Last week before the holidays

This week was the last week before the holidays. There was a fun feeling in the air and everyone felt it. We kicked off the week with gymnastics. Even though they're only two classes in, they kids are loving it. We got there with plenty of time to change and get warmed up. The smiles were so wide after the class!

On Tuesday we headed to Salvador's house to make some holiday and winter themed cards. I encouraged everyone to make a special card for someone in their life. The results were interesting. Lots of drawings, "poems" and a few cards in the end. Fun times!

I hope everyone has a fantastic winter break. It's been so lovely getting to know everyone so far, and I look forward to the new year. Best wishes, see you in 2011!

-Kat

Props and Projections

Yesterday was a pretty special afternoon, as instead of me taking the kids to see something about town, Angel took the kids to see me. For the past month, I've been working with the Davenport Perth Neighbourhood Centre, where their Arts4All program has involved all sorts of community members in an end-of-the-year installation and production.  We've been working together to create sounds and projections and objects that will be showcased on Monday December 13 at 6:00. We thought it would be a great idea to bring the kids over to see what's been going on over there, and to make a few props of their own to add to the installation.

Director Liz Rucker talks about the production, and shows the fox house (it lights up inside!) that will need furniture and objects added to it.

 The kids get to work making objects for the fox out of polymer clay. Their creations include: a flower, a fireplace, a bowl of cereal, and headphones and a CD player. These objects will all be part of the big production on Monday.

Trying out the overhead projector. I sometimes forget that they don't have these in every classroom anymore.

A shadowscape made of hands and tree cut-outs.

Also fun is running around and acting in front of the forest backdrop.

A different kind of projection involves light and a video camera. Here, some of the artists show the kids their "laboratory of light," and experiment by dropping food colouring in water and seeing how it looks projected.

Gymnastics and Galleries

This week we started our classes at Tdot Tumblers. It was one of the first really snowy days, so our walk was peppered with snow balls and running through the drifts. When we got there we were welcomed by the friendly teachers, and the kids got going straight away. Afterwards they were all tired and hungry, but had big smiles on their faces. They were still talking about it the next day....

On Tuesday we took a field trip to the AGO to check out the Juilan Schnabel exhibition. We didn't end up getting to it BUT we did see a lot of contemporary art and the permanent exhibits. The kids loved the ships and also watched, with great interest, a short film about contemporary female-artist driven art from the late 60s.

Stone Soup with Angel!

Angel, lead teacher for the Cycling Giants, subbed in on Wednesday, and made Stone Soup with the kids. The idea was to throw a stone in the bottom and have everybody contribute something to the soup. From what I heard, it was delicious and the kids had fun!

A Trip to the Native Centre

We took a trip up to the Toronto Native Centre in the Annex. We took two subways and a street car. The kids did well, although it was rush hour so it was a bit squishy on the carriages.

We looked at all the paintings in the hallway and explored the giftshop. They loved all the dream catchers. I got them to draw their favourite pieces that they saw. Most of them drew some sort of dreamcatcher, and all of them expressed interest in making their own. A craft for another day!

Riding the subway!

We rode the subway together for the first time on Friday. I think the kids are pros. They enjoyed riding the front car the most, and Museum station was definitely their favourite. There was a lot of rushing around that day (to get to the Gardiner museum and back), and they all did a great job.

Koreatown Adventures!

We made a field trip over to Koreatown this afternoon; there were only two kids along today, but that gave them a special personalized experience. The walk to Bloor and Christie was a bit long, but we found some great discoveries along the way:

Somebody had painted a Toronto subway map on the pavement (and the cracks in the pavement became the Humber and the Don Rivers!). The kids ran back and forth, travelling the entire Bloor/Danforth line in a matter of seconds. We also liked how some of the stations were written in other languages, representing the diversity of communities in Toronto. Here's Ossington written in Amharic:

We also managed to find stations written in Korean, Chinese, Greek, and Russian!

Once we arrived in Koreatown, we stopped for a snack break, and enjoyed some almond cookies. After that, we headed to a Korean supermarket for a scavenger hunt. The boys found some interesting food items they'd never seen before (burdock root! soybean paste! tofu!). We finished the evening with a visit to the walnut cake factory, where we saw moulds that make the cakes look like squishy walnuts.

Mobiles to blow in the breeze.

