For writing, we have been doing a theme of mythological creatures. For this writing task, we had to make our own mythological creature and write about it. There was a minimum requirement set by our teacher of 3 paragraphs, and at the end, I ended up writing  6 paragraphs. I wrote more of a story on how my creature became what it is, and my creature is called…

Chickenstein! The Chickenstein’s story starts here.

Chickenstein

On a sunny day, I decided to have a cheese picnic. I found a moldy piece of cheese in the fridge, so I threw it out the window for the chickens to eat. Unfortunately, a baby chick, called Leg-peace, pecked at everything to try what it tasted like but was lactose intolerant.

A chicken with lactose intolerance is pretty rare, but due to smoke from a factory, Leg-peace was born 99.99% earlier than she was supposed to be. You see, what happened was her mother got a sickness from her previous owner working in a factory. Her owner brought her to the factory every day, and she wandered off. She snuck off curiously into a room of lung warming smoke. She laid an egg, which hatched a second after it was laid. Leg-peace came early to the world.

Leg-peace’s mother’s owner couldn’t keep the both of them, so they were given up free for adoption. I walked past the box containing them and thought it would be cool to adopt more chicken. They now live with me in the yard with my other pet chicken. If you are wondering how I know this information on Leg-peace and her mother, they came in a box with papers with their backstory.

Back in my backyard, Leg-peace ate a piece of that cheese, and due to lactose intolerance, she turned into a monster. She growled a noise that nobody can ever recognize and her white fluffy, silky feathers turned into unsmooth yeti fur with a murky algae colour. Her fur was a lot rougher than before, and her size was definitely more than ten times the size of her original self. Her wings are as humongous and strong as thunderstorm clouds and her newly grown teeth as sharp as the great white shark’s. She grew horns that seem like extra emergency teeth, but only much bigger. She had Big Foot’s feet, and her legs are just as powerful. Her face is the most bizarre thing to look at, and her breath is the smell of, need I say, the moldy cheese I threw out the window.

The other animals got away from this disastrous creature, including Leg-peace’s mother. Most of them flew, like natural birds. Weird thing is that our ducks and chickens supposedly cannot fly. Sad thing is that apart from my pet birds flying, even our pigs were. I had used the expression to a lot of people “When pigs fly”, but pigs were flying right now.

Leg-peace flew with them. She tried to catch up with her mother, but her mother flew like lightning. I called Leg-peace to me, and she dived. She looked at me, and I didn’t dare to look back. My heart raced and it was freaky. My mind whirred and there was a bomb about to land on me. I knew it was only my own pet. The most bizarre of all was her outlook. She landed on me like a nice warm blanket. Then she died because that was actually a severe allergic reaction. From that day on, people thought I was kidding and called this creature Chickenstien. The Chickenstein is now to this day widely known as a legendary mythological creature, haunting the streets of ice in winter time.

My mythological creature is more of a hybrid of a yeti and a flying chicken. As told in the story, it is really friendly otherwise I’d probably be eaten. What do you imagine for your mythological creature to look like and act like?

Today in the afternoon, we received Duffy books. These books are given to us for free by Duffy, supported by Avonhead Rotary and Scholastic. Near the start of this term, I needed to choose 4 books, ranking them in my favourite. Our first choice should be like “I really must have to get it” and second choice “I almost must have it”. Third and fourth choices are more like backups, but we still have to choose in case we don’t get our top two choices. Usually the top two choices we make are indeed the books we get. My top choices were a picture book called “Butt Out”

and a comic book called “Pizza and Taco: Super-Awesome Comic”. I didn’t get exactly both books though because apparently and unfortunately they ran out of the second title and were unable to get more stock. They replaced it with another title in the series for us called “Pizza and Taco: Too Cool for School”.

I am very grateful for these books I received, even though one of the books I chose didn’t come exactly as I picked, so I would like to say a thank you to Duffy, Avonhead Rotary, and Scholastic for suppling the enjoyment of reading for us. This is a picture of me reading happily, appreciating my replacement book, my “Pizza and Taco: Too Cool for School”.

How do you feel when receiving a book and what is the reason behind it?

For writing this week, we have been doing a theme of mythical creatures. We are watching this movie called The Water Horse: Legend of the Deep, and it talks about this thing which gets released into the loch. This movie relates to the writing task because we had to describe what the Loch Ness monster is or what it looks like. We had to create a picture of what we were describing, and these are my work.

