Anteaters vs Aardvarks – Step It Up – SLJ
Anteaters vs Aardvarks
I have completed the Step It Up activity, Anteaters vs Aardvarks! I found it very fascinating comparing the two creatures to each other. I can easily see how the aardvark and anteater are often confused with each other and thought to be very close relatives and perhaps even the same species. Furthermore, I found it crazy how they aren’t even distant cousins! Overall I think the aardvark wins. It’s ability to dig incredible burrows and its amazing hearing just beats the anteater in my opinion. I really enjoyed this task and am looking forward to the next one.
Summer learning journey task Step It Up Flying Faunas
Hey bloggers 
Welcome To my Blog! For today’s Step it up task I made another animal out of nature but this time a Bird 
. It was really fun and I recommend this task if your bored during the summer it’s a great outdoor activity keeping you away from screens!
My work:
Hope you like it!!!!
Tips if your doing this activity:
1. Glue your items on paper so it doesn’t blow away in the wind
2. If you don’t want to put stones on it to keep secure
3. Use tools to shape the items like scissors
4. Have FUN and Enjoy!!!!
Bye! Hope you enjoyed reading my blog make sure to leave a comment!!!! BYE!
Summer Learning Journey Kickstart – Flying Faunas
Hey Bloggers, today for my task I had to make an animal out of nature that could fly I chose to make a butterfly and I used different items around my backyard to create it.
My work:
I hoped you enjoyed visiting my blog, Bye!!!!
Questions:
How many different types of items did I use?
Bonus:
How many Items are on there?
Bye!!!!
Make sure to drop a comment and help me reach my goal on getting 100 comments!!!!
PS:I have 54 comments so far!!!!
SLJ 2025 Manu Mahi Kuhutahi – Step It Up
Today, I did the Māori Step It Up version of birds. I watched 2 videos and guessed a book. The first video I watched was about the traditional Māori story on the battle of the sea birds and the land birds. The book I read in Te Reo Māori was about different birds, like the owl being a nighttime bird and the pūkeko being a swamp side bird. Because I cannot read Māori, I had to use Google Translate to get an idea on what the book is about. I also watched another video on a Māori story on how the kiwi lost it’s wings.
In the story of how kiwi lost it’s wings, it talks about the kiwi (bird) having wings a long time ago. This guardian said the forest was dying of insects and it needs a bird to sacrifice it’s wings and eat the insects. The kiwi’s bird friends denies the request and only kiwi is left last. Kiwi accepts the sacrifice and becomes a flightless bird. Kiwi also becomes the favourite because the guardian is not pleased with the other birds. The guardian force sad changes to kiwi’s friends and promote kiwi to be the best. Apparently this is why New Zealand goes by “Kiwi”.
After learning about these facts, I crafted a native bird from New Zealand. I used paper and glue. This is my bird penholder, and please try to guess what native bird I have tried to create.
Answer: Hoiho or yellow-eyed penguin.
What is your favourite native bird from your country?
SLJ 2025 Nature Art – Step It Up
Today, I did the Step It Up version of making a flying thing using nature. It’s just like the kick start activity, but this time, I had to make a story about a day of it’s life to go with it. I made another flying thing with natural materials that can be recycled afterwards. Using food, I made a swan that is very tasty. This is my story of a day in life from the point of view of the swan and a picture of the swan.
Once there was a swan made of fruits and ice cream, and that was me. I had a banana neck, red cherry eyes, rice cracker feathers, ice cream body, pineapple beak and peach neck. I lived on a plate in a café.
There were children coming to see me. They stunned at the sight of the creation of me. “Wow! Look at that swan made of fruits and ice cream!” one child called. I held my model posture proudly, hoping to please them. In my view, they seem to be surprised by my beauty which is exactly what I wanted.
I felt lucky that these children have got here on time. If they came later, I wouldn’t be able to stand the heat from the sunlight, peering through the window. It’s very hard to stop my body from melting into mint chocolate.
Finally, the children graciously devoured me. I kept my proud posture as bite by bite, I was eaten. Tomorrow, a new new life cycle will start again.
