The Frankenstuffie project is kind of a tradition in PLP. Though it has changed drastically since the first group did it because of the curriculum change, it held strong through its core. Like, who does not love cutting up stuffies and sewing them back together!
We started our unit by reading. I love reading, especially if it is a good book. And it was! We got to read The Martian by Andrew Weir. It tied into the unit because every few chapters, we would have to fill out a novel sheet.
Within that, we had to choose an animal on which to base our story around. Yay. Research. We had actually just been there, on our Calgary Trip. So I already knew a bit about it. Anyways, I chose a wolf. I already had a wolf stuffy that I could use, so I was all set!
This was where the Martian reading came in. We had to write an epistolary story about our Frankenstuffie. The climax was a disruption in a matter cycle that caused our animal to have to adapt.
This project went across the board, connecting humanities to science. We learned about the matter cycles: Phosphorus, Carbon, Water and Nitrogen. I chose the water cycle, but also had parts of the carbon cycle mixed in. My disruption was that humans were burning to many fossil fuels. This caused the surface air to heat up. Hotter temperatures cause more evaporation, therefore more precipitation. This is actually happening around the world, but that’s another story. Anyways, the increase in precipitation caused a flood. My wolf could not swim very well, so he had to adapt… But you will get that in the video.
We had to write 6 ‘journal entries’, from the perspective of our animals. Each episode had certain criterial. There was lots of critique. Once that was approved, we moved on to writing a script. Then, critique. Next, storyboarding. Critique. Video. Critique. Edit. Critique. Here is my first video.
It was not the greatest, and it showed in my critique. My audio was not working great, and a bunch of other things. So I critiqued. Here is my next draft.
We did everything piece by piece. The first draft is only the first half, because that had to be okayed before we moved on to cutting up our stuffies. I had great fun with that, more than I think I should have. Do psychos enjoy cutting up and sewing things together? I hope not. Anyways, it was more difficult than I thought it would have been, because I had to sew on the seam. Also, I sewed in a pipe cleaner, to make the feet bigger. That was awkward. Here is a time lapse of me in action!
Once I had Loki (my stuffie) all sewed up, I could make the second half. Here it is.
From there, I still had to edit. Got critique and fixed. Still not great though. Here is the almost final draft.
After that was submitted, I was almost there. I just had to add music, which I made using Garage Band. Then voilà, my final draft.
I learned a lot from this project. To start, I had never written a story from the epistolary perspective. I definitely learned a lot abut some of our new apps, including Green Screen, a new version of Explain Everything, plus apps we already had but never used like Garage Band and iMovie. I also learned about storyboarding, and simple ways to do it.
My biggest takeaway from this project was video making as a whole. I had no idea there were this many steps to making a video. From writing a story, to like 5 drafts, it is amazing.
We learned practical skills in this project. For example, we had to hand-sew our frankenstuffies. Sewing is a very practical skill that can be used in real life. Also, by being taught about the matter cycles, it teaches us about global warming. I had to research the carbon cycle especially, as well as the water cycle, and it’s crazy how everything is so connected. Just by one small change, a whole ecosystem can be effected. It’s like how if one person changes something, everyone gets effected. For example, a revolution. One person has an idea, then more, then they revolt. After that, everything changes.
Later in our Grade 9 careers, we are going to be doing health and career stuff in maker. But our first assignment starts now with Take Your Kid To Work Day! I got to go with my mom to her workplace!
My mom is a RMT, registered massage therapist. She works at Balance Acupuncture and Massage, a clinic in Vancouver. With that, she doesn’t usually have a regular work schedule. It is by appointment, so sometimes she works from 10-3 and sometimes 4-7! Always keeps you on your toes. Here’s an interview of her!
While I was there, I couldn’t exactly follow her around. She has patients, and it would be weird if I went in while she was doing a massage. So I worked on this and did little things. An example of that was when my mom was waiting for a client and working with files, I got to put them away.
Another thing I did was kind-of be a receptionist. With new clients, I had them fill out forms while they waited for the RMT. It was cool, but nerve-racking. I didn’t want to do something wrong and then my mom get blamed for it. It was definitely an experience.
I also walked around Main Street, and bought a cactus.
In this workplace, I could see myself in a few positions. To start with, I could be a receptionist. It wouldn’t be to hard of a job for a university job (Like, while I’m going to school). I have been developing my people skills, through group projects and many other things PLP is teaching us about. That would certainly help. I also try to stay positive around strangers, and I can be very polite.
