Sprite's Site

“I hope everyone understands that if their name or description doesn’t start with P they have to dress up as something that does” said Sprite.
“And it is not good enough to just say they are a Person.”

“Well Mrs. P and Puppy and Pony should be OK to come as they are” I said.

“Yes Pony is doubly OK because I have named him Pinto” said Sprite

“Jen E Wren said she would come as a Paradise Bird “I said “Onetwitterbird is coming as a Peacock and the other Twitter Birds are coming as Pigeons or Parrots”

“Columbus Cheetah is going to dye his fur black and look mean and snarling and come as a Panther’ said Sprite “The Origami Secretary Bird said because he is made out of Paper he did not need to dress up but that, if I was going to be Pedantic, he would come as a Pompous Politician Secretary Bird. The Topiary Tree Tessellation Birds are coming as a Partridge in a Pear Tree.
Arachnid is going to pretend she is a Poisonous spider.
I don’t know what Caramel and the Memory Elephant are planning.”

“Oh, and I want to invite a few more! I want to invite Puddleglum but I hope he won’t put a damper on the party.
I want a Pipe Band and Pocahontas and a Professor and a Palaeontologist.
And I want to invite Psycho Motor Dabrowski because he starts with P but I hope he doesn’t run wild and knock things over. And if I invite Psycho Motor then all the Dabrowski dogs will have to come (and dress up because they don’t start with P). And if all the Dabrowski dogs come, Itchy Dabrowski will come and I will have to invite all the other Black Dogs too. Wistful would probably be tagging along with the Memory Elephant anyway. But I hope Little Bully Black Dog doesn’t get bossy and Leaping Attack behaves.
And I want a Photographer too!”

When I saw this entry from Jennifer Goddard of fuzz2buzz http://www.fuzz2buzz.com/ on Twitter I thought that it sounded like a good memory tip.
I mentioned it to Sprite so that she could tell the Memory Elephant.
But Sprite was more interested in the ‘campaign’ part of the message and called up her group of marchers to give support to the campaign.
The party planning was put on hold and the history study pushed even further into the background as Sprite repainted the signs and organised her troops

I noticed that Columbus Cheetah seemed to have a better understanding of the issue this time although he still put his own spin on his message. The Origami Secretary Bird said it was ‘all about Taking Affirmative Action’.
And Jen E Wren was participating in this campaign.

“Mrs. P. is coming!” Sprite told me.
“And Puppy and Pony will be there. And I want to invite PCPCPC too http://www.giftedresources.org/jo/blog/?p=15 He can look after security and make sure nothing improper happens!
So can you clean out the fridge to make room for the party food and can we go shopping soon, pleeese!”

“I have sent out the invitations to my P Party.” said Sprite. “They are Pink and Plum and Purple.
“So now you have to get all the stuff on my shopping lists!”

Dear Starjump Starfish

I did try to design a Dimmer Switch for the Memory Elephant. I tied his trunk in a knot so he would not be able to smell as well and I put a volume control slider on him for his trumpet.
This is what it looked like

But it upset Emotional, the Dabrowski dog. She said it was cruel and wrong to dampen down senses and emotions and the she would report me to the R.S.P.C.M.E. (the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Memory Elephants)

And it didn’t really work properly anyway. So I put the Memory Elephant back to the default settings.

Then the Memory Elephant was so happy he went on a creativity retrieval binge and kept me awake all night. That is the circles, bubbles, balloons series.  Apparently there will be a triangles and pyramids series coming soon.

Sincerely Sprite

I could see that the problems Sprite had been having with studying for the History exam were due to the way the subject had been taught to her and also that she did not have enough understanding of her learning style to make notes in a way that would help her to remember.
The History text book had been very dull with large blocks of small font text and very few illustrations and the teacher had been mainly reading from the text book and only writing the occasional word or date on the board. Sprite had only written down the things that were written on the board; so now when she reread the notes they did not make any sense and the Memory Elephant had not been able to add anything more.

