The week of September 11 was EnviroWeek. Each classroom participated in the writing competition about water to raise awareness about water related issues. It was such a difficult decision, but the Green Cadets chose one winner per year level. Here are the writing pieces from the winners. Congratulations to the winners and great job to everyone who participated!

Creative Writing Prompts:

Year P/1/2: Write a story about going to a magical waterfall. When you stand under it, the magical waters give you a superpower. What superpower would it be? What would you do with the superpower?

Year 3/4: Write a story about a person who was left abandoned in a desert. Write about their adventurous search for water.

Year 5/6: Write a story about a hero who saves people/animals during a natural disaster involving water (flood, hurricane, tsunami).

Prep Writing Piece

Alannah F, Prep 9

Magical Waterfall

Once upon a time I went to a magical waterfall. I went in it. When I went out of it I got super fast. I went in it again with my mum and my dad and my brother. They all got super fast. Then I went home. I came the next day and I saw it. I was very happy and excited. I like it. I want to do it again. Because I like it and this day I became a flying girl. Then I went again and this time I became a hero. I saved the world every country everyone got saved in the whole wide world and the animals. When I went there again this time I became an explorer.

Year 1 Writing Piece

Jeanette, 1-16

Magical Waterfalls

When I entered the magical forest I saw something. I didn’t know what it was, so I took a closer look. I saw something amazing! It was a magical waterfall! I wanted to know what it would be like if I went under it. I wished it would give something magical because it was magical. I wanted it to give the powers of water, speed, controlling people’s minds and to save water. The next day it was school time. I was very far away from a tap, but I saw a person who was drinking and left the tap open. So with my power of controlling people’s minds I made that person turn off the tap. After school I went back to the magical waterfall and stood under it and got the power of flying. I flew back home and flew all around the house. Then my mother spotted me and I immediately stopped. My mother said I had to go to bed. And fell asleep. The next morning I went to school I showed the class how I could fly and told them how I got them. After school I flew to the waterfall, but it was a different waterfall. This waterfall wasn’t blue, but gold. I then touched it and got the power to make people turn off taps.

Year 2 Writing Piece

Aathana, 2-26

The Magical Waterfall

One cool Autumn day I was walking across a bridge when I saw a waterfall. It was magical! I stood under it and suddenly I had black, powerful power. I used it to help countries. But when I tried to help all the countries in the world, it didn’t work! I felt really shocked. “This is a disaster!” I had forgotten all about the magical waterfall. A year later I found the bridge again and walked across. I realized that the magical waterfall was beside me. I stood under it. This time my power wasn’t black anymore. It was incredible, yellow, powerful power. I tested my power. It worked! I saved all the countries in the world and everyone called me the hero of countries. When I finished all my work, everyone came to Australia. That was the end of the magical waterfall. The end.

Year 3 Writing Piece

Om, 3-18

Stranded in the Desert

My clothes were ragged, I was dying of thirst, I was terrified and I was in the Sahara desert.
Sweat dripped down my face, I was covered in sand and, all I could see was sand, cactus and more sand.
I was boiling, exhausted and defenseless, however I had a sharp pocket knife.
I rage, I kicked a cactus. Bad move. Ouch, I got about 6 splinters stuck in my foot, 7 to be exact but who’s counting.
Then it hit me, I got out my pocket knife and chopped off a piece of cactus, cut off the thorns and bit into the juicy plant. It tasted like cucumber but had much, much more water.
Soon in the distance I saw something. I couldn’t properly see it because a sand storm was happening. Holding my forehand in front of my face, I dragged my feet towards the strange sight. As I got closer, the strange structure became clearer. I was disappointed when I got there. All I saw was very, very old rocks stacked on top of each other but the good thing was that there was a saddled camel at the old building. It was strange to see a saddled camel with no one to ride it and I was dying, but nevertheless I was happy to see a camel.
I jumped on the two-humped animal and it trotted off slowly. Of course, I didn’t know how to ride a camel but I didn’t need to know, the camel trotted off in its own way.
On the way, I saw a mirage. Thinking it was water I stuffed handfuls of sand into my mouth and saw about 9 vultures circling around us, their beady red eyes followed us everywhere we went.
Meanwhile the blanket of sand got thinner and thinner until it turned into grass. The camel stopped in a lush village. I was a fish out of water because of my ragged clothes. The buildings were mostly made of stone and wood. The villagers gave me clothes. Because I did not have a family, I lived there. The village had no room for me, so I dug a small cave and placed furniture the villagers gave me in it.

Year 4 Writing Piece

Rhema, 4-31

In a Bottle

It was a hot, sunny day like always and Nina was still in the middle of the desert with Nile, and there was still no water – or that’s what Nina thought.

“Nina,” whispered Nile to wake her up. The lack of water was making the journey very hard and tiring. “I found something” cried Nile. “Is it water?” asked Nina desperately, “No but it’s still pretty awesome”.

Nina got up and followed Nile to the “pretty awesome thing”. “It’s over here!” cried Nile, starting to hobble over to a bridge. “Help me…help…me…” said a voice that seemed like a little girl’s. Nile started to break the wooden planks that blocked the sides of the bridge and out crawled a small, cute, lizard. “Hi!” said the lizard, relieved “thanks very much!”. “H-hi,” said Nina almost fainting. “D-d-did you just t-talk?” “Yes indeed, oh yes indeed, oh yes, in-deed,” cried the happy little lizard, “my name is Lilo, Lilo the lizard”.

