Our Kids Blog

Vintage vs. Outer Space

Week two of Design Camp at the Design Exchange summer camp in Toronto was an out-of-this-world success!

Our Vintage Couture camp was visited by Dawna Pym from the Royal Ontario Musuem who brought in pieces from her personal collection for the campers to examine. We also visited Divine Decadence and spoke with owner Carmelita Blondet who shared her love of collecting fabulous pieces with the group.

Our Design for Space camp spent the week designing other worldly pieces like planet rovers, lunar architecture and mission badges. Satellite designer Cordell Grant visited to answer all of our campers questions about designing for space.

[Katie Weber is the Director of Youth Programs at the Design Exchange's Design Camp in downtown Toronto. Click to read their summer camp profile on Camps.ca.]

Tags: day camp, design, summer camp, Toronto

Surviving the heat at Cybercamp

We’re so happy to be included in the blogging at Our Kids Blog and this is our first blog of the summer.  Cybercamp Robotics Academy is a camp that takes place during the month of July, tailored to girls and boys aged 9-14 years of age.  At our camp kids learn to design, create, and program robots using the Mindstorms NXT robot from LEGO.  Each week is a different experience because we have a new and exciting theme for each week of July (Tomb Raiders, Mission Possible, Ocean Odyssey, and Need For Speed).  We were awarded the Best Day Camp in Stouffville in 2009 and have expanded to Toronto this year with our second site.

I’ll be writing about experiences at the Toronto site for the next two weeks.  This week it’s been all about Mission: Possible and the kids have been working to stop an evil mastermind from unleashing his biological warfare on the residents of Southern Ontario.  After using their robots to infiltrate and disarm the security system of  the pharmaceutical company responsible for the creation of this device, the Mission: Possible team has had to bug the office of the company to discover the whereabouts of Damien Darksoul.  Once located, his fingerprint must be retrieved to gain access to his secure elevator.  The teams are four days into their mission, and with only one day left, it remains to be seen if any of them will be able to save us all from certain disaster!

Check us out tomorrow for some pics and possibly a video to see if any of us survived!!!

[Cybercamp Robotics Academy is a day camp Stouffville, ON.]

Tags: co-ed, day camp, Education, learning, summer camp, Summer Programs & Camps, teacher, Teaching, Technology, Toronto

Summer Staycationing in Toronto

It’s that time of year again… the days left for school are rapidly dwindling. My family, like many families, is around most of the summer. That leaves the age old question: “what to do?” to keep your kids’ (and therefore your) sanity intact. What makes a ‘vacation’ a ‘vacation’? – relaxation, exploration and fun! As I am in a new school environment this year, I took the opportunity for some input and new ideas from some of the families at school. While we have our favourites, I am looking forward to trying some of these new things out too!

1) Mini-beach vacation – I am lucky enough to live a short bike ride away from the beach, and take advantage of it LOTS. But even if you are coming from across town, it’s always a great destination for the family. Simply bring your beach blanket and a picnic, some sand toys, a Frisbee or such, and you can feel like you are somewhere more exotic than your hometown. More »

Tags: children, family, kids, Toronto

Sing for your (Healthy) Supper

There must be something about the toddler tongue that tells kids that anything remotely healthy is a threat to their happiness – a danger to be avoided by any means necessary. Cue a scene worthy of any war epic: screaming, kicking, and crying amid explosions of milk and creamed vegetables that splatter against what used to be your spotless kitchen. On any other day you may be the commander general of the house, but this is one battle that’s tough to win.

But what’s harder than getting your child to eat what you put in front of them? How about taking them out to see a play? Or, better yet, an opera? There is a reason you don’t see many three-year-olds romping around the opera house, kids aren’t known for their artistic appreciation and might end up snoozing rather than savoring the performance. Either that, or their yells might upstage the singers themselves.

But Tapestry New Opera Works, a Toronto-based opera company, thinks these two age-old parent vs. toddler traumas are perfectly suited. Partnering with Words In Motion, a Canadian company that promotes social and educational development in children through the performing arts, they’ve created the show Get Stuffed. It tells the story of Zach, a middle-school student who learns all about the importance of healthy eating from a rather unlikely source – a group of singing and dancing vegetables and other foods – in a dream he has after school. The show was developed in association with the Canadian Diabetes Association, so the show not only delivers a taste of fun and frivolity, but a heaping dose of quality, useful information about the benefits of a good diet.

It seems children have been told to “Eat Your Vegetables” and “Drink Milk” since the dawn of time. Yet, still we’re facing an epidemic of obesity in our youth. With young children spending more and more time watching TV or playing video games and developing harmful eating habits while doing so, shows like this are new and exciting ways to make the youth of today realize the impact of what they put into their bodies. Messages like these can sometimes get “stale” the more often they’re repeated, but Get Stuffed avoids this by taking an even “fresher” approach by focusing on an environmentally-friendly diet, as well as highlighting Canada’s diverse offerings of ethnic foods. Characters like Big Cheese and Broccoli take centre stage, but singing right beside them are veggies and fruits grown locally in Ontario.

Get Stuffed started with a few workshop shows in the Greater Toronto Area in 2008, and began touring extensively through schools in Southern Ontario last spring, bringing its 5-member cast to over 10 000 people. Its current tour will stage performances in the school cafeterias of rural and remote communities in Ontario that don’t often experience such creative, fun, yet informative shows. The final course of the tour will take place in Toronto this Sunday, May 15 with free performances available for families in the Distillery District.

