A puzzle 5

While Imaginational was thinking about how he could cheer up little Thinks He’s an Alien Black Dog by taking him for a ride on the flowery hover-board, he was also still thinking about solving the puzzle. He was convinced that there was something important about the point where the two lines of flowers intersected and that the butterflies probably knew the answer.
Maybe the intersection of the lines of flowers marked the location of a treasure!
Imaginational put the picnic basket on the spot so he could find it again even if Intellectual removed the ribbons.

Parfait was debating with Intellectual about the equations for the lines. “One of those equations needs to have a negative gradient and where is your Point 0, 0? Don’t just assume the lines meet at 0, 0 – that point could be anywhere on the x, y axis and it could be anywhere in terms of latitude and longitude. You need a GPS.”

“Thank you!” said Intellectual “You have enlarged my cogitations considerably!”
In point of fact that point needs to be described more accurately. I was reading about such things in Doctor Jeff’s article The Address of a Self- important World http://blogontheuniverse.org/2010/05/03/the-address-of-a-self-important-world/

Imaginational was still thinking about the butterflies.
“What type of butterfly is that one that is sitting on your book, Intellectual?” he asked. “Because one of the same kind just landed on the flower where the lines intersect”

Intellectual consulted Lepidoptery 101 in his book. “It is a Fulvous Pied” he declared.

“Where is your report, Psycho Motor?” Intellectual demanded.

“Well!” barked Psycho Motor, bouncing from flower to flower in pursuit of a butterfly, “PIED (bounce) is like Pi D (bounce) which is the circumference of a circle and these flowers are circles (bounce) and here is a picnic basket with a PIE in it.
Puzzle solved – Let’s eat!”

A puzzle 4

Intellectual’s first approach to the problem was a mathematical one.
He counted the strange flowers and found that there were 13 of them.

“(Mean, mean 13!)” Imaginational muttered.

And furthermore, if they were grouped suitably, he could see groups or lines of the prime numbers and Fibonacci numbers up to 13. He put red ribbons joining the flowers to show what he meant.

“But they are not perfectly lined up to show both of those” interrupted Parfait “you have to move the one with the blue butterfly on it into the line of six to make the 7 for the prime numbers but then you would not have the prime number 11 you get when you add the line of six and the line of five”

“Picky, picky!” grumbled Intellectual. But he had to concede that Parfait was correct and therefore the puzzle was probably not related to prime numbers.

It did not help that Intellectual was not sure what he WAS trying to prove.

He wondered whether the arrangement of the flowers was a code of some kind

He visited the Codes for Kids page on The Republic of Mathematics blog to search for clues

http://www.blog.republicofmath.com/codes-for-kids-1-simple-substitution-ciphers

Then he decided that he would be able to solve the puzzle by solving the simultaneous equations for the two lines of flowers and produced this

The answer must be 42

(because the answer to everything is 42
eg How many swans-a-swimming and geese-a-laying had the true love received by the 12^th day of Christmas?)

There are 13 flowers

Therefore

13x = 42

Therefore

x = 3

(And that is correct because there are 3 flowers separate from the lines which form a triangle when you join them)

Now

5x + a = 42

And

6x + b = 42

(Because the answer is always 42)

Therefore

15 + a = 42

a = 27

And

18 + b = 42

b = 24

“What is that supposed to prove?” asked Parfait.
“I don’t know. But it is VERY INTERESTING and deeply significant!” claimed Intellectual

A puzzle 3

First to bring their reports about the puzzle were Sensual and Emotional.

Sensual: From a distance it looked like a field of flowers with butterflies flitting around in it. I wanted to go and roll in the grass.
But when I went right into the field, although the grass looked and smelled like ordinary grass and made me itchy and sneezy after rolling in it, the flowers were not like ordinary flowers!
Each flower looked and felt (and tasted) as if it were made out of metal and each flower had five petals – one blue, one red, one green, one gold and one violet.
I could hear a humming noise in the field but I could not tell what it was.
Oh, and I could smell a pie too!

Emotional: It was all so beautiful and so mysterious that I felt elated and misty-sad and puzzled all at once.

Intellectual: Well that wasn’t much help.

Imaginational: I think the flowers could be hover boards. I think they are used by aliens from the Milky Way to create crop circles. I think it would be great fun to ride on them and chase butterflies! Oh, I smelled pie too!

A puzzle 2

We have had some great suggestions about the nature of the puzzle and its solution.
Mary St George said the answer would be 42 because according to The Hitch-hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy 42 is the answer to everything!

