When is it lunch?

Good Morning Room 3

Welcome back to Term 2 Room 3! I hope you have made Miss Bettella welcome and are being the best that you can each day! 

My blog this week is about food! The food in France is similar but also very different to food in Australia. There are 3 main things about food that I am going to let you know about today. Read carefully because there will be a test at the end... just kidding!

First things first here are some local delicacies that have become my favourites.

Citron Tart
Yummy lemon tart. Creamy lemon flavour with a think biscuit base.
Recipe - http://www.taste.com.au/recipes/16046/lemon+tart 

Goats Cheese - Chèvre
A creamy and delicious soft cheese. The black around it is a light ash, which you can't taste.
Try and make it home
http://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2010/02/how-to-make-goat-cheese-recipe.html

Flan
My favourite dessert in France. Thick custard like you would find in vanilla slice. I am definitely tying to make this, you can too
http://www.taste.com.au/recipes/18047/chocolate+and+cinnamon+flan

Escargot - Snails
Yep - that's right snails! The creepy thing is they give you these special utensils to pick them out of their shells. I tried them and they were okay, similar to squid texture. The taste is sensational because they are marinated in garlic, butter and herbs. Aaron's favourite entrèe.

Get adventurous and ask mum or dad to cook them for you http://www.saveur.com/article/Recipes/Escargots-Bourguignonne-Snails-in-Garlic-Herb-Butter

The first thing I am going to talk about is the freshness, everything that is sold today - you eat today. The best example I can give is bread. Everyone in France loves their bread, the most famous form being a baguette. The baguettes that you buy are similar to a long long roll. They are crispy on the outside and soft, fluffy and airy on the inside. A baguette only lasts for the day you buy it because the next day it will be stale. You compare this to bread in Australia that last up to and sometimes beyond a week. The fruit and veggies are the same - you buy it, you eat it. Fruit won't last in a fruit bowl. This freshness also makes the food a lot more flavoursome and cheap. But why does it only last a day? This brings me very conveniently to my second thing.

The second thing is there are many rules in France about adding artificial or 'fake' things to food. This means anything that is not natural. Think back to year 1 (year 2s) when you learnt about natural versus man made. This is happening with food too. Most of the food in Australia has been changed by a human. It might be adding something like preservatives, which make food last longer or additives which makes the food taste better. It could even be adding colours to make it more appealing to eat, for example, blue lollies. In France however it is very hard to add these types of things because of their rules which means you buy it today, you eat it today. The food is a lot more natural and in most cases very good for you (an exception at the moment may be cheese, not in quality but the quantity that we are eating it). But where do you get all this food?

The last thing I want to talk about is getting food. The markets are very popular here. Australia usually has a farmers market on the weekend where your parents can buy fresh food but these are often only on for a couple of hours and in random locations like schools or ovals. In France the markets occur 2-3 times a week and in every town centre. Instead of people going to Coles or Woolworths, like the ones at Noranda or Galleria, French people walk to the markets to get their meats, fruits, vegetables, cheeses and anything else they would like to eat. They still have supermarkets similar to Coles and Woolworths and the main change here is named Carrefour for their groceries but most people go to the markets. Aaron and I have visited the markets several times now because it is so fresh, easy and cheap. We went to a very old town near Blois yesterday and they still hold markets in the same place since the 11th century - ask Mum and Dad if that's older than them! He he.

Here are some photos of the markets in Orleans

All things pickled and dried stall.

Cheese stall.

More cheese - you can never have enough!

Cookie and cakes stall.

Fresh pasta stall.

Cured meats stall. 

Fresh meat stall.

Markets set up in the middle of the town.

Fresh fruit stall.

All the food we got for dinner (and some drinks).

All put together in a baguette.

Okay, let's recap the 3 things about food in France. 

1. Freshness  - you buy it today, you eat it today.

2. Not allowed to add anything - there are rules in France about preservatives and additives.

3. Buy it at the markets - the food is fresh, cheap and easy to get to.

So, where are you going to buy your food from on the weekend?

I know you are all going to be working really hard this term and showing Miss Bettella how intelligent and creative you all are and don't forget you had homework to complete over the holidays too!
Whoops - who forgot? Quickly do it now.

Au revoir 

Miss Stinson

Task 1: Answer

Good Morning Room 3

Well you have had plenty of time to figure this out. You had 2 things to do to answer this. 1. write a number sentence and 2. tell me/ show me the strategies.

Here are the answers:

1. Number sentence.

11 + 3 + 7 + 1 = 22

2. How did you figure it out and/or strategies.

You could have used 'counting on' adding 11 and 3 equals 14 then counting on 7 to equal 21 and counting on 1 to equal 22. 

You could have added facts of ten. 7 + 3 = 10 then added on 11 to make 21 and counted on 1 to make 22. 

You could have drawn a picture or used objects or each hour and counted the total.

€€€€€€€€€€€ 

€€€

€€€€€€€

€

 

These are the main ways of adding the hours together. Did you have a different way of figuring it out?

