It's So Sad...

I can't believe this. But it's goodbye. That's right, this is my last day at Enrich... Ever!!! So hard to believe. I really don't want to walk out those doors for the last time is exactly nine minutes. Well, not exactly for the last time, but you get what I mean - the last time where I am a student here. 

It 's been a great three years! In fact if you asked me what my favourite thing at Enrich has been, I would tell you to go away and not ask such ridiculous questions. How am I supposed to choose one!?

All I can say is, it's been great guys, have a great Christmas, New Years and rest of your life, and... Goodbye!!!

(Sobs) 

This is Isabella, signing off... 

Writers Studio 201 #2

This is the second installment of my progress in Writer's Studio 201! I finished the story today but I'm going to upload it bit by bit, so you'll have to wait for the end! Mwahahahahahahahahahaha

I was not standing in this hat shop just for the warmth it provided, but because I had run of of hats. I was reasonably frugal, not buying the cheap, nasty things but making sure they are reasonably priced. And yet I had gone through fifty-nine hats this year. Slowly I circled a rack of patterned hats. There were turquoise ones with black zebra stripes, yellow ones with pink dots, green ones with slits all around the brim. None of them seemed quite right. I had been scanning the shop for hours. 
Before long the manager bustled over. It was a stout little man with a vast amount of rather mousey brown hair on top of his head that added to his height by about five inches. His eyes were very sharp, very defined, a precise shade of blue. Although he was short, he seemed to hold a surprising amount of power. 
“Everything okay over here?” He squeaked. He obviously decided that things were not okay, because he took charge. “You don’t want to look here, not many have been satisfied by this rack, no. Come over here, you are our sixtieth customer and I have kept aside something very special for that very person.”
I followed him through a door, through another door, down a passage, around a corner, past a window that looked in on what must have been his office. He stopped suddenly and I very nearly knocked him over. 
“How silly of me, I walked right past it.” He murmured, shaking his head so that his hair wobbled around dangerously. I wondered suddenly if it was a wig. 
He walked backwards a few steps to the window, and pulled out a little stool that he stood on in order to see in. He poked his hand through and extracted a set of keys. He then began counting the bricks on the wall. 
“Fifty-seven, fifty-eight, fifty-nine... yes, it’s this one.” He said aloud. He pulled the brick out of the wall - it came out quite easily - to reveal a small padlock. 
“Yes.” He smiled and looked carefully at the engravings on the keys. He chose one and began twisting it around in the padlock. 
“I’m afraid this takes a dreadfully long time.” Said the man apologetically. “To put others off, you know. Even if they do manage to come to this spot, retrieve the key, count the bricks and find the lock, if none of the keys work at first then they will give up. Very important that nobody gets into my office, you’ll see in a moment...”

Writers Studio 201

No, not 101... 201! That's what we did today at Enrich - Writer's Studio which is a writing workshop. Here is a little chunk of my story that I wrote today...

It was sweltering hot yesterday, but not today, no. Today it is so cold my nose feels like it’s about to fall off. As I walked through the streets earlier on this morning almost every group of people I passed were discussing how quickly the weather changed. It was unexpected - in the middle of summer, a hot, sticky day like yesterday was not out of the ordinary, but a day like today, where you could see your breath in little puffs, where the sky is darkest grey, where people are lingering in shops simply for the warmth they hold, is very strange. As I stand in the hat shop I find myself wondering if this frigid weather signifies anything. For yesterday, it was so hot, and the weather report claimed that it would be so for the rest of the week, and the town was organizing a carnival. “Perfect weather for it,” people would say. There had to be a reason for this, I decided.

Hey, Sarah!

