- learning project-
floral arrangement
In quarter 3, I learned about 'Learning' which was about self-studying things that I had never learned. In this case, I chose to arrange the flowers. The reasons why I chose this topic were because I thought flowers were beautiful things ,and when I saw them, I felt comfortable and calm which inspired me to want to arrange them and made others feel like me, so I was so interested in this .Also, combined with the lessons from Mr. Dan Simonds, skills for life's teacher, about the effective ways to learn. For example, by using strategies from 'metacognition' which are planning, monitoring, evaluating, and reflecting could help me to create the project easily and professionally.
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Goal : To know how to arrange the flowers in correct principles.
- slide show -
- The photos above show the mind map which I did before and after learning. In the first mind map, because I did not learn anything, so I just knew just a little about flower arrangement which were some fundamental knowledge. For example, scissors and flower pot as tools,and. In that time, I felt that I had to work hard, so I tried to find some good sources ,and I found one from University of Arkansas. Therefore, I started studying from that source, also during the study time, I kept practicing my floral arrangement. After about a month, I did a second mind map ,and it can be seen that I improved a lot from writing more significant information. I know more things such as floral arrangement styles which have line, line-mass, and mass arrangement, and container which is a part of material.
The document above is my learning record. I used this to show how much I did not know and how much I learned. The table was separated into 3 parts. The first one was I know I know / things I learned which I wrote all the information I learned from the University of Arkansas's document in this. There were about 8 pages of what I learned. Secondly, things I know that I don't know, I did this section before I started researching about the project which was about what I realized the things that I did not know ,and I would search about them later. The third one is things I didn't know that I didn't know which I was writing them while I studied and found information that I had not seen it before. In the different section, I used the different colors which were blue (things I know that I don't know) and red (things I didn't know that I didn't know), then, after I found the answer from each of them, I wrote it in things I learned. From my opinion, things I don't know was much less than things I did not know. Therefore, doing this research really made me know a lot of new things.
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This is a book which I used to write things I learn and what I prepared, plus some pictures.
Note: What I wrote in this book is the same as things on learning record form. |
The video above is the monitoring of my arrangement from the first to third time.
1st Attempt - First of all, I went to a florist to buy some flowers. In that time, because I didn't know any thing about flower arrangement, so I asked the salesperson about the flowers. She suggested me to buy 3 different kinds of flowers. I could remember that one of them was carnation. When I went back home, I started by preparing my oasis by putting it in the water and waited for 10 minutes, then, I cut it in shape that could fit my container ,but it quite hard so I let my mother helped me. Then, I started cutting the flowers and arranged them. The Problems were, first, the flowers usually twisted. I think it was because I put them too hard. Moreover, I think thatI bought too less flowers so the arrangement seemed to be a little bit empty. Another problem is that the price of the flowers was so expensive such as 50 baht per carnation. Therefore, I have to plan everything well next time because this time the arrangement doesn't look good.
2nd Attempt - In this second attempt, I, again, went to florist ,but in this time, I chose the flowers myself (but still cannot remember their name). First of all, I had learned that I had to put the oasis in the water before cutting it, so I followed the instruction. This time I cut the oasis in the octagon shape which made it's more easily to fit he container. Also, the flowers didn't twist anymore because when I arranged, I held on the stem in 45 degrees. During the arrangement, I found that I needed to design the arrangement before doing it because , sometimes, my brain was black and I didn't know what to do. Another problem was that the arrangement was not balanced ,so I need to improve that. Unfortunately, I recorded the video during that time ,but after 6 minutes, there was a technical problem, so the camera didn't save anything ,and I just saw it after everything was done. Thus, next time, I have to check everything more carefully.
3rd Attempt - This was my last trial. I went to the florist and chose flowers myself which were sprays, carnations, mums, and caspias. I prepared everything the same except I used news paper. I put the oasis while I was cutting the flowers. Firstly, I put the yellow carnation in the middle of the container as the focal point., then, I put pink carnation in 4 angles around the container. After that, I put mums around the carnation. During the arrangement, because I wanted to make it balanced and full so that I usually circulated the container to see whether it was okay or not. From my opinion, I think that this is the best practice arrangement I have ever done. There is no problems and obstacles while I was arranging, so it really shows that I improve a lot.
