Upcoming Youth Exchange to New Brunswick

YMCA Academy Beyond the Classroom, Community, Experiential Learning No Comments

The above slideshow is from our last Youth Exchange to Haida Gwaii in 2017

Students at the YMCA Academy are preparing for the upcoming Youth Exchange that will be taking place from April 13th to 19th, and the 18th to the 24th of May.

In this youth exchange people from Tobique First Nations, New Brunswick will be coming for six days to Toronto to learn and experience a different sort of culture from their own. They will be guided around the city by the YMCA Academy’s students who will be later going to where they’re from just a month from now.

While they’re here we will be welcoming them with a feast, doing a city wide scavenger hunt on the TTC, doing volunteer work, taking them to Center Island and Niagara Falls, and just exploring the general city areas.

The goal of this Youth Exchange is to learn how other communities across Canada live and work in different ways, and the differences or similarities of two completely different environments, city and somewhat rural land. Some great outcomes of this experience include the new knowledge students gain about how the world works, and important life skills like knowing how to travel, how to interact with new people, and people who live in a different environment.

To find out more about this exchange look out for photos, blog posts, and posts on our social media pages!

Academy on ice: Building community through skating and hot chocolate

YMCA Academy Beyond the Classroom, Events No Comments

Students skating at Nathan Phillips Square

By Jonah Milo

On February 22, the YMCA Academy went on our annual school skating trip. The entire school including all grades and teachers walked down to Nathan Phillips Square and participated in skating and enjoying the trip as a community. Students with years of skating experience as well as students who have never tried on skates before all participated with enthusiasm in skating, drinking hot chocolate and enjoying the -6 degree weather we were blessed with.

The skating trip is a good opportunity for the school to do something as a community. During the trip you will see all the students participating in skating as well as more experienced skaters helping the less experienced. The skating trip is one of the many trips the school has throughout the year. The community at the YMCA Academy is something that is important to us and is why we have many trips throughout the year such as the skating trip as well as our Cedar Glen trip, and Toronto Island trip. These trips help us get to know each other as we grow as a school and as a community.

Check out more photos from this event on Facebook page!

Jonah is a Grade 12 YMCA Academy student.

Academy Rowing Crew’s 24-hour Row

YMCA Academy Community, Events, Healthy Living, YMCA of Greater Toronto No Comments

The Sweat for Good Challenge!

It’s just 3 days until the Academy Rowing Crew’s 24-hour row!

We’ll be rowing from 8am on Friday, March 1st through to 8am on Saturday, March 2nd.  This is truly an Academy community event.  We currently have over 65 students, staff, alumni, families, volunteers and friends signed up to participate with our team!

Adding to the team effort this year, Colleen, one of the Academy’s teachers, will be attempting to set a new world distance record for a 24-hour row.

The Sweat for Good Challenge (formerly known as Megathon) is an important part of our school’s annual initiative to promote the connection between mental wellness and physical activity. The focus is to raise our students’ awareness about the role physical activity plays in mental health. Being active reduces the effects of stress, anxiety, and depression — issues that impact many young people.

Last year, we raised over $2,500 and our goal is to surpass that number this year.

All fundraising from this event goes towards making YMCA programs financially accessible to everyone. Students at the Academy benefit directly from these funds.

Check out our Sweat for Good Challenge page – Donations can be made here!

If you wish to participate and haven’t signed up already, there’s still time to join our crew – contact Katie Clay

Ending Homelessness – One Youth At a Time

Katie Clay Beyond the Classroom, Community, English and Humanities, Events No Comments

 

Students and staff from the YMCA Academy once again braved the cold to help support Youth Without Shelter.

On Friday, February 1st, 25 students and staff participated in the 9th annual Time4Change (formerly Tokens4Change) fundraising event. The money raised goes to providing youth access to transit and empowering support programs at Youth Without Shelter, an emergency residence and referral agency in Etobicoke. Transit fare allows youth to attend school, seek a safe place to call home, find employment and new beginnings.

In January, the entire school participated in a workshop led by Youth Without Shelter, that educated students on the important programs they provide and why it is such a need in Toronto.This led many students to sign up and through the event gain deeper understanding through learning. Our students had the opportunity to teach commuters about the issue of homelessness and be engaged in powerful discussions. One youth was approached by a woman currently living in shelter who thanked them for their efforts. Another person commended us as they had volunteered at this event before and knew how challenging it is. Some passersby were impressed with our chants and enthusiasm, while others donated so that we would be quiet! Either way we were able to educate the public and bring in lots of donations, big and small, which helped make the event a success.

This year’s Time4Change event saw almost 600 volunteers canvassing at 27 locations. The grand total raised in just one day was $88,000!

Thank you to everyone who participated and donated to this great cause!

Fresh & Fiery Academy Hot Sauce!

Dayna Dann Events, Experiential Learning, Healthy Living No Comments

It came time to harvest produce from our school garden!! Our Grade 7/8 class came up with ideas about what we could make with all of our produce. We had onions, tomatoes, and LOTS of different types of hot and sweet peppers. We decided that we would make HOT SAUCE!

Together we harvested everything from the garden. We looked up a variety of different hot sauce recipes and decided to combine a few to make our very own special Academy hot sauce. Next, we put on safety goggles and gloves to protect ourselves from the super hot peppers. Carefully we cut up all of our produce and simmered them down for several hours. Once it was ready, we allowed it to cool down, and blended it smooth. Then we were left with a large pot of hot sauce…

We knew that we wanted to jar the sauce, but we had no idea how much hot sauce we had! Luckily we figured out that if we figured out the volume of the pot, we could figure out how much hot sauce we had. So that is exactly what we did! First we all estimated how many cups of hot sauce we predicted was in pot. Then we calculated the volume. We then researched what jars we wanted to use and how many milliliters they held.We divided the volume of the sauce by the size of the jar. We calculated how many packages of jars we would need to purchase, how much they would cost and how much tax would be added. Then we used Google Maps to map our route and see how much time it would take us to get to the store to purchase our jars.

Once the jars were purchased and filled, the next step was to choose a name and design a label. Students worked together to come up with ideas, vote and eventually decided on Fresh and Fiery. The class also decided to sell the hot sauce for $7 each or 2 for $12 and all profits will go back to the garden fund.

This was a really nice project to start the year with as this project required a significant amount of collaboration and we were just getting to know each other and the school community.

This was a fun activity that had many curriculum connections. These connections were:

  • Math: Measurement and Volume
  • English: Blogs, read and writing the instructions
  • Science: PH levels
  • Business: Marketing, Brand management and Advertising