Stallion Star Gazette
December 2017
Christmas Traditions
by Fatimah
There are many traditions that different people in different countries celebrate around the world on Christmas Eve and on Christmas.
One of the traditions is that you get presents and the person who is known to deliver the gifts for kids is Santa Claus. Children leave cookies or other treats for Santa Claus to eat. Also,some people leave carrots for him to feed to his reindeers. People also like to hang stockings for him to put other gifts in and under the Christmas tree. Kids send cards and have parties with delicious,scrumptious foods and drinks for them to enjoy. Many people sing carols and many other songs. They have a fun time celebrating togetherness with family and friends.
One common tradition is decorating a Christmas tree. People usually use many colorful ornaments,lights and many other different decorations. Christmas trees are thought to be from two German customs. One is a fir tree which is also known as the “Paradise tree.” The second one is the “Christmas pyramid.” This object is triangular and has many shelves that would hold Christmas figures like dolls as an example. It was decorated with evergreens,scented candles and a big,shiny star.
Prince Albert and Queen Victoria were the ones responsible for making many Christmas traditions popular in the United Kingdom.Prince Albert was raised in Germany and tried to encourage many people to do some of the German Christmas traditions.Examples:Getting a lovely Christmas tree and and giving out beautiful and sweet Christmas cards to friends and families.
British families like to eat mince pies and cake, people in Mexico like to eat tortillas with syrup and cinnamon sugar and in France people like to eat log-shaped sponge cakes.
Many people around the world go to church for Christmas. In the middle east city of Bethlehem, where people say Jesus was born,many services are held in the Church of Nativity. There are many Christmas traditions around the world.Many people celebrate different traditions of Christmas and much more. Which traditions do you celebrate for Christmas?
https://www.BritannicaSchool.com
Lionel Messi
by Samarth
Lionel Messi was born on June 24, 1987, and he is still alive. He is a soccer player.He plays for Argentina. Messi also has a son named Thiago. Messi is very popular. He is one of the greatest soccer players of all time. Messi won Player of the Year Award five times between 2009–12 and in 2015. He is on the top ten list in most people’s opinion. Messi is number 1; in some other people’s opinion, the number one player is Diego Maradona. I don’t only like Messi--I also like other soccer players--but I love Messi the most. And I also love soccer.
Comics by Felix and Veer
Ramadan and Eid
by Fatimah
Eid is a very traditional holiday. Eid is a very fun celebration, but before there is something called Ramadan.
Ramadan is from the religion of Islam. The reason we have this is because it was when Prophet Mohammed (Sallallahu Alayhi Wa Sallam--SAW) received the words of the Quran (Koran).The Quran is a very holy book. In Ramadan they pray, read the Quran and fast. Fasting is when the people can’t eat or drink from sunrise to sunset.
In Ramadan, little kids, old people and people who have illness do not have to fast. When sunset comes there is a feast called Iftar. Iftar is when you break your fast. People usually eat a khajoor or apricot first. For drinks they drink water or sweetened milk. Sometimes,they have Iftar at home,friends’ or relatives’ houses or at the Masjid.
Ramadan is the ninth month on the lunar or Islamic calendar. The lunar calendar is based off the moon and that means it can happen on different dates. On the 27th day of fasting it is called “The Night of Power” (Lailatul Qadr). On the 27th it is said that Allah (God) revealed the Quran. Muslims usually spend extra time praying that night.
Ramadan ends when you see the new moon.Then starts the month of Shawwal (10th month of the lunar calendar). Now Ramadan ended--it is now EID!
Eid lasts for 3 whole days! All Muslims at dawn, go to the Masjid for prayer. People have parties,enjoy sweets,wear new clothes and exchange gifts. People take tons of beautiful pictures of their clothes. Everyone spends time together. When people meet other people at parties the say their greetings and say “Ramadan Mubarak!”
All 3 days are really fun. What traditional holidays and traditions do you celebrate?
Boy, Were We Wrong About Dinosaurs
by Felix
Have you seen this creature in the picture? Did anyone tell you that is a dinosaur? Well….WRONG! This reptile is a Pteranodon, which is not a dinosaur. It is a reptile with wings. When scientists found this huge reptile in 1870, they called it a dinosaur at first. But when they recovered this creature they found out it was not a dinosaur. They discovered that this reptile had wings, different than any other dinosaur.
