Celebrating success at the Talent Show

YMCA Academy Arts, Beyond the Classroom No Comments

In what’s become an annual tradition at the Academy, we celebrated the end of the 2015 portion of our academic year with an all-school talent show. Student performers sang, danced, lip-synced, played instruments, screened short films, and even demonstrated their culinary skills.

The Talent Show has become a crucial community-building event for our learning community. Several performers (and one of the three MCs) were new students in September, and the Talent Show was a great opportunity to make new connections. It’s also a great showcase for the school’s expanding arts department —not to mention the perfect way to say goodbye in style to the 2015 portion of the school year.

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A warm day of skating at Nathan Phillips Square

YMCA Academy Beyond the Classroom No Comments

On Friday, December 11, most of the students of the YMCA Academy went on a skating trip to Nathan Phillips Square. Some people skated but others decided not to skate because the ice was melted and people did not want to get wet.

Some people focused on physical exercise while some people were happy talking and improving their social skills. We all bonded through a shared experience and we took pictures and made memories which we will always remember when we look at the pictures in the yearbook.

By Zachary Da Silva (YMCA Academy student)

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Grade 9 English – Handprint Mural

YMCA Academy Arts, Native Studies No Comments

Jim Adams, recent recipient of the Ontario Arts Council’s Aboriginal Educator in Schools grant, spent a week with our grade 9 English class. He shared amazing stories of creation, his personal experiences and other themes and taught us all how important stories are to our past, present and future.

We created a shared story through images, art and words on a mural, beginning with the most unique part of ourselves: our handprints!! Thanks Jim for an amazing experience and we hope you come back again soon.

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Equity, Diversity, and Social Justice at The YMCA Academy

YMCA Academy English and Humanities, Experiential Learning, YMCA of Greater Toronto No Comments

Students from the Academy’s Equity, Diversity and Social Justice class held a Social Justice Fair on Monday to share their research and action plans.

This course, part of the Ministry of Education’s new Social Sciences and Humanities curriculum, has quickly become a vital and popular part of our course calendar. It provides a platform for a wide range of vital learning opportunities, including building empathy, engaging with the community, collaboration, and evaluating information sources.

It’s also the perfect vehicle to reinforce the mission, vision, and values of the YMCA of Greater Toronto, and to reinforce the association’s commitment to diversity and social inclusion.

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Students visit Tattoo Sound + Music

YMCA Academy Community, Experiential Learning, Technology No Comments

As part of a unit on the world of sound, the Academy’s two Grade 10 Communications Technology classes travelled to Tattoo Sound + Music earlier this week.

Dana, Steve, and the Tattoo staff spent their morning conducting an interactive, hands-on workshop for the group. Students learned about the process of creating a rich sonic tapestry, how to get started in the industry, what it’s like to work with major clients, and how the equipment in a professional recording studio works. Then, volunteers from each class got behind the microphones and recorded some foley sound effects for a commercial!

Authentic learning experiences like these are vital and highly engaging opportunities for students to build on and apply the skills they learn in class. The Academy group asked many excellent questions, and were excited to learn that some major musical stars had once graced the very spot where they stood.

But we couldn’t do it without support from people like Dana, Steve, and the Tattoo Sound + Music crew, who opened their doors to the school and took time out of their busy schedules to enrich our students’ learning. You can read more about our commitment to experiential learning here.

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