The other career I can see myself pursuing in this workplace is owner. I think it would be an experience to own your own business. Some skills I could bring to that are politeness, management, a time-oriented mind, and many others.
I don’t think massage therapy is for me though. It’s hard on your body, as my mom often mentions how her hands are sore. It also takes a certain kind of person, and I don’t think I have the certain skills needed. My mom has certain skills that make her a great RMT. Some of those are good planning ahead skills, a great knowledge of the human body, and great social skills. She also has large hands, which my uncle likes to point out, that probably help out
Hello and welcome to my grade nine blog! The first of many blogs to come. For the first blog post of this year, we’re going far back to last week, when the PLP 9 class took a trip to Calgary!! And if you remember from last year, this’ll take a while. So grab a snack and let’s get started!
Planning movies
We started preparing for this on the first full day of school. The first day. Doesn’t that sound crazy? Well, when you going on a trip during the SECOND week of school, you have to prep early.
In grade nine PLP, the focus is moving images, or film. So movies. We actually ended up making three movies during this trip. Only two were known. But more on that later. In groups of four or five, we began to create storylines and scripts that we would be filming our first day. Located at the Three Valley Gap Heritage Ghost Town, with kind of a spooky vibe. We had an idea to make a futuristic apocalypse movie. It wasn’t actually finished until we pretty much got there, but that wasn’t the hugest time crunch. I’ll come back to that.
The other video we knew we had to create was a non-fiction video on a place we were going. This was actually super exciting for me because of one of the place we were going was the Northern Lights Wildlife Wolf Centre. I have been obsessed with this place for a long time, and being able to create a documentary on it was awesome. Again, we didn’t have that much time. Planning was mostly on the bus. But this is boring. Lets get on to the actual trip!
Leaving
I hate mornings. But of course, we had to be at the school for 7:15. Not to bad, because I just slept on the bus. We had lots of driving the first day. We didn’t stop till 11 for lunch. Then right back on the bus to The Last Spike at Craigellachie!
Last spike
On November 7th 1885, Donald Smith drove the last spike of the Canadian Pacific Railway at 9:22 am. One hundred and thirty-two years later, we showed up.
It’s actually a very interesting place. So much history has happened there. From the last spike, to the rededication. I can’t believe that trains still use the tracks! We saw three different trains while there.
Three valley gap heritage ghost town
So, finally we got to the filming location. And guess what? It was poring. I swear, there is either a rain god among us, or we’ve been cursed. Every trip we go on, it rains. It hadn’t rained for three months. But, were troopers, so filming in the rain! Also, we got there late, so we only got one hour to film.
Because we were filming in the rain, and I died in the movie, I had to fall and die. Not just anywhere, no. I died in a puddle. And my corpse was in all the end scenes. Lying in the mud for ten minutes is not fun. Trust me.
https://youtu.be/6—YckOJSI
We had dinner there as well, and stayed in their hotel. It was very nice, but in the morning, we kept moving.
Rodgers pass discovery centre
In 1882, A. B. Rodgers traversed this pass, scouting for the CPR. This pass was the last great obstacle in the production of the railway. Again in 1962, this pass was chosen for the route of the Trans-Canada highway. We visited the Rodgers Pass Discovery Centre to learn more about the pass on our journey east.
Northern lights wildlife wolf centre
This part of our journey was especially exciting for me. You see, in grade 7, I was obsessed with wolves. They were my everything. So for my birthday, I wanted to get a sponsorship for a wolf. But there’s not a lot of places in Canada that you can do that. I was lucky, and discovered the Northern Lights Wildlife Wolf Centre. They are an amazing wolf education program. Unfortunately I was never able to get the sponsorship, but it I still lead me to a great discovery. So when I found out we were going there, I freaked out. And it was as cool as I had hoped.
There are 8 wolves in their care. Wiley, Mack, Moki, Flora, Scrappy Dave, Uno, Murphy and Farley. All of there wolves were bred in captivity, but none especially for the centre. See, if a zoo gets shut down or they have to get rid of animals, a lot of them end up getting sent to fur farms. The Northern Lights Wildlife Wolf Centre take in some of the wolves, saving them from that cruel fate.