Digital Citizenship.
Yep, it's like a whole other world on that little computer. Take a close look at your computer right now, as you read this. Is it a desktop? A laptop? Is it a big fancy-pants Macbook Air? Or is it a tiny little E-Machines laptop that takes a quarter of a century to load one page?
No matter what it is, there's a whole other UNIVERSE on that computer. You can pretend you're somebody else in that universe. You can hide from people in that universe. You can stalk people in that universe. You can do pretty much ANYTHING in that universe!
Not that I'm accusing you of blackmail or scamming or stalking or whatever. I'm just saying that doing any of those things, and more, is easy if you know how. And if you're rotten enough to actually do that. To all those bad guys out there, you're sick. Stop it! Oh, why would you do such a thing?
Anyway, I'm saying all of this because we did a Digital Citizenship workshop today at Enrich. It's basically like an Internet safety workshop. Honestly, I've had at least three or four of those this year, so I know the deal. Don't share personal information about yourself or you could get attacked by creepy guys! Yes, it's all very well saying that, but who's actually going to listen? I bet all the creepy guys got told the exact same thing when they were at school, and look where that's got them. The same goes for people that have gotten attacked or bullied or abused or scammed or whatever. Sometimes they don't even do that many risky things. You could go onto Facebook right now, if you have one, and post a sweet selfie you took. No harm in that, right? Right. But just remember, there are some sick, sick people out there and they are watching you. I've probably got one watching me right now, and so have you. So if you happened to be very pretty or very handsome, or even if you're an ugly old toad and the picture just made you look that way, you have no idea where that photo could end up. Go on, think of one of your friends. Actually, I'll do that. Let's say I had a friend called Lily. (I don't, by the way, this is just an example). So I took a BEEEYYOOOTEEFUL selfie, and Lily was my friend on Facebook. (Again, just an example - I don't have a Facebook, authorities, I promise). So I sent this lovely picture to Lily. She thinks it's pretty too, so she sends it somebody else, who sends it to somebody else, and somehow it winds up in the hands of somebody else, who is not very nice. The person who is not very nice could either: also think that photo is beautiful and track me down, and start stalking me and hurt me emotionally, or they could share it to EVERYBODY THEY KNOW. So somehow, that pretty selfie went from being a cute pic of yourself that you sent to your friend, to being a very, very public photo that's all over the Internet and people are suddenly recognizing you on the street. That's a little bit like what happened to a girl called Sarah who was in a video we watched. She had a REALLY public Facebook page, and then she moved to a new town, a new school, and heaps of people had seen photos of her that may or may not have been attractive or simply just really pretty, and then she's walking around town with her friends and EVERYBODY is saying hi to her. A boy from school as they walk out the gates, who she has never seen before. "Hi Sarah!" She and her friends just giggle because he happened to be very cute. But then it gets more serious, and by that I mean more creepy. Like, "Hey, dude, look! That girl in the pink top! That's the girl I wad telling you about!" Until finally it reaches a maximum where she and her friends are buying tickets for the movies and the guy selling tickets, who is a middle-aged man with a bald head and glasses, says, "Hey Sarah. What colour underwear today?"
OH MY GOSH HOW CREEPY!!
Now I am certainly not saying that this is going to happen to you. NO, of course not! I'm just saying that it COULD. Now, the Internet is wonderful. Incredible thing. Very useful. I'm just saying, you have power, use it wisely...

Is Mr Froggy Nice and Comfortable?

If you're confused by the title of this post, don't worry, you're probably not alone. Just give me a minute and I will explain to you why I am talking about Mr Froggy.
He is making a special appearance in this post.
So today - first day back at Enrich for Term 4, ugh, step out of the car, it's pouring rain, I run inside, nearly fall over on the stairs because they are so slippery, chuck my bag in the cubby hole and go to check my e-mails.
As I am reading Darryn's e-mail, I pause to look at the day plan. I see that we have a TECHNOLOGY CHALLENGE. Again, ugh. I hate technology challenges. I always just seem to float around the outside of the group's circle, telling people how long we have to go and occasionally holding something in place or rolling up a bit of paper. But today was different. I was more involved, I think. I was in a group full of boys, which I thought was going to drive me mental.
I still wasn't in the absolute thick of things. I rolled up the newspapers. Contributed ideas. Pointing out things. Watched, thought, listened, suggested, checked the time... so yeah, I was still a part of it but not the person that did everything, if that makes any sense. It's just not my thing.
ANYWAY before I go on I must tell you what the Technology Challenge was. It was organized by Nicola, so of course it was fabulous. We had to build a chair, using newspaper, masking tape and scissors. Wait, it's not as ridiculous as it sounds. It didn't have to be a proper, full-sized chair that a person could sit on (although afterwards somebody from my group sat on ours and it held for at least three seconds). No, instead it had to accommodate...

