A Day at the Library!

Hi, my name is Emilia, and today some friends and I visited the Richmond Brighouse Public Library. Come along with me and I'll show you around: 

The library was decorated for the holidays and we started our afternoon shaking hands with Frosty!

The library always has a bunch of cool technology for us to explore and play with:

Computers:

Ipads: 

3-D Printers:

Of course there are always loads of great books to choose from and the librarian is always a good resource to help find the perfect book!

Once you found the right book, you line up at the check out:

Using your library card, you scan the book and then you can take it home:

When it's time to return the book to the library, you put it in the 'return it' slot:

Overall, it was a splendid afternoon with lots to do and lots to see...

Oh, and you can't forget about the big fish! 

That's all for now folks!

Emilia, Mackenzie & Matt

Carolyn's Corner

I can't believe our calendars now read December! The holiday season is fast approaching with winter break being only two weeks away.  I love this time of the year and can't wait for all the bonuses that come with December.  I even heard that snow may be in our future!

Last Friday at West Richmond we welcomed all of our families to our first Family Fun Night.  We had an amazing turn out.  I'd like to thank everyone who stopped by, for spending their Friday evening with us.  The candy houses and hot chocolate station were enjoyed by all and the slideshow, though a little late, was full of many smiling faces.

This week at Senior things started off a little messy, in a good way, with Corey's art on Monday afternoon.  He took on the challenge of making homemade bouncy balls with 15 excited children. Though the finished product went 'splat' instead of 'boing' everyone had a wonderful time. Sometimes it's worth just getting a little messy!

Tuesday I kept the messy theme going by introducing bubble art.  My participants were given a cup with soap, paint, water and most importantly a straw, and were told to blow bubbles!!! Soon the art table was covered in bubbles, water, color and smiling children.  Once they had an over flow of bubbles I showed them how to press a piece of paper into the bubbles to make home-made marble patterns.  The paper turned out great and after our large clean up we turned out art into home-made cards and envelopes.  All in all our mess turned out great!

Wednesday turned into 'Spooky Wednesday' when Keefer gathered a group together to play Werewolf.

Thursday Brianna continued the DIY theme and showed a group of children the bonus uses of potatoes in her DIY wrapping paper craft.  I'm sure everyone will be wrapping some very special presents throughout this holiday season.  Friday's Yarn Letter Art will surely be a great hit!

Next week, on Monday, Dec 5, there is an All Schools Pro D Day.  Matt and Keefer have planned an animal themed In Day at Senior.  Please arrive by 10am if you have signed up.

December has only just begun but I can tell it is going to be an amazing month! Stay tuned to hear more about our adventures at Sr OSC,

Until next time,

Carolyn

Lava Lamps with Brianna and Kevin

Each week, our leaders come up with various activities for the kids to take part in which creates a welcoming and enjoying atmosphere for them. Last week Brianna and I decided to mix up the activities slightly. So instead of our regular arts and crafts, we chose to experiment a little with common household items to create a one of a kind OSC lava lamp. On Thursday, they had the opportunity to let their inner wacky scientist loose by participating in our afternoon activity.

The lava lamp activity allowed them to expand on their scientific understandings further.  They found out that oil and water do not combine since oil has less density compare to water. This meant that the oil floated to the top instead of remaining below the water. This was an unique exercise that enable the kids to explore different scientific properties while having fun with their friends. Mainly they were really keen to make very their first lava lamp. When it came to the time for dropping the tablets into the bottle, the excitement was rising as each kid wanted to be the first to see the tablets perform its magical powers within the mixture.

After a couple unsuccessful attempts, we managed to create a few working lava lamps. The buildup of excitement was on a whole different level as it never once dropped throughout the different phases of constructing. Everyone was excited to try with their own bottle once we got it working. Therefore, we all took turns creating our own distinctive lamp that were of various colours.

This is an easy and inexpensive small activity that  any family can do together to bond with their kids and or simply  brighten their day. If any families wish to try it out, the necessary supplies needed for this homemade lava lamp are vegetable oil, water, food colouring and an alka seltzer tablet. The proportions of each material is up to the creator as it will produce varying results like our trials. This a great method to build upon a child’s creativity and allow them to think outside the box a little with only using household materials to construct things.

