This past Thursday was West Richmond's 14th Annual Harvest Lantern Festival, and I'd say a successful one at that! This was my first experience with the Lantern Fest and I was pleasantly surprised at the enormous turn out, given all the activities and family oriented atmosphere I shouldn't have expected anything less of our great community. The lantern festival has been around to celebrate autumn with family, both the blood-related kind and the West family. Some kid friendly activities and entertainment included Mr. Yo Yo Thrower, button making, face painting, pumpkin bowling and West's very own, world-class balloon animal artists (AKA our childcare staff, myself included). Winding down the festivities, our lantern processional began in front of the community centre, around the playground and circled back to be greeted with hot chocolate. I have to say, the way the lanterns lit up that chilly, foggy evening was really neat.

But what's a Lantern Festival without the lanterns?! For the week that led up to the event, the kids had been working on their own unique milk jug lanterns. Using the bottom half of a 4 litre milk jug, the kids used a paper-mache glue mixture to decorate their lanterns. They came out really well, resembling stained glass. We used a tea light glued to the bottom with a chopstick handle to finish off our lanterns.

I'm so glad that everyone who was able to make it out had such wonderful smiles on their faces, Thanks for coming!

-Sara

Busy hands at work!

Earlier this school year it was announced that the staircase at West Richmond Community Center was due for an update. The redecorating project is called “Rising”. We were able to have the artist, Jeanette Lee, come in and brainstorm some ideas with a few of the children in our program about the project. She asked them what they love about using the stairs, and she got answers that included: “I can smell the snack in the stairway”, and, “when you imagine keys on a piano and walking up them”. The kids got the opportunity to give their ideas on how the staircase should be decorated. Some of these ideas were that the staircase should be colourful, the railing should be exciting and there should be poems on the stairs. There were many great ideas from the kids that the artist was able to take out of this discussion.

Listening closely to Jeanette.

Asking questions and giving feedback.

 Even on a rainy day we were able to enjoy a great game of capture the flag. Who needs to go outside when we can create our own land filled with potions, spells, traps and enemies. Alden, Cole, Jonah, Leo and Xander faced off against our new villains; Beast from the East, Geronimo Joe, Queen Liz and BooGrrr. Our villains got off to a great start and were the first to break down the barricades of the young adventurers and soon jumped the black hole to enter the flag zone. 

Characters doing battle!

Adding the ingredients.

Taking turns mixing.

Starting to look like cookie dough.

Fresh baked goodness.

The final product. YUM!

Heart flower!

Some silly cutouts.

A carved heart and the tools used.

A tasty waffle.