THE FROG!!!!!

Actually the one we had to use was bigger than this and darker.

So the task was to make a chair for Mr Froggy. Out of newspaper and masking tape. Using scissors. Yep, definitely a challenge but not impossible.

So our group was going great. We had the base, the legs, were taping them together in a triangle shape, with the strength of the structure in mind. It was Mr Physics Man a.k.a Max who had that idea, because he knew that triangles were the strongest structure. Looking around, we saw that ours seemed the best. The group over in the corner had more of a couch thing, and it didn't look very strong. The group down on the floor area were focusing more on a table to go with the chair, which is silly because the main point was the chair and besides the frog doesn't even need a chair. Or a footrest, because its feet are all tucked up underneath it. And the group behind us was going badly, because they were testing it with the frog and it was collapsing. 

Even Darryn and Katie came over to us and we heard them muttering to each other that they thought ours was the best structure. When we took it down to the mat for judging, we saw the end product of the other groups and were were sure we were going to win. The group with the table didn't have proper legs on their chair, the one beside that (the ones with more of a couch) had just a pile of newspapers taped together, or at least that it what it looked like, and the other group's chair looked somewhat similair. Ours was the best-looking and the strongest-looking. It came to judging, some students did the judging and - major surprise - they didn't choose ours! Disaster! Darryn thought that ours was the best, but in the end we didn't win. Argh! 

So that's why I still don't like technology challenges. 

HI DAD

Just want to make a shout out to my AWESOME dad, happy Father's Day! Oh, wait, that's just been, hasn't it? Oh well, that's not the main point of this post anyway.

You know for our Affective Domain studies on a gifted individual (I'm doing Albert Einstein. I've made a blog about it previously - if you haven't read it already then do so now) how there's certain criteria that we have to meet? Well, one of them is "Information and pictures about any coaches or mentors they may have had." Now, Albert Einstein didn't have any major coaches or mentors that I know of, but his interest in Physics was triggered by his Father, who showed him a pocket compass one time. Albert was curious and started to explore the reasons and the science behind compasses, and from then on he started doing experiments just for funsies, and as he did this he began to show a talent for Mathematics and Physics. 

So, the Albert Einstein you know of today - the genius, the mastermind, the brainiac - MAY not be as successful as he is now if it weren't for his dear old pa. 

I'm Such A Little Bookworm

Yes, it's true - I am very much the bookworm.  I literally walk around banging into things because my nose is stuck in a book, most likely involving war, murder or supernatural themes. Here are a few of my favorites:

What If They Find Us? by Kathy Clark
The Harry Potter Series by J.K Rowling
Light As a Feather, Stiff As a Board by Zoe Aarsen
Twilight By Stephanie Meyer
The Hunger Games Trilogy by Suzanne Collins

But anyway, that's not actually what this post is about. Today we had Round 2 of the teacher-led workshops. I'm in Word Patterns with the amazing Nicola, and today we were making crosswords.

Who would have known how absolutely frustrating this task could be! I mean, all you have to do is choose a theme, put in some words and make them fit together, and add some clues, right? WRONG!

On the second sheet I went back and back to the first mini-crossword, the theme for which was Sport. It was originally Dance but that didn't work so I rubbed it off and started again. I did this many times until finally I had finished the first mini-crossword with the theme Sports. One of the words was Emily because that was the only thing that would fit... hey, for all we know, there' a famous swimmer or runner or discus-thrower or whatever called Emily!

