Halloween: Decorations & Cooking

    As the Halloween Day is coming closer and closer, the girls and I have started making decorations for the Halloween disco. In order to create a celebration atmosphere we want to decorate the corridors of the school as well as the outside space.
    As well as the decorating part, we are paying extra attention to the bake sale that is planned to take place on lunchtime. In order to practice decorating the cupcakes with Halloween-themed icing, Karina and Polina came to my place, so we baked cupcakes and decorated them with green, orange, white and even black icing that seemed appropriate for the occasion.
    The decorations have proven to require much more time than baking. Since the school building is large, we had to spend quiet a lot of time first listing all the decoration-related ideas we had, then buy supplies to make them and then spend a lot of time actually making them.
    We have decided to use spider-webs, bloody stains on the windows, balloons, themed garlands and mummies. Some of it could be made in advance, so that's what we have been spending most of our free time doing. Personally, I have decided to make a big corpse decoration that could then be hanged somewhere like the hall in order to scare younger students. It turned out rather challenging as I had never produced anything that big in the past.

   Also, as a preparation for the Halloween day, I have tested my creativity by practicing a spooky makeup on my little sister, so that it would give her an idea of what kind of costume she could choose for the disco, since we were going to organize a competition for the best costume.

Halloween: Planning

    I have been a fan of Halloween for as long as I can remember. For this very reason, I am very exciting to say that this year, a group of people from Year 13, including moi, are organizing the Halloween day in BIS 3!
    We have made a quick plan of the activities that are going to take place on that day. They include a themed bake sale on lunchtime, and an after-school disco, during which we are going to sell snacks and have a couple of mid-song games, including a competition for the best costume. We are also planning on making it a non-school uniform day, which would allow us to raise funds for charity.
     We have spent the last couple of CAS sessions planning the details of the day, thinking about who to ask to do what to help as well as making a list of things we would need for decorations (as, of course, decorations are one of the best parts of Halloween!). Even though we are still in the planning period, we are already facing a couple of challenges, such as lack of free time. I think we have underestimated the amount of work that needs to be done to organize a good event, especially when there are so many different aspects that have to be taken into consideration.
    Karina and Polina have taken it upon themselves to allocate different tasks to different people, so that everyone is responsible for different aspects of the day. It was really nice of them as it has helped us a lot.

 

"Ruka Pomoschi" - Helping the Homeless

    One of the charity organizations we have decided to help using the money collected during the fundraising money collecting challenge is the "Ruka Pomoschi" organization that helps the homeless people around Moscow. Together with the girls who have been contacting the organization in order to find out what kinds of things they are in need of, we went to one of the biggest supermarkets in Moscow and have bought big amounts of food that the organization suggested we get - wheat, grain, rice, pasta, biscuits, sugar, salt, drinking water, tea, coffee, condensed milk, mustard and pearl barley.
   The next day after school we went to the organization's office, where we were met by a lovely woman, who turned out to be the coordinator of the organization. She asked us questions regarding how we found out about the organization and why we have decided to help the charity organization. She then expressed sincere gratitude for our help, because even the smallest help can save someone's life.

The following learning outcomes were met:
- Planned and initiated activities
- Worked collaboratively with others
- Shown perseverance and commitment to the activity
- Engaged in issues of global importance
- Considered ethical implications of our actions

Dog shelter

    As I have said in the previous post - as a result of a fundraising activity we have organized in our school we managed to raise around 40,000 rubles. A part of this money was allocated to be spent on the dog shelter that we have been helping for the last year and a half. We have already bought food and medicaments in the past, so this time we decided to contact the shelter again and ask them about what kinds of things they are in need of right now.
    Together with Polina and Karina, we went to Ashan and bought dog food, meat, drinking water, wheat and medicaments that we then took to the shelter. They were very grateful for our contribution and gave us another tour around the shelter in order to show the progress they have made after our last visit.

