Very proud of how well Miss B is adapting to Middle School.

I've talked with other parents and we all agree that the jump from Year 5 to Year 6 at our school is significant. Now our kids have to wear blazers to and from school (which make them look uber grown-up), have their own lockers, have a student diary that they must take everywhere (even to the toilet), are accountable (with serious consequences) for their actions and misdemeanours, and have more in-depth homework assignments.

In the very first week, Miss B's class was assigned a poem to memorize: Dorothea McKellar's "My Country".

The love of field and coppice,
Of green and shaded lanes.
Of ordered woods and gardens
Is running in your veins,
Strong love of grey-blue distance
Brown streams and soft dim skies
I know but cannot share it,
My love is otherwise.

I love a sunburnt country,
A land of sweeping plains,
Of ragged mountain ranges,
Of droughts and flooding rains.
I love her far horizons,
I love her jewel-sea,
Her beauty and her terror -
The wide brown land for me!

A stark white ring-barked forest
All tragic to the moon,
The sapphire-misted mountains,
The hot gold hush of noon.
Green tangle of the brushes,
Where lithe lianas coil,
And orchids deck the tree-tops
And ferns the warm dark soil.

Core of my heart, my country!
Her pitiless blue sky,
When sick at heart, around us,
We see the cattle die -
But then the grey clouds gather,
And we can bless again
The drumming of an army,
The steady, soaking rain.

Core of my heart, my country!
Land of the Rainbow Gold,
For flood and fire and famine,
She pays us back threefold -
Over the thirsty paddocks,
Watch, after many days,
The filmy veil of greenness
That thickens as we gaze.

An opal-hearted country,
A wilful, lavish land -
All you who have not loved her,
You will not understand -
Though earth holds many splendours,
Wherever I may die,
I know to what brown country
My homing thoughts will fly.


She had it memorized by Week Four, which I thought was pretty impressive. (At the start, I attempted to memorize the poem too, but she quickly overtook me.)

Right now she is working on an island project, where she is required to create an imaginary island, populate it, describe its inhabitants, culture, languages, climate and create a poster of it. She has been hard at work researching the aspects of the island, including the names of a variety of poisonous plants, and writing up her report.

I look forward to seeing her rewarded for her hard work, creativity and effort.