Abstract:

The extracurricular work of schoolchildren can be considered as the totality of all their activities aimed at solving the problems of education and socialization, development of interests, and formation of universal educational operations.

The purpose of the extracurricular work in chemistry is the deepening and the expansion of knowledge and horizons of students, development of their interest in the subject, independence and creativity. Extracurricular work helps to form a collective. It is an essential element in the unified system of educational process in the school. It helps to organize the leisure of schoolchildren.

The extracurricular work in chemistry can be represented as a system consisting of individual elements, in which the content is dominated. The latter is selected arbitrarily, since there are no restrictions and highly regulated programs. System organization of the extracurricular work in chemistry promotes the formation of chemical competence. So it has a major educational impact on the younger generation.
During four years of its work, the Association of chemistry teachers of Tver region has accumulated extensive experience in organizing extracurricular activities for school students in chemistry.

The following regional educational projects are included in the system of the extracurricular work:
• scientific-practical conference of schoolchildren “Mendeleev readings”;
• contest of didactic games in chemistry “Chemical games store”;
• contest of Olympiad tasks in chemistry “Original problem”;
• regional Olympiad of schoolchildren in chemistry “Khimonya” (in Russian it is a diminutive and funny form of “Young Chemist”);
• summer chemical school;
• online game of local lore in chemistry;
• contest of presentations “World of chemistry”, etc.

The regional Olympiad in chemistry “Khimonya” is particularly popular among schoolchildren and teachers of Tver region.
The purpose of this contest is to popularize the Olympic movement in chemistry as well as the identification, support and development of gifted schoolchildren.

The objectives of this Olympiad are search for talented youth and organization of vocational guidance, disclosure of pupils’ creative abilities, development of non-standard style of their thinking, involvement of students to the Olympiad movement in Tver region, intensification of extracurricular work in chemistry, and the creation of conditions for professional growth of chemistry teachers.

The article brings up details on the rules and techniques of this Olympiad, its format and features. The procedure for assessing students’ works is discussed particularly. Statistical data on the number of students, educational institutions and municipalities participating in the Olympics are provided too. We analyze the dynamics of involvement of schoolchildren in the Olympiad movement. It is noted that the number of participants in the regional Olympiad “Khimonya” annually increases (from 140 in 2013 to 261 in 2015). There were also positive dynamics of the number of participating educational institutions (29 to 57) with sufficiently stable (11-13) the number of municipalities represented at the competition.

Thus it can be concluded that the regional educational project “Khimonya”, remaining in demand by all participants of the educational process, is one of the components of the system of extracurricular activities in chemistry of Tver region.

Keywords:

Extracurricular activities, chemistry, schoolchildren olympiad, gifted children, professional growth of teachers, association of chemistry teachers.