Results of the money-collecting challenge

    As I have mentioned in one of the previous posts, Karina, Polina, Apolina and I have organized the money-collecting challenge in our school. After the challenge has been open for a week, we have counted all the coins that we managed to collect in order to be able to announce the winner (the Year 11s ended up becoming the winning class).
    The task of counting the coins ended up being much harder than I expected, because we managed to collect much more funds than we expected. At first, I couldn't believe how much we actually managed to collect in just one week - after converting all the money into rubles, it added up to around 35,000. The first thing we had to do was to separate all the coins into different currencies. As it turned out, there were all kinds of different currencies in the jars - from pounds and dollars to shekels and euros. Then, we began separating the Russian coins into different values - 1, 5, 10, 50 kopeks, 1, 2, 5 and 10 rubles, counting everything, putting them into separate plastic bags, labeling the quantity of coins in every one of them, so that in the future it would be easier for us to explain it to the bank when we went to exchange it to paper money.
    Overall, the task ended up being much harder than expected and we had to spend a lot of time and effort on this challenge, but the end result was really worth it! After numerous discussions, we decided to separate the collected money and spend the money on different charity organizations - a part of the whole sum was allocated to the dog shelter, a part of it was to be given to the "Homeless" people charity while a part of it would be donated to the local children's hospital.

The following learning outcomes were met:
- Undertaken new challenges
- Planned and initiated activities
- Worked collaboratively with others
- Shown perseverance and commitment to the activity
- Engaged in issues of global importance
- Considered ethical implications of our actions

International Day

    The British International School of Moscow has an amazing tradition of organizing an International Day in the end of October of every year. This year was no exception. This year, our class was responsible for setting up the dining hall as well as helping Yr 12 to run several activities. Personally, Polina Orlova and I, we decided to join a group of Yr 12 students, who had an activity about Lebanon. While they were presenting their Power Point presentation and giving younger students a chance to try Lebanese food, Polina and I were drawing Henna tattoos and doing face painting of flags.
    As well as running our activities, the day before the International Day we have made decorations to decorate the hall, creating the "International" mood so that there would be a festive atmosphere during the day.

 The following learning outcomes were met:
- Increased awareness of strengths and weaknesses
- Planned and initiated activities
- Worked collaboratively with others
- Considered ethical implications of our actions

    In order to prepare for the activity, we brought a lot of different paints as well as henna paste, oil, hand sanitizers and a couple of other tools we would have to use that day. Overall, I think the day was very well-planned, as usual, and the students enjoyed all the activities they were a part of. The Henna tattoos required some preparations as it was necessary for us to get a signed permission from the students' parents, which had to be written and distributed earlier that week.
    Our activity became so popular that we had to spend the break time and most of our lunch in the art room, painting faces and drawing Henna tattoos, so we ourselves didn't have a lot of free time to enjoy activities, but I think in the end it was all worth it!

Cooking Club

    My friend Karina and I have been organizing a weekly cooking club, starting from last year, because we have realized that it was a great opportunity to combine our creativity and passion for cooking. The club has been running every Monday lunchtime in the chemistry lab. The hardest part has been to choose a recipe for next week's club as there were certain limitations that we had to face, such as lack of an oven or any heat.
    We have already taught younger students how to cook Asian rolls, a muffin in a mug, omelette in a microwave, ginger and grape tartlets and the Halloween special - cookie monsters. Overall, every session we had more than 7 students from different year groups coming to our club, on some occasions the number of visitors we had was more than 12! In order to keep people informed about the next week's recipes Karina and I have decorated a board in the corridor, so that we could put up notices, telling people what the next week's cooking club will feature.
   Overall, so far I think the club has shown to be a success, even despite the fact that we had to clean everything up after the younger students. Many people brought food containers with them, so that they could take what they cooked home to show to their parents - we thought it was very nice of them to do that and it encouraged us to think outside the box, so the students would have something new to show to their parents every week.

I believe that we have meet the following learning outcomes:
- Planned and initiated activities
- Worked collaboratively with others
- Shown perseverance and commitment to the activity
- Increased awareness of strengths and weaknesses

Money-collecting challenge

     During the last few CAS sessions, a couple of friends and I have been discussing different fund-raising ideas we have. After making of list of different ideas, the one all of us could agree on was organizing a money-collecting challenge. It involves setting up a separate jar for every year group and putting it in the hall, where everyone would be able to see them. We would then make announcements about the competition. According to our plan, the competition will last for one school week. Students are encouraged to bring as many coins as possible, not necessary Russian rubles, but also other foreign currencies.
    Karina, Polina, Apolina and I decorated huge 5 litre bottles with silver wraps and a number for every year group. We also made announcements during registration. The students seemed rather exciting, so we are hoping to raise money for charity.