The outdoors is awesome, in winter you can make snow forts. I like to go sledding in the winter, as well as snowball fights. In the summer, I like to go on bike rides, and climb trees. ⛄🏂🌅🚲

 

I used to not like going outside, I just liked playing video games. Now I prefer being outside, I like sharpening sticks to make spears, and I like making little tents with sticks I find.

 

Sometimes I don’t feel like going outside but when I go, I feel much better. I think that more people should go outside. The fresh air is good for you, and there are lots of things to do outside. 🌳🌲🌴

 

Do you like going outside?

That is way too hard of a question. It’s one of the most popular questions, but I don’t have a good answer yet. Dogs and cats both have pros and cons.

 

Well for dogs, they’re loyal, and you can teach them all sorts of tricks, like shake a paw, roll over, and speak. They are very social, and they are also very smart.

 

Cats on the other hand, they tend to time alone. They can be social, like one of my cats are. Sure, you can teach cats tricks as well, but it’s definitely harder to do so. If you go up to 10 dogs and tell them to sit, probably eight or nine out of ten will do so. If you go to ten cats and ask them to sit, I doubt any of them will sit down for you.

 

Cats are also smart, but sometimes it’s in mischievous ways. One of my cats distracted me from my dinner by meowing at me, when I walked over to her to pet her, two of my other cats were on the kitchen table eating my dinner.

 

I couldn’t choose between cats or dogs because it almost feels like choosing between apples and oranges. I could tell you my favourite dog breeds, because I’m comparing dogs with dogs.

 

(Great Pyrenees if you’re curious)

 

What about you, do you prefer cats or dogs?

A perfect winter day would (obviously) be a snow day. I’d make a massive snow fort. I would drink hot cocoa; and bake some double-chocolate cookies. 🍪I would help my neighbour collect sap and boil it into maple syrup. I would play with my dog, and show her the snow fort I made. I would go sledding down the hill near my house. I would see how much airtime I can get. I can slide on the ice in my yard. I would shovel all the snow off it, and play tag with my sisters on the ice.

 

I hope it snows a lot so I can do all those things.

That would be my perfect winter day. 🎿⛄❄

I like winter, kind of. There are some good and bad things about it. I like sledding, it’s fun to sled with my sisters and see how much airtime we can get. 🛷 I also like shovelling, most people find it a chore to have to shove the driveway or the deck. I enjoy it, its satisfying.

I like making my family hot cocoa after a long day outside in the cold.☕ With some marshmallows and a chocolate wafer stick. I like baking, because in the summer it just warms the house up way too much. I like baking cookies; I like making jello cakes. My favourite part of winter is making a big snow fort in a big snow pile. I work on them all day, I make sure to make stairs, windows, and (most importantly) a spot for my dog to lay in.

Now those are most of the things I like about winter, there are some things I don’t.

I don’t like how cold it gets sometimes. 🥶🧊 So that evens it all out.

What don’t you like about winter?

I love the beach, I always have.  Making sandcastles, making tiny rivers in the sand. I built little hot tubs, I put black rocks in the hot tubs to heat it up. I built a little desert habitat with caves and holes. I could spend weeks at the beach and not get bored. I would spend hours digging a massive hole. Then I would fill it with water. I would add seaweed and rocks too. Then I would put some minnows in it. I built massive moats for my sandcastles. I would dig really deep, where the sand was cold, and I would lay there to cool down on a hot day.

I love the beach, it is one of my favourite places, it makes me feel relaxed and happy. What place makes you feel like that?

I love sushi, it is my all-time favourite food! If I could eat one food for the rest of my life, you guessed it, it would be sushi. Now I didn’t know this, but there are different categories of sushi.

The five categories are Ngiri, which is a topping of fish served on top of sushi rice.

Maki, Fish encircled by rice and surrounded by seaweed.

Uramaki, a fish that is enwrapped by seaweed with rice on the outside.

Temaki, hand-rolled sushi in cone shapes.

And Sashimi, fish that is served by itself with no rice or seaweed.

 

Now my favourite out of all of these, is Maki, and Uramaki. My favourite Maki rolls are cucumber rolls, and avocado rolls. My favourite Uramaki rolls are California rolls and Dynamite rolls. California rolls were actually made in Canada, and got its name from all of the Californian tourists! It is crab meat, avocado, cucumber surrounded in sushi rice, with fish eggs on top. A Dynamite roll is a piece of tempura shrimp with avocado and cucumber, surrounded by sushi rice with masago (Fish eggs).

 

It sounds gross to so many people, but until you try it, I don’t want to hear that it is gross. As it is, my favourite food.

Sometime in May, I made my own video game! I did scripting, coding, and all that stuff. I made an obstacle course. It took me many attempts, and many coding errors. There were many times where I wanted to throw my keyboard across the room, but luckily, I have some self-control. It was difficult to make but I finally published it, people can actually make money from making video games! I wouldn’t be complaining if that’s my full-time job.

