainbow Beach (luxurious) and headed down to Inskip Point to board the barge onto Fraser Island in the morning.

These photos are of our first day and night on the island - beautiful weather, so good to spend time and make memories with our great friends Tyler and Kate. I will do a more succinct post of our time on Fraser Island, but for now I'm off to enjoy a glass of cider and a slice of camembert with Kate...

The Mini Olympics

Something funky happened to some of my phone photos when transferring them onto my computer, hence the weird lines on a few - sorry!

Last week we packed our bags and headed the three hours to Longreach to attend 'minischool' - where the kids get to stay at the school with their classmates for five days, attend 'real' lessons with their class teachers at school (and do some yucky Naplan), do some fun activities as a group and hopefully have lots of fun. It's sort of like a school camp...but at school.

We stayed in the quarters at school, there in enough space for 50 people with bunk bed style accommodation, a big dining room and industrial kitchen. There were 17 grade five students, plus mums, teachers, governesses and some siblings doing school at the same time.

Here is Maddy in the classroom and getting her hair braided one night before bed by the obliging Miss Kate, a fellow governess...

And the result in the morning...

The theme for minischool was 'the Olympics' - quite fitting for this year and the kids really got into it! I remember at the same age the Atlanta Olympics were happening for me, and I was lucky enough to go to the US for the games, I can remember my Olympics fever as a ten year old! 

Kristy was the head cook for the week, and after planning the menu and racking our brains for 'Olympic' foods we decided that we could go around the world via the menu. We brought our world map from the Malden schoolroom and got the kids to pin where the food was from before every meal. The foods we tasted and countries we visited were...

- American hot dogs

- Japanese sushi

- Italian pizza

- Chinese chicken and corn soup with egg and ginger

- Australian gold and green jelly with a caramello koala

- Dutch (Vikings!) roast pork

- Mexican tacos

- English scones with jam and cream

And after some creative thinking we also came up with the following, bit of a stretch? Perhaps. But the kids loved it!

- Jamaican marshmallow and fruit skewers (featuring coconut covered banana...I thought it was Jamaican?!)

- Antarctic ice-cream bar (get it?!) with an assortment of lollies, chocolate, sprinkles, Cold Rock style

- Greek 'cheesecake', also known as jelly slice. After much googling I discovered that the ancient Olympians were served what was believed to be the first serving of cheesecake...so Greece it was! Obviously.

The kids got to enjoy some fun activities - early morning cricket in the freezing Longreach chill, a session learning all about opera with an Opera Queensland crew who are traveling throughout western Queensland spreading some opera love, practising for the end of year school musical and a great Olympics x-box/wii night where they all had to dress up as an Olympian. Tom was a clay target shooter, with a gun and earmuffs he looked quite the part. After watching some rhythmic gymnastics videos on youtube with me Maddy decided she wanted to be a gymnast, a leotard and a ribbon stick completed the look.

The week was exhausting but fun - a lot of cooking and consoling overtired kids! While I was away in Longreach the poor suffering Matt was back at Malden in the throes of a terrible feverish virus, which he is thankfully over now but seems to have passed a bit of it on to me. 

On the night before we were due to leave I think we all woke up listening to the heavy rain on the roof of the quarters at 4am. We packed up, did the grocery shopping and headed home, some others were not so lucky, either spending more time in the quarters or only getting halfway home before being stopped by the rain, road closures and rising creeks. This was our car leaving Longreach...bit full??

Back into the schoolroom at Malden, the creek has come up since we arrived home and we're once again flooded in - Alex and Matt have been boating out. 

Until next time! 

Back To School and James Bond Jackaroo

We are back in the schoolroom after the kids returned from camp - the 3 hour drive home with four kids in the back had us in hysterics at the going-on of a grade five camp! Term 2 is upon us and we've started learning about the media, what 'bias' and 'assertions' are, evidence, points of view and opinions, as well as some geometry in maths (translations, rotations and reflections anyone?)