Would you prefer to be the child, swan or the café manager that “makes” the swan?
2025 SLJ Critters and Creatures Eleanor’s Experiments Flip the Arrow
Kia Ora! This is Kamsi from Room 10, Glen Innes School. As part of Eleanor’s Experiments, I watched the experiment happen, then I filled a curved glass full of water, got a piece of paper with an arrow on it and put it behind the glass of water. When the light enters the water, the glass acts like a lens and bends the light so much that the arrow appears flipped. It took a while to get a perfect arrow but it was really interesting. I tried it with both colored paper and white paper and both work just the same. I found out that it did not work with no light and if it was too close. Please feel free to give me feedback.
Your blogging friend, Kamsi!
SLJ 2025 Manu Mahi Kuhutahi – Kick Start
Today, I did the Māori kick start activity on flying. For this activity, I watched a video on a traditional Māori story about the sea birds vs the land birds over food. One bird, called Tītī, thinks there are enough food for everyone so Tītī disagrees with all the other sea birds. After losing the battle they started, Tītī stays with the land birds. Tītī lives in harmony with all the other land birds.
I folded an origami paper bird that is meant to flap it wings as it flies. It’s like a slightly modified paper plane that flaps in the wind. Then, after folding with a video tutorial, I decorated it so it looked like a real bird with genuine chicken feathers. To make a head, I used a singular bay leaf and folded it into a shadow of a head. As the leaf broke and the juice leaked, it filled the house with insect repellent that smell so good. This is my paper bird.
How would you make yours even more realistic than mine?
Anteater vs Termites – Kick Start – SLJ
Armatigris
I have created a creature that is based off a tiger and therefore in the cat family, named the Armatigris. The first thing you will notice about this creature is the armadillo shell across it. The shell would provide extra protection when attacked by other creatures. Primarily the shell would deflect bullets because a tigers number one threat is humans and when threatened can simply roll into a protective ball. The next thing to notice is that this tiger is black instead of the regular orange and black stripes but not only black. Like an octopus, which is able to change its colour, this creature can change its colour to better blend in with surroundings, especially seasonal changes (like snow). The third change would be better night vision. Although I found it very hard to change the size of eyes in Canva, imagine large eyes. The eyes would improve vision at night and allow for a bigger advantage against prey.
I found this task incredibly fun! You really had to think outside the box and get creative. I created my creature in Canva. At first I found it really difficult to think of a predator to make, but eventually it came to me. I really enjoyed this task and can’t wait to complete the Step It Up challenge.
SLJ Flying fauna Natural art – kick-Start 🦋
Hello everyone and welcome too my blog! this is My Second SLJ task you can check
out My first SLJ in the bottom anyway today is a happy Tuesday 30th of December 2025 , So today
for the SLJ we had to make a flying fauna, a insect that flies Out of the materials in your garden for my project I made a butterfly .
For the wings I used a type of leaves with light navy green and a dark shade of green and a little
branch of rosemary for the body of the butterfly, if you don’t know what rosemary is, its a type of plant that has a
great smell and sometimes used for cooking. This SLJ is a very good task I would rate it A 8/10 I could not make
more cause it was really cold in our area sorry but I hope you like it and make sure to leave a thoughtful, helpful, and positive comment bye. Here is the picture it has different angles so you can see!
Kick Start Predator vs Prey Create – Kick Start
Kia ora bloggers! Today for my SLJ activity I had to follow some activity instructions and decide whether each animal is a predator of the lion, prey for the lion, or both. In my next slide you can see that I put the animals in the groups that I think it should be in, and that was it! It was nice, and easy doing this SLJ activity! I hope everyone enjoyed my blog, and also please feel free to comment some feedback!
Ka Kite ano!
~Kalisi
SLJ 2025 Natural Art – Kick Start
Today, I did the first activity of the day. As you may guess by the name, I made a bird out of nature and recycled materials. The main materials that I used were bay leaves and chicken feathers, and the other materials were other animal feathers and a coke bottle lid. I started by gathering the feathers into the house. It’s not very good weather here in Christchurch, and it’s been pouring all day long. To avoid getting myself and my creation wet, I did it inside.