The Dabrowski Dogs are taking an immersion learning approach to the puzzle. They are getting right into the picture.
Intellectual has elected himself as the team leader and tried to allocate tasks.
P’est Pour Parfait, the Perfectionist Poodle, although not a Dabrowski dog, has joined in to offer unwelcome criticism.

Here is the discussion I overheard.

Intellectual: Obviously the items in the picture are Blooms. This means we need to apply the six levels of thinking (remembering, understanding, applying, analysing, evaluating, and creating) to solving the problem.

Parfait: They only have five petals so obviously they are NOT Bloom’s blooms.

Intellectual: It depends which version you are using. The current education model has six levels – remembering, understanding, applying, analysing, evaluating, and creating.
You can see great examples of that on Kathleen Morris’ blog at http://primarytech.global2.vic.edu.au/2009/08/13/blooms-taxonomy-in-the-digital-age/
and also on Kelly Tenkely’s iLearn Technology blog at  http://ilearntechnology.com/?p=2973
The traditional version also has six levels – Knowledge Comprehension Application Analysis Synthesis Evaluation See Julia Cornwell’s Successful Teaching blog post at http://juliaec.wordpress.com/2011/03/23/blooms-taxonomy-encouraging-higher-cognitive-thinking-in-primary-school-classrooms/

But anyway, remembering knowledge is vital to all the other levels so it goes in the centre of these Bloom’s blooms.

There are 3 Domains Cognitive, Affective and Psychomotor.
Naturally I will focus on Cognitive.
Sensual and Emotional can tackle Affective and Psycho Motor can report on Psychomotor.

Imaginational: What do you want me to do?

Intellectual: I don’t know! Do that airy fairy, outside the recognised academia, stream of consciousness type of thinking that you do. You might stumble onto something useful!

Intellectual: Psycho Motor, do you know what you are supposed to be doing?

Psycho Motor: Sorry, I wasn’t listening all the time. I was watching the butterflies.

A puzzle

What are we to make of this?

Please let me know your thoughts about this picture on the lobby table by leaving a comment.
The Dabrowski dogs are working on the puzzle and I will bring you their evaluations shortly.

A picnic at the Intersection 2

The Memory Elephant just delivered some images of last weekend’s #gtstoogies picnic at the Intersection of Gifted Way and Asynchronous Drive.

A Picnic at the Intersection

This week a picnic table has been set up for the #gtstoogies at the Intersection of Gifted Way and Asynchronous Drive.

In a post  at http://deepwaterscoaching.com/blog/?p=111 on her Deep Waters blog, written for the  Blog Tour for New Zealand Gifted Awareness Week Lisa Lauffer, alias Deepwaters Coach, gave an invitation to “Meet me at the Intersection of Gifted Way and Asynchronous Drive”
Very soon the #gtstoogies had arranged on FaceBook to not only keep the appointment with our beloved Chief Sanity Officer, but also to have a picnic at the crossroads.
Lisa Conrad, whose great  blog entry on her Gifted Parenting Support Blog stated    http://giftedparentingsupport.blogspot.com/2011/06/making-connection-evidence-based-policy.html
“The time has come for members of the gifted community – parents, teachers, researchers, and advocacy groups – to come together and engage in practical and meaningful dialog on how to promote the needs of gifted children both in school and society in general”
was quick to agree to a picnic at the Intersection of Gifted Way and Asynchronous Drive.
Leslie Graves, aka LesLinks, from Ireland who also wrote excellent posts for the Blog Tour, one about parent power at http://innreach.wordpress.com/2011/06/15/giftedness-awarenessparent-power-and-taking-that-first-step/ and one about fun activities  at http://innreach.wordpress.com/2011/06/12/on-giftedness-a-few-activities-a-little-fun-and-keeping-the-spark-alive/ said that when a picnic is held at the crossroads in Ireland, it is also a time for dancing to Irish pipes and whistles.
So the Twitter Bird Band members were quick to find Irish musical instruments and head to the crossroads to participate in the festivities.
The telescope, which was set up for viewing the total lunar eclipse, is still available for the use of the #gtstoogies.
A description of the way the lunar eclipse would appear in Melbourne, Australia is given in the Melbourne Planetarium Sky Notes video at http://museumvictoria.com.au/planetarium/discoverycentre/skynotes/skynotes-video-june-2011/

