Just How Loud is "The Loudest Game In The World"?

05-02-2016, 09:19 PM
Hello Senior OSC families,

As Monica mentioned last week, we have introduced an initiative called Play It Fair, where we play games that are themed around the human rights of children, and prompt discussion following the game. 

This week, our core value is respect. We played a game called "The Loudest Game In The World". Sounds exciting, doesn't it?! It was a game similar to telephone, where a message or phrase is supposed to be passed from one side of the room to other. One group of kids would try to yell or transfer the phrase "unicorns are awesome", to the group of kids on the other side of the room, while the remaining 35 kids in the middle would do everything they could to try and stop that message from being delivered. What ensued was loud yelling and big hand motions, and the large group of kids was successful in preventing the phrase from reaching its destination. 

We had a great discussion afterwards about how it felt to play the different roles in the game. We brought real life situations into the discussion, and talked about how sometimes there is so much going on that you might need to find other ways to effectively and respectfully communicate. 

We will keep rolling with a new core value next week!
 
 Cheers

Ryan

WRCC
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Can Your Child "Play It Fair"?

01-02-2016, 02:44 PM
Back in November, Equitas approached us to see if we are interested in participating in a 'Play It Fair' workshop. Equitas is an organization that promotes the advancement of equality, social justice and respect for human dignity in Canada and around the world. Thier mission is to provide individuals with necessary tools to shape positive attitudes and behaviours through transformative human rights educational programs.

West Richmond was chosen as one of the few to be part of the 'Play It Fair' pilot. Part of the pilot includes a toolkit, which helps to promote human rights, non-discrimination and peaceful conflict resolution within non-formal education programs for children. The toolkit helps reinforce the positive values that derive from the fundamental principles of human dignity and equality contained in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The 7 values promoted by the toolkit include:

●       Cooperation
●       Respect
●       Fairness
●       Inclusion
●       Respect for Diversity
●       Responsibility
●       Acceptance

Each week, the kids will be introduced to a value with a corresponding game or activity, followed by a discussion on their thoughts, feelings and how they can relate the value discussed in the game into other aspects of their lives. Through these activities and discussions, we are hoping to get them thinking about the world in a larger scale and give them a sense of empowerment.

For the first week, we touched upon the value of “cooperation”. Matt introduced the game “A Thousand Hands Drawing” to our group. The kids were split up into six groups. Each team was given a marker with six strings attached to it and a large piece of paper. Each child was told to pull on the end of one of the pieces of the strings. The child who didn't have a string was the “caller” and was tasked with providing directions for his or her team. When all of the strings were stretched out, the marker created a “sun” shape. The object of the game was to draw a picture or write a word as a team. The purpose of the activity was for the children to experience solidarity and teamwork and to think about how working together can help us achieve goals and how everyone succeeds through cooperation.


The first task was to draw a circle.  








The second task was to draw a straight line.

  


The third task is to write “hello”.



The fourth task was to draw their interpretation of art. Lastly, they were asked to write the word “cooperation”.

Afterwards, we followed the activity with a mini discussion. Matt asked the kids how they felt about the activity and whether they thought it was easier when they worked together. We had a wide range of results. Some kids said it was easier when they worked as a team to achieve the objective. However, Adrian mentioned that he felt he had a difficult time because of all the strong personalities on his team; everyone seemed to have a different approach and wanted the other team members to follow their own respective ideas. Overall, the activity was interesting because we all had the chance to see the different dynamics in play.

This will be a continuous project so be on the lookout for other activities in the following weeks! Ultimately, we hope the kids will be able to take away ideas and perspectives after the pilot is over. If you have any questions about the toolkit or our activities, feel free to comment below or talk to one of our staff members in person.

Until next time,

Monica
WRCC
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ART ATTACK @ SR. OSC

26-01-2016, 12:02 PM
Hey everyone,

As many of you know, OSC offers art and activities on a daily basis. This week was no exception! I wanted to highlight two of the art projects that came up this week.

On Thursday, Ryan led a really cool activity where kids got the chance to create their very own Pokemon cards. There is a website where you can create your personalized Pokemon by answering a series of questions like what type of Pokemon, what it looks like, what it's called etc. Once you've inputted all your information, it generates a card that you print out and TA-DAH... you have your very own, very special Pokemon card. Provided below is the website Ryan used if anyone wanted to make this a take home project.

 http://www.pokecard.net/  






Next up was Brianna's art from Friday. They                           worked together to create 'crystal names'. Basically what they did was start with pipe-cleaners that they shaped into the letters of your name.