Instead of dragging on about the centre, here’s my documentary
What we got do there was pretty cool. They fed us, always important, and then has us a 30 minute interpretive talk. After that, photo time (which happens everywhere we go)! This time was special though. The people at the centre brought out a wolf to take a picture with and WE ALL GOT TO PET HIM! IT WAS UNO AND IT WAS AWESOME THANK YOU SO MUCH IT WAS AMAZING!!!!!!!
Banff park museum national historic site
This stop was not as exciting. Still cool, just not as exciting as PETTING A WOLF! Anywho, the Banff Park Museum National Historic Site is a taxidermy museum. It was actually pretty cool. There were some really old animals!
Drove. Calgary. Ate. Slept. Woke.
The locked room
What better way to start off your day then being locked in a room with your classmates! Sounds fun, right? Well, it actually was. My group got selected for ‘The Lair of the Minotaur’, an Ancient Greek themed room. I’m super into that sort of stuff, so I thoroughly enjoyed it. Not gonna give any spoilers, just in case anyone reading this goes there, but it was awesome.
Then food.
Glenbow museum
The Glenbow Museum isn’t open on Mondays. This is when being a PLP student pays off. We got an exclusive tour of the museum WHEN IT WAS CLOSED! Still not as cool as petting a wolf, but pretty cool.
At the beginning we had a small class-like seminar where we were split into groups. From there, we got to study and actually hold a whole bunch of ancient artifacts. Next, we chose one, and tried to guess what it was used for. Ours was a small bronze statue of two people sitting down at what appeared to be a table. We thought it was a ceremonial wedding gift, but it was actually a form of currency. Isn’t that cool!
We got to see a whole bunch of different exhibits, and heard a bunch of neat stories. It was an amazing place to visit and I definitely recommend it.
Red lobster
This probably sounds strange. Like, who would make a section on a restaurant? But you don’t understand. See, every year at Red Lobster, they have what is called ‘endless shrimp’. And that’s exactly what it is. It was really awesome. There are tons of different kinds to choose from, like garlic butter, popcorn, and mediterranean. I surprised myself and had a total of 22 shrimp. I think I made a smart choice, not having very many, because some people had close to 100, then didn’t feel very good.
Royal Tyrrell museum of Paleontology
Calgary isn’t that far from Drumheller, but it was still a long drive. It was worth it though. The Royal Tyrell Museum of Paleontology is an amazing place filled with so many dinosaur and other ancient fossils. We got an hour and a half to look through, and let me tell you, I was amazed. It amazes me how old some of the fossils are. Plus, this museum is home to one of the most well preserved fossils ever found. They might even be able to figure out what colours this species was.
After looking around a bunch, and lunch, we headed outside to meet up for our tour of the badlands. The badlands is what the first explorers called this place, because it was bad for farming. Pretty basic, I know. But it must have sucked, traversing along these large dry valleys. I can’t even begin to imagine it.
On our tour, we learned about the seven wonders of the badlands; hoodoos, rocks, cacti, clay, dinosaur fossils, glacial erratics and fossilized trees. It was a very informative walk, and I had a great time!
Next, we went to a session put on by the museum on how to identify dinosaurs, because not everything that we are told are dinos are. We learned 4 ways to identify dinosaurs, so here they are.
Hips. Dinosaurs are the only reptiles that adapted to having hips like us. With that they wee able to have their legs under their legs, making their speed far greater.
Era. Only the Mesozoic era had dinos, so anything before or after that doesn’t classify.
Reptiles. Pretty straightforward. All dinosaurs were reptiles. If its a mammal, its not a dino.
Land. Again, pretty straightforward. To be a dinosaur, you had to take up primary residence on land. If you flew, or swam, you weren’t a dinosaur.
Anytime you want to know if somethings a dinosaur, just refer to HERL!
Then, movie time! This was the first unknown movie, but not the last. We had one hour to create a minute long story about a dinosaur. Well, it didn’t have to be a dino, just not a mammal. I chose the Shonisaurus. Here’s my video.
We also got to climb through a giant dinosaur(not at the museum), which was cool.
Food. Sleep.
Beakerhead
Where do I start with this. I could explain what Beakerhead is, but you can just check the link. I’ll just tell you what we got to do and learn! This is going to be a little point on every exhibit we visited.
To start off, we visited Impulse. Impulse was an interactive exhibit where you pretty much played on teeter-totters. But at different angles, they would make noise and light up. It was super fun!