Collecting the kids off the bus at LSODE after their camp to Magnetic Island

Before we left to head south over the school holidays I spent a day cleaning and organising the schoolroom from top to toe. Packing up last term's work, sorting through the mountain of textas, pencils, crayons, staplers, sharpeners and going through all the books in the reading corner bookshelf. This is the disaster zone before...

Stuff of nightmares, I know. Please don't judge me! Things got just a tad hectic by the end of term trying to finish work off. I tried to find a home for everything and organised my little heart out until I came up with something more to my liking. Clear desks and clutter free, hopefully means the kids (and I) can concentrate a bit better.

The reading corner of the schoolroom is generally where Tom does his school work (he refuses to sit at his desk so sits in his red chair, sometimes with an iPod on, mostly playing with stress balls and blu-tack). The big bookshelf holds all the reading books, reference books, craft and drawing books and books from the school library. We sit here on the reading mat after lunch and read a book together, last term it was Enid Blyton's 'The Magical Wishing Chair'. To say the bookshelf was in need of some attention was probably an understatement...

Now it's a more organised place to sit and do our work, read stories together and find exactly what we need...

When we were in Longreach picking the kids up from camp Kristy and I got some beanbag chairs to put in the reading corner also. So far they've been a hit, with Maddy now choosing to do most of her work down there with Tom. A lot of people ask me if this sort of teaching is actually a hindrance to the kids for when they go to a 'real' school and have to sit in a 'real' classroom. Probably, but at the moment it's a means to an end!

We had a bit of medical drama this week as Maddy stepped on a screw and had it stuck in her foot. After much hysteria and crying, a phone call to a neighbour who is a nurse, we pulled it out and she now sports a bit of a limp but I've assured her we won't put her down just yet ;) No netball this Friday though, but it has also started raining today and turned cold - I think the inland Queensland winter is finally here.

The patient recovering on the couch with 'Flopsy' and nurse Tom

Matt had a bit of excitement this week also. Ok, that's the understatement of the year - he came home from work grinning from ear to ear. They have been mustering this week using a contracted helicopter, Matt got a flat tyre on his motorbike, not unusual so he kept riding, then he bent the steering rod (or something??) so had to abandon ship and start walking. Chopper pilot must've taken pity on the poor soul and landed to pick him up and take him back to the yards. The others were having some trouble with some non-compliant cows and weaners though so Matt actually got to 'go to work' in the chopper whilst mustering, jumping in and out to help Alex and Glenn tie some weaners and then jump back in the chopper. So basically he now thinks he is some sort of James Bond jackaroo. Luckily he did have his little camera in his pocket that day though and managed to snap some of these...

He also got these ones once he had his feet back on solid ground. Lots of people have asked us what the country is like around Alpha so hopefully these give you an idea. The last one may or may not have had some help from Matt's lovely photographer wife :)

Back in the schoolroom I have been really surprised and proud at how the kids are tackling their new work. It seems something may have clicked! Yesterday Tom asked me if I had ever been a teacher before, I said no but I had been a nanny, he said well how do you know how to teach us things so well? Maybe I'm not doing such a bad job at 'winging' it!

Yesterday we whizzed through two days worth of maths as well as spelling before smoko (unheard of!)  and then tackled a day of English and I set them a 'special task' of writing a persuasive piece. First, I had to introduce what the heck 'persuasive writing' was before letting them write for a full hour. Kristy and I were really pleased and surprised at the level of their thinking and writing - great stuff!

Maddy learning about 'rotation, reflection and translation' with shapes in maths this week

Tom with his new best friend 'Speckles' in his red chair in the schoolroom

Miss Emma's way of totally bamboozling the kids - well so I thought until they actually understood it and wrote something! 

Matt and I are off to Longreach tomorrow for a little tourist activity at the Stockman's Hall of Fame and Qantas museum. We haven't really done anything like that since being here at Malden so I'm really looking forward to it. The Sparrow's are off to the races in Emerald, unfortunately at the moment it is steadily raining.

Another jam-packed week in the schoolroom for me and branding in the yards for Matt next week before we head to Yeppoon for Beef 2012 next weekend. Another roadtrip!