Playing Piano.

In year 12 I decided to choose playing piano as as my creative part of CAS.
I learned the melody " Шербурские зонтики"
My next aim was to learn an Azeri song which is called "Dost"- to a friend written by a famous Azeri composer.
I finally learned how to play it although I learned partly when I was 8 years old. I understood that playing piano is one of those things that if a person doesn't practice often then it is very easy to forget.
I asked my parents to buy me piano so that i could practice playing more often.
At first it was very challenging to read the notes and the musical signs as I forgot however I started to remember after the 5th time and I had a feeling that the music gets better and better the more I play.
I planned and initiated this activity as I thought how many times per week I am going to play. At first I didn't want to play that often because it was hard to read he notes however as time passed I didn't even pay attention to time I played as much as I wanted to.
This music is one of my mothers favourite songs so I decided that I will play it on her birthday.
In my opinion I showed perseverance and commitment in learning and playing this song and also increase awareness of strength and areas for growth.
Here is the video where I am playing music

Tutoring

This week I had one more lesson with my "student". This lesson was very interesting as at first I asked her about grammar and tested her on the previous lesson.
It turned out that she revised very well and we didn't have to spend lots of time on that.
So we successfully moved on reading A.S. Pushkin's story. "Metel'"
In my opinion by doing this activity we both undertook new challenges and developed new skills.
As before I never taught anyone how to read and pronounce words correctly as well as explain the story and she did not read a story in russian.
It was very challenging at the beginning as her russian is not perfect and we are still learning however towards the end of the story she was already reading fluently.
The most important thing,  which I learned from doing this activity is team work and working collaboratively with each other.
We both enjoyed the whole process of teaching and learning and the mot important things was that she has a strong wish to learn to speak russian and not only to speak but also to know russian literature.
I think the most successful part in this lesson was that it was p;annex better than the previous lesson and this was very important because I actually planned before how much time I will spend for the revision material and how much time will be spent on reading and analysing the story.
The homework for now for her is to choose one more book which she would like to read next lesson and also to tell me the story,  which we read together in russian.

This week I made shekerbura, which is an azeri cookie.
By making it I developed new skills. Throughout the year one of my cas creativity and service activities was making national cookies.  At the start of the year I made Pachlava, which is also a national bakery however I think that this time my cookies were much better and the process of making them was much easier.
After doing this activity I learned that it is very important not to miss the time when the sweets have to be taken from the oven. The first bakeries I made weren't that good because they were slightly burned:)
However the second time I was checking the dough every 5 minutes.
The most challenging part in making sweets is making a dough. This was challenging for me but now it is not as I thank that after two times of failure to make a good dough now I know how to make a better one.

 The most important part of this activity was done and then the next step was to make a brochures for teachers and students as in my opinion it is important to share your culture with the representatives of other cultures and countries.
So i made a brochure and I made it green on purpose because Novruz is the coming of spring. I enjoyed this part very much. Decorating and finding pictures for my new brochure was fun.
However the most enjoyable part of this activity was to see that teachers and students liked what I made.
This activity helped me to develop new skills- Making dough.
I also improved on planing because everything worked out as I planned beforehand. Whereas last year when I made pachlava I couldn't do what I planned to and that is why I had to change the aim of the activity.
In my opinion I also showed perseverance and commitment as making the most important beets of the Azeri cookie, which was sugar mixed with nuts, took a long time and I had to make sure that the skin of the nuts is removed. In order to do so I developed a technique,  which is to fry them first and then put nuts in the water. Afterwards I could clean them.  Also I had to make sure that they are broken down to a very small beets. In order to do so I used a mixer for coffee beens:))
I really enjoyed this activity and I hope that in the future I will again make this type of pastry.

Making Shekerbura (Plan)

The 21st of March is the Holiday in Azerbaijan.

It is Azeri and also a new Year in other Islam countries.

My plan for this weekend was to make shekerbura because I don't know how too cook it and want to learn. 

Also my plan is to cook lot's of shekerbura and bring some to school to failiarise my teachers and my friends in school with the Azeri culture.