This wasn’t actually an exhibit, just some this we got to do because we were a school group. Anyways, the teachers gave us groups, gave us a whole bunch of pipes and connector thingys, said we had 15 minutes, and left us to our devices. Our group decided to make a camera out of it. So we made a basic base, and tried to make a lens, but it didn’t really work. So we improvised, saying it was a car instead. Cars have wheels, though. So we improvised yet again, creating a hover car. We stepped inside, lifted it up, ran around and looked like total goofs. I had a blast!
Again, we only got to do this because we were a school group. We got a baton lesson! It was raining, so we only got to use wooden polls, but it was really cool. I hope to use those skills again one day.
So, here we learned about serpent mother, but I’ll come back to it.
The Nest. This was a cool one. So, there is an empty pit on a corner in Calgary. And I can’t think of a better way to use it than by filling it with dragons! Not literally, though. I’m guessing there was already a wall around it, but what they did was holes in it to make it look like there was a hoard of dragons peering out at you. It was neat!
Mars 112. So Persephone Smith-Johansson was ‘sent to mars to oversee a Martian colony’. But things went a little crazy after NASA didn’t contact for over a month. She started to go insane, cross-breeding animals. It was a cool experience, but we ran out of time so I never finished the story.
Bubbles. Those are the only words to describe this place. It was created in honour of the bubble man, which I thought was pretty cool. It was pretty much a building that ‘was bursting with bubbles’, or balloons. Someone was also blowing bubbles from the window, which was awesome. The exhibit was called Nucleation. Bubbles.
The Claw. Have you ever played one of those games where you used the machine to control o Claw to win a stuffy or something? Well, this was that, but huge. You had three people on a team. One persons job was to move the Claw up and down. Another, left to right. What I did was moved it forwards and backwards. The goal was to pick up air filled bags, and depending on which bags you got, you got a prize. Our team won a pin, which I got to keep and it’s now in my pin collection.
Serpent Mother, part 2. This was when the magic actually happened! Serpent mother was built by the flaming lotus girls, and has been at more that one festival. It is a 168 foot long mechanical serpent, wrapped around an egg. And to top it all off, it was set on fire!! We came at night, so the flames were amazing. They even let you control the head! It was really cool!
BowWave. This one was a super interactive one. There were these glowing stone-like things on one side of the river, and on the other side, were control panels. People could come and change the colours of the rocks, as well as play a symphony. Each panel controlled a colour projection, as well as a musical instrument. When different ones are played together, they create amazing things.
Loop. This was a super cool way to end the night. Loop was a piece that stretched down many blocks, and we visited it all. Each piece was a loop with seated in it. While stilling, there was a metal bar that you pumped up and down. This animated the slides on the inside and outside of the machines, bringing to life many fairytales, including Snow White, Pinocchio, and Little Red Riding Hood.
Calgary Tower
This was our last Beakerhead experience, our last Calgary experience. But, going to space was a fun way to end it. At this point, you probably think I’m insane. ‘Going to space? Naw, she’s nuts’. Well, it was an exhibit. They turned the Calgary Tower into a ‘space elevator’! It was awesome. We got a mission brief, ‘passports’, an emergency survival kit, and sent us on our way. Oh, did I mention we were also thirty years in the future? Anyways, so we got on the elevator, and went to space! Once up there, our guide told us some stories about the constellations we could see out the windows. We also got to vote on where the next space elevator should be put, Mars or something I can’t remember that I’ll fix later. I voted Mars, because to travel to I can’t remember would take 40 light years, and I ain’t up for leaving my family. It was an awesome experience though, a great last impression for Calgary.
We also learned about the history of the tower, and got a secret tour of where the underground mall was when the CPR ran there. It was awesome.
Cave and basin national historic site
We got a tour here which was pretty cool. Our guide kept switching to characters that lived it the time period, which was awesome by the way, and I learned a lot. Did you know that when people were working on the railroads, they only got paid $2 a day? It’s crazy. But a few people thought that they had struck it rich when they found the naturally heated waters in what’s now known as Banff. Who wouldn’t? These pools had actually been being used for thousands of years by animals, and also First Nations people. They used these pools for locations in which they preformed many sacred rituals. It’s a shame that they had to stop because of the newcomers. But that’s what happened all over Canada. Before I go on a rant, I’ll just wrap up on saying we got to go to the Banff Upper Hot Springs, which pipes in naturally hot water. That was pretty cool.
