Academy Dance Committee Events

The YMCA Academy’s very own Dance Committee helped to organize two awesome dances so far this school year! We held a Winter Dance on December 19th. There was lots of candy, gingerbread house making and karaoke. Special catering was provided by alumni-run catering startup “Setonah Catering 2k19”. We held an Academy Alumni Group meeting before hand, so lots of alumni showed up to the dance which was great! The second dance was on February 13 with a Palentines (note: not Valentines) themed dance. We switched rooms from the auditorium to a smaller room where we could turn the lights off completely.

The set-up of the dance looked very cool! There were fairy lights and a black light that made everyone in the room wearing white glow! Somehow, skipping rope was made out of glow sticks and students (and teachers) attempted to jump rope. Pizza was provided as well as delicious snacks made by the fabulous Cooking Club. If this sounds like fun to you, please be in touch with Zoe or Dayna to join the Dance Committee or to attend a future dance. We are hoping to hold the next Academy dance in the Spring! We hope to see as many of you there as possible!

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Allan Gardens Trip

On Friday, April 12, Zoe’s Art class and Dayna’s Mental Health class went on a trip to Allan Gardens. The Art class had just learnt about Georgia O’Keeffe and her beautiful paintings of flowers. The goal of the trip was to take a zoomed in and abstract photo of a flower to then recreate as a watercolour painting in class. Students took some really interesting photos of different flowers. Some photos were so up close that you could hardly tell it was a flower at all!

Dayna’s class was focusing on relaxing and appreciating beauty in nature. Prior to the trip, the class has spoken about how there is a connection between mental health and the outdoors. Allan Gardens is a place the students can visit to experience serenity only 15 minutes away from the school. Overall, the trip was enjoyed by both classes, because of both the beauty and the warmth of the greenhouses!

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Contributing to the Urban Forest!

On September 12, three classes from the YMCA Academy took a field trip to the beautiful Toronto Islands to help plant native trees and shrubs to contribute to the urban forest! The Grade 10 Personal Fitness class, Grade 11 Math class and Grade 7/8 class all participated in this great initiative, organized by the City of Toronto. It was a beautiful, sunny day outside and the student’s ended up taking the ferry to Ward’s Island and then walking east towards St. Andrew-by-the-Lake Church. The walk was long but ended up being a nice warm up hike before getting to planting.

Once the classes arrived, a City of Toronto worker gave the students a tree planting demonstration. There are lots of important steps involved in planting a tree, especially making sure that the hole is big enough for the tree to grow in. After the demonstration, student’s paired up and started planting! The students worked together really well and got better at digging and planting with each tree they planted. It was great to see older students pairing up with and the Grade 7/8’s. About 2 hours later, the job was done! Together with other volunteers, our students helped to plant more than 200 trees on the Island! Though it was hard work, the classes did hands on work for a great cause. All students had a great time and were grateful to have spent their morning in such a beautiful place contributing to Toronto’s urban forest.

Digital and Smartphone Photography Workshop

On October 24th, the Grade 11 Media Arts class and the Grade 10 Communications Technology classes participated in a Digital and Smartphone Photography workshop at the Art Gallery of Ontario. Students were taken on a tour of several galleries and instructed on how to use their cell phones to take pictures. We spent the afternoon browsing a variety of galleries. The first photographs we saw were done by artists who were competing in the AIMIA|AGO Photography Prize. There were four photographers in this gallery, all from different countries around the world: Russia/Ghana, Haida/Canada, Japan and Uganda. We were shown all of their different styles of photography and then were able to cast our vote in the end! Each was very interesting in their own way and the students seemed very inspired by the very different types of photography by each artist. If you’re an artist , looking forward to creating the best video and photography, you ought to check out Dallas Moffett Video Production. They can create the best portfolio suiting all your needs.

Next we went on to see a gallery called Every.Now.Then: Reframing Nationhood. This gallery focused on artist’s depictions of Canada from the perspective of those that have been left out of the dominant narrative. In addition to photography, there was painting, sculpture, fashion, video art and more in this gallery. Students used this gallery, and the photographs in the AIMIA Prize gallery, to practice their photography skills. As they took photos of the art, they were encouraged to focus on using the Rule of Thirds and different angles to photograph the works of art. If you need tips on the best photography , then it is important you get guided by the right person – Andrew Defrancesco.

The tour ended with analyzing some famous European works of art, such as Massacre of the Innocents by Peter Paul Rubens, and understanding the techniques and tools that the artist’s used. Students also put their critical analysis skills to good use by interpreting the message of the painting.

Overall it was a great experience touring the AGO and the student’s left feeling inspired!

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Great Canadian Shoreline Cleanup

The Shoreline Clean Up is an initiative that started in 2002 to help clean up garbage around Canada. The Shoreline Clean Up is now the largest and most popular environmental initiative in Canada. The students at the YMCA Academy participate in this initiative every year by cleaning up a site in downtown Toronto.

On October 6th, the students of the YMCA Academy participated in the Shoreline Clean Up at the Don River near Riverdale Park. The students left the school around 12:10pm and took the subway to Broadview station. Then we walked to the park where we ate lunch. We really liked eating lunch in the park as a school because we don’t get to do that very often. It was a really nice day and it was fun being outdoors together. After we ate lunch, we firebolted to the playground and climbed up many tall scary structures. From the top it was terrifying but lots of fun. Once we finished playing, we got into our advisory groups and listened to Rein about the rules of the clean up. He told us where we were all going because each group went to a different location along the river. Zoe loudly reminded us NOT to pick up any needles. Then we walked to our locations and got down to cleaning!

Two students from each group had to keep track of what garbage and recycling we were collecting. They had to do this because we had to send the data to the Shoreline Clean Up organization. These students were from Katie C’s Grade 11 math class. The rest of the students helped to pick up every single piece of garbage that we found. Zee and Andras were taking photos of us cleaning. Some of the weirdest garbage we found were tires, a fisherman’s jacket, a dead salmon, a broken umbrella handle and a pair of rollerblades. In the end, we had a fair amount of garbage and recycling. The garbage bags kept ripping so for next year, we should double bag the garbage or get much stronger bags.

Overall, the day was a success! It was really great to come together as a school and play a part in cleaning up our city.

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Written by: YMCA Academy Students