For the last five minutes or so we played a game on the iPads called Bookworm. It's highly addictive and VERY educational, I assure you. Look it up on the app store and download it, you'll have your eyes glued to your iPad/iPod/iPhone/Tablet/Android/You Get The Idea for the rest of your LIFE!

Mwahahahahahahahaha.

SUCCESS!!!

I can't believe it! I've kicked that chess leader board in the BUTT after our chess session today! Usually I dread playing chess, and I'll tell you why...

At the start of the year, the names were placed randomly on the board. And I just happened to be at the very bottom. Just by coincidence. But I suppose SOMEBODY has got to be at the bottom, don't they?
But then again, this was turning into a problem for me. I would only ever move one or two spots up at a time and then I'd move back down the following week and so on. My mum came in one sharing night and saw me at the bottom of the board and started ranting. "You've seriously let your game slip, don't you care about your education, chess is SO important, if you played your brother at home more you'd be better," etc, etc. I still never really did anything about it though, until today.

Just another Monday. The music blared, we all raced down to the mat. Darryn took the roll, we went over the day plan. Sorted ourselves into groups for workshops. The student email got handed over to the same people as last week. Then...
"Chess!"
Oh no, oh no. All of my friends were already paired up, and so I had to challenge somebody I hardly knew. I looked up and down the leader board, from the top to the bottom. All the good spots were reserved by all the really good chess players that I'd have no chance of beating. But somewhere on the board, kind of in the middle, but still pretty high up, I saw a familiar name. "Whatever, he goes to my school, he's not a complete stranger," I thought. With a small sigh, I challenged him and we started the game.

I knew I was off to a good start when I took his queen right near the start. I lured him over with my rook, but by the time he realized that he couldn't take me because I was protected, it was too late, he was over there anyway. I moved my pawn forward - if he didn't move his queen, it would get taken. But he'll move his queen away, I told myself. Don't get your hopes up.
But, miraculously, he DIDN'T move his queen away! He moved a pawn or a bishop or something and realized what he had done only as he lifted his hand off the pawn or the bishop, whatever it was. I moved forward, grinning, and took his queen. Then, it was only a matter of time as I moved my queen to his king and maneuvered him into CHECKMATE!

Way to Go, Einstein!

I don't know if I've mentioned it before but for Affective Domain we have to study a gifted adult. I am studying Albert Einstein, a.k.a Abnormally Insanely Intelligent Human Life Form. He mainly excelled in Mathematics and Physics, which is pretty much exactly opposite from me. He actually failed in French in his entrance exams for the Swiss Federal Polytechnic in Zurich! And several other subjects! But he did really really well in his Physics and Mathematics exam. 
He was born on the 14th of March 1879 (which makes him a Pisces like me!) in Ulm, Germany. Yeah, weird name, but then cities in Germany often have weird names. 
He was Jewish. That is something that deeply interested me. I never actually knew that. Another thing that really interested me was that one his papers was published in a science journal called Annalen der Physik. Hey, another weird name!
But then I suppose, if you think about it in a different way, Einstein was a bit of a weird guy...

Stalking!

Haha, I'm going to crack up laughing when I get home because my mum is going to ask me, "Hi honey, what did you do today?" and I'm going to reply, "I learnt how to stalk people!" 

No, I'm kidding, we're not actually stalking people - we're people-watching and writing down lots of details about them. There IS a difference, you know!

So... a pleasant Monday afternoon with a hint of Spring found one fabulous school teacher and five rowdy children walking around town stalking people. (You know what I mean!). We went ALL over the place - up and down busy streets, up and down quiet streets, sitting on walls and even into the Library, because lets face it, you see some pretty - err - interesting people hanging around libraries. 

