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!