The Wind Shape
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Explore all episodes and download from the full library: Once Pablo had turned on the bench, he could feel his body almost swaying gently with the wind. And in his dream, he remembered more of the story. The story was about: How the wind slowly turning along with the shape of the land began to move it. It began to slowly move the land, millions of little particles at a time from one place to another. He remembered the story of how mountains were made, how rocks were turned, and how smooth edges would appear on cliff faces. How the wind moved the ocean across the rocks to make slow,...
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Transcript: The Grass That Listens
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Explore all episodes and download from the full library: As Pablo slept, a small snake slithered behind his chair and back into the long grass, slowly making its way through the field up the hill towards the lighthouse. It was almost as if it were listening to the wind. Pablo was fast asleep and could not hear the snake in the grass, but he could almost hear the wind in his dream as it moved slowly and softly. He turned over on the bench with his back facing the ocean and felt the wind gently sweep over him, swirl as it hit the top of the bench, and then move out across the grass and up the...
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The Story of the 5th Season
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When Pablo was dreaming, he dreamt of a house. He'd been to this house before. It was a very beautiful house, and it had felt like a place that he knew was home, once, long ago. When he walked through the house, he was thinking, as he looked out the window, to try and see the open field below. But then suddenly he appeared in the kitchen, and he was sitting at the table, drinking a warm cup of hot chocolate. And while he was looking around in the dream, he suddenly thought something. He remembered a simple story somebody had once told him about two winds: A wind that moved slowly around the...
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The Wind That Turns
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Pablo lay stretched out along the bench. His body relaxed. His legs extended. He closed his eyes. And once again… He drifted into sleep. In his dream, he could sense something moving. A strange wind. It moved across the land. Over the hills. Through the desert. Across the tops of a rainforest. Then down through a river gorge. Flowing toward the place where the river met the sea. And then… Out across the ocean. As it travelled over the water, it began to change. The air shifted. The wind turned slowly. Softly. As if it were alive. Circles began to form above the moving air. A second current...
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The Bench and the Dream
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Pablo walked slowly along a quiet path. He had taken off his shoes and socks earlier, leaving them behind near the rocks, choosing instead to walk barefoot. The path beneath his feet felt smooth. As if many people had walked it before him, shaping it gently over time. With each step, he could feel it softly pressing into the bottom of his heels, almost like a quiet massage. The surface was warm from the sun. He felt his toes against it. Grounded. Present. He felt free. Connected to the earth. Alive. A gentle breeze moved around him. He could smell small flowers he had never noticed...
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The Valley below
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When Pablo stood up again, he looked down to the valley below. The sand on his shoulders and arms blew off in the light breeze. The valley stretched quietly out below a wide basin of colour and sharrow. From where he stood he could see the deep reds, soft yellows and hints of blue and green. As if somehow someone had sprinkled wildflowers magically across the valley floor. As if the earth had somehow helped to paint its own little secret. The wind travelled up from the ocean, not harsh and not strong, just enough to move the air as the grass swayed back the other way in a long gentle hush....
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The Long Grass
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The long grass moves slowly across the hill in wide rolling waves from the bottom up through the middle towards the top corner as if the land was almost breathing itself sweeping up towards the top of the hill and towards the lighthouse. Pablo stood for a moment struck by the sheer beauty of it. The hillside was alive. Thousands and thousands of blades of grass moving and rising together. It was almost as if someone was somehow guiding the movement like a conductor with invisible hands brushing across the surface of the hillside. He walked towards the edge of the old lookout platform and sat...
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The Ancient lighthouse
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It was ancient looking, so ancient from where he stood. He couldn't make out the shapes that were carved into the sides. Though he imagined they could have been of creatures that may have clung there over time. Mollusks, large seashells from sea snails that had been worn by years of sea and wind over the time. You could just see at the very top a kind of strange spike up into the air that looked like it had some sort of lump inside it of some description. It wasn't quite straight as if it had been handmade somehow. It was difficult to see from here. He wondered what it was used...