At the library on Monday, we looked through a number of children's craft books. I got the kids to select a few things that they fancied making. They seemed to like the wooden mobiles and hanging sculptures, so we decided on doing that the next day.

 

It was just the two girls on Tuesday, and both were fairly excited to create the sculpture. We picked up pretty leaves and sticks on the way home in preparation. Then, construction began!

 

 

We added some ice cubes tied with string to the creation, it added a "time based" feeling to it. They were excited that it would look different the next time they saw it hanging up. With the wind blowing in cold air, we quickly hung it up in a tree and snapped a photo of it. Complete!

Music and More!

On Monday I took the Pumas to the College/Shaw library. It's getting into a nice routine on Mondays and the kids are really great about going to our little area and reading books. We've also started drawing while we're there, as everyone seems to be in creative spirits surrounding all the books. We looked into some kids craft ideas and I asked them to negotiate on a few that they'd like to do. More on that next week!

Tuesday was a musical day. It was an experiment, as I know how little attention span young kids have. I attempted to teach the three remaining students about some basic rhythms. We rotated between a drum, a cymbal and a glockenspiel. Each child was assigned a beat rhythm to strike their instrument with. Drum on the 2 and the 4. Cymbal on the 1 and the 3. The glock on the 1 and the 4 (actually a challenging one because the "1" falls immediately after the "4". IT WAS A SUCCESS! They all did their different beats quite well, and even mastered the challenges I set up. It didn't last long before everyone wanted to bang around, but it was great to see that they listened and were able to complete the lesson. They decided to make their own songs and their own band. The songs featured titles like "Macaroni Parade" and "Eyeball Stew". It was a really fun afternoon.

Ethiopian food and Bloor St scavenger hunt!

Behold the sight of a well-enjoyed meal.

On Thursday last week, we decided to explore the Bloorcourt neighbourhood (which is directly north of the kids' school, so definitely an important area to check out). We popped into Lalibela to share a mixed plate of Ethiopian food, which you eat with your hands instead of utensils, and you eat the "plate" too! Everybody got to try the assortment of foods, and some liked different stews better than others.

Afterwards, we walked back to Dufferin Grove Park with our notebooks in hand, trying to find all the items on our Bloorcourt scavenger hunt list. It was a great way to experience the neighbourhood, and the kids found themselves noticing a lot of little things when they kept their eyes peeled.

Ossington Ave Art Crawl

On Wednesday, we hit the streets and explored a few contemporary art galleries on Ossington Ave. The kids were equipped with little notebooks to sketch their favourite works of art as well as anything else that inspired them along the way.

They really enjoyed all the work they saw, and even suggested visiting other galleries when they saw things they liked through the window. Especially popular were Roula Partheniou's sculptures at MKG127. The gallery attendant there was really friendly and gave us an in-depth tour of the work. Also popular were the guest books located in each gallery. The kids took turns writing their names, and comments such as "Really cool!" in the books. I'm sure the artists will love to read them!

The week wraps up

The remainder of the week with the Pouncing Pumas was a lot of fun. Thursday we took a field trip to Queen St W and wandered around looking at the shop windows and galleries. We ended up at Criminal Records to watch my band perform an intimate show.We spoke to the owner of the shop about running a music store,  and he quizzed the kids about the Beatles (they actually recognised a lot!) The group was very excited to be around the instruments, and it was a challenge to wrangle them in before they all created their own cacophonous band. They were fantastic once everyone settled in though, and I was impressed at how quietly they sat and paid attention during the performance.

On Friday we treated ourselves to some hot chocolate from Lit Espresso bar, the nice guy behind the counter even piled up the whipped cream by the kids request. With our hands warm with our drinks we walked down to Bellwoods park. We played some tag games, had some swing time and eventually met up with the Cycling Giants. We introduced them to Macaroni (which they thought was hilarious) and then we played a new game "Touch the Trees" which got the kids running to each tree in a section of the park. It got a little chilly by the end, so we're working on a space to go when the weather gets even colder.

April has a blogpost about her group that also includes our group. It is a nice read, feel free to read it here: http://bellwoods.blogspot.com/2010/11/clay-paper-theatre-with-pouncing-pumas.html

Hope your weekend is lovely!
-Kat

So much fun in a pile of leaves!

