International day

On Friday the 19th an International day took place in the school. Earlier I mentioned my plans for it. In general we followed that plan.

We organized the traditional tea-drinking with samovar. Yaroslav prepared a presentation about Russian history and I made a short quiz on interesting facts about Russia. First I showed the group a brief presentation, which was an introduction. Then we offered them to try the tea with baranki and some other sweet snacks. While they were drinking tea Yaroslav was telling them some interesting things about Russian history. At the end there was a quiz. I made it interactive so that by clicking on the answer they could see whether it is right or wrong. (To do that I had to learn a new skill: how to make hyperlinks to another slide in a PowerPoint presentation.)

We gave pieces of paper to every group that came to us so that they could write whether they liked didn't like something about our presentation. Most people said that everything was good that's because they liked the food :) However some of them mentioned that they would like the quiz to be longer (it had only 6 questions) We thought that we should be reflective and extend the quiz. So we came up with a couple of new questions and on the break I added them to the quiz.

Although there were some minor technical issues (on one point the overhead projector turned off for some reason) I can say that in general we managed to cope with all the difficulties. Probably the most difficult thing was to prepare enough disposable glasses and snacks for mare than 50 people but we managed to do this. This International day was a great event and I am happy that we took part in organizing it.

Ship modeling

In my activity plan for CAS I said that I will be doing ship models. At last I found some time to clarify what I meant by that.

I always liked doing something. When I was little, I made numerous things from Lego. As I grew older I got interested in models of sailing ships. I had made some models in the past from card but I always wanted to make a model from wood. So I decided to make one as a part of my CAS program.

I decided to make it from scratch because that is more interesting and much cheaper than buying a kit. I had spent some time on the previous weeks looking for plans on the Internet. Finally I found very detailed plans for 'Santa Maria' (the flagship of Columbus in his first voyage to America). The plans were for a paper model but I decided that after some modifications it will be possible to use them.

On this weekend I finally started working. I transferred  the outline of the paper templates on a 2mm plywood and started cutting the first part out. This it a quite labour-intensive process. All the cuts must be very accurate otherwise the whole hull will be crooked.

Last week activities

There are a couple of things I did last week but didn't have time to mention. First of all I went to the chess club again. Unfortunately I was the only one who came. Nevertheless I still had chance to learn some new things. This time Mr. Cribb showed me what is a 'middle-game'. Unfortunately I didn't make any photos this time.

There is another activity that we started on the CAS session last Wednesday. In groups of thee we were asked to make a three minute long silent film on any theme we want. My group mates and I decided to make I about the two years of our IB diploma. We want to show in this film how we think we will spend this time. We should finish it for our next CAS session. This is a relatively simple activity which can be done by everyone who has a camera and a simple video editing program. It provides us with an example of activity which will count for creativity in our CAS program.
I will post some photos and hopefully the film itself when we will finish it.

Plans for the international day

As a part of our CAS program we were asked to take part in organizing the International Day in our school. We were split in groups and in each group we had to come up with ideas on how to represent a country we are from. The group I am in will represent Russia. We decided to organize a traditional Russian tea-drinking. We will bring a samovar (a special device for bowling water), baranki (a ring-shaped roll) and some jam and honey. We are also planning to dress in national clothes and possibly teach some russian expressions. I will present a more detailed review on our activities after the international day will take place.