Photography (Update)

As I uncover more interesting photos on my hard drive the more I want to edit them. I really like doing this as it is quite interesting and the end result is amazing as well. I have definitely developed new skills of editing photos.

Papercraft (Update)

This term, not so much as last due to loads and loads of school work IB offers us, but I still continued with the papercraft. I have made some of my favourite characters like Billy Doll from the movie Saw, V from V for Vendetta and a couple of characters from the cartoon Naruto. I really like this hobby and even though it is quite time consuming through perseverance and commitment you can achieve really nice creation. Of what I have done so far I think I have developed some new skills.

Badminton Club (Update)

This term being extremely busy - Istra trip, exams coming up, many internal and external assesments being due, I dind't have that many oppurtunities to go to the club, yet I do whenever I can. I have been going to the badminton club for about a year now and I definetely feel that I have developed new skills and as well increased my awareness of my strengths and areas for growth. Throughout the year I have also shown perseverance and commitment.

Summer Fair

Few days ago us, the Year 12s, were helping the primary school in preparations for their annual summer fair. What we had to do was plan and initiate an activity for the younger children. Our activity was quite simple - a bucket filled with water with different drink cans in it. A student had to guess which can he would pick and if he picked that one he won a prize, kind of a raffle I suppose. By doing this activity I have worked collaboratively with my partner, undertook a new challenge and considered ethical implications of my actions.
The fair was pretty fun, we had quite a few 'customers' wanting to play our little game and throughout the day we have increased our awareness of our strengths and areas for growth.

Fitness Club - Voleyball Club

Since the cold winter and spring are long gone and the weather outside is nice we have put our fitness club on hold (in order to escape outside) and substituted it with another exercise and more outdoors related activity - volleyball. We (anyone who wants) play volleyball every day at lunch time. To some extent  you can say that I am kind of organising it as I am the one who always takes the volleyball and invites people to join the game. By playing volleyball I will increase my awareness of my strengths and areas for growth,     I plan and initiate activities, show perseverance and commitment and I hope that in the end I will have developed new skills.

Weather Club (Update)

As all throughout the year, the weather club goes on without the presence of Year 13s meaning that us (Year 12) have to take the readings more often, but of course it's nothing to complain about. Some new, more (a lot more) modern equipment was bought to assist us in taking more accurate readings in order to produce even more accurate weather graph. This club has helped me to work collaboratively with my partner, plan and initiate activities, show perseverance and commitment and of course engage with issues of global importance.

The Year 6 Visit

A couple of weeks ago the class of Year 6 came from another school to look around our (their future) school. I was one of the volunteers that had to pick them up from the front gate, show them around the school and take them to their proper classrooms for the day. By doing so I have undertook a new challenge, I have worked collaboratively with other volunteers and the teachers and I have considered the ethical implications of my actions.

Istra - A Holiday for Work

Istra was definitely one of my favourite school trips, but it wasn't all fun and games since we had a lot of coursework to do. We were doing many different projects, for example collecting leaf samples in order to produce a dichotomous key, taking water samples to test for differences in pH, constructing a line transect to determine weather a specific plant species grow closer to the trees, scout the grounds of the hotel and construct a map accordingly and did quadrats to find out if there are any variables that affect the growth of certain plant species. I also planned and initiated my own experiment: "To what extent does the proximity of pine trees affect their height, tree trunk circumference and the branch height". Basically I was counting the number of other trees around the tree that I have picked, then measure it's height, trunk circumference and the height of the lowest branch. It was a "painful" task due to approximately 2317 mosquitoes around, but through perseverance and commitment I have finished it
One of the activities was to build a a boat out of any materials you can find and power it by using chemical reaction of baking soda (Sodium Bicarbonate) and Citric Acid. The reaction should have built up the pressure inside the main tank and release it through the small openings, propelling the boat forwards, however due to lack of time to finish up our boat completely the pressure inside was lost before we could put the boat in the water. By doing this I have worked collaboratively with others.
The whole trip was definetely something to remember, I undertook many new challenges, developed new skills and I have increased my awareness of my strengths and areas to for growth.

Cleaning The Parks

Since Friends of Bitsevski Park has not replied to our school, me and some friends decided to clean up a park on our own. Парк 50 лет Октября located at the Metro station проспект Вернадского was the park we have chosen to clean up. As the clean-up occurred at the same day as our BBQ, not that we had cleaned up after ourselves, but we also cleaned a large area of the park around us. By doing this we have worked collaboratively, showed perseverance and commitment, considered the ethical implications of my actions and of course engaged in issues of global importance.

CAS Plan for the third term

Creativity:
    - Continue taking creative photographs.
    - Continue with the papercraft.

Action:
    - Play basketball on Wednesdays after school.
    - Play badminton on Tuesdays after school.
    - Go to gym every day.
    - Go jogging outside (since weather got warmer).

Service:
    - Continue with the fitness club every lunch time.
    - Participate in a non-profit organisation.

Basketball

    As all throughout the year I was going to basketball club. This term however I wasn't going every week as before just because I had a lot more school work to do and didn't have time to play basketball. Despite that throughout the year I have shown perseverance and commitment and I believe I have developed new skills and of course worked collaboratively with others this being a team sport.

Photography

   
    After my holidays to Thailand I have took many interesting pictures and I thought it would be interesting to 'improve' them even more by using programs like Photoshop. This is the first time I have done this and it is a completely new challenge for me. I haven't modified that many photographs just because it takes quite a bit to do it but I have shown perseverance and commitment and I have finished some of them. I can truly say that they look really nice :) Just after working a couple of hours I have developed some new skills and I hope I will improve even more. I really enjoy working with photos and I will certainly continue this activity.