Plesiosaur lived in the water. Was this a dinosaur? If you said yes…WRONG! This one was a marine reptile since it lived in the water. These were the first reptile fossils ever found. It was found in 1821 by Mary Anning. It is not a dinosaur because dinosaurs have holes in front of the eye sockets but Plesiosaurs don’t have these holes.
Did you know some dinosaurs are like puzzles? Iguanodon was the second dinosaur ever found but there was a huge mistake. Gideon A. Mantell accidently put the spike on the Iguanodons nose! He soon found out it was totally wrong and figured out that it was supposed to be on its thumb.
If you are a fan of Tyrannosaurus rex, I’m not trying to hurt your feelings-- but a spinosaurus was much bigger than a T.rex. It was 59 feet, and the Tyrannosaurus rex was 40 feet. But a Giganotosaurus is the biggest carnivore ever found so far.
Does your mother boss you around and tell you to do your chores? Well this is what I’m going to talk about ! This dinosaur was a Maiasaura.The dinosaur scientists are talking about Maiasaura because this creature had a strange instinct of taking care of its babies so well! (I have a joke. Knock knock ! Doesha! Doesha who? Doesha mom take care of you! Okay back to the point.) When Maiasaura made its nest, it left its babies with another Maiasaura and took turns.
This is a horrible mistake too! In 1924, they found a dinosaur named Oviraptor. Scientists believed this dinosaur stole other dinosaurs’ eggs.But they realized they were totally wrong! They found that the mother or father were sitting on their own eggs!
Did any of you think that a Brachiosaurus or Apatosaurus was the biggest dinosaur to walk on the earth? If you said yes...WRONG! The biggest dinosaur was a Sauroposeidon and the longest dinosaur was a Seismosaurus.
Did you know that a Therizinosaurus claws were about 28 inches? Even so, dinosaurs were not MONSTERS!!!!! They were huge reptiles! In China,when they first found a dinosaur fossil they thought it was a fossil of a giant dragon, but soon they found it was a fossil of a huge reptile. From that day on paleontologist call them dinosaurs because saur means reptile.
Do you want to learn about dinosaur that was like a soldier? You're in luck because there is! Scientists gave Corythosaurus its name because its crest was shaped like the helmets in Greece.Have you thought your brother or sister is the most annoying, loudest creature ever to live? Well I’ll give you some noisy information! A parasaurolophus was the loudest, most annoying dinosaur to ever walk on the earth! With its crest it could make a low pitched sound that could irritate your ears. It could also use its crest like a snorkels to look in the water for aquatic plants.
Here’s a dino tip if you like to headbutt. Pachycephalosaurus was the champion at headbutting because of its dome shaped head. Its skull was 20 times thicker than regular dinosaur heads. Did you also know that a Edmontosaurus was twice as big as a fire truck? And a Scelidosaurus was the first dinosaur with a complete skeleton ever found.
Many scientists are wondering about how the dinosaurs died. There are lots of theories on how the dinosaurs died but the main one is when an asteroid hit the earth and a lot of smoke blocked the sun, and at the same time a volcano blew up and wiped all these reptiles out. We still don’t know for sure how these creatures died but scientists are trying to find out. If anybody tells you that this information is wrong, tell them look at this stuff and they might be the one who is wrong.
Source:
https://www.dkfindout.com/us/dinosaurs-and-prehistoric-life/dinosaurs/
Pictures:
By Ryanz 720 (Own work) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
By Ryanz720 (Own work) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
By Dinoguy2 (talk) Spinosaurus_BW.jpg: ArthurWeasley (Spinosaurus_BW.jpg) [CC BY 2.5 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.5), CC BY 2.5 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.5), GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html) or CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/)], via Wikimedia Commons
By Nobu Tamura (http://spinops.blogspot.com) (Own work) [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html) or CC BY 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons
By ДиБгд at Russian Wikipedia (Transferred from ru.wikipedia to Commons.) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
By DinoTeam (Own work) [CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)], via Wikimedia Commons
Sea Creatures
by Veer
Sharks
Sharks are a bit mistaken as deadly creatures that will eat any meat that they find. That is wrong. Just like bugs, sharks will attack only if they feel threatened. And actually, did you know that deers are more dangerous than sharks? There are about one or two shark attacks that occur annually while there can be about 1.5 million car crashes caused by deer! In 2006, there were 150 deaths resulted because of deers.