The creature

Meet the hybrid creature of a dragon, a fish, and a whale. A head of a dragon with a mouth that breathes water instead of flames. The tail and body of this creature comes from a whale, with its four finawings, a mixture of fin and wing, allowing it to swim fast through the water and fly out of the surface. Its gills come from the famous tiny fish, the goldfish. Its skin with scales was born from the toughest dragon that ever lived. Its life starts in an egg of metal. It is an amphibian meaning it lives on water and land. On land, it can fly and soar as high as the stars, and on water, it can dive as far as where obsidian blocks can be found. It’s like the size of the Titanic, and yet it is the most peaceful creature ever known. It feeds only on sand, and produces one of the rarest metal, rhodium, every day in the form of an egg. This creature is the Loch Ness monster. It can be a highly vulnerable pet, but the look scares all. The teeth, sharp as a shark’s set but never eats meat. It is friendly, but like I said, the look seems to prompt people to think that it is a threat.

What does the Loch Ness monster look like in your image or mind?

For the past week until the end of this week, we have had swimming lessons every day. I skipped school swimming on Friday last week and Monday this week for Zones swimming and surfing.

On the first week of school swimming lessons, I found it pretty boring and too relaxed. The first thing we did on the first day of school swimming this year was testing which groups we were most fitted in. I got put into the top group, but the swimming lengths nonstop doesn’t quite meet my expectations just because of most of the other classmates in my group. We did laps of freestyle, backstroke, breaststroke, and butterfly. The instructor was really nice, but she didn’t give enough work for one of my classmates and me because my other classmates in my group couldn’t handle it. Then it was Friday and Monday I skipped.

On Tuesday, everyone first got life jackets because it is a life jacket week apart from tomorrow, or Friday. Then we got into our groups, and my group combined with another group. Next, we split into two groups after being combined. There was meant to be a “girls” group and a “boys” group decided by my other classmate, but since the “boys” group seemed smaller and more corporative than the “girls” group, I joined the “boys” group and made it no longer a “boys” group. We did life jacket skills for the whole of this lesson for both groups, and we actually finished a tiny bit quicker than the girls. At the end, I found it more fun than if I had chosen the other group.

On Wednesday, the two groups combined again. This time, the two groups were split evenly, with a mixture of girls and boys. We switched around, with my group starting with life jackets skills like huddles and chains and trains. After the switch, my group did some boating skills as in pulling each other onto the boat and falling and/or jumping off the boat. Suddenly, our lesson finished.

Yesterday, or Thursday, all of us got life jackets and both groups combined. We split ourselves into tiny groups of two to four, and did some pool rescue. All we had to do was to push someone into the water and drown them and rescue them by making them float and pulling them in. In reality, someone jumps into the water and pretends to drown. That person will get rescued by another person by pulling them in, or giving equipment such as a kick board so they can float to the shore. Then it rotates round between the group so everyone can have a turn. First, we started off with these rescue throw ropes. Eventually, we used items, for example, a chilly bin, rugby ball, kick boards, noodles, and doughnut floats. Again, before I realised, the lesson had come to the end. I had quite a bit of fun today.

Today, or Friday, we had Pyjama Day in the water. I don’t wear pyjamas, so I just wore normal clothes. It was really fun, and this was to have a feel of what swimming or being in the water feels like. At the end, we pretended to take off our shoes, then our actual pants and shirts. Then it was the end of school swimming for the year.

These are some of the photos of my group and me.

Would you rather swim for relaxation or swim for competition?

Today, we had a Duffy role model assembly. This happens once a year and usually we have a guest and Duffy books. This year, we had DJ Danny ill come in and do our role model assembly. I already knew Danny from meeting him from the library, but I haven’t seen him in a long while so it was really nice to see him again.

Usually, I find role model assembly pretty boring, but this time I found it quite fun. I think Danny’s presentation was shorter and more engaging, so I found it more fun. He did his talk, which didn’t take that long. We then had a class photo with Danny ill at the end.

Why do you think role models are important?

Today, a group of us New Brighton Catholic students went surfing down at South New Brighton beach together with students from South New Brighton School. We went there by car after Virtues Assembly, driven by my mum and my classmate William’s mum. In our car were Lucas, Brenna, and me. I have a spot decorated with corgi bums, and Brenna had to sit in the bum spot. Nobody realised it until I told them and we ended up in giggles and laughs.

We met together at the beach. For the people who didn’t have wetsuits, wetsuits were loaned to them and for people who did went to get changed if they hadn’t already.

We started off on the grass with a quick briefing then we did some warm-up exercise. Soon we went down to the shore with our surfboards. We practiced some of the movements taught before we went into the water. After a few practices, we dove into the waves with our surfboards. We followed the instructors who gave directions on how to be a good standing up surfer. It was my first time ever to surf and I surfed standing up pretty quick. I caught some good waves and got quite a few high fives from the kind instructors. Before I knew it, we had to go back to school.

