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!

Sep. 30th, 2013 – Upcoming Event: Feast of Thanks

YMCA Academy Beyond the Classroom, Community, Native Studies

Dear Parents and Guardians,

We are very excited to inform you of an upcoming celebration at The YMCA Academy that will involve your son or daughter.

Students in Todd’s grade 11 World Religions class and in Alexi’s grade 11 Native Studies class will be organizing our second annual celebration of Thanksgiving from an Indigenous perspective. On Tuesday October 15, the day after the traditional Thanksgiving holiday, we will be holding a feast and celebration in the Academy’s café during lunch. This celebration will include research projects that students will create during class time around themes of Aboriginal spirituality, traditions, rights and history. If you want spiritual predictions, Powered by prnewswire.com, you need to check out this website.

We would like to ask for your support to help us with the feast. Students are invited to bring in a traditional or favourite dish served at Thanksgiving. It can be something very simple, like cooked squash, mashed potatos or a dessert, and leftovers are most welcome! Academy staff will be contributing to the feast as well, and we will be inviting staff from the Central YMCA as well as guests from the Aboriginal community.

Please let us know if a contribution will be possible for you, and if so, what your son or daughter will contribute.

We appreciate your support of this exciting cross-curricular and important event celebrating diversity which is a cornerstone of the YMCA philosophy.

Very sincerely,

Todd Harrison and Alexi Manis
Teachers, The YMCA Academy

Sep. 27th, 2013 – Oh what a day WE had!

YMCA Academy Beyond the Classroom, Community

Academy students from the OLC class represented the school at this year’s WE Day kick off on September 20. A very early (yawn..)7:30 am departure from school got us down to the ACC in time to meet thousands (20 thousand actually) of other Ontario students coming together to celebrate a year of action to better our global community. WE day is a spectacular non-stop show with this year’s performers including The Jonas Brothers, Demi Lovato, The Barenaked Ladies, Imagine Dragons, Austin Mahone and Serena Ryder. And if that wasn’t enough, inspirational speakers included the founding Kielburger brothers, Martin Luther King III, Premier Kathleen Wynne, Astronaut Chris Hadfield, Molly Burke, Michael “Pinball” Clemons, Spencer West, Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, and more. We were excited to be there but over the moon when due to a ticket snafu and a sprinkling of magic from our volunteer extraordinaire Peggy we ended up in the Air Canada Club Restaurant with the best seats in the whole ACC and a delicious pizza lunch. We were in heaven! It was a very special day.

And now it is our turn to contribute! Keep an eye out for the WE Scare Hunger and the WE Create Change campaigns that will be run by students this Fall.

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

Sep. 13th, 2013 – The Academy’s first Spirit Day!

YMCA Academy Beyond the Classroom

This past Friday, YMCA Academy students transformed into construction workers, outdoor adventurers, cartoon characters, historical warriors, baseball superstars, cool crooners, and animals of every shape and size. Yes, on Friday we wore many hats — literally, I mean, since we were celebrating “Wear Fun(ny) Hats or Headgear Day,” our first Spirit Day of the school year.

The event was a big success: students turned up in all kinds of cranial adornments, and we had a student-run hat-making station in the reception area for anyone in need of some last-minute headgear. Best of all, it was a chance for our new students to engage further in our school community. And there’s more where that came from; the day before Hat Day (Hat Eve, if you will), we brainstormed during TAPS — our monthly small-group sessions that run as part of the Academy’s dedication to Mindfulness practices — and came up with a plethora of fantastic ideas for spirit days to come. Stay tuned!

— Todd Harrison

Graduation and End of Year

YMCA Academy Beyond the Classroom, Student Spotlight, Values Awards

Our annual YMCA Academy Graduation and End of Year Celebration was a huge success!  The food spread was amazing, the decorations were spectacular and the energy and excitement was fantastic.  A highlight of the evening was the Academy’s first ever “dance”, a dream that was set to motion by our student Dakota, which featured the acclaimed DJ El Machetero on the turntables.  Congratulations to Cato, Jamie, Tristan, Joseph, Hannah and Lexie, our Values Awards winners; Yasin, the winner of the Lieutenant Governor’s Award for Volunteering and Alex, the YMCA Academy Community Involvement Award.  And of course, we would like to extend a huge congratulations to our graduates, Ahmed, Yasin, Alex, Diana and Michael.  We wish you all the best in your future, and hope you come back to visit often!

 

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