Lake Minnewanka
This is a definite recommendation. Lake Minnewanka is so amazing. Our class got to go on a boat cruise around the lake, and it was phenomenal. So beautiful. There are no words to describe this place.
Columbia ice field glacier adventure
I had driven past this place many times before, and never stopped. We went all the way on this trip. Like, how many people can say they’ve stood on a glacier? Well, add me to that category. Our class took a tour onto the Athabaskan glacier. This glacier is so large, that if you fell into a crevasse, you’d die obviously, but your body may not be found for decades. Kinda creepy. We were only in the area that is used for tours, so we were safe. I even got to fill up my water bottle with glacial melt! I drank a glacier!! Overall, it was stunning. Recommended.
Glacier skywalk
If you’re ever at the Columbia Icefields, go to the Glacier Skywalk. Unless your afraid of heights. But still. Being only a few years old, this skywalk shows never before seen views of the valley below. We even saw a mountain goat way below. And I conquered my fears and walked all the way along the glass path! It was terrifying, but I’m glad I did it.
Lake Louise
This was a pretty cool stop. We didn’t actually spend a lot of time here, but the views were amazing, signs were informative, and the water was insanely cold. Like, insane.
The enchanted forest
This was the last stop on our trip. But of course, PLP is nothing without surprises. The teachers, being tricky, offered everyone a mini chocolate bar. Little did we know,- except I kinda guessed- was that our chocolate bar selections chose our groups. In these groups, we had two hours to write, film and edit a movie. And a lot of groups, including ours, didn’t finish. The main takeaway from this, I thought, was when your under a time crunch, it is important to schedule. We kind of did, but in the end spent to much time on some things and didn’t have time for others.
I learned a lot on this trip. Some of the main things were teamwork, Canadian history, geography, and creativity.
For the past two months, we have been working on a project called Blue Sky. Blue Sky was created by a company called 3M, and has been used on a number of platforms since. It is a time period that companies give to employees to brainstorm and create an innovative invention!
For our projects, we had to come up with a problem for one of five demographics: Seniors, toddlers, babies, tweens and pets. I decided to go with pets, because I already had a problem I could fix. You see, lately, when my dog has been left unattended, she takes herself down to the beach. Because she is mostly left alone on the deck, I wanted to make something that would fit at the top of the stairs. I knew there were already things, like baby gates, that would slide up or down/left to right. I was thinking more collapsible, making it easier for people to get around. Once I pitched it to the teachers, and proved that it wasn’t already a thing, I got approved!
Once I got approved, started working on a design for it. I thought I had an idea that would work, but it didn’t. So I restarted, and with some critique, I got my idea.
I researched for a bit, and found what I thought to be the best materials. Got some interviews. So I started building!
https://youtu.be/G5iYcTtW0JI
Measuring, cutting, sawing, bending, glueing, etc was what followed. It took a while, but I was striving towards my goal.
https://youtu.be/LkwSlw_BbxA
https://youtu.be/Kmae_6OezzM
The first draft, made of cardboard, toothpicks and tissue paper, showed the basic idea. But I wanted to make it sturdier. So I tried wood. My second draft kept coming apart, but even when it wasn’t, it was not the right size. Numéro three, was blown up to twice the size. It was so big, that it wouldn’t support its own weight.
PLP is all about revision and edits, but sometimes things don’t work out the way you want them to. That is what happened to my Blue Sky. If i had more time, I probably would have done more drafts. I explained this all at the exhibition in the PLP Pet Store!
At the end of each year in PLP, we have another SLC. But it isn’t exactly a SLC. They are called TPOLs. A TPOL, or transitional presentation of learning, it where you show off what you have learned and how you are ready for next year. So of course, blogging!
At the start of the year, I was a little grade 8 with an iPad that I barely knew how to use. Now I am the techy in my family who’s been to Oregon, came second in a provincial tournament, and learned so much about growth mindset that I didn’t get upset when my final project bombed. PLP has taught me so much, it is awesome.
To show my improvement, I pull upon the exhibitions. At the winter exhibition, I was super nervous, and my work wasn’t my best work. I didn’t think I would have enough Ike to do a huge thing, so I didn’t. I had to explain a lot of my project every time someone came. It wasn’t a total bust, but it definitely showed that this was my first exhibition.
For the spring exhibition, we had a lot more time to do things. Approval, for me anyways, seemed a lot easier. Working, I tried my hardest to make it work. And when it didn’t work, I didn’t freak out, because from the learning we got in the growth mindset project. I knew that I shouldn’t be upset, because there is always a better and always a worse.