I also plan to make a brochure where I can put some of the information about Novruz - which is Azeri new year and a coming of Spring. 

Tutoring 2

It was a long time we didn't have a Russian lesson with the girl whom I am teaching. She wen to holidays and after having the first lesson with her I saw that she forgot russian a bit. We had a lesson on sunday and this tuesday.
My plan was to teach her in an hour conjugation, which is an important topic in russian grammar.
However I saw that an hour time wasn't enough as she didn't understand the topic straight away so I decided that we will spent some more time on this topic on tuesday as well.
There was an improvement on tuesday as I printed of the table which i made on sunday and her homework was to memorize and come up with some examples. She is a very hard working girl and wishes to learn russian I think it is also an advantage that her husband speaks Russian and he can help her with the homework.
I found out by doing this activity that sometimes after planning and initiating the activity it can be that things do not exactly work as it was planned for example in this activity I was expecting that we will cover the new topic, which I chose in an hour however it extended to more than one lesson.
From this I learned that even if sometimes the plan is not very efficient it is important to know how to control the lesson and be in charge of it. Therefore I gave her some homework so that she will know the material better.
Next time own lesson will be on sunday again.
I am planning to test her on the homework,  which I gave to her and start reading russian literature so that our lessons will not only be based on grammar.
I am planning to read "Метель" with her written by A.S.Pushkin. I hope that she will enjoy it and the main aim of the next lesson is to see if she understands russian texts and also to add some new words to her vocabulary.

Tutoring

The girl whom I was tutoring before came back to Moscow again and she really wants to continue the lessons again.
I am planning to have lessons with her twice a week for an hour.
The plan for the first lesson is:
Review all the preview work we have done with her.
And start a new topic,  which is conjugation.
A small table was made for her,  which has a summary of this topic and which in my opinion will be useful for her.
 The following is the material which we have to cover next lesson.  I am planning to finish explaining it to her in an hour time.
Тип склонения Пояснения и примеры

•  Обратить внимание 1 склонение Существительные женского, мужского и общего рода с окончанием -а / -я в именительном падеже единственного числа: жена, земля, слуга, юноша, забияка. 
• Существительные на -ия (армия, Греция) имеют в дательном и предложном падежах единственного числа окончание -и. 2 склонение 
• Существительные мужского рода с нулевым окончанием в именительном падеже единственного числа и существительные среднего рода с окончанием -о / -е в именительном падеже единственного числа: закон, конь, село, поле. 
• Существительные на -ий и -ие (гений, настроение) имеют в предложном падеже единственного числа окончание -и. 3 склонение Существительные женского рода с нулевым окончанием в именительном падеже единственного числа: ель, мышь, дочь, лошадь, радость. 
• У существительных, оканчивающихся в именительном и винительном падежах единственного числа на шипящую, всегда пишется на конце мягкий знак: мышь, дочь.

Valentines Day (Selling Sandwiches)

On the valentines Day me and other ear 13 students were selling sandwiches as it was planned.
We also sold drinks as cola and sprite.  They were a lot of students in the school so we made a lot of profit.
I undertook new challenges as before I never made sandwiches so fast.  I had to work very fast as they were a lot of people who wanted to buy sandwiches.
I learned from this activity that it is essential to work collaboratively with others as if we didn't fork collaboratively then we wouldn't be able to make profit and to sell enough sandwiches.
One of us was taking orders, another was making sandwiches and the third one was organizing,  which sandwich is with what inside.
From this activity I learned that it is very important to plan the activity before as well.  We found out after the valentines day that the amount of bred that was bought was too much and actually lot of bred was left after the day was over.  This is one of the things,  which could be improved for the next time.
Also at the beginning of the activity it was hard to know which sandwich has what inside.  If it is with cheese only or with cheese. ham an ketchup.  That is decided to come up with a method,  which will help us to easily identify the contents of sandwiches.
We took four plates and wrote a small note next to them of what is inside the sandwiches.  I think organizing it in such way saved us lot of time and benefited the activity.
At the end of the day we noticed that students and even teachers at the school enjoyed eating our sandwiches and it was nice to see that they liked it.

