For this Step It Up activity, I made a digital trading card on Google Drawings using a template. I choose the axolotl to be my trading card because I technically am obsessed with it at the moment after I learnt about it, like its regenerate any missing parts. I found this task really enjoyable and very fun to do. I think this might my favourite Summer Learning Journey tasks so far. This is my work.
What is your favourite thing or skill about your favourite marine life?
For this Kick Start activity, I created a piece of art using shells I collected from the beach. Most of the shells were clams, some of them were mussels, cockles and seasnails. I even found some part of crab shells. Here is my art, and because I removed the background, the top one is the edited one with an AI background, and the bottom one is original.
2025
My creation has a hidden message, see if you can solve my message to everyone.
What are you most looking forward to next year? My answer is being a Year 7 at school and having buddies.
For this Kick Start activity, I created a picture with a message in a bottle. I used the template, hide my bottle in the sand and wrote the message. If you click on the bottle in the picture, my message inside the bottle will show up. See if you can solve the answer. The prize is the knowledge which is the answer to the riddle. My favourite part of this task was writing the message.
What would you do if you ever found a message in a bottle? I’d probably read the message and put it in the bin if it is just a piece of rubbish hahaha. Because we don’t want pollution anymore.
For this Step It Up activity, I made a Palolo Menu. For people who do not know what palolo is, it is a type of sea worm that people eat. I made it with a template, which made it a bit quicker. The task said to have at least 2 seafood dishes and at least 1 of them must be palolo. On my menu, I put 4 seafood dishes and all of them are palolo. 3 of my palolo dishes are the fusion between French, English and Japanese with Samoan.
This is my palolo menu.
What would you like to eat palolo with? I certainly like to try all of these if they have them in New Zealand restaurants.
For this Kick Start activity, I created some hand drawn trading cards on paper. I made 3 of them, a fish, a monkey, and a Ding Dong (Doraemon).
I named the fish Advent, because I coloured it purple, pink or rose, and white which I actually didn’t colour.
I named the monkey Theo, because one of my classmates called Theo, seem to always love monkeys and act like them.
I named the Ding Dong Lollypop, because there’s this how to draw Ding Dong song in Cantonese which goes like this: circle and a dot, circle and a dot, underneath draw a lollypop and draw a hula hoop, draw a hula hoop. …
The song is too long to fit and is in Cantonese. I only translated the head or the first part of the song. It’s on YouTube though if you want to hear it. This is the link to the song: https://youtu.be/JCIs0QKn-LI
The task said to add a fact about my cartoon collectable and what kind of personality they would have. For Advent the fish, it’s colours represent the colours of the Advent candles on an Advent wreath. Purple has 3 candles, hope, peace and love. Pink or rose means joy, and white meaning Christmas or the birth of Jesus. Advent’s personality would be humble and kind, patient and respectful, honest and cheerful.
For Theo the monkey, he is strong but clumsy and is very gentle. He likes to do his “Daily nuke falls”.
For Lollypop the Ding Dong, he is a magical cat who got all these gadgets in his pouch. His personality is like and caring, and he is a problem solver which is why he has those gadgets.
What is your favourite out of the three? I personally like Lollypop the best because I would like all those problems solved and have those gadgets for fun.
For this Kick Start activity, I created a Palolo scene on Google Drawings. The instructions said to use shapes to create the palolo, so I did. I started with a rough outline of the palolo so I could see abouts where to arrange my shapes. I used dodecagons and placed them in a palolo shape. I made them different colours of the top half and the bottom half, and I did that because they are bisects, which means they are like worm, and they can split in half and still live. I then duplicated it and changed the colours of the duplicated one to the colours of a female one. Then I added some coral, made the background white gradiented into blue, and added some labels. Finally, I added some facts on the palolo.
Would you rather eat a palolo or a Huhu grub?
For this Step It Up activity, I made a mandala with an old CD package. The task said to paint a flat rock, but I couldn’t find one, so I decided to be creative and paint it with an old CD package instead. I used paint, glitter, and cotton buds to make the dot patterns for this mandala. This is the result.
The old CD package is clear plastic, so it looks different if I put different colour paper as background, but it is still the same piece of mandala work.
Would you rather paint on a rock or like me on an old CD package?
For this Kick Start activity, I created a nature mandala on using only nature I found from my garden. I started with 4 pieces of old lettuce, lettuce we don’t eat. It made a slight hill for the centre, just enough to put a blue flower. I cut the stem of it and placed them on the lettuce. I added some pebbles off the ground, snapped twigs I found on the floor, and some leaves off a flower bush. Then I went and cut some roses and added that to the mandala. Finally, I added the blue flower, but this time, I cut up the blooms. I also put the pink flowers on every other one on the outer circle. I completed the finishing touches with a sprinkle of yellow petals from Foxgloves and Dandelions. I added some Dandelion flowers on the east, west, south and north of the mandala.
This is the creation I made and was trying to describe.
Did I put the same picture in your head? How much different and how would you edit this to make it better for you?
For this Kick Start activity, I recreated my favourite aquatic animal on Google Drawings. My favourite aquatic animal is axolotl, so I found a cute axolotl picture and recreated by zooming in and tracing over it.
There are some facts on this aquatic animal (axolotl). Axolotl can regrow their lost limps or any lost part of their body, including eyes and spines, even their brain. They can breathe in both water and land, for they have gills and lungs. The rarest colour is blue, in both Minecraft and real world. And they like to live in cool clean water, with live plants. They loved large earth worms. They have 4 fingers on each of their hand, 5 toes on their feet and fins on their head as well. Most of their body is made of cartilage rather than bone.
Would you rather have axolotls in Minecraft or in the real world?
For this Step It Up activity, I made a hard origami koi fish, following the instructional video. I then decorated my fish with glitter gel pens, and part of the task was to say my favourite part of doing this and 2 facts about origami. My favourite part was seeing it finished, and my facts are that an ancient Japanese legend says if you fold one thousand cranes, you will be granted a wish and that origami toys, like the ‘waterbomb’, were developed by the Chinese. I found this task really challenging, especially understanding how to fold it and folding it myself, so I found a simplier but prettier version of it. My version I found has a more rounded head, which I think looks more realistic. Can you spot which one is which?
Would you rather fold 3D origami fishes or 2D origami fishes?