Today we had a famous author visit our school. His name is Jeffrey Masson. Some of his books have sold up to 1 million copies. He writes books about animals because
He is so passionate about animals, he would like people to believe that animals have feelings too! We certainly agree with him.

Jeffrey Masson during his visit to the Mount Lawley Animal Club

One of the things we found really interesting was when Jeffrey Masson went to do some research about elephants in India and thought he could talk to the elephants in ancient Sanskrit because this was an ancient language. Jeffrey went right up to the elephants and tried to speak to them and then the head female elephant flapped it’s ears and he thought she was saying “hello” but instead it started to charge and he had to run as fast as he could because the elephant could run up to 40km per hour and could throw him to the ground as well as stomp on him. The elephant was only trying to protect its newborn and that was why he had to run for his life. Event though Jeffrey did the wrong thing we already knew what he should have done which was not to go so close to a wild herd of elephants.

Another interesting story that Jeffrey Masson told us was when another scientist was doing some research on elephant bones, a baby elephant came up to her and picked up one of the forehead bones she was classifying and rubbed it onto it’s forehead. Later the lady discovered that the bone the little elephant baby had been holding was its mother’s forehead and this was very important because elephants rub their heads together as a sign of love. We really enjoyed listening to Jeffrey because he was such an energetic, exciting and funny speaker. We are doing our famous people projects at the moment and Jeffrey Masson would be a really good person to do because he cares so much about animals and hopes that one day enough people will think about animals differently. We would really like to hear him speak more about his books and compassion for animals so we hope he will come back to Mount Lawley Primary to visit us again.  Some of his books are “The Pig who sang to the Moon, When Elephants Weep and Dogs never lie about Love”. We can’t wait to read some of them and we hope to get more in our library.

By Sarah, Charlotte and Georgia
 

Archey & Freedom are adopted by Yuluma Primary School

Hello I'm Michaela - I have been chosen to put the bear boxes out every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. The money we have raised has allowed us to adopt two lovely bears - Archey and Freedom.  Some of the money has gone to save the sun bears (like Archey and Freedom), but we also have a lot of bears being transported to the Perth zoo. At Yuluma primary school, we care for all animals and all children of the world. So if you're thinking about sponsoring a bear or just helping it please visit Adopt a Bear and just find where and how to adopt a bear. If you read this, you should think to yourself that without Sun Bears, the world would not be such a good place to be. 

Some of the Clifton Hills Primary School Animal Club Team

Hi, we are two animal club leaders and we are here to tell you about CHPS Animal club’s new Leadership Group.

Due to the large number of students who have joined our animal club this year, Mrs. Ritchie, Miss. Della Franca and Mrs. Stoakes decided to set up an animal club leadership group.

Nine students were selected to take on the role of animal club leaders.  It is our job to take the roll each week.  We each have our own class list and tick off the animal club members when they come to the meetings on Wednesday.

It is also our job to welcome and thank special guests to animal club meetings, write the activity updates, take the photographs at animal club meetings, help prepare the animal club meetings, put out the donation bins first thing in the morning, put the donation bins back and help the little kids at animal club meetings.

Last week, at assembly, Mrs. Ritchie and Miss. Della Franca told the school about the animal club leadership team and gave the animal club leadership team their special leadership badges (They are Kool!!!)

Our Animal Club members are very interested in the work animals perform in the community, both as a proper “full-time job” like the guide and police dogs and volunteer work.

Animal Club received a special visit on Monday 7 May from Tony Steiner and his dog Spud, a Staffordshire bull terrier.  Spud is a specially trained therapy dog whose talents help people in the general community.  Tony trained Spud to be very receptive to people, in one-to-one situations and in crowds, so that Spud doesn’t react to external stimuli like being poked or pulled at or even hurt. 

Tony and Spud regularly visit patients suffering from Down Syndrome, autism, stroke, etc. to help them with their rehabilitation.  Sometimes the patient’s interaction with Spud is the only interaction he/she has with the outside world.  The children understand how vital it can be to provide a connection for people otherwise cut off from their community and how special the therapy dogs are.

 The children were very impressed with Spud and his congenial and accepting attitude towards them.  Spud even helped a reticent teacher become more relaxed with his species!  

Nick & Dingy the Dingo visited the Yuluma Animal Club

On 7th May, Yuluma Primary School had a dingo visit. Two presenters, Nick and Andre came to our school with their two dingos, Dingy and Lindy.

They taught us very interesting facts including that dingos are not dogs they are wolves and they can turn their heads around further than any normal dog as well as their ears. They also have amazing scent glands on the tail and back feet. At the end many questions were asked and after that two senior students (Jake and Lauren) went up to the presenters to say thank you on behalf of all the students there and to donate $215 of gold coin donations. We think it came as a shock to them that we had raised so much money.

After the visit before everybody went back to class, we all lined up for a pat of the dingos. We were only allowed to stroke them down the back once because dingos are so timid. It was so soft and fury, they were so cute. The ones that we patted were called alpine dingos. There are other types of dingos that have shorter fur and live in different climates than the alpine dingo.

Written by Jake, Lauren & Aiesha