Discover The YMCA Academy! Tour the school, meet our teachers and staff, and get details about our unique Special Education programming at our next Open House event:
2013 FALL OPEN HOUSE
Saturday November 2nd
11:00am-1:00pm
We’re located at 15 Breadalbane Street, Toronto — in the Central YMCA, near Yonge and College streets and College subway station.
For more information about this event, check out our Open House page.
Just a reminder that the Cedar Glen trip is tomorrow (Thursday – October 24th)!! The bus will be leaving the Academy at 9:30am so we are asking students to be at the school by 9am tomorrow morning.
Attached is another copy of the packing list for your reference. Depending on traffic, we should be back at the Academy at around 2:30pm on Friday (October 25th). Students will be dismissed at that time.
Should you have any questions about trip tomorrow, please don’t hesitate to contact us at the Academy.
This list is a general guideline of what a participant would need or use while at Cedar Glen. Each group will take part in different activities and weather conditions. Depending on the length of your visit, the programs you will be taking part in and the weather forecast you may choose to bring more or less of these items.
What to bring to camp:
• Bedding (Sleeping bag, Pillow and additional blankets if a colder time of year)
• Footwear (Running shoes or Hiking Boots (with closed toes) and Sandals with back straps are acceptable. We consider flip-flops to be a safety risk due to our natural setting)
• Clothing (Socks, Underwear, T-shirts, Shorts (amount depending on length of your stay)
• Warm Clothing (Jacket, Long pants (sweats instead of jeans), Long sleeve t-shirts, Sweater)
• Sun Protection (Hat, Sunscreen)
• Rain Wear (Rain Coat, Rain Pants, extra shoes or boots)
• Night Time (Pajamas, Toothbrush, Toothpaste)
• Extras (Insect Repellent, *Flash Light with extra batteries*, *Water Bottle*, Alarm Clock/Watch, Lip Balm, Brush/Comb, Camera)
Please do not bring the following:
• Pocket knives
• Matches
• Cellular telephones
• Pagers
• Electronic toys or devices
• Walkmans, iPods, Discmans or MP3 players
• Radios, stereos, etc
• *Any product with nuts in it*
• Candy, gum, soft drinks, junk food
• Hair dryers
• Non-prescription drugs or alcohol
• Any valuables
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!
On Friday October 11th The YMCA Academy made the first of its two annual outings to Evergreen Downsview. With the weather in favour of our journey, the entire day was destined to be a lovely experience…and it was! With the sun shining bright, our students got straight to work on fulfilling our school’s green initiative. This year JR (our Evergreen Downsview Expert) had us plant various shrubs in the locally grown forest with a new paper mulching technique.
While half of the school prepared the paper mulch for the shrubs, the other half provided a constant supply of mulch. After nice picnic style lunch our students continued the day by planting the shrubs we had prepped the forest floor for. We definitely can’t wait to go back in May!
Check out the rest of the pictures on our Facebook Page!
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
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.
