Iziah and Tanisslous' Ocean Inspired Legend

How a penguin was considered bird

“Let me tell you the legend of how a penguin was considered a bird.”

It all started when the man upstairs, started to create animals. He first created reptiles then

lions and then dogs and many, many more great species. He looked upon earth and said there is nothing in the beautiful blue sky. So he started to create an animal that could levitate off the ground. His finished product had a pointy beak that was the colour of the yellow light in the sky, it had a smaller body, compare to the rest, it had wings and it could fly, it was called a bird. God said “What a beautiful animal.” He soon created more and more and more until the blue sky was filled with these birds.

One day, God saw that the land of ice was only filled with seals. Form making all those birds he was still in the mode of making animals with wings. After about 1 year after the birds where flying about in the sky god decided to create something called a penguin. This creature had a beak but slightly bigger, this creature had a bigger body, feet, and wings. God released the penguin onto earth he named it Raj. God didn't see Raj as a bird he simply saw it as whole other animal.

Raj waddled along into the jungle where he saw lots of other birds soaring through the trees and sky. The other birds were fascinated when they saw this unusual creature. One bird said “Hey, look this one looks like a zombie!” All of the other birds made fun of Raj. One bird even said “Can he even fly?” Raj flapped his wings as fast as he could but he failed. All of the other birds laughed.

Raj was then determined to show the other birds that he could fly. He stayed up all night jumping from tree to tree, after jumping lots and lots of trees he gave up saying, “Forget it. I’m not a bird. I’m never going to able to fly.” He stomped off to the water.

He didn’t know what was happening but he was attracted to the water and the ice. He jumped in and flew under the water towards the cold areas, after about 1 hour of flying through the water he finally he found how he could fly, in the water! He ran back to where the birds lived and announced that he could fly, but they just stared at him for a moment...then laughed and flew into the air showing off their talents and then minding their business. Raj was disappointed.

Walking around the birds’ home he saw a letter.  It said Flying competition! Only for birds that can fly. He took a deep breath and signed his name to enter. Raj kept practicing some life or death tricks but he couldn’t master his best one.

The competition was one all the birds that were in the competition were in a line waiting for there time to show of, Raj was third. When it was Raj’s turn, he ran as fast as he could and jumped into the water. The champions from last year’s competition were the judges.  They were all impressed at this penguins talents he perform the most dangerous (it was only dangerous to the bird not to the penguins).

After when all the birds had all performed the judges had to pick the best act and crown them as flying champion for 1289. “Raj!” All the judges voted Raj, he sank into a glorious feeling and stood proudly as he was being praised with love from everyone.

That is how a penguin was considered a bird because he could fly...but in the water.

Trip to Kelly Tarlton's Underwater World!

Today, the senior syndicate went to Kelly Tarlton's as part of our inquiry "Tagata o le Moana."  It was an amazing trip and we saw so many wondrous creatures.  It has really helped to focus our thinking about how special sea life is and how we can help to protect it for our future.  

Mavis: Why Collaboration is Best for Learning

Collaboration. The thriving source of new knowledge. Why deprive yourself of the golden opportunity to expand your learning? Collaborating is how we get better in learning. I believe collaborating gives you a better foundation for more learning. I will collaborate.   

Collaboration motivates the growing mind of a young adolescent experiencing loneliness. Collaboration provides that adolescent with the feeling of comfort when working with other students in their class. It extinguishes exclusion and loneliness. Why is this best for a student? Imagine feeling lonely and you’re put into a group who asks you to collaborate, you would feel happy right? If it was me, I would definitely be happy!   

Collaborating gives us the opportunity to build on our self-confidence. It gave me a time and place to speak to people to be confident. I started to trust in myself. It meant that I was heard and considered giving my class/team mates/members to add something new to their ideas, giving it a little more level so that it can grow more steadily and evenly.   

Working with others also means collaborating. Collaborating means contributing toward your friends work with constructive criticism. Imagine your friends insulting your work but they had good intentions all along. Look when I give my finished craft to someone I’d actually like to collaborate with them, let them give me constructive criticism. Getting constructive criticism means getting advice you can use to build on and to be better.    

Collaborating with others gives us the opportunity to express ourselves, our opinions, and our choices. Collaborating gives more than opportunity....it gives friendship.  It gives focus to the distraction. I chose to  collaborate.....but will you?   

Taylor Writes: Why Collaboration is Best for Learning

Collaboration.

When it comes to learning in the classroom, collaboration is the best, right? That is why I have chosen  to collaborate , and hopefully, if you are one of the “no -  to - collaboration” people, then this is the piece of writing that will convince you to collaborate.

When collaborating, you gain new knowledge and also, share prior knowledge with others giving you the opportunity to improve your idea. This means that when working with  a group, you will share your knowledge, and also, gain more knowledge from others in the group. Since having this reason here, we all share lots of knowledge, because we learn more from our friends than our teachers (no offence). Sometimes when your teacher teaches something so hard, you just lose focus, but when you teacher says for you to think about what it means in a GROUP, your friends might break it down for you and before you know it, it’s like a walk in the park.

My second reason for why collaboration is best is because you get more work done when you are working cooperatively. This is meaning that when alone, sometimes, you might  distract yourself. When with others, or in a group, you don’t get distracted, and instead, do more work, and with more people with you, the more work done. For homework, me and some of my friends work together for homework. We got more work done than the other times I worked by myself.

My final reason for why collaboration is best for learning, is because you can develop skills that you need when you go to highschool - you might go to a school where you hardly know anyone so it is good to have good social skills and make new friends. What I mean is that if you are on your last year at school, working with others will help you develop more skills you will need for college. I have worked with groups, and so far, I have many skills, and am ready for next year.

When you think about the word collaborating, what do you think it means? Well,  hopefully this explanation has said it all. Maybe you will think of collaborating as something better than what you thought before. So now you can collaborate with others in your everyday life.I  will choose to collaborate