So as we were walking around in a pack with our little notebooks and pens, somehow a story involving murder unfolded in my mind. Little disconnected ideas were jotted down on my notebook, and soon they came beautifully linked together in a story about a creepy man with his eyes hidden sending murder letters, signing them, "Rest in peace - Murphy" to a seventeen-year-old girl called Mallory who naturally gets all freaked out and starts to investigate. Turns out she should have just kept out of it because she gets pulled into a big irreversible mess, discovering horrifying secrets about her assassin Murphy along the way. The grand finale takes place on top of the water tower at night where Mallory (stupidly) confronts Murphy and ends up getting thrown off the top of the water tower. I haven't decided if she dies or not, by the way. Oh, and I forgot one more crucial little detail - the second before Murphy chucks a screaming Mallory off the water tower, he growls, "Rest in peace."

I haven't decided what I'm going to call the story yet - I'm torn between Rest in Peace and Mallory and Murphy. Some advice, s'il vous plait? 

   

Uh - I Think I'm Lost

Today's Mapping and Geography workshop with Darryn was really cool and interesting, but I'll admit it was a little confusing at times because Geography and Logic is NOT my thing. I hate it! It's so confusing! Although it was much easier today, I still felt a little lost when Darryn started talking about C43 and North Mag/North Grid! I mean, wouldn't you?

But you're probably feeling pretty confused as it is, so I'll back up a little and start from the start, which I think's a good place to begin, don't you?

Today when we did the Geography and Mapping workshop with Darryn, I learnt about grids, compasses, how to make a 'bearing' and navigate my way through an enormous mass of forest, jungle, push, mountains, lakes and ocean!

Here are just some of the things we did...
We unfolded a few of Darryn's maps that he uses for hunting and studied it carefully, with Darryn telling us where what was and what all the lines meant and what was land and what was water... then we joined two maps together and he told us a crucial piece of information - that of you have two different maps but one leads on from another, then the two overlap because if they don't then in the middle you've got this big blank part and you're like, "Hey, what the heck's over there?"
Then it was... COMPASS TIME! Darryn plonked a compass on the map and the red side of the needle pointed to where was North so we could align our map, because the tops of maps always face North. Then we spun the dial on the compass so that the little 'N' was what the red line was pointing to, and then we turned our map around according to that so we were all exact and lined up.

Mt Izzy...
Next Darryn told us about 'bearings'. Some of us faced each other pretending to be mountains (Mt Izzy and Mt Emma) and another person had to make a 'bearing' from one mountain to the other.

We also covered things like one square on the map was one kilometre, there's a twenty-degree difference between the angle North Mag and North Grid, and more.
And to think I thought that maps were just a piece of paper with a bunch of lines all over them!

Newspaper

For once I'm not going to prattle on about my Passion Project, because that must be getting pretty boring by now. No, today I'm going to prattle on about something completely different - 
(Drumroll please...)
My newspaper article.
No, no, don't exit out of this post! Newspaper articles SOUND boring, but at Enrich they are the OPPOSITE of boring. For this article we're allowed to write about anything we want to. I only started last week but now it's DONE - well, at least, the actual writing part is done. I'm going to change the font and maybe add a picture and blah-de-blah-blah, but in terms of the hard stuff, I'm done. So I'm pretty relieved! 
So... I suppose you're wondering what I'm writing about? Well, I'd like to tell you, but you know me. I like to keep you in suspense, so I'm not going to tell you right this minute. I suppose you're just going to have to read next week's post to find out!

Catching Up

I have to catch up this week because I was not here last week (well, nobody was, Queen's Birthday, remember?) but I wasn't here the week before that either because I was in Auckland for an aerobics competition, and the week before THAT I was sick. 

So that's three weeks (well, two weeks, really, because nothing happened last week) of catching up to do! Not that catching up is a massive task at Enrich,  because we don't really have things that we go back to a lot, like Maths Contracts or Inquiry or whatever. Except...
PASSION PROJECTS!!!!!!