Until next time,

Kevin W

Mask Making

Hello OSC Families,

Last Wednesday, Keefer and I did an art project that involved a lot of glue, newspaper, and a great amount of imagination!  As soon as the art activity opened up, the kids rushed to the board to sign up as they were all eager to begin. We brought the group of kids outside where we started this messy, sticky & fun activity. But what exactly was this art project? Great question; the kids made paper mache masks! As a child, I loved any art activity that involved a big mess and getting my hands dirty, so imagine how much fun the kids had with this!

The first step was to blow up a balloon, roughly the size of their face, so they could wear it. Next, the kids dipped or drenched newspaper in a water glue mixture and laid it over top of the balloon. Some made their masks more complex than others by incorporating facial features such as a nose or eyes while others chose to go the simple route and made a traditional mask. I heard a couple ideas of the kids wanting to make their mask into an 'emoji' and some were indecisive and had not figured out what they wanted their mask to be.

Paper mache was just part 1 of making the masks. They are hanging to dry and next week, part 2 will begin. The kids are going to paint and decorate their masks in whatever way they choose, letting their imagination run wild. They never fall short of impressing me with their creative skills and I am excited to see everyone’s final product!

Until next time,

Sarah A

Jumpstart with OSC

This week OSC was jam-packed with many fun activities like group knitting and a 'Big Two' card tournament. The week culminated on Friday in a Pro-D Day out-trip to the Richmond Olympic Oval for Jumpstart, an initiative hosted by Canadian Tire and its affiliates. 

Many out-of-school-care programs participated in the event, and it was awesome to see everyone taking part in such a fun and active community event. Groups rotated through various activities such as basketball, table tennis, relay races, and a fantastic obstacle course. Each rotation provided the group with new challenges, and each child had to opportunity to participate in every event. 

By far the favourite activity of the day was wheelchair rugby, which was taught by a Paralympic athlete. The kids had the opportunity to practice moving around in the wheelchairs while catching and throwing a ball to each other, and they even played a rugby match with the professional athletes. It was great to see everyone interacting together in a fun and engaging environment with many varieties of activities!

Until next time
 

Sarah C

See you next year, Halloween!

I can not believe that it’s November already! As you could tell from our last 2 blog posts, we’ve been anticipating Halloween for a while now.  Last Monday, it was finally here!  Halloween is such a great occasion for us to channel our inner zombie DJs, cats and many other great costumes!  It was so cool to see everyone’s take on each character and to celebrate creativity.  The leaders welcomed all of the kids into the Wizarding World of Harry Potter by dressing up as the best Harry Potter squad in town.  Corey created and led an exciting and spooky escape room, challenging kids to put their problem-solving skills to the test!

One other interesting activity we did this week involved a little bit of reflecting in the spirit of We Day.  Matt lead a short activity that invited the kids to think about the world beyond our Gilmore walls.  In small groups, we shared our thoughts on what we felt was working in the world and what we believe could use a little work.  It was a great opportunity to show what we understand about the world as well as learn from others who may have had different ideas.  Many social issues were brought up that we wouldn’t normally think about- it was a great moment of learning and reflection for both the kids and the leaders!  We are super grateful for all the fun things we get to do at OSC and hope that one day, others will get to enjoy them too!

Carol

Sugar Skulls Art with Keefer

Halloween is in the air!

As we approach this ghoulish time of year, things are really starting to come alive at Senior OSC. Decorations have started to go up, with children helping in construction and planning. Our storage room is even starting to resemble a magical dungeon!

One of the activities for this week involved the making and decorating of Mexican sugar skulls.  It was a messy bit of fun, and the kids loved getting hands-on. It was also a reminder that Halloween is a holiday with roots and traditions from several different cultures around the world.

Until next time,



Keefer 

Pumpkin Guts

Happy Hauntings OSC families!

We've had a spooky last couple of weeks at OSC getting the kids into the Halloween spirit! Your little ghouls and goblins have been getting crafty and made some eerie lanterns featuring pumpkins, fairies and dragons with Carolyn.