When Sprite arrived at the intersection of Gifted Way and Asynchronous Drive she had a feeling that she had been there before. The Memory Elephant confirmed that she had actually been to the crossroads before, but at that time had not known the name of the roads and produced a picture to prove it.
As always when memories were being brought out the Dabrowski Dogs gathered round to add their comments.
On her first visit to the area (see the Feetspeak 2E Shoes page on Gifted Resources website at  http://www.giftedresources.org/gr/feetspeakforweb01.htm )  Sprite had been making very painful progress toward the De Bono 6 Action Shoes shop where she hoped to get the ideal shoes for Gagne’s DMGT Road from innate giftedness to fully developed talent. See http://www.templetonfellows.org/program/FrancoysGagne.pdf 
Sensual started scratching and Emotional started howling at this memory.

In Sprite’s mind the roads were called Shoes Rd and DMGTRoad. She thought of the other end of DMGT Road as Fund Road because that was where she had to go to find out whether she would be eligible for any funding,  special considerations  or assistance.
The other end of Shoes Rd was what Sprite called Plan Rd; because it was there that strategies for building an education plan for her could be found. Imaginational speculated about what plans could be made incorporating the “ideal funded solutions plaster cast” and the “do the most sensible thing” brown shoes and how the sensible brown shoes were well suited to the DMGT Road.
Sprite always wondered whether DMGT Road  and Plan Road met each other somewhere behind the distant hills.
Intellectual said that it could be reasonably extrapolated that if the plans made on Plan Road were suitable and were pursued to their conclusion that Plan Road  and DMGT Road would indeed meet up.
Psycho Motor was not really interested in the map of the roads. He knew he had seen the place before and the mention of shoes reminded him that he had taken one of Sprite’s shoes out to the garden to play with; so he bounced off to look for it!

New Zealand Gifted Awareness Week

Sprite and the Memory Elephant and the Dabrowski Dogs have gone down to the beach on Gifted Island to start sending their greetings  as part of the New Zealand Gifted Awareness Week Blog Tour. For all the details of the week’s events  see http://ultranet.giftededucation.org.nz/WebSpace/384/

Jo Freitag and Sprite want to wish the New Zealanders a very successful, productive and happy week and tell them about the information available from Gifted Resources website http://www.giftedresources.org/ and on Sprite’s Site blog
You can locate articles on Sprite’s Site blog by clicking on the tags in the sidebar or entering terms into the search bar. Some of the topics we have covered on the blog are social emotional issues such as Dabrowski overexcitabilities, perfectionism, depression, 2E -Twice Exceptional issues, Visual Spatial Learner learning style and memory, homeschooling, organization and homework skills and useful books, programs and websites relating to giftedness.

Some of these topics have been gathered togethers as booklets and can be read at http://www.giftedresources.org/jo/sprite.htm

Thank you so much for the opportunity to participate in the excitement of your blog tour. Have a great week!

More margaritas

More margaritas – this time flowers and non-alcoholic pretty drinks for the #gtstoogies this week because Mary St George’s parrot arrived bringing news of New Zealand’s Gifted Awareness Week   13-19 June 2011. For news of all the events see http://ultranet.giftededucation.org.nz/WebSpace/384/ 
One feature of the week will be a Blog Tour. Sprite’s Site will be participating in the Blog Tour on 15 June which is one of the International Perspectives Days. Sprite will organise the Memory Elephant and the Dabrowski Dogs to  make a fire on the beach of Gifted Island and attempt to send some smoke signals of greeting across the Tasman to Aotearoa – the Land of the Long White Cloud.
Intellectual Dabrowski has brought in the whiteboard for recording strategies for Acceleration which will  be one of the topics of conversation for this week’s #gtchat. For details about how to join in the Twitter #gtchat sessions see Deborah Mersino’s Ingeniosus website http://www.ingeniosus.net/gtchat and to read transcripts of past sessions see http://www.ingeniosus.net/gtchat-transcripts

Margaritas for parrots

It is rumoured that margaritas of both the liquid and floral types will be given to all #gtstoogies who visit the lobby after #gtchat this week dressed as or accompanied by a parrot!
The Twitter Birds were not sure whether it should have been dressed as or accompanied by a pirate and so they are having an each way bet!
The Origami Secretary Bird is trying to determine whether Sprite’s Linux Penguin would be eligible to participate on the grounds of being a Twice Exceptional Bird.

Meanwhile in the Mouse House Enor Mouse and FaMouse have not waited for the margaritas but have already imbibed copious quantities (for mice) of Mouselle and are getting into micechief!