Next, they inserted their pipe-cleaner names into a mason jar, filled it with hot water & borax, as well as some food colouring in hopes of changing the colour of the crystals.

Once the crystals have had enough time to form, the pipe-cleaners are taken out of the solution and VOILA... your crystal name is done!

                                   
That's all for now folks,

Matt

WRCC
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Time to Puzzle

22-01-2016, 12:03 PM
 


Interests come and go at OSC throughout the years and it is always interesting to see what is currently the 'hit toy.' Over the past few months it's quite obvious that Rubik Cubes have made a come back in terms of popularity. Many of the children own their own cubes and enjoy bringing them daily to show others.  They've even branched out into other cubes such as the 2X2 and the 4X4.  I myself learned how to solve a 3X3 cube back when they were popular a few years ago.  My 'talent' has come in handy since the fad is back and everyone is excited to learn!

Along with Rubik Cubes came the interest in other puzzles.  Over the past few weeks the kids at OSC have really enjoyed solving all of our puzzle-like toys.  They enjoyed it so much that we took quick time lapse videos for our blog! We can't wait to try other puzzles in the future. 
 
Enjoy,

Carolyn





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Happy New Year!

06-01-2016, 03:21 PM
Welcome back to regular school schedules families, though some of our schedules aren’t so regular. Some changes to staff schedules that you’ll see in the up coming days are as follows: Dustin returns to programs as Gina is back in the office, Ryan M. is taking over Mondays at junior, and I, Katie, will be between both the junior and senior programs until the end of the school year. Gemma will also continue to be a familiar face at senior.

With my first shift in the New Year being at senior, I had the pleasure of catching up on some things that I’ve missed out on over the past year – such as the colouring book challenge. Back in October, Carolyn put together her favourite pictures from various adult colouring books and made mini ones for the kids at senior. After distributing the colouring books, Carolyn challenged the seniors to finish the entire book. Today, Jojo, also known as Joanna, or Jojo Bean, completed this challenge by finishing her book. To mark this glorious occasion, I interviewed the young artist about her favourite pieces from her book.

Katie: Joanna, what is your favourite picture?

Joanna: The heron.

Katie: Do you have a name for this piece?

Joanna: Harry.

Katie: Why is this one your favourite?

Joanna: It’s very colourful and I’ve been working on it for five days.

Katie: Joanna, you’ve also chosen to display your jellyfish picture, why is that?

Joanna: I chose it because it was the first one that I coloured.

Katie: What made you choose to colour this one first?

Joanna: It looks realistic and I thought it would be easy to colour.

Katie: Was the heron harder than the jellyfish?

Joanna: Yes.

Katie: What made the heron harder?

Joanna: The feathers, because they were different kinds of colours mixed together.

Katie: Anything else that you’d like to say about your colouring book?

Joanna: I also like the aquarium picture, because I like the seaweed and coral and there are hidden things in there, so I really like it.

Katie: What things are hidden in this picture?

Joanna: A shark, and a treasure chest.

Katie: Why did you decide to use pencil crayon for the background?

Joanna: Because if I used sharpie it would go through, it wouldn’t look nice. - it’s a bit too dark. I wanted to be able to see the fishes.

Katie: Do you prefer sharpie or pencil crayon, or does it not matter?

Joanna: No preference.

Katie: If you had to pick an artist name, what would it be?

Joanna: Jojo Bean the Great.

Katie: Is there anyone that you would like to dedicate this to?

Joanna: No.

Katie: Is there anyone you attribute your success to?

Joanna: Carolyn, because she encouraged me to do it.

Katie: Tell me about the bears…

Joanna: Let me look, I like this picture because … I decided to make it many colours because I didn’t know what colour to do them. I decided to do something imaginative that wouldn’t exist. So I decided to do a doughnut bear which turned out pretty good. I did it in the middle so everyone could see it. I did an icecream bear because it I like icecream. I did the bean bear because my name is ‘Jojo Bean’. The rainbow bear is because I wanted all the colours I used together into a rainbow.

Take care,

Katie


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