My historical fiction diary was exactly as I left it three weeks ago - so nothing had been done to it for three whole weeks! I had to get cracking. My fingers went flying over the keyboard. Click-click-click-click-clickety-click-clickety. Click. And one more click for luck. 

I'm going to ask if I can work on my diary at lunch (we're not allowed on the computer without permission today) and no way will the extra work make up for all the time I lost, but hopefully it will help!

I've just completed my 'Passion Project weekly planning' sheet, which is reflecting on this week's passion time and planning for next week. 
Hope I get my story finished soon!

Je suis si excite!!!

If you're wondering what 'Je suis si excite' means, it's French for 'I'm so excited.' And I am - really excited! Another thing you might be wondering is why I chose French. I mean, why not Italian, or Spanish, or Japanese? Well, I chose French because next week I am going to do a French workshop with Madison, as part of the student-led workshops.

I've wanted to learn French for ages, and I've heard of lots of different websites but I never found the time. Now I'm going to be learning with Madison, a student who has been studying French for her Passion Project. And, like I said before, I'm REALLY EXCITED! 

I don't really know why I want to learn French, of all languages. I don't have any French heritage or anything. Pretty much the only connection I have with France is that I do ballet, and all the moves are in French, and ballet originated in France and all that. Also, my older cousin Madison (not the Madison who's going to be taking the workshop) went to France last year, and she had the most AWESOME time. I was so jealous!

Anyway, I know a bit of basic French - Bonjour, Au revior, je, suis, si, excite, oui, non, maines, maman, papa. But I can't wait to learn more!

My Story

I didn't just call this post "My Story" because I am writing a story, and it's mine. I called it My Story because that's an example of the type of book I'm writing. I don't know if you've ever read the My Story series, but they're really, really good. They're all diaries, set in the past. The ones I'm most interested in are the ones set in the Tudor times, like...

Lady Jane Grey 

Elizabeth

Henry VIII's wives

Anne Boleyn and Me

Bloody Tower

And now I'm writing a historical fiction novel in the form of a diary. I don't know what it's called yet, because for some reason I always put the title of the story last. But I can tell you this. The years it's set in are 1533 to 1536 (Tudor times). The main character is called Annabelle Richmond, and she's aged 11 - 14 as the years go on. 

I started at 2 January 1533, and, by skipping days as diaries do, I'm now on the 25 January 1533 (the day that dear Henry VIII got married to him doomed second wife, Anne Boleyn).

I want to get the writing side of it done as soon as possible so that there's plenty of time for me to think about the publishing side of things, and so I can start on a new Passion Project hopefully at the end of this term.

I did some more research on those lovely Tudors today after I had done some writing, mainly about Anne Boleyn, Henry's second wife, (cousin of his fifth wife) and her EXECUTION!!!

This project is really beneficial. I'm learning so much while still having fun, I'm learning to manage my time well, I'm learning research skills, I'm learning task commitment, AND I'm practicing my writing! And all of it ties into one big passion, probably the academic passion I'm most passionate about: 

WRITING A DIARY ABOUT THE TUDOR TIMES. 

Passion Project Progress

Mwahahahahaha (laugh of Henry the Eighth)

As you know, for my Passion Project I am studying History (Tudors) to make a Horrible Histories type of book. The research is coming along, but boy, are those guys evil! And I thought I knew just how cruel and spoilt Henry the Eighth was. If you'll believe it, he had his own whipping boy when he was a kid, who got punished every time Henry did something wrong! Unfair or what? I also learnt that the Tudors were dirty old weasels. Henry's daughter Elizabeth the First had a bath once every three months, and people thought she was some kind of hygiene freak! I'm learning lots about the Tudor family tree. One of the things is that our current Queen, Elizabeth the Second, is actually RELATED to dear old Henry! The lines are vague, but yes, they are distantly related. I looked it up and found a Yahoo answer (don't worry, I cross-referenced) that told me exactly how they were related. I would put  the answer on here, but it's really confusing. Basically, Elizabeth, Henry's daughter, was succeeded by her cousin James the First, who was also related to Henry. His granddaughter Sophia married into the Hanover line (the current English line are descendants of Hanovers) and produced George the First. Charles the Second, James the First's grandson, had no children so next in line was his brother then he had kids and blah-de-blah and so on, and then Parliament took it all back to James the First, hence George the First, and then along came Elizabeth the Second. 
Told you it was confusing! 
And now I'm thinking of altering what I'm doing a little. Instead of making a book like Horrible Histories, I'm going to write a historical fiction story, like the My Story series. All this research is still crucial, as it's important to know as much as possible about the period of time you're writing historical fiction about. 

