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.