Tags: arts, Toronto

Sir Ken Robinson Speaks at Crescent School

Sir Ken Robinson was in Toronto at Crescent School as the keynote speaker for the 2010 SEAL Best Practices Conference for Canadian Private and Independent Schools. He entertained hundreds of teachers, students and parents with his humorous speech as he discussed the importance of creativity and schools.

Many of us have seen the TED Talks or YouTube video clips of Sir Ken Robinson speak about creativity and the challenges of changing education to value creativity as much as literacy. If you haven’t, take some time and watch a couple of them. He’s got some excellent insights and ideas on the role of creativity in the classroom.

Top 4 points of  discussion “Out of this world: Learning to be Creative” :

1. Schools need to stop thinking of subjects as Useful (math, science, english) and Useless (humanities, arts, phys-ed).

2. Reforming schools is not the solution. We need to transform schools from mass transport to individualized attention.

3. Human talent is wonderfully diverse, however in education we often have a narrow view of talent.

4. Students are not either “creative” or “intelligent”, both are integral components to each other.

Tags: Cool Classrooms, Education, learning, teacher, Toronto

Branksome’s Great Debaters

Toronto’s Branksome Hall can now claim two of the world’s top debaters.  Zeenia Framroze won top honours and teammate Elizabeth Stratton made it to the debating finals at the 2010 World Individual Debating and Public Speaking Championship in Lithuania, on April 12.

With just two years’ experience in competitive speaking, 16-year-old Framroze made it into the finals of all four speech categories: persuasive speaking, interpretive reading, impromptu speaking and debating.  While she credits “strong coaching and preparation” for her win, the Branksome Hall student told The Canadian Press, “The No. 1 thing that helped is that I wore glasses.  It actually makes me feel more intelligent.”

Each year, the World Individual Debating and Public Speaking Championship attracts the best high school debaters and public speakers in the world.  The international English-language tournament began in 1988, hosted by Reading Blue Coat School, in Reading, England.  This year’s championship saw 100 students from 14 countries.

Finalist Elizabeth Stratton was invited to compete for a spot on Team Canada for the World Schools’ Debating Championship, a first for any Branksome student.

Branksome Hall, an all-girls International Baccalaureate World School, has a long traditon of excellence in debating and public speaking.   The Debating Society, Branksome’s oldest club, has produced winners for the International Independent Schools’ Public Speaking Championships (IISPSC), the Junior High National Debate Championships, the English Speaking Union, CanWest National Public Speaking Championships and many other competitions across Canada and world-wide.

Tags: all-girls, boarding school, Canada, High School Age, kids, Our Kids Go To School, private school, Toronto

The globalization of education

Last week the University of Toronto unveiled plans to open a new School of Global Affairs in the centre of Canada’s largest and most diverse city.  The school will function as part of the established Munk Centre for International Studies.   The university already has some pretty lofty goals for the building as well as future graduates of the program.

The school’s new home, scheduled for completion in summer 2011, will replace the old Meteorological Service of Canada building at Devonshire Place and Bloor.  What was once an observation tower will feature a board to rival New York’s Times Square ticker, flashing the biggest news stories around the world.

Janis Stein, director of Munk Centre for International Studies, told the Globe and Mail the school ”fulfills a dream…It says we can be among the best.  We don’t move out into the world and engage.  We lack a culture willing to take a risk.  We have to stretch our necks.”

The announcement seems to reflect a growing trend in education, K-12 and post-secondary schools, alike.  Due to the major developments in digital technology, the world is becoming smaller and smaller and institutions are developing curricula to mirror this rapid globalization.

St. Mildred’s-Lightbourn School, a day school for girls from Junior Kindergarten to University Entrance in Oakville, Ontario,  developed its own Global Studies program 11 years ago.  Dorothy Byers, head of senior school writes in Dialogue Magazine, “A graduate who is familiar with the world is comfortable stepping into unfamiliar surroundings; she is an active participant in her  life and possesses the skills to become a leader.”

As early as grade 3, St. Mildred’s girls share their classroom with exchange students from countries as far as Japan and Australia.  Throughout the program, students are encouraged to think beyond the local level through involvement in organizations such as Right to Play and visits to cultural centres in the area.

In Grade 11, nearly half of students spend one month in another country.  Byers says the experience has led many students to participate in university international-exchange programs or enroll in graduate programs like U of T’s future School of Global Affairs.

With so many other schools following this model, the School of Global Affairs should have no problem filling spots for the coming academic year and beyond.

Tags: alternative education, Canada, college, Cool Classrooms, Education, High School Age, learning, Our Kids Go To School, Parenting, private elementary school, private school, private school athletics, school, student, teacher, Teaching, Technology, Toronto

Outdoor summer hockey camp on a synthetic ice rink

Today, I saw a demonstration of an outdoor synthetic ice rink at the Harbourfront Centre in Toronto, Ontario that will be open to the public all year long. The Natrel Kinder Rink will be permanently installed along side the boardwalk next to Lake Ontario (beside the Natrel winter-only ice rink) and will only be covered to keep away snow.

I witnessed kids doing hockey drills on the ice and figure skaters twirling around.

Although the rink will be open in time for summer, the Harbourfront has not yet altered their summer camp programs to incorporate it. “It may be too late for this summer but we will see if we can run a hockey clinic,” said Helder Melo, the director of site operations and services for the Harbourfront Centre. More »

Tags: day camp, Toronto