Bubble Tea Thursday

Bubble tea for snack? Bubble tea is a Taiwanese tea based drink that combines a delicious beverage with yummy tapioca balls. Our staff made a variation of this drink by using frozen fruit, yogurt and orange juice instead of the usual tea based recipes. Although the tapioca balls resemble frog eggs, many of the children still devoured the tasty drink. Dustin and I were working vigorously when serving snack to meet the demands of the children when we realized how messy this snack really is. Our usually very clean snack table and cart were littered with straws and drops of smoothie. In the end, most of the children and all of the staff enjoyed the unique snack and would be happy to have it again.

Emmett

Yummy yum yum.

Tapioca balls.

What a mess!

Sara and Sarah enjoying their drinks.

Dustin surprised at how tasty it is.

Happy Hillwood.

Faulty Towers

What's there to do on a soggy Tuesday afternoon? Dustin and Emmett had it in mind to inject a little Keva chaos! We challenged those able and willing to some heats of compelling competition. It all started with who could build the tallest tower in five minutes. Towers tumbled and were rebuilt within the five minutes. We repeated the heat to see if the children learned anything from the first round. The excitement (and number of participants) only grew as we introduced rounds with "best house in five minutes" and "strongest tower in five minutes." After this, Emmett injected further Keva chaos by introducing the "Revenge Block", one block per team that could be thrown at an opponent's tower at any time during the heat. Most teams chose to use their Revenge Block near the end of the heat, aimed at the leading competition. We doubled the time to ten minutes to see what chaos would ensue. Winners of each heat were rewarded with Timbits, courtesy of Cole V's birthday. After the competitions were complete, Emmett and Dustin conceived of future challenges for our enthusiastic builders. Stay tuned for further Keva chaos...

Cheers,
Dustin

One of the candidates for tallest tower.

Attempting to build the strongest tower.

Devastating!

Mother's Day Flower Pot Art Extravaganza

In celebration of Mother's Day, Sara E., the kids, and I got together to make some cute flower pot Mother's Day cards! The pot is rather difficult to draw so Sara and I had drawn the shape of the pots on construction paper for the kids to cut out. After cutting out their pots and the flowers they had drawn, they added text and assembled their cards. My favourite part was watching them write their adorable little messages to their mom in their own handwriting. We even added a row of grass to the top of the pot decoration. After, we attached the flowers to a green string. We then attached part of the string to the pot and glued the sides of the pot together. Finally, we gathered the flowers into a pile and put them in the pot "envelope" for mom to pull out. I hope the moms that had received them liked them!

Happy Mother's Day!

Sara and Monica

Monica lending a helping hand.

Adding flowers.

Assembling the stem.

Happy Mother's day Mom!

KEVA Chaos

During Spring Break, we spent time at the Sr OSC program and really enjoyed playing with some of their new toys. KEVA Building Planks really stood out as a highlight for both the children and myself. In fact, I had so much fun making huge buildings with the kids that I ordered some for Jr OSC. Finally, after a couple of anxious weeks the planks arrived!

Both the children and leaders have been playing every afternoon with the blocks and some very creative structures have been built. From giant towers to bridges and miniature Colosseums, the children always surprise me with what they can build. Some of the kids have even started improvising some marble tracks with the new planks!

One of the things I love about this new toy is the opportunities it provides to learn. Without realising, the children will learn about basic physics and architecture as well as how to work as a team to build some really huge superstructures. The simplicity and uniformity of the blocks make it very easy to play and experiment with, as well as clean up.

Let the building begin!

Emmett

It looks pretty sturdy

Emmett and Dustin's Super Tower

Marble Tracks!

One of the many unique buildings

Birthday Bash

This month of April, we celebrated two important dates in history - Dustin and Emmett's birthdays! What a different world it would be if these two fine gentlemen hadn't been born...

Some interesting facts:

Dustin shares his April 2 birthday with Sir Alec Guinness (actor, Obi-Wan Kenobi), Charlemagne (1st Holy Roman Emperor) and Marvin Gaye (singer). The day Dustin was born, "Girls Just Want to Have Fun" by Cyndi Lauper and "Footloose" by Kenny Loggins were topping the music charts.

Emmett shares his April 9 birthday with Jacques Villeneuve (race car driver), Kristen Stewart (actor) and Dennis Quaid (actor). The day Emmett was born, "I Wish It Would Rain Down" by Phil Collins and "I'll Be Your Everything" by Tommy Page were topping the music charts.

Cheers,
Dustin

Easter Eggs

Since Easter was coming up, the kids decorated some eggs to celebrate the holiday. The eggs were either decorated by paint and glitter or drawn on by sharpies. Most of the group loved the paint and glitter idea, but the sharpies were also a hit as well! Earlier in the morning, we also had a tie dye activity planned for the little ones. Surprisingly, most of them had never done tie dye before, so it was a pretty fun first experience for them! They seemed to really enjoy the activity so hopefully, we can sneak another tie dye project in before the summer hits.

Happy Easter!

Sara and Monica

Tooth Fairy Boxes

Upon noticing all of the lost and wiggly teeth at Jr. OSC, I decided that a Tooth Fairy Box was fitting. I brought in some little paper mache boxes from the craft store, supplied the glitter glue and markers and let the kids have at it! We've realised that any time our craft activity involves glitter glue, we're sure to have many hands participating. I had found a letter to the Tooth Fairy and decided to print out a copy for each child to stick on the inside, outside, underside or anywhere on their box. In case anyone is interested in making their own Tooth Fairy craft or just want to get in touch, here's the letter I found...

Dear Tooth Fairy,

In this pocket you will find
A teeny tiny tooth of mine.
I placed it there for you to keep,
Please leave your gift while I'm asleep!

-Unknown Author

Hope the Tooth Fairy is good to all the kids losing their teeth!

-Sara E.