Thanks for All Your Help!

Last week we had the pleasure of wrapping up "Loomvember." Together, the Junior and Senior programs loomed 39 toques, and 2 scarves – some of which were made by donations from parents! Thank you to all of you who participated in our fundraiser in some way. Emily, from Senior, organized where we would be donating our creations and  we ended up teaming with "Caring for our Sisters," which is run through the University of British Columbia. A post on the UBC First Nations Longhouse Facebook page reads as follows:

“Wow, amazing, and awesome, a million thanks to the Longhouse Community. Aboriginal women and children accessing Sheway, Downtown Eastside Women’s Centre, and Crabtree Corner will be receiving your generous donations in the coming weeks thanks to “Caring for Our Sisters”. Thank you to everyone for your amazing support.” https://www.facebook.com/thelonghouse/



A great and many thanks to all the children and families who participated in making our donations. We hope that the children have taken away an understanding of the hard times that many people face during the winter months, the joy of being able to help out others, and a new skill!

Below are some pictures of our finished products.

Thanks again,

Katie

Kids Korner

With winter break just around the corner I thought it would a good opportunity to find out what our kids enjoy about their time off from school, so I asked them:

What's the best part about winter break?

Peyton- "snow"

Zev- "mine is Christmas. Christmas and candy"

Nick- "when you get to stay home"

Isaac- "making igloos"

Isabel- "staying home"

Valentina- "skiing"

Lukas- "winter"

Lucy- "I don't know"

Theodora- "playing in the snow"


This is also a perfect time to remind everyone to send jackets, gloves and toques with the kids to battle the cold climates surrounding us!

Thanks,

Jason

 

Loom Update

Hi everyone,

 

Hope everyone has adjusted to the colder weather we have been embraced with!

With the cold weather upon us, the juniors have been hard at work learning how to make winter toques for charity. Taught by Katie on Thursday afternoons, the kids have learned how to make hats on circular looms and have been practicing their skills throughout the week with all the leaders.

The kids have become natural loomers and have requested to do it almost every chance they can get. With colourful looms and yarns to choose from, it has been a success with the juniors! They have been practicing their patience, fine motor skills, how to share and even how to teach others during this activity. It has become a beautiful sight to see the juniors helping each other finish the hats and understand why we are donating them to other people.

Some of the kids were so excited to loom today that they wanted to have a discussion about where to get the materials we use for this project. So if any of the juniors ask where to get the looms from, they can be found at Michaels and they come with easy to follow instructions to start making beautiful hats and scarfs for the winter time.

 

Our toque count is at five right now and we hope to have many more done before Christmas comes.

Hope everyone has a lovely week!

 

Pearlena

 

Loomvember

Hi gang! Can you believe that there's only 5 more weeks till the holiday break begins?! From family gatherings to exchanging presents, the holidays can definitely be the best time of the year. While we are in the midst of a rush spend-giving frenzy, it's worth pausing to think about those who are truly in need. 

This November, our junior and senior program have made a joint effort to give back to our community. Both programs will be looming toques and hats for a charity of our choice. With the spirit of helping those in need, we thought it would also be an excellent opportunity for our kids to learn about giving and empathy. 

Overall, our kids are very excited to be part of a project that could help others. They have been very diligent in their commitments. Our staff team couldn't be more proud of them! 

Stay tuned for updates, until next time,

Monica

Spider Webs, Spiders, and Motor Skills

Hi all,

I hope everyone's recovered from this past weekend's Halloween complete sugar OVERLOAD!

The weather definitely seemed to be in our favour Saturday night, it was a perfect evening for trick or treating.

To help celebrate this past week, I did a spider web craft with the kids that also tested their fine motor skills. I pre-punched out holes in the rim of a paper plate and cut a large hole in the centre of the plate. It was the kids' job to string through yarn through the hole punches of the plate to try to emulate a spider's web. After a couple demos for them to see how it was supposed to be done, they had practically no problems. There isn't a web without a spider so we finished off the activity with Pom-Pom spiders.

Check out our finished products below, they're very cool!

Sara



It's the itsy bitsy spider!

 

Creative Juices Flowing

One of my favourite aspects about working at Junior OSC is appreciating how creative the young ones are. Whether this is during an art activity or during free play, the kids amaze me with what they come up with and create. Last Friday, Pearlena lead an art activity where the kids were able to draw whatever they wanted on some ceramic mugs. I saw so many creations ranging from poke-a-dot designs to butterflies. One child even drew “Shopkinz” on her mug (Shopkinz are these cute and small grocery-themed characters). The mugs turned out beautifully and they will be great to use for hot chocolate as the weather gets colder. Later that day, I also saw some children drawing Shopkinz on paper. One child put together a book with the different Shopkinz on each page while another cut the drawings out and put them in a paper envelope. It was great to see the kids take inspiration from these small figurines and then creating their own projects. Overall, it was a great afternoon! :)

 

Thank you to everyone who came out for the Lantern Festival last Thursday. It was great to see such a good turnout and all the staff had a great time! We’re also very excited for Halloween next week! I can’t want to see everyone in their costumes!

 

Alicia

Lantern Festival 2015

Lantern Festival 2015!

On a beautiful evening in early October,

In and around the community centre,

Families gathered for an evening of fun,

Games and activities for everyone!

Donations were made

For the Richmond Food Bank

Some got Balloons,

and others, Face Paint!