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The Forgotten lighthouse
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When he looked up the hill, he could see a windy old road that climbed up slowly into the distance, meandering its way up towards what looked like a large cluster of trees, almost a forest in a way. He wondered why there wasn't a lighthouse here. The sea was blowing rough enough, and he knew this as the Shipwreck Coast. He had heard the stories. Surely there would have been a place for one up here somewhere. And then he turned towards the right, and there it was, a lighthouse perched high on top of the hill. It wasn't like anything he had seen before. It was older somehow, abandoned as...
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The Climb
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Pablo climbed carefully up the steps, his feet searching for the worn holes in the rocks. The stone was cold beneath his skin, his feet almost wrapped around each rock as he slowly made his way to the top, every now and then brushing against a sharp shell. He moved slowly, feeling each step, grabbing the next rock as he finally reached the top. And there at the top, the ghost of an old platform. The wood was faded by the sun, it had been made of old railway sleepers that had been bound together very carefully, somehow the whole structure hanging there. On the right hand side a large...
info_outlineThe smell of rain. Pablo wondered what it was called. The smell of rain. It reminded him of his home country.
Pablo decided to Google it. The name of the word was Petrichor
The word Petrichor means
The earthy smell when rain falls on dry soil. He suddenly felt very sleepy. He decided to lay down and have a nap before making his pizza.
Shortly after he lay down, there was another knock at the door.
When Pablo got to the door, there was a young man with black curly hair. Standing on the unevenly, a hoverboard hovering above the ground.
Coming for a ride? He asked.
Pablo thought he looked familiar. He couldn't quite remember where he'd met him, but he'd seen him at some point somewhere.
I'm not sure, Pablo said. Just as the young man reached out, grabbed him by the hand and placed him precariously on the back of his hoverboard. And down the stairs they went, quickly, whizzing past people who were quietly coming upstairs.
Out into the street and along the footpath, as fast as the board could carry them, they made their way outside the doors of a large bank.
Pablo jumped off the board and walked through the doors of the bank. Where there was a large queue of people standing. He stood in line.
Above him was a very large television screen, like a movie theatre.
Above him was playing an advertisement.
He looked ahead of him in the line. In front of him there was his friend Peter. Pablo looked up to the big screen and the words suddenly appeared in
Chat
Get
Peter
Too
Suddenly, Pablo woke up.
English Lesson: Vocabulary and Reading Comprehension
Objective: Identify new vocabulary words from the text above and understand the meaning of the words used in our story
"The Smell of Rain"
- Have you ever noticed a unique smell when it rains?
What experiences and feelings have you had about the smell of rain?
2. "Petrichor." Do you know what it means?
The word Petrichor can be described as "the earthy smell when rain falls on dry soil."
3. Listening to how this word relates to the story, how it might be used in other ways?
Comprehension Questions:
- What did Pablo wonder about when he smelled the rain?
- How did Pablo discover the name of the word related to the smell of rain?
- What does the word Petrichor mean?
- What did Pablo do after discovering the meaning of the word Petrichor?
- Who did Pablo meet outside his door?
- What did the young man offer Pablo?
- Where did Pablo and the young man go on the hoverboard?
- What did Pablo see when he walked into the bank?
- Who did the big screen in the bank mention?
- What happened at the end of the story?
English language vocabulary from today's lesson
- Petrichor - the earthy smell when rain falls on dry soil
- Hoverboard - a type of skateboard that hovers above the ground
- Precariously - dangerously unstable or insecure
- Queue - a line of people waiting for something
- Advertisement - a public promotion of a product or service
- Whizzing - moving quickly through the air with a buzzing sound
- Comprehension - understanding or grasp of something
- Reminded - caused someone to remember something
- Familiar - known or recognized from past experience
- Suddenly - happening quickly and unexpectedly.