My favourite project of this year would probably be Destination Imagination. I know l used this in the first SLC, but I am so proud of how we did. This project helped me learn group working skills, because I wasn’t great at it at the beginning of school. Although we had a few hiccups, we came in SECOND!! And I am so proud of our team and all the Seycove teams!
In the category of growth mindset, here’s Scimathics. At the start of our finance project, I thought it was going to be so hard, and that I’d be bad. But as we continued on, it made more and more sense.
One thing I would like to improve upon for next year is my speaking skills. At the exhibitions, and various other events I have had to present at, I was always super nervous. I didn’t always know what to say, so I came off nervous. This can help me for presenting, but also if we have to do group projects, interviews, and things with other groups!
I have grown so much over the past year, and I am so proud of myself. I know I can get better, and I will strive do just that!
Why do people explore? Fashion, power or money? This is what our unit was about.
We learned about the explorers, voyages, and geography in this unit. But the final project, oh. It was very interesting. We split into groups, of our own choosing I might add, and had to create a comic. I was with Tamara, Melanie, and Raina, and our person was Samuel du Champlain.
Using Comic Life, we split up into sections, using a story line creator.
First draft was homework. I worked very hard to get it done in the one day. But the next day, I found out almost no one else in the entire class had finished it. So the teacher extended the due date one day. So yay! Nothing really to do.
The next day, we had a critique session. We got a lot of good critique.
I changed a lot of my comic after the critique I got. The story line stayed the same, but the first illustrations sucked. So I spent that day after school working on and changing my comic.
More critique. It was very helpful, though we only had one thing on what to change.
Anyways, then we had to do this blog post, so we had no time time change it. The whole thing was very informative, although we never got to do the keynote (not saying to the teachers that we should do the keynote).
Imagine. You are an old woman in the 15th century. There is a dog in the village, presumed dead. But you know different. You take the dog home and heal it. Then you are burned at the stake for being a witch.
This was actually quite a common occurrence in the Dark Ages. People were afraid of change, so they outcasted the ones who inspired change. This has happened since the beginning of time, and still occurs today.
We did a project on this (of course). We started as teens in 14th century Italy. For a few weeks, we had different lessons on the Middle Ages. Black Death, Martin Luther, Feudalism, the Crusades, etc. A blog post too, a bunch of reading and guided notes. It was all quite fascinating.
Then we got into the nitty gritty. The Notebook. Don’t laugh, I’m not talking about the movie. No, I’m talking about books. Defence, agriculture and the environment, transportation, communication, and science and medicine. Five topics, five groups. I was put in the agriculture and the environment group. We used Book Creator for our book, the only group to do so.
It wasn’t as easy as you would think. Tons of research, photos, colour schemes, etc. And that was just the individual pages. We also needed to make a intro, conclusion, table of contents, and bibliography. And you know who had to do most of that cause it was on their iPad? Me. Since it was on my iPad, for homework when we hadn’t finishec if. Don’t get me wrong, the rest of my group was great. We all did a lot. I owe a lot to Raina, Owen and Jamie, cause I went away halfway through the project. I am very proud of how it turned out.
But we weren’t finished there, oh no. No, we had to be ‘forward thinking’ and invent something that would ld help our industry. We wouldn’t have to actually be able to make the thing, maybe a model. Not just inventing it either. We had to create a keynote to pitch the idea (I will not be including the keynote because it will not make sense without the presentation notes).
So we created ‘The Treebot’. The Treebot is a very advanced invention, the technology not yet available. The Treebot removes the need for fruit tree labourers, by being able to pick its own fruit. It would be a metal piece in the branch of the trees, specifically in the cambium layer. The tree would adapt to movement, and help the world as a whole!
I was away for a lot of this project, but I learned tons. The keynote portion taught me about revising, and making things realistic. But overal, I had a lot of fun with this.
Queen Elizabeth II is coming up on her 91st birthday this year. So to commemorate her, I chose to recognize the changes she has made since she was queened, and before that.
In 1926, Elizabeth Alexandra Mary was born to the Duke and Duchess of York. Her father was the second son of the king, making her the third in line for the throne. When King George V passed on, her uncle Edward VIII became king. But that did not last very long, since he abdicated later that year, making her father the king, and her heir presumptive.