Reflections

The four cornerstones at Enrich are Concept Curriculum, Mental Edge, Passion/Talent, and Affective Domain. I've mentioned them a million times in my posts. And I've got a hundred and seventeen of them. We all know what they are and what they mean. At Enrich, we do activities to learn about the cornerstones. And those activities are usually fun. (Usually...)
We've done lots even in this first term (yes, it is nearly over. How very sad) and today we had to reflect on them. There was a paper copy and a digital copy, and we had to fill out the four boxes, one for each cornerstone, saying what activities we did to learn about that cornerstone and why we did it. Sorry if I'm boring you. I do try and make my posts exciting, but no luck - yet (heh heh heh....) I did a digital version, and it was pretty easy (once the gigglers I was working beside got themselves sorted and on with it!).
Here is my copy of the Term One reflection: (Sorry if it's a bit hard to read).

Sheep Drama

Remember the post titled ABC Drama? Well, that was a drama game, but it was only one of the many we're going to be doing this year.

Today we played four more, and they were really fun! I'll only describe one today. It was a game where three people sat in a line on the 'stage.' One of them said a word. BORING! But wait - it gets better. Then the next in line had to say another word. Patience, it does get better! And the words had to knit together to make a story — but each person was only allowed to say one word at a time. 

Here's an example:

Person 1: Yesterday

Person 2: I

Person 3: Went

1: To 

2: The 

3: Shops 

1: And 

2: I 

3: Bought 

1: A 

2: Sheep. (End of sentence.)

3: And 

1: The

2: Sheep 

3: Was 

1: Hairy. (End of  sentence.)

 2: I was

PERSON 2 YOU ARE OUT! 

Then another person takes the place of Person 2. Get it? The game was really, really fun, but it also got us thinking. Whenever we got too slow, Nicola would clap her hands impatiently, and we'd snap back to fast mode!

Passion Proposals

Bonjour, mon bon personnes!

Oops, sorry, that's French for 'Greetings, my good people!' (I'm thinking of learning French.)
So... PASSION PROJECTS!!! I have a crystal clear idea of what I am going to do, and I have filled out the proposal sheet. What I would like to do is...
I would like to study history. Not that boring-doring stuff they drum into you at school, like heir to the throne, rightful ruler, blah-de-blah-de-blah-blah-blah. No, I mean I want to learn more about that beast of a man, King Henry VIII, and him ordering to have people's heads chopped off, including two of his own six wives! Old nutter. And about the TORTURE DEVICES and the Tower of London and the many burnings, ordered by the oh-so-lovely Queen Mary I. Sounds good to me!
Once I've taken down loads of notes about the Tudor times, as that is the particular area that I will be studying, I'll make it into a sort of report thing, or maybe a book, because that sort of ties in with my OTHER passion, which is writing. Cool, right?
I still have to have a conference with Darryn, to see if he'll let me do my Passion project, so fingers crossed!

ABC Drama

No, I am not talking about trying to teach a dramatic toddler the ABC, I'm talking about the game we played with the marvelous Nicola!

