Hope For Kids - a Chrismas Visit!

On Thursday 8th of December 2011, we visited the Hospital for a Christmas visit. We asked one of our teachers, Mr Dan Snyder, to dress up as Santa Claus and distribute the gifts we have gotten for the kids. We also blew up balloons to give to the children and sang Christmas carols not only to the kids who came to see us but the rest who were in their beds. I think the carol singing really brightened their days, and the smiles on their faces when we gave them the presents and the balloons was adorable! I thoroughly enjoyed this visit.



Giving away some balloons!



Distributing the gifts :)



Blowing balloons!



Singing Christmas carols



Mr Dan Snyder as Santa Claus. Thank you so much!



Bollywood Dancing

My mum started Bollywood Dancing about a year ago and she claimed it was important to be exposed to the culture of South East Asia, since we have the rare opportunity to live here, in a country with such a rich culture. She managed to convince me to take lessons over this winter break, and I'm happy to, since I've never done Bollywood Dancing before and I love dancing. I've practiced other genres of dance but never Bollywood, so it'd be nice to try out something new! My father's company is holding a Volunteers Leaving Ceremony so me and three others are practicing a Bollywood dance routine to perform at this event, three weeks from now. I'm really excited!

In taking Bollywood Dance classes, I am undertaking new challenges and developing new skills since Bollywood Dancing is something I've never done before, so hopefully I'll be able to pick up some new skills that aren't used in other genres. I am also working collaboratively with others in planning and initiating activities as we are working as a group of three, and in dance, teamwork is important because if we aren't all in sync, the whole performance can be ruined. By attending classes and practicing in my own time, I am also showing perseverance and commitment.

Swimming

For the past few months, over this semester, I have been swimming in my own time. I usually go after school on Wednesdays and on Saturday and Sunday. I have been focusing on raising my stamina and improving my strokes. My weakest strokes are backstroke and butterfly so I have been practicing those. And to raise my stamina, I aim to swim at least 1500m of front crawl (as that is the stroke I am most comfortable with).

I feel much more confident with my backstroke but I am still struggling with my butterfly, so I will aim to improve this stroke over next semester. In terms of the distance I can continuously swim, I strongly feel that I've improved because before, I used to grow tired after the first 500m but now I'm finding it easier to complete 1500m, although it's still quite tiring. I will continue to swim this distance, because I don't want to suddenly increase the distance until I become more comfortable with this distance.

By swiming in my own time, I am increasing awareness of my strengths and areas for growth as I am identifying my weaknesses so I can fix them. I am also showing perseverance and commitment by planning and initiating activities because I am setting goals and working my way towards achieving them. Through practice, I am hopefully developing new skills in swimming.

This Chrsitmas break, I plan on going swimming everyday and following the usual routine to improve my swimming!

Art for Fun!

It has been a long time since I had time to paint and raw for fun, but I enjoy it, as I feel like it's a break from the other things at school. Here are two arworks I worked on these past few weeks.



'Ship Sailing'



'Lonely Orbits'

In painting and drawing for fun, I am continuously developing new skills as nobody can ever have mastered all the skills of art. Each piece I create is practice.

'Hope For Kids' - Hospital Visit

On the 3rd of November 2011, we visited the Cancer Hospital. As we discussed the week before, we brought some flour, oil and food colouring to make play dough with the kids, which we then used to make play dough animals, flowes and so on. On this day, there weren't many kids who had come to play with us, so some of us went to sweep and mop the floors of the hospital. We took it in turns so all of us got to spend some time with the kids. Like the visit where we made photo frames, I thoroughly enjoyed this visit as well as, again, I got to see the kids happy because of our visit. The kids were adorable and I was glad that us being there was making them happy!

The kids making their adorable play dough animals

The criteria I fulfulled in this hospital visit are

• Planning and initiating activities, with the play dough activity and also sweeping and mopping
• Working collaboratively with others; the kids as well as the others in my group
• Showing perseverance and commitment
• Engaging in issues of global importance, by making the time we spend with the kids hopefully very enjoyable for them

'Hope For Kids' - Planning the Fundraiser

The 'Hope For Kids' CAS group met again on the 27th of October 2011 to further plan the fashion show fundraiser. In this session, I worked with two others in the CAS group to desgin our sample poster promoting clothing desgin competitions. We then discussed with the rest of the group about the venue, cost and other formal details of the event. We brainstormed possible venues, and came up with Cinnamon Grand Hotel, Taj Samdura Hotel, Park Street Muse Restaurant etc. Our CAS leader Upandha offered to look up the prices of these venues, which will contribute in the decision making process.

Our design of the poster

We also planned some activities for us to do at the hospital, since we were planning on visiting it the week after. We came up with several ideas, such as making play dough out of flour, oil and food colouring and making play dough animals with them, watching cartoons with them, playing childrens' games such as duck duck goose etc. We decided to do the play dough idea the coming week and think more about what to do the following week.

The criteria I am fulfilling by being a part of this CAS group are mentioned in my previous posts:

• Increasing awareness of my strengths and areas for growth
• Undertaking new challenges
• Planning and initiating activities
• Working collaboratively with others
• Showing perseverance and commitment
• Engaging in issues of global importance
• Developing new skills

'Hope For Kids' - Planning the Fundraiser

On the 6th of October 2011, the 'Hope For Kids' CAS group met to discuss various fundraising events we could hold. Some of these ideas included bake sales, talent shows etc. but the best idea we came up with was a fashion show, where we would promote a competition for clothing designs in various international schools around Colombo, the British School in Colombo, Colombo International School, Elizabeth Moir and so on. We would then pick out some of the best designs, which perhaps fit into some of the themes we will assign (which we have not yet made concrete decisions on). We spent this session planning various things for the event, some of us brainstorming themes and ideas, others of us designing posters and the leaders discussing the details of the event itself. We managed to come up with several suitable themes, that were appealing to young people and discussed the basic information that would be contained in the posters. We plan on making more progress with the planning process the next session we have.

In taking part in the planning of this fundraising event, I am increasing awareness of my strengths and areas for growth, as this is a big event to plan, and could be used to recognize my own strengths and weaknesses. I am also undertaking new challenges and developing new skills as this is the biggest event I have been involved in so far and it is fairly new to me. I am also working collaboratively with others in taking part in planned and initiated activities, as being one of the biggest CAS groups we are working together to ensure the success of this fundraising event. I am also showing perseverance and committment in taking part in an activity dealing with issues of global importance as childrens' cancer is an issue that concerns people globally and it is important that we work hard to make the time we spend with the children at the hospital the best moments of their life.