Anyway, the largest shark is a whale shark, which can weigh up to 60 tons. One shocking fact in that whale sharks are the only type of shark that is a herbivore! Yes, the whale shark eats krill and plankton, small organisms that live in the ocean. This massive animal has a length of 41.5 pounds. This animal is named “whale” because of its huge size.
Dolphins:
Dolphins are not fish. These sea creatures are actually mammals! A dolphin can stay submerged for 8 to 10 minutes but some can stay underwater for around 15 minutes. If they run out of breath, they swim to the surface and do a spectacular dive out of the water. While they are out of the water, they inhale the fresh air and exhale carbon dioxide, just like humans. But there is one difference: they breathe through their blowholes!
Dolphins are carnivores, and they eat fish like herring and mackerel. The largest dolphin species is a killer whale, or orca, which also got its name because it’s so massive. A killer whale is at the top of the food web. A male orca can weigh 8,000 to 12,000 pounds and a female can weigh 3,000 to 6,000 pounds.
Plankton:
Plankton are tiny organisms that live in the ocean. They are unable to swim against currents and are vital to many herbivores in big bodies of water. There are many different kinds of plankton, but we will focus on two of them for now.
Zooplankton is an important food source to fish, salamanders, aquatic insects and large sea creatures. They can consist of tiny organisms which can be found in seas, rivers, lakes and ponds. Zooplankton is usually transparent which helps camouflage it. But some zooplankton are brightly-colored and are usually blue and orange. Even though it is mostly microscopically small a jellyfish is actually also considered a type of zooplankton because it cannot swim against currents.
Phytoplankton is a special type of plankton that is very beautiful in the night. Wondering why? This special type of plankton can glow an astonishing color of blue and will float around the shoreline at dark! Phytoplankton got its name from phyton, a greek word that means ‘plant’ and planktos, meaning ‘wanderer’ or ‘drifter’. Phytoplankton glow in the dark because they are one of the bioluminescent plankton. Fireflies also are bioluminescent because they glow in the dark.
Words to Know:
Herbivore: a type of animal that only eats plants.
Krill: an aquatic organism similar to plankton.
Plankton: a tiny organism that is vital to the herbivores that live in the ocean.
Carbon Dioxide: the gas that all mammals exhale. Vital to plants.
Blowhole: a small hole on top of a dolphin’s or whale’s head that is used to exhale out of.
Carnivore: a type of animal that only eats meat.
Species: a group of animals that are mostly similar but have some differences.
Aquatic: relating to natural bodies of water.
Camouflage: a natural adaptation that allows an animal to blend in with its surrounding.
Bioluminescent: having the ability to glow in the dark.
Sources:
http://cultureofsafety.thesilverlining.com/driving/deer-vs-car-collisions for info about how many deaths were caused by deers.
http://school.eb.com/levels/elementary/search/articles?query=sharks&includeLevelTwo=true
http://school.eb.com/levels/elementary/search/articles?query=dolphins
http://school.eb.com/levels/elementary/search/articles?query=plankton
Snow
by Evelyn
HAVE you ever wondered why snow falls out of the sky? Have you ever wondered why it comes out in winter ? Have you ever wondered how snow is formed and what it’s made of? Well, this article will answer all of your questions! Just keep on reading!
You wake up on a freezing cold and dim morning. Guess what season it is of the year? Winter!!! Look out the window and find something falling out of the sky. What is it? That’s snow.
Snow is made very weirdly! You may think that it’s made very quickly; sorry,you’re wrong. It takes a long time for snow to be made and fall onto your tongue or the ground. The process could take up to 2 whole hours!
First, the weather gets super cold. Then, rain starts to fall out of the sky, but it’s still up, up, up, up, in the air. Since the air is still freezing cold,the water (rain) turns into …… SNOW!!!!! Now,all we have to do is go-down-a long- long-way till it reaches the earth. I know it’s going to take forever!!!!!!!!!!!!
It only comes out in very very cold weather, but it also has to be raining. That means the rain will be falling out of the sky and freezes before it touches the ground. That is the perfect timing for …… winter!!! Rain always has to have time to change into snow, and that is also why snow falls out of the sky.
Snow is needed in our world to keep everything not too hot or too cold. Always admire something just like snow.
Here are some links I used for this article:
“Snow” Science. Capstone, 2017. Web. 12 Dec 2017
"Snow." Britannica School, Encyclopædia Britannica, 1 Nov. 2017. school.eb.com/levels/elementary/article/snow/400182. Accessed 12 Dec. 2017.
Stallion image: Encyclopædia Britannica ImageQuest
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