Hands up if you know the alphabet? Whoa, too many hands! Okay, let me try again. Hands up who doesn't know the alphabet?
...................................................................................................................................................................
Okay, so its pretty obvious that 98 percent of us know how the alphabet goes. So the following game should be easy, right? WRONG! 
Am I boring you? Because it feels a little like I'm boring you. Can you see a pattern? Ding dong, can't you see it already? Epic, nobody can see this pattern. Flobberworms, this is DEFINITELY boring. Gaaah, this is infuriating! 
To stop my head blowing up, I'll just tell you the pattern. Nice and simple.
Go back to the first letter of every sentence. This how they go: A, B, C, D, E, F, G. Strangely enough, there's the alphabet!
So do you know how the game works? Imagine a conversation between me and my dear old brother Noah.
Me: Alright, want to play chess?
Noah: Bah, no way.
Me: Come on, you used to love chess!
Noah: Duh, not anymore.
Me: in a silly French accent: Eet ees boring, just sitting here talking about it!
Noah: Flips. Let's do flips on the trampoline instead.
Me: Gah, alright.
Noah: Hooray!

Get the picture?
Nicola told us that some people can just do this as if they're having a completely normal conversation. She said its fun to watch. 
Go on, why not have a game with your friends? You only have ten seconds to think of a sentence. Once you're good at that, cut it down to five seconds. If you keep cutting it down, eventually you'll be pros!

Patterns

Want to know what our universal concept is for the year? Patience, patience, and keep reading.
Our Concept Curriculum for the year (our universal concept) is... wait, I need to yawn.
Ooaaaaaaahh. Okay, so where was I again? Oh, yeah. Our universal concept for the year is Patterns. You know. The oh-so-lovely flower-patterned wallpaper in your house. The stripes on your mutant pet zebra. The spots on your mutant pet cheetah. Patterns.

The four categories...

I'm going to tell you a story. Once upon a time these dudes came along and said that patterns were sorted into four categories; Beauty, Strength, Survivability, and... darn it, I need to yawn again. Sorry, got no sleep last night. Ooaaaaaaaahh. So, beauty, order, strength and survivability. BOSS for short. Things created to generate those four things. Remember, they've got to relate to patterns. Can you think of any? If you can, then leave a comment telling me what they are, because I've got like zero comments on this blog. My mum left me one, my teacher at school left me one, and my teachers at Enrich post comments, since they have my details, and they can get into my account. Anyway, pur-lease leave a comment, even if you can't think of anything created to generate beauty, strength, survivability or order. Until next time, bye. 

I am...

I am... who am I? Yes, I am Isabella, but no, that's not the answer. Does 'Isabella' sum up everything about yours truly? Ooooh no. No, there's a lot more to me than 'Isabella'!

Well, if 'Isabella' isn't the answer, then what is? Want to know? Do ya? Do ya!

I'm not telling you.

Hah! Seriously, though, I'm not going to tell you. That sheet of paper titled 'I am...' is top-secret. Classified. For the eyes of nobody. The only one who knows EXACTLY what's on it is moi. And the teachers, but they haven't read it yet, so I really AM the only one who knows! 

So if I'm not going to tell you, what's the point of this blog post? Well, I'll tell you how the sheet was set out, and the purpose.

OK, so if you can imagine an A4 sheet of paper. You're looking at it portrait-style. At the top are the words, 'I am...' Then there is a list. The first thing on the list is... drumroll, please... 'I am'. Then a massive long line of dots, and that's where you write your answer. I wrote - 

NOT TELLING!

Next on the list is 'I wonder'. Then more dots. Then, 'I value.' and then - well, you get the general idea about the dots. The rest is:

I want, I fear, I am (two qualities), I pretend, I feel, I worry, I cry, I admire, I believe, I dream, I try, I hope, and then, once more, 'I am'. 

Some of these questions are REALLY personal, so basically we were pouring our hearts out onto that bit of paper. For this reason, if you wanted your bit of paper to be classified, (which I did) then all you had to do was put an asterisk beside your name at the top. I think pretty much everyone did that! 

Well, until next time, farewell.