 

As I'm sure some of you know we had a big buddy pumpkin carving activity on Wednesday where some of the Seniors came over to West to help out some of our Juniors carve their scary pumpkins. The kids had a great time squishing  their fingers around in the icky, sticky pumpkin guts.  I'm sure you found dried pumpkin all over the kids and the floor when you picked them up, and I'm sure we will be finding pumpkin seeds around West for weeks! The kids used the tools of the trade to carve their creations into the pumpkins.  We were all super proud of the Seniors for being amazing big buddies and making it really special for the Juniors. 

 

Another exciting event this week was the Lantern Festival! The volunteers from seniors were super excited to man the cupcake walk station with Carolyn and spread the spooky spirit around! We hope your October will continue to be magical, we're counting down the days until all hallows eve! 

Stay Spooky,

Mackenzie 

Bad Weather Board Games

Hey everyone!

With all these rainy days hitting us, Sarah C had an awesome idea to keep the kids entertained indoors. What better game is there to play than one you make yourself? That's what we did this past week; “make your own board game.” The kids started this project by choosing a theme. Then from there, designing the type of game and the rules along with it. With all access to the art supplies the kid’s creativity was astounding. Using supplies such as cardboard boxes as the game boards, and even baking clay to mold game pieces and characters, this made a unique variety of games.

Malia - Created a version of the game “life,” but played only with cards she designed herself.

Emma – Started with a Harry Potter theme in which the purpose of the game was to escape the forbidden forest.

Adrianna – Made two different games, one about a veterinary hospital and another game similar to snakes and ladders but instead of using a dice, she drew symbols on a ping-pong ball, which you used to move around the board.

Cole, Alden, Andrew, Brant, Carolyn – They all worked together to create a game called pokeMOMs. This was an adventure type game with a pokemon theme, were you began as one of the three starter pokemon (bulbasaur, charmander, squirtle) and you had to find their “MOMS,” (Venusaur, Charizard, Blastoise).

AND MANY MORE…

In the end this was a great activity for the kids, not only for them but also for all to enjoy. I’m really excited to try these new additions to our game collections. Hopefully there will be more to come very soon. If you want to hear more about these games, please don't hesitate to ask or to join in!

Corey

Exploding Science with Brianna

On Thursday afternoon, nine brave scientists (and two safety supervisors), ventured into the field at Gilmore with a bin full of supplies to see which combinations would make the best explosions.

We started simple. Vinegar was poured into a Ziplock bag and baking soda was wrapped in toilet paper before being added to the vinegar. The bag was quickly sealed and thrown on the grass for observation. The best explosion from this experiment was the bag that exploded mid air. After all science is all about big messes!

The next experiment was two-fold. We all sat down and poured diet-pepsi into four different cups.

We then added a variety of things into the diet pepsi to see what the different reactions would be and how strong the reactions were.

The most popular ingredient, Mentos, was then added to the remaining pop in the bottles for a bigger "ka-boom".  This lead to one of the more rememberable moment of the afternoon.  The Mentos reacted so quickly that it ended up erupting all over Brianna. What a mess!

Last was the most complicated experiment of them all. After carefully following instructions, measuring ingredients, and waiting patiently (we discovered not all explosions happen suddenly), we got to watch elephant toothpaste make the biggest mess by far. We made the toothpaste in both a bottle and a bowl to see if there would be a difference in the reaction. The bottle was chosen to be the more exciting method for its volcano-like reaction and providing the chance to make a bigger mess by jumping on the bottle.

            

That was all the experiments we managed to do before the rain started. Thank you to photographer Shaiyaz for his awesome videos J

-Brianna

Annica's New Favorite Game

Hello everyone!

This is my first blog post; how exciting!

I just wanted to share a fun little card game that I played with a few of the kids on friday—Exploding Kittens.

This is a pretty weird and creative game for 2-6 players. It consists of 4 different types of cards: exploding kittens, defuse cards, action cards, and fusion cat cards. To win the game, one has to try their best NOT to draw the exploding kitten cards, which can only be countered with a defuse card. When a defuse card is played, then the player can put back the exploding kitten card anywhere in the deck. If they don’t have a defuse in their hand, they are out of the game.

Every turn, a player draws one card and/or plays a card if they can. The game keeps going until there are no cards left to draw.

The cards we played with seemed fairly new, but it seemed like the kids have been really into this game for a while! It was a really interesting concept and they taught me how to play as we went along. It was so addicting that as time went on, more kids wanted to play, and we played for a solid hour and a half! When it was only down to two players left, it became intense. Strategy could only go so far, so you have to rely on pure luck!

