Tuesday, 22 November, 2022
Summer takes a raincheck; Scrabble green lights slang; BTS does the World Cup and one very brave surfer.
LINKS
Nazare – Matt Fromston surfing champ in action
Nazare – big waves drone footage
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xFeI3M9wfsQ
Newshounds
Get started on our free media literacy resource for classrooms
www.squizkids.com.au/newshounds
Squiz Kids + Lego ‘Build To Give’ Christmas Campaign
Help Lego give away Lego sets to families in need this Christmas.
- Build something using Lego
- Share your creation to Instagram (a story or a post)
- Tag @ squizkids and #buildtogive
We’ll re-share your post on our Instagram, and on December 9, reveal just how generous Squiz Kids are …
Squiz Kids For Schools – Classroom Activities tied to the podcast
Sign up for a 30-day free trial at squizkids.com.au
Stay up to date with us on our Squiz Kids Instagram!
Got a birthday coming up and you want a shout-out? Complete the form on our Squiz Kids website. Link: SHOUT OUTS or / send us an email at [email protected]
EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
THE LOWDOWN
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We’re officially ten days from the start of summer – but you wouldn’t know it from looking out the window – as yesterday there was snow on the Aussie Alps, unusually low temperatures across Victoria and Tassie, gale force winds in Sydney that sent eleven primary school students to hospital.
Up and down the south eastern parts of NSW – and especially in Sydney – residents were yesterday being warned to tie down backyard trampolines, outdoor furniture and any pets left outside.
Ok – they weren’t advising to tie down pets – but with wind gusts of up 100 km-h buffeting the city yesterday afternoon and into last night, emergency services were stretched to the limit tending to fallen trees and downed power lines.
According to reports, the winds were also partly to blame for an outdoor science experiment going wrong at a primary school in Manly – with up to 11 Year 5 students being taken to hospital suffering from burns.
Down on the ski slopes – a very unusual blanket of snow had settled yesterday as the alpine region of Australia shivered under sub-zero temperatures. Perisher Valley recorded 17 centimetres of snow on Monday night. Which is unheard of for this time of year.
Melbourne too was shivering in freezing temperatures yesterday and the sort of rain that could float an ark after a weekend of wild winds and hail.
Oh – and the flood emergency gripping the Central West of NSW continued to wreak havoc with the towns of Condoblin and Deniliquin under evacuation orders as the swollen Lachlan River continued its damaging crawl downstream.
Meanwhile: Brisbane sweltered under 35 degree temperatures while a heatwave was declared in much of the rest of the state. So that’s where summer is hiding out ..
SPIN THE GLOBE
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Each day we give the world globe a spin and find a news story from wherever it stops – and today we’ve landed in Qatar – where the opening ceremony of the FIFA World Cup has taken place and the first games have been played.
BTS band member, Jung Kook entertained a capacity crowd – and a parade of mascots from previous World Cups took place before the Qatar World Cup mascot, La’eeb – who is an animated Arab head-dress, or ghutra – floated above the stadium.
The FIFA boss who made the world’s most unusual speech two days before was happily silent at the opening ceremony. But he’ll have plenty to say as the tournament unfolds – as yet another controversy was brewing yesterday.
Many of the European teams – including England, Germany and Denmark – have indicated they plan to take to the field wearing arm bands with the rainbow flag and the words 1LOVE written on them, in support of the LGBTQ community in Qatar where same sex marriage and homosexuality is illegal. FIFA yesterday banned that arm-band from being worn. Watch this space.
POP CULTURE CORNER
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The board game Scrabble just got a whole lot cooler with the addition of a whole bunch of new words to the official Scrabble Dictionary … 500 new words to be exact.
From today if you’re playing Scrabble you can spell out the words ‘sitch’ for situation, ‘convo’ instead of conversation and even play the word “adulting’ as a verb. My favourite is ‘atting’ used as a verb – as in, ‘please don’t ‘at’ me in your Insta post.’ Nice. There’s new slang that’s now allowed too, including adorbs (for adorable), amirite (self explanatory) and bae (loosely, babe).
Fauxhawk has also been added – which is good for those of you with haircut of the season – I wonder if they also accept mullet … there’s plenty of those haircuts doing the rounds in the Fox’s rugby team.
