Rap Point One Nocturnal Animals

Hello Everyone,

It's time for Rap point 1.

Hush and Grandma Poss are really nocturnal animals. In other words, they like to come out at night to eat and play but during the daytime they prefer to rest or sleep.

Name and describe an animal in your area that comes out at night. Respond to other rappers and ask them questions about their animal.

Happy rapping!!!

Have fun, Cherrol McGhee

Here are some of the letters received from the many classes involved in the rap.

All of the letters can be viewed on the archive for Possum Magic.

20/10/97

Hi,

My name is Wayne and Jenny and Ella. We are in year 2 at st Joseph's Hindmarsh. We have possums around our houses. They climb trees like Hush. Once I (Ella) thought I saw a possum under the floorboards. Maybe it was Poss looking for food.

Bye for now,

Year2

St Joseph's School, Hindmarsh, Adelaide, South Australia.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

21/10/97

Dear Rappers,

We often see around our property, the bandicoot. It gets its name from an indian word which means "pig-rat". It lives on insects and vegetable matter and lives in either a burrow or a nest which it builds under piles of vegetation. The "barred" bandicoot is found in southern Victoria and Tasmania.

From Thomas.

Mt Sylvia State School, Lockyer Valley near Gatton, Queensland.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

21/10/97

I am Max. My real name is Maxine but people just call me Max. I live in Arnhem Land Australia, right up the top in the N.T. I am in year 5/6. I go to the local school. Recently, I have been camping in a place near Darwin. When we were sleeping in the tents, I saw a Mosquito bat on the wall of the tent. I covered it with a t shirt and took it outside.

Mosquito bats are nocturnal. They are about the size of the palm of my hand. It has black wings and a small, red-brown face. Me and my friends had just come back from dinner. It was night time and we were all getting ready for bed. At first in the dark it looked like a moth, but then we shone the torch on it. We tried shining the light on the doorway so he might follow it, but in the end, I had to carry him out. We had left the tent shut, but the Mosquito bat had crawled in through a hole in the corner of the tent, it was that small.

It was pretty interesting. Hear from you other rappers sometime,

Maxine, Arnhem Land, Northern Territory.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

22/10/97

Hi Rappers,

Our names are Jade and Stephanie.

In Warrandyte, Victoria, Australia we have a lot of nocturnal animals but he most common nocturnal animal is the koala. We sometimes have koalas down at the back of our school. Koalas eat gum leaves from gum trees. Koalas are Australian marsupials. When they are born they aren't fully developed. Koalas live in gum trees. Koalas are related to wombats, possums and kangaroos. The male koala can weigh up to 13.5 kg and the female can get up to 7.9kg.

Bye for now Stephanie and Jade.4R Anderson's Creek Primary School, Warrandtye, Victoria, Australia.(near Melbourne)

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

22/10/97

Hi Everyone,

We are the Gidge Groovers. Here is our first rap point.

One of the nocturnal animals in our area is the bilby. It has a long nose, big ears and a long tail. It walks and runs on four legs. It likes to eat insects and plants. At night, the Bilby digs pits to find insects to eat.

From Jasmin and Erika (Year 1, 6yrs)

Another nocturnal animal is the ring tail possum. It has a tail like a ring, eyes that can see in the dark, very small ears, strong arms and legd. They are grey in colour and have very sharp claws. They are very good climbers. They are the size of a large cat and they like living in the bush around our school. They make a nest in a tree. They spend most of their time in trees. The mother ring-tailed possum has a pouch for her babies.

From Emma and Colette (Year 2, 7yrs)

The next animal is the numbat.

They are red and brown and have stripes around their body. It has a narrow head and small ears. The male is about 43cm long. They run on four legs and have sharp claws to help them dig into the ground. It's tail is like a fluffy brush.

From Zach and Joshua (Year 2, 7 yrs)

The Chuditch is another nocturnal animal in our area. It has a long tail and sharp claws. The chuditch likes to eat cockroaches, lizards, birds and small mammals. It runs on four legs. it has short hair covering its body.

From Ben and Taylor (Year 1, 6yrs) Gidgegannup, near Perth, Western Australia.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

23/10/97

Hi,

Talon here with the first rap point. I was going to say teenagers are the most common nocturnal animal in my neighborhood, but my mother advised against that. We live within the city limits of the largest city in Idaho, but we still have a few wild animals that share our neighborhood. The two most common would be the Striped Skunk and the Red Fox. Both are very adapted to life in the city.

There are 4 types of skunks in North America, but only the Striped Skunk lives in my neighborhood. They are black with a white stripe on their nose and 2 white stripes. They are really cute, but really stinky. They also carry the rabies virus, but most people don't like them around because of their smell, even when they aren't upset. Skunks like to eat insects and grubs, but they will also eat other things and are extremely fond of eggs.

We also have a family of Red Foxes that live behind our house. They are sometimes seen during the day hunting, but also hunt at night especially on full moons. They like small rodents and insects and like the skunk, they live eggs. Most of my neighbors are afraid that the foxes will eat their house cats, but the ones living here are not much bigger than the house cats. I really like to see the foxes hunting for rodents. They get above a mouse hole and pound on the surface around the hole by rearing up on their hind legs and coming down with their front legs stiff. This for some reason makes the little mice come to the entrance, then they dig them up and eat them.

Well, that's all for now.

Talon

Mrs. Sharp's 5th Grade, Poineer Elementary, Boise, Idaho, USA.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

23/10/97

Hello Every Class,

Around our area we see pythons. The one we see is the carpet snake. It is a reptile. A python has no poison fangs. After it grabs an animal it squeezes it so the animal cannot breathe. Then it opens its mouth wide and swallows the dead animal. It likes to eat rats and mice.

Bye now,

Joel, Casey and Ben, Years 1, 2 and 3, Hillview State School, Hillview, via Beaudesert, Queensland, Australia.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------