She, not unlike a lot of young girls, participated in Girl Guides, doing similar stuff they do today.
When she was almost 18, parliament modified the law so that she could be one of the five Counsellors of State if something were to happen to her father, or his absence.
In 1945, she joined the Women’s Auxiliary Territorial Service, trained as a mechanic and driver. Five months later she was promoted to honorary junior commander.
In 1951, King George’s health started to deteriorate. Elizabeth more frequently had to step into his place at public events. Then, in February of 1952, the king passed, so Elizabeth was made queen. She chose to keep her name, instead of choosing a new regnal name.
Elizabeth also modernized the monarchy. She has welcomed the end of the Civil List, cut some formalities, and made some sites and treasures more accessible to the public.
Elizabeth is a role model, and a wonderful Queen of Canada, the Uk, Australia, and others.
My DI regionals post shows a brief outline of DI. Please check it out.
Imagination of 5 was an amazing group of people, including Melanie as Citrine the yellow goddess, Luca as Amethyst the purple goddess, Syrah as Charcoal the weather goddess, Sophia as the narrator, and yours truly as Emerald the Green goddess. We worked very hard on this project, although it was a long and hard process, starting in late January. Let me explain exactly how it worked.
Destination Imagination is a educational non-profit organization that encourages kids from preschool to high school to think outside the box. There are six different categories, which include fine arts, scientific, outreach, engineering, improv and technical. They each have a different set of perimeters. For example, fine arts, the challenge we chose, had to have a colourful character, a vanishing act using a technical theatre effect, a disappearance of a single colour, and a story. Every team (other than the improv group) also had to create two team choice elements, showcasing your interest and talents. It seems like a lot, right? Well, it’s not. There’s still so much left to your imagination. Also known as ‘omg I have no idea what we are going to do for this I have no imagination left!’. That happened to our group quite a few times.
We made a lot of changes from regionals to provincials. For one, our team choice elements didn’t score very well. So we decided to redo them. One of our things was our costumes. They were Greek toga-like things with headpieces. Melanie and I had to change in the middle of the presentation, so we put a lot of effort into them. That’s why we wanted them as our team choice elements. We improved them by sowing the pieces together, making them easier to put on. We also hot-glued the ends of the headpieces together. This enhanced the costumes quite a bit, giving us a much greater score.
Our other team choice element in the regionals was music. I played the song ‘True Colours’ on ukulele at the end of the performance. But, we didn’t end up having enough time in the performance, so that didn’t work out to well. For provincials, we decided to dump that as our team choice element and go with something completely different(we still did play music, but it wasn’t our TCE). Our new idea was a staff to give to charcoal when she became a colour god again. So we found a stick, put a lightning bolt on it,
https://youtu.be/2mrjt2SI1RU
Put a light in it, wrapped it in tissue paper, and ta da! It may not sound like much, but we put a lot of effort into it. The lightning bolt is a coat hanger that I unbent, measured, bent some more, cut up, and glued. It was really difficult, but worth it.
We also added a few extra props, including an amulet for Citrine, a wand for Emerald, and, er, I think that’s it. Oh, and we totally changed the script.
I think we did a much better job this time. The tournament was much easier this time. We were calm, we knew the basic flow of things, and got to watch a few other performances. Now finally, scores.
So, as you know, we came in third in the regionals tournament. At this stage, we did much better pertaining to the performance, but our instant challenge did not fair as well. All in all! WE CAME SECOND AND HAVE THE CHANCE TO GO TO GLOBALS!!!! We’re not going to, because $$$, but it’s still cool to know we could’ve.
Poetry is very interesting. I like to write poetry. But when we are confined to one topic, it’s very difficult. So of course, that’s exactly what we’ve been doing.
Haiku. Juxtaposition. Onomatopoeia. Various other terms we started with.
Every class, we would learn a few new poetry terms. Then we read a few poems, answered a few questions. For homework, we would have a poem. This continued for about two weeks. But the catch was, all the poems had to be about worldview. This was very difficult for me because worldview isn’t a topic I am overjoyed with. It was a learning experience for me, writing about things I had no interest in. It was very difficult at first, but by the 7th, I had gotten the hang of it.
All of the poems we created are going into books, using Book Creator. These, once edited, will then be transferred into iBooks, where people will be able to download them.
From this project, I learned how to work with topics I don’t like. I also learned many different poetry terms and poetry styles!
