This months “YOUNG ACHIEVER” is writer Henslie Darke-Schreiber.

“WORKING TOGETHER” article was written in “The First Person” by 8-year-old third-grade honor student-athlete Henslie Darke-Schreiber.  Henslie is a gifted third-grade student who is taking accelerated academic courses.

She plays soccer, softball, and basketball and is on the traveling team for each sport.  She is also an excellent competitive swimmer, enjoys hiking, and has a passion for gymnastics.

Henslie enjoys building legos and aspires to be a writer.  Other information about Hadie was withheld by request. We want to point out that Henslie’s literary project is a work in progress.

“WORKING TOGETHER”

Once upon a time, there were four(4) penguin friends. Their names were Lucy, Chris, Lilly, and Jacob. They lived in Iceland and go to a penguin school. They love to play in the snow, fish, and play together. They do not like being bullied or left out.

Today they are going to visit Lilly’s grandparents and play on their ice rink. They hopped in the ice car and drove off.  Before they knew it, they were at Lilly’s grandparents. Lilly’s grandparents greeted them at the door. They went inside their igloo and talked for a while.  

They decided to go ice skating. After an enjoyable day on the ice, they went inside and ate their favorite meal (fish tacos). It started to get dark, and they all had to get back home because tomorrow is the first day of school.

We worked awhile on an art project and heard a bell ring. This meant that it was time for lunch. My mom packed me a cold peanut butter fish sandwich for lunch.  YUM! My lunch was so good.  Now It was time for recess, and we got the whole squad here ready to play. What do you want to play? Ask Jacob? Let’s play tag, no hide and seek? Let’s take a vote? Who votes for hiding and seek? 1…2…? Who votes for the tag? 1…2..3…4. I guess we are playing tag.   Then we switched over to hide and seek since we were all getting tired. It’s time to go back inside, said Mr. Featherbottom.  We went back in and started to finish our art project. Mine was a painting of the sunset. After that, we got all of our books and read until it was time to go home. The bell rang… ding, ding, ding.  My mom picked me up, and we went home. I have exciting news my mom said, I’m making fish brownies for snack tomorrow. Oh, I yawned; I am tired. So, I am going to bed.  

I love my school. I ate fish waffles for breakfast.  My mom dropped me off for school. I went inside the school. Mr. Featherbottom said that today is going to be different. Marcus raised his hand to ask why? He said because I could not pick one of the fabulous art projects, my old art teacher will come here and pick three beautiful paintings. So, what will change? Ask Chris? She will be coming in at the end of the day, and we will not have that much time for a snack. Awwww… but since she will be here, we will have a quick snack. Yay!!! Said everybody. After they talked, ding, ding, ding. Time for lunch. We all put our books down and got in line to go to the lunchroom.  My mom packed me fish chicken. Yummy! Time for recess. We went to play together. It was so much fun! 

Time to line up again said Mr. Featherbottom. We went back to the classroom. Then, the door opened, and Mr.Featherbottom’s old art teacher came in. She sat her stuff down on Mr. Featherbottom’s desk and went to the front of the room. She went to the front of the room and introduced herself. My name is Mrs. Flower. I heard that I am going to be judging some beautiful paintings.  How does this work? Jacob raised his hand and explained. You pick three paintings that you think are the best paintings in all the room. Those people can earn their art badges.  Well, ok, then. Let’s get started. She said it was a tough decision since all the paintings were so wonderful. Finally, she picked the three paintings. I liked the one that has an “L.”  I also liked the red oreo painting. It is very created.  And the last one, I picked the sunset. It has many blended colors and has a beautiful sunset, and it is a wonderful picture. We grabbed our paintings off the desk, and Mr. Featherbottom took our picture. Everyone clapped for us.  

The bell went ding, ding, ding… it was time to pack up and go home once again. My mom was late in picking me up from school. I was the last one here. My mom said, sorry! What took you so long, I asked. I picked up a cake for Lucy’s birthday party. Why are you picking up the cake? Shouldn’t Lucy’s mom pick up the cake? Yes, but we are throwing a surprise party for her. On the way home, I asked my mom if Lucy is coming over today. Because we have a cake.  We got out of the car to start looking for a good spot to hide her penguin birthday cake. We looked everywhere. We could not find a hiding spot for the cake anywhere, and Lucy was coming soon.  

Knock, Knock. Lucy is at the door. Oh no, what do we do? We threw the penguin cake in the fridge. Lucy’s mom dropped her off, and we went straight upstairs to play with my penguin dolls. When we were playing, Lucy was sad. I ask her why?  She said, my mom shows me my cake, and she never showed me one, and I am worried she forgot about my birthday. We pretended that the penguin dolls are us and so we have a party. Your mom would never forget about your birthday. Lucy’s mom rang the doorbell, and she was there to pick her up. I waved goodbye to her.  My family went out for some fish for dinner.  Mom said tomorrow is going to be a big day. I said Good night and went to bed.  

Good morning penguin friends. Today is Lucy’s birthday. I am so excited to go to a penguin birthday party. I went to get dressed in my penguin’s best dress. My mom called me down to eat french fish sticks. Then, we got in the car to go to Lucy’s birthday. My penguin brother threw a fit because he wanted to come to the penguin birthday party. My mom said that this is only for Lilly’s friends. We had a cake and a big present for her. Her party was at the “Big Penguin Trampoline Park.” I met Lucy there, and she was so excited. I told her; her mom did not forget about her! She smiled.  We got to jump and dive on the Trampoline, and  It was so much fun! We ate a fish cake, and it was so delicious.  I gave her a couple of canvas so she could paint some more.  

 The next morning I got to have homemade fish pancakes for breakfast. Today, we will be going to the snow park for the badge parade. There will also be a cupcake penguin competition. That sounds fun, said Jacob. After that, we are going to play on the ice rink with all of our penguin friends. Teachers from other area schools will be judging the cupcake baking contests.  We picked our table to bake on. We got our colored aprons on… 3..2..1… start. Our group of penguins had a plan. One boy penguin thought that we should only make what he wants. So now we have a big problem. The time is running out, and we have not even started. Then the boy said, Let’s make separate cupcakes. I said, No, we have to work together. You learn by working together. Let’s see who makes the best cupcakes. Our competitor’s baking tables were a big mess, and ours was perfect. You can always take talents from one another and use them. As we just finished baking our cupcakes, the timer went off. Perfect timing for a penguin! We took our cupcakes to the big table for the teachers to judge them. We were waiting for at least an hour, and the penguin teachers finally made the big decision. The Penguin School and Snow School both won. We got two big trophies for both schools.

This teaches all of our friends to work together and not to be mean. Penguins can always get along working together

FOOTNOTE: This article is part of our new series called “YOUNG ACHIEVERS.”  If you know of talented youngsters (12 years or younger) that excel in the arts (music-painting-dance-acting), creative writing, academics, and athletes, please submit your nominee to the City-CountyObserver@live.com. So we can publish their achievements.