Hey everyone,

The weather has been improving over the past week or so, and that means that we get to spend more time outside! Although we had a lot of our kids enjoying the sun and warm weather, we also had some visitors: GEESE! LOTS OF GEESE. They even interrupted our game of Capture the Flag by “tagging” Justin and Adrian. Take a look at the video we took of our flying friends.

If you haven’t had a chance to take a look at the bulletin boards around the room lately, we have a board right by the door that is home to our annual challenge. This year’s challenge, Clash of OSC-lans, is a fun way to get our kids to practice teamwork and responsibility. This is an initiative to challenge the kids, as once we split them into their “Clans”, it is up to them and their teammates to make sure they are doing the required tasks to gain point for the day. We even integrated our new Grade 2 friends into the challenge on Tuesdays, as we offer them fun activities and games to help everyone bond as a team. At the beginning of this challenge, we told the kids that if all 4 teams reached a minimum points goal of 1500, there would possibly be a reward for all of them. I’m happy to report that as of March 5^th, all of our teams have reached our goal! Be on the lookout for some awesome stuff coming soon!

Take care,

Ryan M

This past week was anti-bullying week. The goal of this week was to bring awareness to bullying and to get people thinking about what they can do to help stand up for themselves and others.

On Wednesday, OSC did an activity to compliment the theme for the week and get our kids thinking and talking about anti-bullying. We asked everyone to take the time and write a message on a pink t-shirt cut-out about possible things they could do to stand up against bullying. 

The message read: “I will _________________ to stand up against bullying”.

Once everyone had finished they’re own message, we compiled all of them together on the board….

 

One last thing I learnt about anti-bullying week was something Dixon put in place to help bring awareness to the different forms of bullying. They designated a different colour for each day of the week to represent the different types:

Monday – red -  physical violence

Tuesday – yellow -  discrimination

Wednesday – green – cyber bullying

Thursday – blue – emotional bullying

Friday – pink – homophobia awareness

Bullying is a serious issue that everyone should be aware of and have zero tolerance towards.  As one of our kids put it: “Stand up, Look up, Speak up” - Cara

Best Regards,

Matt

Hello everyone!

My name is Jack, and I am the new guy here.  I just recently joined the OSC staff this past fall. So far it has been a blast!! I hope to get to know everyone better.

Last week one of the kids, Malia, decided to make a chart about me; including my favourite colours, foods, sports, and movies. When I pointed out that she spelled my name wrong, she just calmly responded “I know. I just wanted to spell it like that.” Looking at it, this way of spelling is pretty cool. Maybe I should change my name’s spelling to JAK….

Anyways, a few weeks ago some of the kids asked if I know the cup song. It was so out of the blue I confusedly answered no. So the kids decided that they should teach me how to play it. This resulted in an interesting lesson from the kids, as they worked together to try to teach me how to play the cup song. So now I can add the cup song into one of my skills. Sweet!

Jack

Chinese New Year is here and this year is the year of the goat. Over here, at West Richmond Sr. OSC, we celebrated the year of the goat by making Chinese New Year decorations as our art activity.

First, we started with origami & construction paper to cut out the word “SPRING.” Since Chinese New Year is also referred to as “Spring Festival” in the Chinese culture.

Second, we made the firecrackers by cutting construction paper into several pieces and rolling them into cylinder shapes as the shape of firecracker. Then we decorated the rolled paper with glittered duct tape.

Third, we punched holes on the firecrackers and the word, “Spring”. After that, we used string to connect them. Then, we have our Chinese New Year decoration!

You must be curious about why Chinese people use firecrackers as decorations during New Year. According to old Chinese legend, a monster called “Year” will be seeking food in the village on New Year’s Eve. Villagers do not want “Year” to eat all their food, which they have harvested over the entire year so they used firecrackers to scare the monster away so they wouldn't suffer from hunger. Although the monster had disappeared and had never be seen since, Chinese people still keep the tradition alive by lighting firecrackers on New Year’s Eve. Nowadays, having a firecracker has become a decoration for the Chinese people during the New Year.

In this 15 day long festival, Chinese celebrate with family and friends, and also enjoy great food. It’s fortunate to live in a diverse community like West Richmond so we can experience different cultures and their holidays throughout the year.

Gong Xi Fa Cai and Happy New Year

Dennis