Happy Chinese New Year!!

To those celebrating, even those who aren't, Happy Chinese New Year!!

In lieu of Chinese New Year, I thought it would be neat to base my art activity around this holiday. I don't celebrate Chinese New Year, though I'm told that I'm about 1/16th Chinese - if that's even possible, haha - but the first that comes to my mind is the dragon dance. The dragon dance is performed by a team of dancers who all work together beneath a dragon figure to recreate the motion of a dragon's spirit. This performance has always intrigued me; the colours, the precision and just the entire atmosphere around Chinese New Year celebrations, I'd definitely recommend experiencing it if you haven't already. Being in Richmond, we're surrounded by this rich culture so it shouldn't be hard to find all sorts of public festivals or celebrations. 

With the dragon dance in mind, I decided to put together our own dancing dragon. It was surprisingly simple too, and pretty popular! We taped a popsicle stick to our paper-plate-dragon-face to act as a handle. Giant googly eyes, mean pipe cleaner eyebrows and glitter glue definitely made for a very believable dragon. To recreate the fluid motion of the dance, we taped varied lengths of party streamer to the back of the dragon head. And so, voila! 

Until next time!

- Sara E

Clothes Pin Critters

This week some of the children at West Richmond did an art project involving clothes pins and paper. They made mini puppets, drew, cut out animals and glued them to a clothes pin. They were also able to cut out animal faces, giving the puppets the ability to open and close their mouths. 

In the picture you can see some examples created. When the mouth of the bunny opens there is a carrot inside so it looks like it is eating. When the mouth of the clam opens there is a pearl inside of it. A fairly simple craft that the kids seemed to enjoy!

-Aislinn

Kids Korner

Ever wonder what kids think about REAL issues?

This week in KIDS KORNER:  "What is one thing you would like to do this year?"

Here are some of the wise responses...

Alden- "wake up earlier"

Atreyu- "go to work with my dad"

Noa- "go back to skating"

Leo- "get free money, well I already get free money but more money"

Zev- "go to the beach"

Hugo- "play more beyblades"

Xander- "eat tacos, fish tacos"

Adrianna- "share and with it I'm going to help people too"

Tune in next time for another gripping edition of KIDS KORNER.

If you have an questions you think we should ask the children on KIDS KORNER, please leave them in the comments below.

-Jason

A Race for First Place

During this school year there has been a friendly rivalry between Dixons and Gilmores/ Quilchenas to win the race from their schools back to West Richmond for after school care. The two groups usually arrive around the same time after school. Gilmores and Quilchenas arriving by bus and Dixons on foot. When the Dixons see the bus coming they will run as fast as they can to the entrance of the community centre. The moment the bus stops for the Gilmore and Quilchena group they all make a dash to the door. Both groups try to line up as fast as possible to win the prize of being the first school to enter West Richmond. They use encouragement and teamwork in an attempt to get everyone in their group in line first. The victory is quickly forgotten once the kids are upstairs but most seem to enjoy the bit of competitiveness outside the centre every day.

-Aislinn