As the day came to a close, and Exploding Kittens was put away, I still heard the kids chatting about it.

“My favourite card game is Exploding Kittens.” – Cole

I jumped in and asked, "why do you like Exploding Kittens?"

“Because there’s exploding kittens!!!”

My favourite part, on the other hand, were the funny little drawings and descriptions that each card had. They are very imaginative, and never fail to make the kids laugh!

Annica

"Find me Something..."

Hey Friends,

I wanted to share our experience from one of the art activities we tried this week at Sr. OSC called "Find me something..." . It was a lot of fun and here's how it went down. 

First thing we did was distribute to each group an empty bucket and a scavenger list of things to find from outside. Once we headed out into the beautiful sunshine, the hunt was a foot. Teams had 15 minutes to try and gather as many of the items from the list as possible.

Once the time was up we headed back inside where the real creative fun began. Using the gathered materials from outside, and with the help of a bit of coloured play-dough, the teams were challenged to create a one of a kind art piece and come up with a story/explanation of their work. It was fascinating to see what the three groups came up with! There was no specific theme to follow, so it really allowed the children to get imaginative. The final products are depicted below.

 

Overall I believe the activity went really well and it was a great chance to get outside while we still have nice weather. The final creations were awesome, but what was also really cool was being able to watch the process; from gathering the materials, coming up with ideas, implementing their plans and creating their stories.


Keep coming back to check out what other cool things are happening at Sr. OSC.

Take care,

Matt

Back at it Again!

Welcome back to Sr. OSC!  Though the weather is sticking around, summer has indeed ended.  We are back into the full swing of things at Senior as we enter into the second full week of school.  Our staff are all looking forward to a wonderful school year and have many amazing things to bring to the program. We are looking forward to seeing all the familiar faces and we welcome those who are new to Sr. OSC.  If you have not had a chance to meet all of the staff, please do not hesitate to say "Hello!" and introduce yourself.

Getting back into the routine can sometimes be challenging, but here are a few friendly reminders of the important things that take place in our program:

•  Breakfast is served daily from 7:00am-8:00am: 
• Hot breakfast is served Monday, Wednesday and Fridays, with regular breakfast being offered throughout the week as well. 
• What we serve for breakfast may change throughout the week. However, there will always be cereal, bread, english muffins, oatmeal, and juice.

• Bus pickup times are as follows and we ask that your child be dropped off by the designated times if they require transportation by us.
• If your child goes to Quilchena or Dixon, please arrive at Gilmore Sr. OSC no later than 8:00am. Bus pickup is 8:15am from Gilmore.
• If you miss the designated time, please drop off your child directly at school, as the bus does only one pick up in the morning.

• If your child is looking for something to do during the afternoons, feel free to encourage them to check out our daily activities. Each day a leader brings something new and exciting to try, and all your child needs to do is sign up on our magnet board and go into it with a good attitude! There will also be monthly options to explore Richmond during our optional afternoon out trips. Keep an eye out for a sign up sheet at the sign out table for these out trips.

• If your child will NOT be coming to Gilmore Sr. OSC after school, please remember to give us a call at: 604.272.3661. This is the direct line for our program and during off hours we have a voicemail available. Please leave us a clear and detailed message, otherwise there is a good chance we will be hassling you until we know your child's whereabouts!

• Please check your parent folders regularly and keep an eye out for any Pro D sign up sheets that may be posted throughout the year.

These are just some of the reminders from Sr. OSC. In the meantime, we hope that you will join us in ushering in another awesome school year. We look forward to getting to know and/or catching up with everyone. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to ask any one of us.

Carolyn

Getting Our Groove On with Tie Dye

With summer just around the corner, Sarah A. and I thought a tie dye project with the kids would be a fabulous outdoor activity to get them into the summer mood. We knew it would be very likely to get messy, but we were up for the challenge!

Once the kids have tied their t-shirts together with rubber bands, we all headed outside to start dyeing their shirts.

Bronwyn has chosen a bull's eye design

Emily N. went with the swirl design

Leah liked the ombre design 

Hopefully the t-shirts turned out well!

Cheers,

Monica