The first part of this week has been a lot of fun in the Pouncing Pumas camp. On Monday we ventured over to the College/Shaw library and looked at books on music and sports. All the group has been learning how to search things on the computer, and they're catching on quickly. Sometimes they want to look for books on questionable subject matter [I'm sure you can guess], but luckily the library doesn't carry material on that so usually the search moves on to books they can actually read while we're there.

The sun was shining on Tuesday so we went down to the park and played some outdoor games. On the way the kids found a giant leaf pile so we stopped to jump in it for a while. They had a blast making it as tall as they could, and took turns jumping through it. Pretty hilarious to watch the excitement build. Once we got to the park, we played an invented game called "Macaroni", (in which the giggling noodles run away from the spoon). It was a hit, a lot of laughs and funny voices throughout the game.

Wednesday was a baking day! We headed over to Salvador's house on a bus and a streetcar (they were great on both) and gathered up the ingredients. We made a very simple cookie recipe, two different batches to satisfy everyone's requests, and they tasted delicious. Tasks were set out for mixing, measuring and choosing ingredients. The end results were warm, gooey cookies straight out of the oven. We played a series of get-you-energy-out games in the basement afterwards to burn off that sugar!

I'll post another update on Friday evening to re-cap the rest of the week.
Hope the beginning of your weeks were lovely!

-Kat

Halloween Hijinx

Today was a big day in Dewson Afterschool-land. Like most Fridays, we ended up at Trinity Bellwoods for some outdoor play, but unlike most Fridays, we met up with not one, not two, but three other groups in our community (in costume, no less!).

While the teachers set up the multi-station Halloween activities, the children had free time to play in the playground. I was impressed at how well the older kids got along with the younger ones, inventing games like this monkey bar obstacle course seen above.

Leah and April introduced our activity, which involved splitting up into new teams (Hurricanes! Cyclones! Volcanoes! Earthquakes!) and visiting different Halloween-related stations in the park.

Art Installation in Osler Park

I had taken some pictures of yesterday's installation that included some beautiful smiley faces, but alas they disappeared into the digital ether. I dropped by the park again this afternoon to see if everything was still there.

The drawings were spinning and flapping in the wind, and really deserve to be seen in motion. Also in the video are some ghost sculptures that somebody else had left in the park (we had a sneaking suspicion that it was the Cycling Giants who were responsible for those).

 

Field Trip to Parkdale

I thought it would be fun to take the kids down to Parkdale to have a look at the art show I've had up all month at Shopgirls Gallery Boutique. This involved taking both a bus and a streetcar, and venturing in to new territory.

At first they thought the art was really strange, but after I explained to them some of the stories in the picture, they got really excited. I told them that there were no faces on a lot of the people in the pictures so that the person looking at the art could decide whether the drawings are happy or sad or funny.

Also exciting was the storefront display, that featured mannequins wearing jewellery and clothing sold at the store. The kids enjoyed posing in the window and surprising passers-by.

We also stopped by Gallery 1313 to look at some funny photos of lumberjacks and hunters.

In front of the Parkdale Library was a giant globe, and you could see through all the countries to the other side. Here the kids are peeking inside through South America. Later in the afternoon, this plaza was filled with a film crew shooting there, so we got a good look at what goes on behind the scenes.

Overall, it was pretty exciting to explore another neighbourhood in town! I'm looking forward to more adventures in the future.

Our Favourite Bus Stop

This bus shelter at the corner of College and Ossington is definitely the shelter of choice for the Pouncing Pumas. There's a nice bench, lots of people around, and an old-fashioned pay phone that is always fun to pick up. The kids are now experts at getting on the bus, and the rebels that they are, always choose to sit in the back.

Our Foray into Local Politics

One thing that's been on everybody's mind recently has been the Toronto civic election that's taking place this coming Monday. We made a visit to Councillor Adam Vaughan's campaign office yesterday afternoon for a behind-the-scenes look at the election, and to learn what exactly city council does.

But first, we discovered these great bike locks on Harbord St that were perfect for climbing.

We stopped in a park to run around, and then hopped on a bus (both examples of services that the city council makes decisions on), and arrived at Adam's office.

Adam gave the kids a history of Toronto and explained why we have wards.

The kids make signs in support of Adam to decorate the office.

Looking good!

We worked together to create some big signs for the office. It'll certainly be exciting to see how this election turns out!