On the way back, Reid instead of Brenna sat in our car. we stopped by the surfboard statute with the word DUKE craved on it. Reid also told us about his amazing artist cousin, who painted an art work of a surfboard on one of the walls in New Brighton. Unfortunately we didn’t get to see it. As it sounded pretty awesome, I will definitely take a look at it when I walk pass New Brighton next time.

I would like to thank Mr. Gray and Whaea Kay for organising a day for surfing while being able to represent our school at Zones swimming. I would also like to thank Esther, Reid’s mum, for making this happen. I would like to thank Louise, William’s mum, and my mum as well for coming to surfing with us.

Here are some highlights of the day when we were at South New Brighton beach surfing today.

I can be recognised surfing standing up by my long pigtail.

Surfboard statute with DUKE craved on it.

What do you like to do best at the beach in the water?

Today, a group of children went to the Eastern Zones for swimming at Jellie Park. We arrived in our cars and met together inside the facility. Then we had to wait for the aqua aerobics to finish before we can go to the space we use for our Zones swimming. We got bored of waiting on the other side, and we thought dancing with them was a good idea. My classmate Reid who went to Zones with me, started it off. Then Lucas, another classmate who went to Zones, joined Reid. Then I joined them, and so on until we, as in everyone who went to Zones with me from my school, were dancing along the front with the aqua aerobics instructor. The elderlies who were doing the aqua aerobics seemed to smile and enjoyed us dancing with them. This was our warm up exercise before the races start. It was really fun rather than being bored.

The aqua aerobics finished and so did our warm up. Other zones qualifiers schools started coming in, and I found a lot of my friends among them. Finally, the races started, initially only the year 5 and 6 races. So the intermediates had to wait a lot longer. Our first race, as in the intermediates, was the Butterfly open, which I came first and qualified for Canterburys. Straight after was the IM (Individual Medley) without a breath. Unfortunately, I didn’t realise there was no break at all, and just as I got out of the pool, people already dived into the water, doing the IM. I was looking forward to do it, but I missed it because it was impossible for me to do it straight after the butterfly. Luckily, Reid came first in IM, so qualified for Canterburys. Another lucky thing was my school took over butterfly for Canterburys in the eastern zone because my classmate, Stella, who supposed to come first, came second and qualified for Canterburys with me. She wasn’t very happy because she probably misheard about NOT to touch the wall with only one hand instead of two because that would be a DQ (Disqualify). Sadly, she did the opposite so she came second.

I came fourth in the next two races, freestyle, or front crawl, and backstroke. Top three in these two styles and breaststroke could go to Canterburys, so I didn’t get in for freestyle and backstroke. Next, I got in for breaststroke, coming second just an arm touch away from my friend, from another school, who came first. It was a close race and very fun competing with my old, kindy friend. At the end, we said goodbye to each other, and people who went to zones from my school were treated with an ice cream or like something cold for our hard work. Thank you to the parents who came and supported us, and thank you to Joh who treated us to celebrate us representing our school. We went back to school and had some chilling time in class. Below are photos of our school team and the butterfly crew.

Picture 1, School team. Picture 2, School team. Picture 3, Swimmer from another school, Stella, and me.

What kind of warm up would you like to do before a race?

For Religious Education quite a few weeks ago, we made an “acts of kindness” grid. We had to make a 5 by 4 grid and fill the 20 squares with different acts of kindness. We were given an example that was aimed at adults, so we had to make one our own, aimed at ourselves, or people around of the same age. This is my 20 acts of kindness, made on Canva.

Which act would you choose to do and why would you do it?

In Cybersmart, we have been learning how to use keyboard shortcuts to make some things easier, like copying and pasting. We made animations for this cybersmart lesson, using the shortcuts like Ctrl + D (duplicating), Ctrl + C (copying) and Ctrl + V (pasting). For my animation, I did the story on a duck swimming in a pond. It comes out of the water to do something stinky, and waddles back into the water. A fly that came out of nowhere goes to the smelly pile and then buzzes annoyingly around the duck’s head. The duck gets too annoyed, so the fly is taken to the processer, and soon, it was be another pile . It didn’t take me too long, and I actually quite enjoyed it. This is my 2 character, 25 slides animation.

Which is your favourite part of my animation, and what is the reason behind it?

In Religious Education this term, we have been learning about kindness. One of the projects we had to do is to make a slideshow on Jesus being a model showing good values through the bible. We were meant to do 5 bible scriptures to prove that he modeled kindness from the bible, but I ended up doing only 3 because I was too slow. I used Canva to create my design and the finished product looks like this.