Selling Sandwiches on the Valentines Day.

My group has planned to sell the sandwiches tomorrow on the Valentines Disco. 

I order to sell the sandwiches we have to buy packs of bred, cheese and ham.

Each person from the group new in advance what he/she has to buy in order to run the activity.

 I am going to buy packs of bread and also cheese. 

There will be approximately 60 students attending the disco so we are going to make sure that every student will be able to buy the sandwich.

In our groups we have decided that Sandwiches with ham and cheese will be 50 rubles,  sandwiches only with cheese will be 40 rubles. 

I hope that at the end of the day students will like the sandwiches we' ll sell and I hoe we will meet our target of raising 10000 rubles and then donating that money to the orphanage. 

SNOW Day !!

On snow day our group planned and initiated painting on the snow activity.
In order to paint on the snow we brought acrylic paints and Sabina brought brushes.
All the colours,  which were needed we brought.  The idea was that students will take the paints mis them with water and then draw on the snow with brushes. However afterwards Ms Platt suggested an idea that it will be better and faster if we used bottles and put water and paints in them and mix it.  She gave us bottles for paints and the result was really good. We had to refill the bottles with water very often as the paints run out. By the help of Miss Kitchen we managed to organise children and we explained to them that first they should make a sculpture as whole group and then start to paint on it.
As an overall result each year group made a sculpture or a drawing on the snow.
It was a creativity activity and therefore each student could make whatever sculpture or painting they wanted to.  However our group proposed ideas to them and some of them actually used the ideas we told them to.
I really liked the sculptures made by a year 8 girls.  It was a rabbit,  which I also colored.
Children made all sorts of painting,  the snow was colourful .  One part of it was covered by an abstract painting,  one part of it was covered by a sculpture of a turtle,  the snow on the small bushes was colored in pink and the most important thing is that all kids in my opinion enjoyed the activity as well as learned a new technique of art.
By doing this activity I learned how to organise students and initiate the activity,  as I brought some of the paints and proposed some of the ideas to children.
Also in my opinion what advantaged this activity,  thanx to Sabina was that we also could use food paints as they dissolved in water very quickly and gave a brighter colour.
At the start of the activity we told to students that they use one particular field of snow,  however at the end of it they also used the fields of snow closer to the one we suggested them to.  We let them do that as the overall result came up very nice and one of the main targets of this activity was to give them an opportunity to use their imagination and fantasy.

our group achieved the following outcomes:

1) Plan and Initiate New Activities2) Work Collaboratively With Others3) Develop New Skills4) Undertake new challenges

These are the sculptures and paintings, which students maid:

Painting on the snow!!! (PLan)

As the creativity and service part of the CAS me, Sabina and Neda decided to run the activity where children could paint on the snow.
For that we will need to buy the paints and organise the year groups.
FIrst We have to buy the paints needed,  then we have to buy brushes and the main idea is that students will first have to make the sculptures and then paint on them.
The sculptures,  which came on my mind and in my opinion will be easily done are a snowman, rabbit, a turtle and just different paints on the snow.
I hope that students will enjoy the activity and it will work out.

Sewing.

Fot the creativity part of my CAS I am doing sewing every week at least for an hour.  In my opinion I have a big progress because now the picture of a flower, which I was sewing is already done and my friends and parents really like it. 

Sewing gave me an opportunity to be creative and also to improvise.  Now I can freely sew without even looking at the picture and it is a type of art,  which I never practiced before.

By making a new picture I undertook new opportunities and developed new skills. 

In my opinion I also showed commitment in the activity and now I am more than happy to teach how to sew to my friends and show what patterns and techniques they are. 

I am planning to put this picture in the frame and give it to the cleaning lady at my house.  She is a very nice person,  who loves flowers and I really hope she will like my present. 

Making a video.

In the chemistry class me and my classmates had an opportunity to make a small documentary movie.  Everyone from the class had a role which he/she is going to perform.  I had to edit the movie and be a scientist who is explaining to a journalist and a capitalist the advantages and the disadvantages of lipids.

