reflection creativity

reflection creativity

Before we started our CAS project, our group was picked out to speak on a school event called Drinks for a Cause. We made a presentation and to speak at the event. In the presentation we discussed the CAS stages and explained what we did. This really improved my public speaking and planning skills.

For the Thailand project we held several bake sales where we would bake goods (mostly sweets) and sell them. Most of the time we would have the bake sales during school events. One of our last bake sales was at the sports day of our school. We all had baked several goods and we displayed them on the table. We bake sale went very well and we collected a lot of money. I tried to bake another recipe every time we had a bake sale. So I stayed creative and explored new recipes. Although I do not bake very much, at the moments I baked I really got into the process and definitely improved my baking skills. I also really enjoyed the moment that people would buy the goods and find them very tasty. 

I made a drawing at home which took a lot of time to create. I designed a pattern with pencil and filled the whole paper. After that I coloured the pattern, and I would colour in a way so that the same colours would not be next to each other. This took longer than I imagined, but I really liked the process. I would draw a lot when I was younger and decided to pick it up a little. I definitely improved my amount of patients. It also had a calming effect and I was really able to focus on just the drawing. I will definitely make a new one in the future.

I also went to different museums. I went to a couple of museums in Italy and I learned more about the culture and the style of the country. I also went to a museum in south of Germany and it was about Napoleon. This one impressed me the most because there was a house where Napoleon came every now and then and we were allowed to walk through that. I could really imagine Napoleon walking there and that made the experience more interesting. I can appreciate museums more now than I did before. 

Overall I enjoyed the creativity experience and I learned to know another part of myself.

I achieved the learning outcomes: developing new skills, undertaking new challenges and consideration of ethical implications.

I definitely improved my drawing and baking skills and saw the drawing as a hard challenge. I really learned more about the culture and had new experiences from the museums.

      

  

reflection service

reflection service

Together with the Dutch group at our school we had a project called Baan Phak Ping were we collect money for. Baan Phak Ping is a small organization in Thailand that provides shelter and education for girls who are sexually abused. The organization belongs to an aunt of one of the people in the Dutch group and so we were sure that the money we collected would get there. In our Dutch group we called it the Thailand project. To introduce the Thailand project to the school, a member of the Dutch group and I made a small presentation. We held the presentation during lunch time so everyone was there. Every time there was a school event or an opportunity to raise money for our project, we took it. We would include our project in standard school events such as Drinks for a Cause or the summer party. We would bake goods for bake sales also to raise money for the project. I really enjoyed helping out and raising money for the project. The girls there deserve an education and a home. The stories of them really got to me and that motivated me more to raise money for the project. I also realised that sexual abuse is still a big problem in some areas of the world. Children and young girls are used sexually to earn money for the family. We as a group collected over 650 euros over the past two years. 

I also helped out by a vet. Before starting the IB I did an internship at the local vet in the town. I enjoyed this so much that I decided that I wanted to help out more after the internship. This became an ongoing activity. I would help out about once a week for a couple of hours by the vet. I would help cleaning, feeding the animals and help out by holding the animals as the vet took blood samples or give injections. I enjoyed this so much because I want to study medicine myself. Every now and then I would also join the vet as he went to help out at an animal shelter. At the animal shelter there we mainly dogs and cats. Most of them did not have a pleasant history, such as being abused or abandoned. I really liked helping out there but I found the animals very sad because some of them would be wounded or very scared. This made me realise that animal abuse is still a big problem and I just could not imagine why someone would do something so horrible to an animal. I was glad that I could take a little bit of the pain away.  

I did the CAS project together with two other classmates. We did our project at a retirement home. We went there for several times and spend time together with the elderly. We would organise, together with the staff of the retirement home, small activities for the elderly. We baked cookies with them, read with them, played games with them and we talked with them. Overall the elderly were really nice and their stories were amazing. I learned something new about the German culture, what typical German food is and how the elderly used to live. I also saw that some of the elderly were really lonely and that they really enjoyed the activities we did with them. I also enjoyed the experience at the retirement home and learned some new skills such as, working better together and improved my public speaking as we did a presentation on our CAS project on a school event. Also I have improved my German because all the activities were in German and we had to work together with the staff in German.  

I enjoyed my overall experience for service. It made me more open-minded and caring. 

I achieved the learning outcomes: undertaking new challenges, planned and initiated activities, working collaboratively with others, Showing perseverance and commitment, engaged with issues of global importance, Consideration of ethical implications and developing new skills.  

Helping out at the retirement home was something completely new for me but I enjoyed it more than I thought I would be. Planning the activities together with my group and the staff of the retirement home were tricky sometimes but we always found a way to work it out. I have realized that animal abuse and sexual abuse are still a big problem and that loneliness with elderly is more common than we think. I definitely improved and developed new skills such as working collaboratively and public speaking.

  

reflection action

Reflection action

For the past two years I have done tennis as my main activity. I had played tennis before and I enjoyed so much that I decided that I would continue to play tennis. I was not very good at the beginning so my goals were to improve my technique and get a better feeling of the sport. It was not always easy to practice the technique, for example the forehand technique was harder for me than the backhand technique. But after some more practice I managed to improve my forehand technique and that really helped in playing games. I really enjoyed the practice and the experience and I will definitely continue to play tennis in the future.