The black-ish feathers are real chicken feathers that are from my pet chickens. The white feathers are from my pet ducks. The 1 and only long, brown, spotted feather is a peacock feather from my friend. The bay leaves and some twigs are from my tree. This is my creation of my flying fauna.
Would you like to be a predator or a prey of this bird?
prey vs predator.
I have to organise the animals into prey, predators, or both. Prey are animals that are hunted, and predators are animals who hunt. Most animals are prey and predators. Apex predators are animals that are not hunted, but hunt other things.
2 facts I learnt about lions are:
- On average, male lions weigh 190kg and females weigh 126kg. They need this weight and power behind them to hunt large prey and defend their pride.
- Lions start off spotty. Young lions have rosettes and spots on their sandy coats, but these generally disappear as they mature.
I found these facts on the WWF website.
I am proud of my work because I think I did a good job.
Something I found challenging was finding which animals were prey and which were predators.
Here is my work.
My SLJ task (Kick start) Make a beautiful image out of life resources! 30/12/25
Hello bloggers!
Welcome back to Somya’s blog!
Today I have been doing my SLJ task!
Today for my SLJ task we had to make a beautiful picture out of life resources!
Yes! today for the task I have created one flower out of chalk!
For this tasks materials I have used pink colored chalk, yellow colored chalk, blue colored chalk, and white coulored chalk!
I have first sketched out a beautiful flower on my sketchbook and then tried to sketch it on to the concrete with chalk!
I have enjoyed this task, in the mornings taking some fresh air in your garden is the best way you could start your day, so that’s why I would rate this task a 10/10!
I have took a photo of that and put it onto my blog!
I have also put the image of the badge that I have earned from this task!
I hope you enjoy If you did please don’t forget to comment something helpful, positive and thoughtful!
Here is the badge that I have earned from this task!
Natural art SLJ- Kick start
Task Description: In this task I have used a few rocks and small stems to create a butterfly for the “natural art” summer learning journey task. I have done the “flying squirrels” summer learning journey task, though I have not blogged about it yet. I hope to blog it later this afternoon when I come back home.
This summer learning journey was not hard at all. All I needed to do was grab a few rocks to create a butterfly body and wings as well as 2 small stems for the antennas. Then I simply put the rocks and stems away after I made sure I had at least 1 or 2 photos that I have taken.
Summer learning journey step it up Critters and Creatures Flying Faunas
Hey Bloggers! For today’s task I decided to take my toys to new heights—literally. I’ve always wondered what it would be like if my favorite figures could actually fly, so I set out to turn my room into a high-speed transit system. The goal was simple: get my toy from the top of the door frame all the way down to a dresser drawer without it ever touching the floor. Since I didn’t have any engines or wings, I had to get creative with the materials I had at home.
My work:
I realized that for a toy to “fly” smoothly, I needed a track that would let it glide. I decided to build a zipline using a long spool of string and a metal paper clip. I tied one end of the string to the top of the door and stretched it across the room, anchoring the other end inside an open drawer. The most important part was making sure the string was pulled completely tight, because if there was any sag, the toy wouldn’t have enough momentum to make it the whole way.
For the actual flight mechanism, I took a standard metal paper clip and hooked it over the string. Because the metal is so smooth, it was the perfect material to slide down the line. I carefully attached my toy to the paper clip so it was secure for the journey. Once everything was set up, I moved to the launchpad at the door, held the paper clip at the highest point, and let go.
The result was really cool to watch. My toy zipped down the line, but instead of crashing into the back of the drawer or falling off, it reached the end and just stood there, perfectly balanced and upright. It was like a professional landing right on the target! I learned that the angle of the string and the weight of the toy have to be just right for it to move properly. It was a great way to complete my school task and prove that you can create something awesome with just a bit of string and a paper clip.
ANTEATER VS TERMITES KICK START.
Hi bloggers its me Saniya we are in another Summer learning Journey and we had Canva to create one.The one that we are learning about Anteater vs Termites hoped you guys liked it.BYE AND THANK YOU.