Fitness club

    Our plan to run the fitness club on Mondays and Tuesdays didn't really work out as we planned. Actually it worked out a lot better than we thought. Instead of doing it two times a week, the club is now running every lunch time. We have about ten to fifteen people showing up everyday, most of them from Year 12 though there are some younger students as well. What we do there is simply group workout sessions. We have a workout playing in the background telling us what to do, when to stop and when to start again. Since the gym is not that big and doesn't have that much equipment, we do exercises which require no equipment at all. Running this club is a new challenge for me. I run this club with a couple other students, so in order for this to work I have to work collaboratively and of course plan and initiate activities, for example prepare next days workout. Since this club started and until the end of the school year I will show perseverance and commitment not just in running it, but participating in it myself.
     Not that I just run the club I also get fit myself. Over the couple of weeks I increased my awareness of my strengths and areas for growth. Over the upcoming weeks I hope I will develop new skills not just in my body itself, but in running activities like these. Through this club I have also considered the ethical implications of my actions.

Badminton Club

    I consider myself quite an active person and I enjoy all kinds of sports, from basketball to badminton. That's why I'm part of both of these clubs. Badminton takes place each Tuesday after school. There are quite a few students showing up and sometimes even teachers. What I like about badminton, is that it's not like football or basketball - it is not a difficult (physically) sport, meaning you don't need to run around and so on. Instead it requires concentration and precision and that is a kind of sport I have not played before. The way the games go on in the school is in the beginning we choose a partner (we play doubles) and keep rotating around to play teams that we have not played that. Once we played all of them we simply change partners. I have joined this club in the beginning of the year and I'm in it since then. Throughout these months I have shown perseverance and commitment, I increased my awareness of my strengths and areas for growth and because of that I definitely developed new skills even though it was a completely new challenge to me when i started playing badminton in the beginning of the year. 

Weather Club (Continued)

    The winter comes to an end and it will not be as cold to go outside to take readings. Year 13 will soon have their exams and leaves this noble task purely for us, Year 12 meaning that we will have to spend a bit more time with the club. Throughout the months I have shown perseverance and commitment, worked collaboratively with my partner and of course engaged the issues of global importance.

Winter Activity Day

    Even though winter is over, there is still plenty of snow in Moscow until.. a long time, so while the snow is still here, we had a winter activity day. All IB students split up into different groups and had to work collaboratively to plan and initiate an activity for the lower year students. As you might have already guessed, there were no classes that day and all the students could enjoy the 'last' snow all day long in many various activities like an obstacle course, winter music quiz, hiking or for younger students snow castle building, which that my group and I organised. The students were split into two groups and in certain time period had to build a snow castle and the team with a better and bigger one wins. However it was extremely difficult to say which castle was better, so there were no second place in this activity. Even though snow castle building was organised for lower year students, some teachers as well willingly joined in the fun.
     It was quite tough commanding over 15 little children and that was definitely a new challenge for me and I believe that I have developed some new skills in doing so. I have shown perseverance and commitment in my activity. During this event I have also considered the ethical implications of my actions.

Papercraft

    My new awesome hobby - Papercraft (Cubeecraft to be more precise). This is a completely new challenge  for me and hopefully I will develop some new skills. My first project was Danbo -  cute little paper robot created by Azuma Kiyohiko. To complete one project it takes a lot of time, perseverance and commitment. I am still doing a lot of other cool cubeecraft characters like Bobba Fett, Wall-E, Billy Doll and a few other ones. This is a really awesome activity that I will definitely will carry on with.-

Jumble Sale

    Last term our school had jumble sale. Jumble sale is when students bring items they do not need and donate it to school where we, IB students, run a 'market' and sell those items, at lower prices of course, therefore we had to plan and initiate activities and work collaboratively and showed perseverance and commitment. I also considered ethical implications of my actions. There was a huge variety of items brought in, for example DVDs, computer games, old toys, handbags, etc. IB students, including myself, were selling those items to the students and teachers. All the money that has been raised are going to go to charity for training guide dogs for the blind.

Winter Disco

     On the last day of the term the whole school participated in the school disco. The disco, and most of the day, was organized by IB students, therefore we had to plan and initiate activities. First thing in the morning was to go around all the classrooms and sell Santa hats. Also we were selling raffle tickets with which you could win a basket of some cool stuff like video games, iPod... Later on we had to prepare the gym for the disco; set up the speakers, bring the tables, decorate and so on... Once the disco started we were selling snacks and drinks to the other students. The money earned is going to be donated to the charity for supporting guide dogs for the blind. This all was a new challenge for me and for this to happen I had to work collaboratively and show perseverance and commitment. And I considered ethical implications of my actions.

CAS Plan for the second term

Creativity:
      - Take creative photographs
      - Take part in decorating the house board

Action:
      - Play basketball on Wednesdays after school (possibly on Mondays as well)
      - Play badminton on Tuesdays after school
      - Continue going to the gym

Service:
      - I am going to run fitness clubs on Mondays and Tuesdays
      - Planning on running economics club at lunch times

Weather Club

    In our school IB students are doing a weather club. In weather club students every day go outside to take readings of variables like minimum and maximum temperature, air pressure, current temperature, amount of snow or rain. The readings that we take we plot them on a big graph in the hall in the school. The point of this club is to compare the readings to those of the previous years and see if there is any significant change in the climate of Moscow over the years, this way engaging with issues of global importance. This is a new challenge that I undertook and for this to happen I had to work collaboratively and since this project is going throughout the year I have to show perseverance and commitment.