“Water” cried Nina. “Hey I know where some water is,” said Lilo. There was a long pause. “Well? Are you going to tell us?” exclaimed Nina. “Um, yeah, sure, I will um, show you”. Lilo hesitated and started to run as fast as her little legs could but before they worked out why she was running so fast, a sand storm swept over them and flung them up high. The worst thing about this was how fast they were falling. BAM!

“Where are we?” asked Nina, tired from the storm. “Still in the desert, and still no water,” said Nile.

“Slurrrrp…slurrrrp” went a familiar noise. “LILO?” cried both Nina and Nile in disbelief when they saw Lilo drinking from a nearby river. Nina almost passed out as she saw the small lizard sip the last drop of the beautiful sparking diamond-like water.

“I’m going to die of dehydration” wept Nina. “And thats why I saved you some water!” said Lilo starting to open up the two bottles next to her. “Ummm, it seems that the heat has evaporated all the water in the bottles”. Suddenly Nina’s face went bright red and she fell on the hot, dry sand and blacked out.

“NINA!” Nile screamed. He opened her mouth and dropped some water in. “Nile?” questioned Nina, “How did you get the water?”. “Well it was in my backpack all along, and I pretended that our water supply was empty, and, well, I wanted an adventure, until you blacked out” admitted Nile. And with that, the two friends took the map (that was also hidden in Nile’s bag) and took off on another adventure to go home.

Now that the story has ended you must be wondering what happened to Lilo?

Well, Lilo actually followed Nina and Nile to their village. When they arrived the villagers were screaming “TALKING LIZARD! HELP! A DEMON HAS POSSESSED THIS LIZARD! HELP!” The duo turned around and saw that Lilo had been following them. She was banished from the village because she scared the villagers and drank all the water from the village fountain.

So with that, I would say that everyone lived happily ever after, well, except for Lilo.

Year 5 Writing Piece

Felicity, 5-03

Tsunami

It was the middle of the night when I heard sirens. I rushed into my little brother’s room but he was already awake. “Come on!” I shrieked. “We have to get Mom and Dad!” But it was too late. The tsunami crashed down onto our house, and we were swept away with the waves, separated by the force of this cold, cruel monster, tearing down our lives bit by bit, destroying everything we had ever known or loved…

It was unbearable! The pain, ooh the pain! I was being repeatedly smashed onto the hard ground, my lungs were about to burst! I couldn’t hold my breath much longer, and as I felt my consciousness slipping away, I felt a pair of small but determined arms lift me out of the water…

As I clambered up onto the roof of a ruined but stable house, I realized everything I had ever known was gone. My parents, my friends, my brother…wait, who had pulled me out of the water? “Help! Help! I’m slipping!” my brother! I had never been so happy to see him in my entire life! I slid over the tiles of the roof and hauled him up beside me. His skin was clammy and gray, and deathly cold. We looked around for anyone else we knew, but all we could see were the bodies, ghostly white in the pale moonlight.

Once the water level went down enough for us to wade in; we started to look for our parents. We eventually found them, among the shriveled litter of bodies. I touched each of their wrists in utter and hopeless desperation to find a pulse, but to no avail. We took off out dressing gowns and covered them up, since we could not bury them. When the police and ambulance arrived, we were surprised but grateful at the lack of questions. We were taken to the hospital and treated for hypothermia and pneumonia. But even if we found new homes or new families, we knew we would never forget the day our lives were taken from us, ripped from our bodies by the carnage and devastation of the tsunami…

Year 6 Writing Piece

Vanessa, 6-01

The ground shook, it shivered, sending a wave crashing on to the grey rocks. People fled. Squealing children going haywire, running everywhere, mothers rushed them back into the small brick houses. Then it hit, the killer wave we had feared, looming over our small town. Water flooded everything and everywhere. I panicked. I didn’t have a clue what to do. I ran all the way to the cottage on the hille. My grandmother’s house, she’d know what to do.

As I opened the heavy wooden door, there stood my grandmother packing seeds, bottles of water and her clothes. As she turned her grey face darkened, I knew why I shouldn’t have come to her house. My grandmother ushered me out the door. I saw a stray grey dog placing its puppies in a basket, another wave crashed down. The mother dog quickly and nimbly took her puppies and swam with them squirming on her back. I knew she wouldn’t make it and ran down the hill almost slamming on to a floating truck.

As I reached the bottom the water slapped into my chest pushing me back I treaded through the murky water approaching the dog. It whimpered as I reached for its back. I gently lifted up the dog, taking her shivering body into my arms, I shifted her to the side of my body and scooped three tiny puppies up with my other hand. As I walked back towards the hill, my grandmother bustled out the door of her cottage, screaming something, but I couldn’t hear her over the scream of children. Then a shadow rose behind me, darkening the green of the grass on the hill. As I turned I thrust out my hands, the dogs and puppies landing on the grass on the hill. I was swallowed by water.

Everything darkened.