The video above is my final product after I have learned about the floral arrangement for about 2 months. In this arrangement, I designed to arrange the flower in mass-sphere shape which were think and full of flowers. The flowers which I used were a red rose, white statice, white mum, and pink and violet spray. All of these had the same tone of color ,which called related color harmonies, or warm color. First of all, I prepared for the materials which were container, newspaper, cutter, scissor, bucket, oasis (floral foam), and camera, also, I prepared the flowers by cutting them in the proper height. While I was cutting, I put the oasis into the bucket that filled with water. To note that flowers had to be cut in 45 degrees because it would absorb water well and lived last longer. Then, I started by put the red rose as the focal point ( to interest the viewer) ,then, I put others flowers around in the spheral shape. During the arrangement, I usually checked whether it balanced or not because it was one of the important factors in good floral arrangement principles. From my opinion, I think that the final product is the best of all that I did because I put so much efforts and I worked really hard to create this.
Reflection
In this quarter, I did a self-learning project which I chose to do flowers arrangement. At first, I felt that it was the thing that was hard to do because I had not done it before. To do this, I planed what I was going to do through the studying such as where to find sources, when to practice ,and what I need to use to do the project. Then, I kept practicing ,monitoring ,and finding the way to improve myself, until the end of the project.
From my opinion, I think that I succeed with the project because it can be seen from the first to last attempt that I improve a lot such as ,in the first time, my arrangement looked empty, not balanced, and not well designed ,but after I practiced for many times, my final product looked full, balanced, and well designed. Also, recently, I have a lot of knowledge about how to arrange the flowers in correct way. For example, essential materials like pinpoint holder and colors tones like monochromatic colors However, I still have weakness which is time management. The reasons why time management is the problem are that firstly, I did not plan the schedule to do the project well because I thought that there was a lot of time so that I did not have to be rush ,also I had a SAT exam in January so I had to take much time preparing for the test which made me had less time on this project. Therefore, to improve, I should set an schedule that contains the exact time and date ,also I have to follow it strictly. However, my strengths are researching and understanding. Because during the research, I could find many reliable sources about my topic such as from universities and organizations, and most of them usually have the information I wanted, so I chose some of them ,also as I studied from what I found, I usually understand it easily because I imagine of the pictures and connect it to real life, so these helps me a lot in understanding. Furthermore, to improve this, I should expand the scope of my research to find more information and I should watch some videos to make me understand more ,so I can apply it when I do the arrangement.
In conclusion, my project is successful because I did very hard work on planning, researching, practicing, and monitoring. Even though there were some mistakes and weakness, I could fix it. From my opinion, I think that arranging flowers is not boring as many people think because I feel that it creates happiness for person who arranges them.
From my opinion, I think that I succeed with the project because it can be seen from the first to last attempt that I improve a lot such as ,in the first time, my arrangement looked empty, not balanced, and not well designed ,but after I practiced for many times, my final product looked full, balanced, and well designed. Also, recently, I have a lot of knowledge about how to arrange the flowers in correct way. For example, essential materials like pinpoint holder and colors tones like monochromatic colors However, I still have weakness which is time management. The reasons why time management is the problem are that firstly, I did not plan the schedule to do the project well because I thought that there was a lot of time so that I did not have to be rush ,also I had a SAT exam in January so I had to take much time preparing for the test which made me had less time on this project. Therefore, to improve, I should set an schedule that contains the exact time and date ,also I have to follow it strictly. However, my strengths are researching and understanding. Because during the research, I could find many reliable sources about my topic such as from universities and organizations, and most of them usually have the information I wanted, so I chose some of them ,also as I studied from what I found, I usually understand it easily because I imagine of the pictures and connect it to real life, so these helps me a lot in understanding. Furthermore, to improve this, I should expand the scope of my research to find more information and I should watch some videos to make me understand more ,so I can apply it when I do the arrangement.
In conclusion, my project is successful because I did very hard work on planning, researching, practicing, and monitoring. Even though there were some mistakes and weakness, I could fix it. From my opinion, I think that arranging flowers is not boring as many people think because I feel that it creates happiness for person who arranges them.
" Earth laughs in flowers"
- Ralph Waldo Emerson