By far, scripting was the most difficult to learn. Like how to make you respawn at checkpoints when you fall off of the obstacle course. If you would like to create a video game, then you would have to learn scripting and have decent knowledge with video games themselves.

Definitely not, children should not be able to watch shows/movies that are 18+. Now if they’re 16 or 17 I think it is less severe than if a 6-year-old wants to watch those shows.

There are super violent and inappropriate things on these shows. Some horror movies can really scare a younger person. It shouldn’t be illegal, but highly advised.

People should be more worried about their privacy in a digital world because hackers could possibly hack you if you share personal info. Hackers can take your credit/debit card information They could also sign into your e-mail. As well as ordering things online such as from amazon or other online shopping websites. 🛒

 

People should be more worried about their privacy also because they could attract burglars. Attracting burglars by sharing what you do each day, that could show people your schedule. Also showing what you buy on Instagram or Facebook could show how wealthy you are. And showing off personal items or cars could help people find your location! 🚗

 

And last but not least, people can hurt you. People may call you names, people could physically hurt you if they don’t like your opinion, and people could stalk you, which is just kind of creepy and disturbing.

Have you ever seen a salamander, that fish with legs and a pretty cute face? Well that creature could be an axolotl, a crazy-cool salamander with superpowers! They may sound like an ordinary salamander, but there are a few ways to tell if they are an axolotl.

The axolotl, also known as the Mexican Walking Fish, is a type of salamander. They grow about 25cm (10 inch) long. In the wild, they live about 5-6 years, in captivity however, they can live an outstanding 15 years! (With the proper nutrients and habitat). In some African countries, they are put on a spit and slow cooked. However, they are a rather rare animal now. In fact, they are almost extinct!

They live in only one lake, Lake Xochimilco, in Mexico. Axolotls are so endangered due to pollution and urbanization that the entire population is forced into one lake. Pollution, where garbage is left in the wild, is a huge problem. Pollution kills lots of salamanders every week! They are also being forced into one lake due to urbanization! Urbanization is where buildings are being built and taking over entire ecosystem. However, wildlife is just as dangerous to them.

 

Invasive species such as bass, herons and tilapia eat axolotls and their food! In the wild, their food consists of fish, mollusks, water insects, and even other axolotls! In captivity they eat blackworms, bloodworms, and earthworms, as well as packaged axolotl food. They are so cool when they eat because they swallow in only one second, they suck in water in front of them, along with the food in the water, then the water is pushed out of the gills. The axolotl bite is rarely harmful, but the brown ones have been known to make a little mark.

 

Yes, there are many different types of axolotls! Here are a few! Albino, brown, gold, black, leucistic (which means mostly albino), gold leucistic, and over pigmented, where there is so much colour that every surface on the axolotl is jet-black. Some axolotls have gills that stick out more than others, some have longer tails! However, all axolotls are super sensitive to chlorine, even tap water contains a small amount of chlorine, which means tap water will have to be filtered for two weeks to be suitable for an axolotl. However, with weaknesses, they also have strengths.

 

Axolotls can actually evolve! If they are left in poor conditions where they aren’t getting enough nutrients in the water, they will live on land! The process is quite fascinating! The axolotl sucks air into its mouth, it then goes underwater and attempts to swallow the air. Studies have shown it takes about a day of this to fully evolve! Then their gills fall off and they develop lungs! They can also grow back limbs! If one falls off, it will grow back in about 2 weeks!

now even if you don’t see an axolotl, you now know how to identify these power-wielding salamanders! It’s crazy that they can grow back limbs and evolve1 axolotls really are no ordinary creatures. So, if you’re ever in Mexico (or happen to live there), you could visit lake Xochimilco, you could see these Mexican Walking Fish in real life!  Unless they become extinct from pollution. Donating to a charity like TeamSeas, is a great way to help these creatures survive!

 

 

 

 

Works Cited

 

“Axolotl.” Britannica School, Encyclopedia Britannica, 12 Aug. 2021. school.eb.com/levels/high/article/axolotl/11486. Accessed 16 Feb. 2022.

 

Garbus, Julia, and Noah Berlatsky. “Axolotl.” UXL Endangered Species, edited by Kathleen J. Edgar, 3rd ed., vol. 3: Amphibians, Corals, Fish, Plants, and Reptiles, UXL, 2016, pp. 569-571. Gale In Context: Science, link.gale.com/apps/doc/CX3627500185/SCIC?u=ko_k12pr_d65&sid=bookmark-SCIC&xid=89837d90. Accessed 16 Feb. 2022.

 

Freedman, Bill. “Salamanders.” The Gale Encyclopedia of Science, edited by K. Lee Lerner and Brenda Wilmoth Lerner, 5th ed., Gale, 2014. Gale In Context: Science, link.gale.com/apps/doc/CV2644031945/SCIC?u=ko_k12pr_d65&sid=bookmark-SCIC&xid=125dfb57. Accessed 16 Feb. 2022.