The Magic of Glow Worms - explored and explained by Michael, Connor and Naho

Glow worms.

Now I'm going to explain to you what Glow worms are .

Glow worms are  the larvae of a special kind of fly known as fungus gnats.

They live in damp places, like caves and old mining tunnels. When you go to visit it, you must be very, very careful. Don't touch these tiny glow worms. Sometimes  when you go to the forest you might find the glow worms on the moist banks beside a stream or in a gorge.

When you are looking at glow worms in dark places, you can see they are glowing like stars. At that moment you must be quiet, because they attract their prey to come here. Their tails will glow, because of bioluminescence,which is a reaction between the chemicals given off by the glow worm and the oxygen in the air.

When the glow worms are born they have another name which is larvae. They grow up and they are called pupa. Adult glow worms look like a large mosquito,and they live no longer than a few days. After that they lay eggs and then they die.

By Michael Lu

                                                            GLOW WORMS

Glow worms are larvaes of a special kind of fly that is known as a fungus gnat and they live in New Zealand and Australia.

Life cycle

The females are the ones that lay the eggs. The females lay around 120 small eggs. Within 20 days the young larvae hatches and goes away. Then the small larvae build a pupa which they wrap themselves in. That will last 13 days. After 13 days they become adults. When they are adults they have one job and that is to find a mate and lay eggs so they don't become extinct.

Habitat

Glow worms prefer to live in damp places such as caves and tunnels. Glow worms moist and still air.

Why do they glow

Glow worms glow to attract prey. Their sticky threads look like fishing lines. When their prey is tugging and trying to escape, the glow worms go and eat it. Their sticky threads looks like shiny strings of beads. If their prey is too big they cut the line off.

By Connor Johnson

Glow Worms

Glow worms live in deep, deep caves. They look as beautiful as the stars. It's like watching the stars above the dark and quiet ocean. Glow worms are not worms. They are flies called fungus gnats, but they look more like mosquitos. Fungus gnats use crystal clear sticky threads to hunt small, flying insects.

A wet and damp place is the best place to live for glow worms. They can't live in a windy, dry, sunny or noisy place, because if it's noisy, they can't glow, so they can't hunt insects.

Female flies lay about 120 eggs and it takes 20 days to hatch from the egg. The larvae are 3 mms long, but they can already have a strong light. It takes 9 months to be a pupa. The pupa stage is similar to the cocoon stage of the butterfly cycle. Adult glow worms can only live for a few days.

A special organ makes glow worms glow. The larvae have the brightest, strongest light. They glow all day! When the worms are disturbed by other lights like our torches, they will hide into a crevice. It's like a fish hiding behind a rock, because humans came.

By Naho Tozawa

Rumi explains how we digest food - well done!

First you put your food into your mouth and the teeth crunch it into smaller pieces. Second you swallow the food. The esophagus squeezes it down.

Then the food goes into the stomach. It doesn’t only go down, it pushes it down so the food can go into the intestine.

Then the intestines break it down more and the blood takes the little bits of food where it is needed.

Akira's text: Digestion - what a fun read!

David's Explanation: Food To Energy

Enjoy the Paper Bag Princess retold by Doris Hsu - a fabulous year 2 writer!

Once upon a time there was a princess called Elisabeth. One day she was going to marry a prince called Ronald. He was so handsome and very rich.

When the wedding was ready, before she could say, "I do", there came a dragon. He burnt down the castle with his fiery breath and flew off taking prince Ronald with him.

Elisabeth tried to find something to wear, but the only thing she could find was a paper bag. So she had no choice but to put it on. She followed the dragon, because she could see the horse bones that he had eaten.

Finally she came to a cave with a huge knocker. She banged on the door, the dragon's nose came out and the dragon said, "Well, a princess! I love to eat princesses, but I have already eaten a whole castle today. Come back tomorrow!" Then the dragon shut the door so fast that Elisabeth almost got her nose caught. But she banged on the door again. The dragon's nose came out and the dragon said,
"I said, I love eating princesses, but I have already eaten a whole castle today. Come back tomorrow!"
"Stop!" said Elisabeth, "Are you the fiercest dragon in the world?" said Elisabeth.
"Well, yes!" answered the dragon.
"Is it true that you can blow fire on ten forests?"
"Yes!" said the dragon and he took a huge breath of his fiery breath and blew fire on twenty forests.
"Excellent!" said Elisabeth.
"Is it true that you can fly around the world in just 10 seconds?" and the dragon flew around the world in just 10 seconds.
"Marvellous, do it again!" said Elisabeth.
So he flew around the world in 20 seconds. The dragon was so tired that he couldn't even move.
Elisabeth said, "Hey, dragon, why aren't you moving?" She put her head right into the dragon's ear and shouted, "Hey dragon!" But the dragon was so tired, he couldn't even move. Elisabeth walked into the cave and there was prince Ronald.

"Elisabeth, why aren't you wearing your princess dress? Come back when you look like a real princess!" said Ronald.
"Ronald, you have handsome hair and lovely clothes, but you are a bum!"

The End!