Write it down and show Miss Bettella, Mrs Zaba or Miss Reside.

Never stop loving Maths!

Miss Stinson

How I get around: Transport in Paris

Good Morning Room 3

I hope you are all well and didn't eat too much chocolate at Easter time! I have been in Paris almost a week now and we have mainly been walking to get us from place to place using maps and our iPhones. We have been wearing pedometers which measure our steps/kilometres/calories and most days we are walking about 15km. 15km is more than if you walked from Noranda to Perth city.

The theme song of the blog today is  The Beach Boys - I Get Around
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KnPL5OXSBNE

We were getting very tired at the end of each day so we decided to explore other modes of transport. One very popular mode for people who live in Paris is the Velib. The Velib is like a bike hire, you can pick up a bike from any station throughout in the city and then drop it off at another station. You pay at the station or, if you are a regular user, you use a swipe card.

Velib Bikes

Velib Station

People buying Velib tickets

 You can read more about Velib here http://en.velib.paris.fr/

After watching the traffic we decided we would not use the Velib this time in Paris because the traffic didn't seem to have as many rules as Australia. The traffic is a bit too chaotic.

So we considered the Metro - better known as the Trains or Subway. Tickets were cheap! We had to read the map to find where we wanted to go. It was very overwhelming at first but as soon as you found the right colours for the different train lines it was a lot easier. Now, Room 3, remember when we did mapping and directions? You will need to know how to read a map, timetable and know directions to get around any city.

Map of Paris train lines

Once you have read the big maps there a lines and smaller signs to point you in the right direction and to the right platform.

The station closest to our hotel is Pyramides

Each platform (the place where you wait for the train) is different. The best part about the trains is every day at any time to trains come about every 2 minutes. This makes it very convenient and fast to get around. In Perth you often have to wait 20-30mins for the next train.

On some of the trains the doors open automatically, on others you have to press a button to open the door the wish to get out but on others, like in the photo on the left, you need to flick a handle up to open the door. If you forget to do this - you miss your stop!

A lady sings on the train.

Sometimes, if you are lucky, people get on the trains to entertain you for money. This lady got on the train with another man and he had a tambourine. She had a small speaker that was hooked up to a microphone and iPod. She sung along to the music. The music was loud and her singing was too. It was very funny at first to have someone singing so loudly right next you to. I think the local people must be used to it because many of the just ignored it. See the small white cup on her stand? That is where people could put money. Many people just gave small change. At the end of her performance she walked around with the white cup for extra money. It made the trip very entertaining. We have also seen people playing instruments like trumpets and violins on the train and throughout the stations.

We have been using the trains as our main way of getting around but even with the trains out pedometers still read as 10km. It is good for us to walk that much though because we have been eating a lot of cheese and bread (and maybe a little wine).

My question for everyone is Room 3 is: Why do you think these people are playing instruments or singing on the train? Discuss your thoughts with someone in your family. 

Au revoir

Miss Stinson

The Louvre

Good Morning Room 3

Yesterday I went to the Louvre. The Louvre is a famous gallery in Paris.

To enter the Louvre you go through this large glass pyramid, down, down into the many galleries. There are many famous paintings and sculptures kept at the Louvre. Many of these are worth millions of $. 

First we lined up for our tickets and audio tour. This audio tour was wonderful! I just put the headphones on and the map showed me where to go and I listened to the information about each painting or sculpture.  Brady - you will like the next part. The audio tour was all on a Nintendo DS 3D! It was so clever.

The room were filled ceiling to floor with paintings AND some paintings were on the ceiling. Imagine doing this at school. Imagine if I said 'Okay everyone today we are painting on the roof!'. 

We got to one room and it was packed. People were pushing and holding their phones up to take photos. This must be something very famous. It was - it was one of the most famous paintings in the world. The real thing. Anyone want to have a guess as to what this famous painting might have been? You definitely would have seen it or heard of it before.

 

Well done! It is the Mona Lisa by Leonardo Da Vinci. You can read more about it at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mona_Lisa and more about the artist here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonardo_da_Vinci

I also went to a modern art gallery called Centre Pompidou. It looked futuristic from the outside, like it should exist on a planet in out of space. When we go to the top I was able to take some photos of Paris from above.

This was my favourite painting in the modern gallery. I was instantly drawn to her green dress. She is so pretty and elegant.

The best thing I saw at the gallery was a group of students around your age sitting with a teacher and talking about the painting behind them. They were speaking in french so I was only able to pick up a few words that I knew. They spoke about the colour and what the artist was trying to show. This looked like a very special excursion for the children. They all listened as the teacher spoke and put their hands up if they had a question or wanted to speak. That was the part I liked the most  The kids were offering what they thought the art meant and discussed it with their teacher. I was very impressed at how carefully they listened to each other and took turns to speak.

 

It was a big day of walking, looking and listening and I was so amazed and inspired by so many things that I saw.

I hope you are all having a wonderful holidays, try some art or craft on your holidays. You may be the next Leonardo Da Vinci.

Au revoir

Miss Stinson