Nov. 5th, 2013 – Monster Madness Workshops

YMCA Academy Arts, Experiential Learning

To celebrate the changing leaves and spooky season, the grade 11 Media Arts and grade 10 Visual Arts classes teamed up for a monster-themed unit.  Brampton artist David Irvine visited the Academy and brought with him several of his original pieces, including a decorated light bulb, a table leg creature and stunningly painted jewelry boxes.  He also gave each student a print of one of his signed sketches as gifts!  Students are using his timed-limited daily art practice and creating “monsters” every class for a week using different media.  The next day, students participated in an exciting workshop at the Gardiner Museum of Ceramic Art where they learned about the history of medieval art and gargoyles.  In the amazing basement studio, students learned techniques for working with clay and created their own unique creatures.  Once these pieces are fired in a kiln, the group will return to apply coloured glazes to finish them off.  A special thanks goes out to our volunteer and Academy alumnus Jessie for helping us with this unit.  Happy fall everyone!

Monster-A-Day workshop with David Irvine:

Gargoyle Workshop at the Gardiner Museum:

Check out the rest of the pictures on our Facebook Page!

Check out the rest of the pictures on our Facebook Page!

Oct. 17th, 2013 – Feast of Thanks Celebration

YMCA Academy Beyond the Classroom, Community, Native Studies

Gratitude is one of the most important and affirming aspects of life.  On the day after the Thanksgiving holiday, staff, students and volunteers gathered in the cafe at lunch to celebrate the Feast of Thanks, our second annual potluck honouring Canada’s Indigenous people for Thanksgiving.  Jim Adams, local storyteller and educator, offered a blessing and a song and students from Todd’s World Religions class and Alexi’s Aboriginal Voices English class created displays on topics related to Thanksgiving, Indigenous harvest traditions and Indigenous cultures across Canada.

Families donated turkey, ham, home made cranberry sauce, potato dishes, soup and desserts for a beautiful buffet.  We are grateful for the harvest, our school community and the opportunity to learn about, connect with and celebrate Indigenous peoples of Canada.

 

Check out the rest of the pictures on our Facebook Page!

Oct. 9th, 2013 – Elephant Toothpaste Lab

YMCA Academy Experiential Learning, Science and Math

There are six types of chemical reactions that are investigated in the grade ten chemistry unit: Synthesis, Decomposition, Single Displacement, Double Displacement, Combustion, and Acid-Base. Simply discussing and recognising the different types of chemical reactions can be somewhat uninteresting (Figure 1 – case in point) and even intimidating.

Figure 1

types_of_chem_reactions

 

 

 

 

 

Life is not always about remembering equations and formulas, because let’s face it; most students forget the majority of the equations and formulas they have learned once they leave the walls of educational institutions. If, however, you can help students see through the equations and formulas and how they apply to the world they experience around them, they will remember that for many years after they have forgotten the formulas and equations.

In order to bring the chemistry from the whiteboard to life, we look at a real-time example of a decomposition reaction. We take a mixture of hydrogen peroxide and add to it a few drops of food colouring (for effect) and a few drops of liquid dish soap (for the wow factor). To that mixture we add a pre-mixed batch of warm water and yeast (to speed of the decomposition of the hydrogen peroxide). What ensues, and what the students witness and ooh and aah at is the oxygen produced from the decomposition of hydrogen peroxide quickly expanding the soap bubbles in the solution and quickly foaming up and over the graduated cylinder.

Oct. 8th, 2013 – SPIRIT DAY: Nuit Blanche

YMCA Academy Arts, Beyond the Classroom, Student Spotlight, Technology

In honour of the annual art celebration that takes over Toronto streets every fall, we held our very own Nuit Blanche celebration this past Friday.

Students created custom-designed white t-shirts, and wore them during several special events throughout the day. Siobhan’s Grade 12 English class staged a Living Gallery performance in the morning, Todd’s Communications Technology students organized a green-screen Photo Booth at lunch, and Alexi and Siobhan’s Visual and Media Arts classes held an interactive stencil workshop in the afternoon.

Our first Nuit Blanche celebration was a big success. We plan on making it an annual event, and we’re already looking forward to next year!

Check out the rest of the pictures on our Facebook Page!

Oct. 3rd, 2013 – It’s Going How Fast?

YMCA Academy Experiential Learning, Science and Math

There are many scientific words used in everyday vernacular that although not always wrong, are often used without knowledge of their full scientific meaning. This is arguably most true for physics terminology. In order to cement their understandings and grasp the full meaning of kinematics (the study of motion and its applications) the grade 12 physics class designed and conducted two different investigations using ramps, rulers, stopwatches and toy cars. The first investigation was an activity that had the students calculate the average speed of a toy car, while the second was a lab that had them determining the average acceleration of a toy car. Observing the students during both investigations leaves me confident in knowing that they will most assuredly be accelerating with a positive velocity towards a good grade in our first unit of the course.

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