And in actual gaming news that will probably excited you lot even more: the Playstation Store is bracing itself for a storm of sales after discounting heaps of your favourite games for the upcoming Black Friday sales. Which menas it’s even cheaper to get your favourite games. Oh dear – your parents will be so pleased …
SQUIZ KIDS SALUTES
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And it’s a giant wave-sized Salute today to Matt Formston – an Aussie dad and keen surfer who, as we speak, is in the Portuguese town of Nazare about to tackle the biggest surf in the world.
Nazare is renowned around the world for the massive waves that hammer the coastline at this time of the year. We’re talking waves that measure up to 80 feet – or 25 metres high. That’s like two semi-trailer trucks end-to-end high. Enough to make your tummy feel a bit sick if you were at the top of one of them…
I’ve stuck videos of Nazare waves in today’s episode notes so you can marvel at how gargantuan they are.
And while surfing one of these waves is a remarkable feat for anybody – what makes Matt a special case is that he is blind – has been since the age of five – and he’ll be riding one of those enormous waves using his other senses and relying on his team to direct him safely down the wave.
Matt has already won three world titles in surfing and one in para-cycling – so he’s no stranger to being amazing. I’ve stuck video of him surfing in today’s episode notes and we’ll be sure to bring you the video of him actually surfing Nazare once he’s done it. Good luck Matt! We;re all barracking for you.
LEGO MID ROLL
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Wowsers! What a clever, creative bunch of LEGO monsters you all are!
Last week we launched our Christmas charity campaign, Build To Give, in association with our good friends at LEGO.
For every Lego build that a Squiz Kid creates and shares on Instagram – tagging @squizkids and using the hashtag #buildtogive – the good people at Lego will donate a Lego set to a family in need this Christmas.
I know! Cool huh?
So the call out went out last week and already we’ve been flooded with amazing LEGO builds … some of which we’ve been sharing on our own Instagram page. I have to say, my favourite so far is the LEGO version of Squiz-E the Newshound, the dinosaur, the pair of love birds and the awesome slo-mo video posted of a Squiz Kids building a LEGO Friends set. You can see them all on our Instagram account @squizkids .
It’s all being done to support the UNCHR – which helps refugee families in Australia and around the world. This is our chance to show the world how generous Squiz Kids can be.
Build as many things as you like, share them on your parents’ Instagram account tagging @squizkids and with the hashtag #buildtogive – and on December 9 – we’ll add up all the builds you’ve done and reveal the number of Lego sets that will be given to families in need this Christmas.
Because nothing is better than giving at Christmas time..
I’ve stuck details about the Build To Give campaign in today’s episode notes. So don’t just sit there – get building already!
THE SQUIZ
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This is the part of the podcast where you get to test how well you’ve been listening …
- In which country is Navare – where Aussie surfer Matt Fromston is going to tackle some mega waves?
- The FIFA World Cup opening ceremony featured pop singer Jung Kook from which mega-popular boy band?
- Which popular board game just added a whole bunch of cool new words?
SHOUT OUTS
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It’s November 22 … the AFLW Awards are on tonight .. may the best players win … it’s also the birthday of Hayley Beiber and today is KimChi Day .. because who doesn’t love a bit of chili-infused fermented cabbage.
It’s also a special day for these Squiz Kids celebrating a birthday today …
Aaron from Exeter, Florence from Shellharbour, Joel from Craigburn, Colten from Helensvale, Ava and Daisy from Bathurst, Issac from Mortdale and Isaac from NSW, Sonny from Appin, Sebastian from Millfield, Brooklyn from Noble Park, Jasper from the Gold Coast, Isabel from Cashmere,
Nolan from St Ives, Karl from Lugarno, Tim from Randwick and Rohullah from Melbourne.
Belated birthday shout outs go to Nicholas from Chatswood, Aaron from Woongarrah and Sam from Hampton.
And today’s classroom shoutouts go to .. class 5 gold and Mrs Sprod at Our Lady Of Fatima Primary School in Caringbah, class 4M and Miss Morgan at Wollondilly Public School and congratulations to Harry, Piper and Jayden for some excellent public speaking recently. Also to class LA20 and Mrs Gibbs at Atwell Primary School, class 4TC and Miss Cassidy at Mt Carmel School in Yass, class 4PC at Ormiston College and lastly to all the students at The Stradbroke School in Rostrevor with Mr Johansen.
The S’Quiz Answers:
- Portugal
- BTS
- Scrabble