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Pablo and the black bird

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Release Date: 05/30/2023

The Wind Shape show art 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 show art 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 show art 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 show art 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 show art 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 show art 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 show art 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 show art 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 show art 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 show art 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...

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More Episodes
Just as Pablo turned towards the kitchen window, he saw a bird.
 
A little Blackbird.
 
The little Blackbird sitting on the windowsill had small bright yellow eyes.
The bird seemed to be looking almost curiously at Pablo for some reason.
 
As if he was wondering what Pablo was about to do.
Pablo stood very still. He did not want to see the bird fly away.
It was not every day that Pablo had a little black bird sitting on his kitchen windowsill, but then again.
He wondered. Had he seen this bird before?
Was this the little bird that had been sitting outside on the steps?
The same day he had sat outside last Saturday, on the steps outside his apartment on the sidewalk in the sun.
 
Probably not, he thought to himself. How would he know anyway?
Little blackbirds like this one, well, most of them looked the same.
 
Although this one was kind of a little bit different. he seemed confident somehow. As he was meant to be there and Pablo was the visitor
 
It was certainly looking at him a little bit differently, as if it was most curious. Perfect, Pablo thought.
 
Now the little bird was going to delay his pizza making and he was feeling very hungry.
The little bird's eyes seemed to dart around the kitchen very quickly before landing on Pablo. Was he curious about me?
 
Pablo wondered to himself, while he must be.
 
Nice to have company, Pablo thought. As he remembered how difficult it was being away from people.
Especially at the time, so many people were separated from each other. He appreciated the company of this little bird. The bird looked up and chirped at him happily.
He then chirped again very loudly and flew away.

English lesson objective
Enhance your understanding of descriptive language by answering the following questions

Answer the following questions:

Have you ever observed a unique encounter with an animal or bird?

  • How do you think Pablo felt when he first noticed the blackbird?
  • Why do you think he wanted the bird to stay?
  • How did Pablo's feelings change when he realized the bird might have been observing him before?

What have learned about the descriptive language and emotions through the story of Pablo and the little black bird?
 
Exercises:
 
Write a continuation of the story, imagining what happens after the blackbird flies away.
Create a piece of artwork sharing some part of the story