By Doris Hsu

Read these texts by Dylan, Jane, Chene, Yasmin, Jack and Josh if you want to learn something about the digestive system!

stive System

Do you know what happens to food when you eat it?

First you put food into your mouth.Then your teeth and saliva break down the food into smaller pieces, so your esophagus can push it down.

Next the food goes inside your stomach. The food gets broken down into molecules by the acid in the stomach. After that the blood vessels take it to where it’s needed. The blood vessels are like streets and vehcicles at the same time.

The liver is an important part of the digestive process. It takes out the parts in the food we don’t need. It’s like a dishwasher that washes the dirty bits away from our dishes.

Finally the waste turns into poop. But instead of falling down the bum, it gets pushed down.

By Dylan Chen

The Digestive System

Did you know that before you eat, when you smell tasty food, see it or think about it, digestion begins? Saliva comes into your mouth.

First you break the food down in your mouth with your teeth and your saliva.

Then we swallow the food into the esophagus. The esophagus is like a stretchy pipe that’s about 10 inches (25 cms) long. It pushes the food down into the stomach.

Your stomach which is attached to the end of the esophagus, is a sack shaped like the letter ‘J”. It has three important jobs:

1)   To store the food you’ve eaten;

2)   Break down food into a liquid mixture;

3)   Slowly empty that liquidy mixture into the small intestine.

Your food may spend as long as four hours in the small intestine. At 3 or 4 inches around (about 7 to 10 cms), the large intestine is fatter than the small intestine. From here the blood vessels transport the tiny parts of our food that are important for us all over the body.

I hope you learned something.

By Jane Shirokova

Illustration by Jane and Chene

Our body

First you put the food into your mouth and the teeth crunch it into smaller pieces. Second you swallow the food down.The esophagus squeezes it down and it goes sliding down your throat and it goes into your stomach.

Then in the stomach the food breaks down into tiny, tiny bits you can't even see the tiny food and when it breaks down and it goes into the intestines.

Finally your food molecules go into the intestines and then it goes into your blood.

By Chene

Digestion

First you put the food into your mouth and the teeth crunch it into smaller pieces.

Second, you swallow the food down the esophagus and it squeezes it down.

Then the food goes into the stomach to break it down into tiny, tiny bits you can't even see any more.

Next it goes into the intestines. Your food may spend as long as 4 hours in the small intestine as it goes into the blood.

Finally the blood transports the nutrient to where it is needed in the body.

The liver cleans out the waste. Most of the waste stays inside the liver and some come out as urine.

By Yasmin Ribeiro

Digestion – What’s That?

We are talking about digestion today. Firstly, we talk about your teeth. The teeth can chop up any hard food, they make you taste every little flavour in those little bits of food.

Secondly there has always been and always will be the esophagus. It squeezes the food down into the stomach.Guess what, everything in your esophagus is turning and wiggling around and round until it squeezes the food from the esophagus to the stomach.

In the stomach there is acid, yeah there is acid in our stomach, which breaks the food up and the food is turning, spinning and wiggling and becomes very, very messy.

Let's move on to the small intestine. The food goes and travels around the whole place, it swirls around, moving on further and further into the small intestine to the large intestine.

The large intestine, well as you can tell by the name, it is larger than the small intestine. Probably if you went into the small and large intestine, it would be pretty gross. Again the food travels and glides on,through the hole of the small intestine and goes out of your body. This how it all works.

Finally the blood transports the nutrients to the liver. The liver cleans out the waste most of the waste stays inside the liver and some come out as urine.

By Josh Heijn

The digestive system

Firstly I will tell you about the esophagus. The esophagus is where your food goes down. Most people believe that it just falls down your throat but it doesn't just fall. The muscles squeeze the food down like you squeeze toothpaste out of a tube. That's the interesting bit about your esophagus.

Secondly we go to the stomach. The food goes into your stomach and it tumbles the food causing it to break apart. Then the acid breaks it into little pieces.

The food that survives goes down the small intestines and it slides down it. It tumbles the food like the stomach but in a small tunnel.

Finally you go to your big intestine. Your big intestine is where your waste comes from. By waste I mean what goes down the toilet. It's poop and pee okay.

By Jack Heijn

The Gala - a wonderful recount by Benjamin Park

The Gala

On the 7^th of  November 2015 we had a Gala at our school.

Have you ever been to a Gala?

The families of our students, teachers and friends came to make some money for our school and to have an entertaining day.

I watched people playing games like Dunk Your Teacher. I watched my  teacher fall into the water. SPLASH! Then I observed the people riding motor bikes and it was cool. Dizzy Fizzy was funny, because people fell over.

I played  Sky Toss, Coconut Shy and Hook A Fish, but Sky Toss was the best game, because it was our game. When I was playing Sky Toss, I saw Mrs Southgate and she said “ Hello Benjamin”, and I answered,  “ Hello, Mrs Southgate.” Coconut Shy was the least exciting and Hook A Fish was difficult but I enjoyed it.

 I felt the Gala was pleasant and interesting because we don’t have  galas in Korea. I thought we should have galas in Korea too.