Some people went Bowling,

and drums were played,

shadows,

wishes,

and lanterns were made!

Nigel rode in

And we all stopped to stare,

As he contact juggled

In the cool night air!

Then it was time,

The lanterns were lit,

we went on parade

The night was a hit!

To all those who took part and volunteers too,

For such a great evening, 

we'd like to THANK YOU!!!

See you again next year!

Lantern Festival

Autumn is in full swing and what better way to have spent a perfect October evening than at West Richmond's 16th Annual Lantern Festival! In my opinion, this year's festival was the best turn out I've seen in the past few years. The sense of community that I felt seeing everyone was so neat! All the credit goes to the community members who volunteered their time and skills; Some of the popular attractions were bobbing for apples, face painting, balloon animal making and a huge percussion jam session. Not to mention the actual lantern march which always looks so cool! At Jr OSC we usually make lanterns with the kids out of milk jugs, but I was impressed to see there were a lot of homemade lanterns as well! With hot chocolate and cookies to finish off the night, I don't know anyone who could have gone home without a smile on their face :)

On a side note, I wish I had taken pictures, but unfortunately, my hands were tied... Because I was tying balloon animals. Get it?

Until next time!

Sara

Fall Finger Painting

Masterpieces in progress

Fall is definitely my favourite season of the four, I think it is the variety of vibrant colours that we are surrounded by that have me appreciating our wonderful setting. So for art I decided to combine that with my favourite activity, finger painting! I gave the kids a simple task, create anything you want with the theme of fall in mind and they had the option to use fingers, paint brushes or both. It was amazing to see their young minds put to work, everyone was working hard to put their amazing imagination to use. Once the kids were satisfied with their work I let them know that every artist must think of a name for their painting, just in case there were any interested buyers. Enjoy!


Jason




"Tree" by Lily




"Halloween Painting" by Theodora



"Fall Painting Halloween Painting Turkey Painting" by Ava

Fall Art

This month at JR OSC, we are jumping right in to Fall with the various activities that we have planned for the kids. Some of these activities include making lanterns which can be used at West Richmond’s upcoming lantern festival, or on Halloween! Last week Pearlena made Pumpkin Spice Cupcakes with the kids and I made Fall Lanterns. Both activities went wonderfully, and I think many of the participants were quite excited to take their treats home. For the Lanterns, we used tissue paper and mod podge to add fall colours to our jars. We applied both mediums to the jars with paint brushes, then finished off our lanterns by hot gluing twine and a faux sunflower onto the lids. As you can tell by the photo, the jars look beautiful.

For the pumpkin spice cupcakes, we used a spice cake recipe and added in pumpkin puree for that warm, comforting fall flavour. By adding the pumpkin, the cupcakes immediately became softer and juicier, as well as healthier!

Fall is one of my favourite times of year, so look forward to these upcoming activities that follow the fall theme:

October 6^th – Fall Prints

October 9^th – Leaf Wreaths

October 14^th – Leaf Prints

October 28^th – Halloween Activities

October 29^th – Cheese Cloth Ghosts

October 30^th – Pumpkin Mason Jars

Enjoy!

Katie

Kinder Firsts

Garden City Park

The first month of school has sure flown by and both kids and leaders have finally settled into the after school routine. Our kindergarteners especially have had a chance to explore and accomplish many firsts in their young lives.

This month many of them experienced their first Pro D day, I joined the Dixons on their day off and we combined with our senior program. Together we journeyed into Richmond and headed to Garden City Park, where we spent most of our morning playing and taking in the good weather. We then headed to Paulik Park to grab some lunch and ended our day back at West.


Our very popular mascot Mr.Snail

Learning about glue gun safety

Another thing some of our kinders got to experience for the first time was using glue guns. It was my afternoon activity and we were making sock puppets, so I used it as an opportunity to teach our young friends glue gun safety and how to properly use a glue gun. While many were timid at first and hesitant to use them, they eventually became pros after recognizing their own comfort level with the hot glue.



Jason

Welcome Back!

After a long summer and a little bit of gradual entry (for our kinders only) we are finally back to the usual routine. We would like to welcome all the new families joining us this year to our West Richmond Community! And to our returning families it is great to have you back for another year of adventure.

We will be doing our best to introduce ourselves in the coming weeks and learning all the new names & faces we will be seeing this year. Below are the names and faces of all the Junior Staff you will be seeing around the room, feel free to approach us if you have any questions or concerns. You might also see a few of our volunteers and  assistant leaders around the room as well.

Thanks

-Jason


The Team!

Monica

Pearlena



Sara

Katie

Ryan



Jason

Corey



Don’t Miss Summer West Fest!

Every year, the West Richmond Community Centre hosts West Fest; an end-of-summer free family event held on the last Wednesday in August. This western-themed event includes live entertainment, face painting, bouncy castles, pie eating contents, relays, BBQ concession, and a photo booth! At dusk, the crowd settles in for a screening of a feature-length film – this year we’ll be showing Big Hero 6. It’s a lovely way to spend a late summer evening.

The grass may be brown, but we are thinking green for this event! Arrive by bike or on foot to be entered into a draw, and refill your reusable water bottles at Save-On-Foods’ water refilling station!

EVENT DETAILS:

Date: Wednesday August 26

Time: 6:30-10:30pm (movie begins at dusk)
Location: West Richmond Community Centre (9180 No. 1 Road)

This event is free. BBQ concession available.
For more information, call the front desk at 604-238-8400