I also went swimming for half a year. Swimming was mostly an activity that I did in the holidays or on the weekends. So I wanted to improve the amount of time that I went swimming because I like it a lot. Together with a friend, I went swimming almost every Wednesday. I really enjoyed to swim together with my friend because we could motivate each other. The goal was to swim 50 lanes in an hour. The first time we went swimming we were not able to reach the goal but after a while we were able to reach the goal and we really saw that our condition had improved. I also really enjoyed this activity and I might want to schedule swimming back into my week. 

Another activity I did was running. I ran about once a week for three months. The final goal was to join the Frauenlauf in Mannheim. This is a run for women and you run for a charity the organization picked that year. I ran the Frauenlauf the year before and I did not really train for it so I decided that I would train for it that year. The run is about six kilometres long. So my goal was to train myself so that I could run six kilometres without stopping too much. In the beginning this was very hard and I was very tired after the first four kilometres but along as I trained I could see that my condition became better and that I was able to run for a longer amount of time. Unfortunately, I was not able to run the Frauenlauf because something came in between. But I am planning on running it another time because the one time I ran the Frauenlauf I really liked the atmosphere and the experience in total.

Every now and then I went hiking as well. I live in an area where there are hills and small mountains. Sometimes in the weekend I would go up on the hills together with my mom and we would hike for about one and a half hour. I mainly did this for relaxation and to clear my mind. I was surprised how good hiking can help you by calming yourself. I will definitely continue hiking since it is good for the mind and improves your condition. 

I also completed a 30 day ab challenge. I was curious for this challenge and I decided that I would want to try it out. The goal was to complete the whole challenge. The challenge was not extremely hard and I did not mind doing it. I managed to complete the whole challenge and the result was better than I thought it would be and it surprised me. But to keep the result you have to keep up with the exercises otherwise your condition will drop again. I think I will do more challenges in the future. 

 

Overall, I really enjoyed my activity as part of CAS and I found out that sport can be more enjoyable as you think. 

I achieved the learning outcomes: increased awareness of strengths and areas of growth and undertaking new challenges. I really feel that I increased my tennis skills a lot and the hiking was a fairly new experience for me and I feel that it helped me balance myself more. 

CAS Project (20-12-2016) 07-01-2016

The next day we went back again to the retirement home. This time we helped with packing presents for everyone in the retirement home. The house has over a hundred people. The presents contained a shampoo bottle in the scent lavender and a box of chocolates.

After that we went by the people to talk to them. We went to talk to a Dutch old lady. Since the other girl and I are Dutch, the lady who worked there thought it was nice if we talk in our native language to her. Old lady recognised the language but was too tired to talk to us.

Just before lunch time we gathered together with some of the elderly, so we could sing and read for them. It was very nice because the elderly remembered the songs and stories from their childhood. We also had conversations with them about how their Christmas used to be.

When it was lunchtime for the elderly we went back up to help decorate. We made little bowls with decorations in them to place on the tables.

 

After helping decorating we were done and went home. I really enjoyed helping out in the retirement home these two days. It is sometimes hard to see the people, for example the ones who are sick or the ones who do not know what is going on any more. I also really appreciate that the retirement home let us work with them again. 

CAS project (19-12-2016) 29-12-1016

CAS project in the retirement home in Wachenheim. 

About a week ago we went back to the retirement home in Wachenheim. We decided to go back once more because we enjoyed the time in the retirement home and we wanted to add something to our CAS project. The people in the retirement home were happy to hear form us and we were welcome to come again. We decided to go around Christmas time. School was still going on but we asked for permission to do our CAS project.

The time we agreed on to go to the retirement home was 9:30. We emailed and phoned with the retirement home before we went back. 

This time we baked Christmas cookies with the elderly. The elderly can decide on their own if they want to come or not. Luckily many of the elderly showed up. The recipes for the cookies were not hard so many of the elderly would be able to participate in this activity. We made three types of cookies: glazed hearts, star cookies with chocolate and pine trees with sugar on top.

We started of with making the dough and letting it rest in the fridge for about 30 minutes.

After we let it rest in the fridge, we rolled out the dough to make figures out of it with the molds.

 

After that was done, they went into the oven to bake. In the mean time we spoke to the elderly and listened to their stories. Not all of the elderly are able to function good any more and that is sometimes hard to see. I had a lot of fun with an older woman whom I baked cookies together with. She told me all about the German traditions and about what kind of cookies she baked when she was younger. I learned from her that baking cookies before Christmas is an old tradition and that everyone used to do it. You would learn to bake from your mother or grand mother.

When the cookies were done baking, we decorated them.

After everything was done we helped cleaning everything up. By the time we were done cleaning and putting away the cookies it was lunch time for the elderly. We helped walking them to the room where they had lunch.

I had a nice time with the elderly this day and it was fun baking cookies with them. I had definitely a nice experience.

we left the retirement home about 14:00. 

7-10-2016 Money Bake sale

The money we got for the bake sale was a 150 euros. We were very happy with the money and it was way more than we expected. the money will be donated to our project, the Thailand project. 

29-09-2016 Bake sale sportsday (28-09-2016)

Yesterday we had the bake sale on sports day with our Dutch group. We wanted to have a bake sake for some longer time but figured that a day like sports day was the best opportunity. We sold quite a lot and the money that we earned must first be divided, because there were some other projects who participated as well. We really had to work together as a group and communicate well to make sure everything was going well. I also practised my German skills. Since German is my third language, and I don't practice German classes any more, it can be challenging to speak in German. Some of the parents and children spoke German to me and I tried my best to speak back in German.