I could also foresee that if Sprite started drawing and appeared to be doodling and fiddling in class the teacher would probably assume she was not paying attention. Sprite and I did some role playing of Sprite asking permission to make pictures with her notes in a respectful way.

I also made an appointment to talk to the teacher and looked for information about the Visual Spatial Learning style that I could take with me. I chose the article ‘I Think in Pictures, You Teach in Words’ by Lesley Sword which I found on Lesley’s Articles and Handouts Page of her Gifted and Creative Services Australia website http://giftedservices.com.au/handouts/index.html

Fortunately when the teacher read the article she could see very clearly how it related to Sprite and also several other students in the class and was anxious to learn more.

I lent her the book ‘Upside down brilliance’ by Dr. Linda Silverman http://www.visualspatial.org/udb.htm
She wanted a copy of her own and I referred her to Helen Dudeney at Australian Gifted Support http://www.australiangiftedsupport.com/index.html
I read the parent companion book ‘Raising Topsy-turvy Kids’ by Alexandra Golon and found that she also had a book for teachers and one for students. http://www.visual-learners.com/books-visual-spatial-learners.html

So Sprite is now happily reading ‘If you could see the way I think’ and I will be giving the teacher a Christmas gift of The Visual-Spatial Classroom Differentiation Strategies that Engage Every Learner http://www.visual-learners.com/the-visual-spatial-classroom.html

Sprite had also received this comment in a Comment Boxfrom Starjump Starfish, Maxine Cowie:

You need a dimmer switch? Hmmm, so do I! But I haven’t been able to find a dimmer switch. Are you sure you want a dimmer switch? If you dim down all the nasty things you see and feel, you will also dim down all the fantastic things you see and feel. Do you really want to be dimmer?

I need not have worried that Sprite had completely given up on studying for the history exam. I found that she had received a reply from Starjump Starfish, Maxine Cowie  in the Comments Box and was trying to implement the advice she had been given

Starjump Starfish said:
You’ve had a lovely time, Sprite, avoiding your history notes. Visiting Mrs. P and listening to stories, and reading Stephanie Tolan’s Change your story…. Fantastic. You know why? Because Stephanie is right. Did you know, if you have a picture in your mind that makes you feel no good, try changing the picture and see what happens.

Now about the history notes. I guess when you were in class you didn’t know how to put the information into your memory elephant. No wonder the memory elephant said he doesn’t have them.

OK next time you are in class, and your teacher is talking about something you have to remember, why don’t you try building one of Jo’s fantastic mind maps with pictures, and colours, and words and lines and anything else that you can draw onto your whiteboard to help you remember. Take what she is saying and be creative with how you record it on the whiteboard in your mind. I’ll guarantee your memory elephant will be able to find it for you when you need it.
PS Don’t forget to visualize the picture that you draw on your whiteboard. You might even want to put that picture into a special history box in your mind… There you go… see what you can do with that and get back to me.

This is what I found when I fired up my computer. Sprite had been busy planning her P Party and had left me lists of food and other items to purchase and people to invite!
Maybe the sticky notes were a bit too handy
I wondered whether she had spent any time studying for the history exam.

“I want to have a P Party!” announced Sprite
“Having a pity party will not help you!” I said
“Not a pity party – a P Party!” said Sprite. “There are a lot of good things that start with P.
Before I was only thinking about the bad things that start with P  http://www.giftedresources.org/jo/blog/?p=111

But then I read about Perspective in Stephanie Tolan’s article The Problem of Pain www.stephanietolan.com/problem_of_pain.htm
She says
‘Changing our perspective, changing ourselves, is a choice. Perhaps the most important thing to remember is that, whatever the life situation, whatever the pain, each of us, child or adult, always has that choice.’
And now I read in the Gifted Resources newsletter that Stephanie Tolan has made her book Change your story, Change your life available for download from her new website www.StoryHealer.com

And when I thought about Perspective I remembered the story about the Giant Seagull and the Newsreader http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iQCSdJsIpCE
And I watched it again on YouTube and had a good laugh again.