It took us a lot of time to plan and film the movie since we had to make up the story.  We had a lot of film trials amongst which they were unsuccessful and successful ones.  I had to edit them afterwards.  I undertook new challenges by editing the documentary movie and I also had an opportunity to be creative.  it took me a considerable amount of time to do it and by doing it I also developed new skills which I will definitely use in the future as I really enjoyed editing.
I also showed the short documentary movie to my friends from the russian state school and the university.  They liked it and I also shared my skills with them.

Cooking national food for the international day!!

For the International day I made Qutabs.  Qutabs are the traditional Azeri food.  By making them I developed new skills because before I never made Qutabs.  I found the recipe on the internet and bought all of the products needed for making Qutabs.  I needed meet,  green vegetable and also pumpkin because I wanted to make three different types of qutabs.
The most challenging part of cooking was to make a dough and rolling it.  After the dough was ready I put the cooked ingredients into it and Qutab was  already ready to be cooked.
After it was ready I was looking forward to bring it to school and see if teachers,  parents and classmates like it.  It turned out to be well and I was happy that I had an opportunity to show people in the school one type of my national cuisine.
Most of the people who tried Qutabs asked me about the special ingredients which was put on top of it. I explained about the ingredient called "Sumax",  which is used not only in Azeri cuisine but also in most of the Middle East countries.

Raffle Tickets.

In order to buy presents for children at the orphanage I had to collect money.  Me and Sophia decided to organize a sale of the raffle tickets.  Sophia made a poster and I made a tickets.  Minjin was helping to us to sale the tickets.  We collected about 2 thousand roubles and at the end when everyone bought the ticket the winner got a price.  The price was a full bag of candies and chocolates.  

I worked collaboratively with others and planned and initiated the activity.  

It was also nice to see that the BIS students wanted to help us buy presents for children.

A visit to the russian orphanage.

Over the Christmas break I went to the Russian orphanage.  It took me a long time to plan and after a lot of phone calls to the russian orphanages I found the one to which we went. 

Going to the orphanage "павлин" was a good experience although sometimes it was hard not to be sad at a time being there.

Before going to the children's house "павлин" I had to make a plan of what I am going to do at the orphanage.  I planned and initiated the activity as I made a presentation about the UK. 

Printed pictures of Scotland, England, Ireland and Wales in order to tell to children about the traditions and culture of the UK. 

After the presentation about the UK together with children we tried to find similarities and differences between the Russian Christmas and English Christmas.  Each child got a colored printout of how do British people celebrate Christmas.

One of the final activities was to teach them the song "Rudolph the red nosed Rain deer" Me and Minjin first showed a small video of the song and then we all sang it together.  In my opinion the most enjoyable part for children was to colour the picture of a Reindeer and a Santa Claus while I was reading them the story about Rudolph.  It appeared that children never heard of this story,  song and also they didn't know somethings form the UK culture and traditions. I was very happy to  know that children liked the presentation and along with it learned some new things. I undertook new challenges and developed new skills by this activity. In my opinion I also showed perseverance and commitment in my actions because it took me a considerably long time to plan what I am going to say and also see if what I will present will do any use to children.
I was very happy that children were listening with an interest. 

In this activity I saw that it is very important to work with others in a team.  I worked collaboratively with Min Jin.  
After the presentation we went downstairs to the kitchen.   Minjin made a cake for children.  We all had fun because children could have a choice to decorate the cake or not.  They all wanted to try and decorate it.  We ware all very happy to see that they all enjoyed this activity. 

While being at there I also considered ethical implications of my actions.  When we were about to leave we gave presents to children.  They were a 13 children who listened to the presentation.  Begining from the age of seven to the age of twelve.  I decided to buy small cars for each of them and also put candies and chocolates inside.  
I really enjoyed teaching, playing and talking to children.  They were very friendly as well.  When were about to leave with Minjin they sang for us a Russian song. 
It was a memorable day for me and I am looking forward going to "павлин" again.