HELLO EVERYONE!!!

Welcome to the Crawford Afterschool blog!

It's that time of year again...time for FUN with the Afterschool Program! I am really looking forward to seeing the kids again and hearing all about their summer vacations. I am looking forward to their creativity and their boundless imaginations! This month we will build our new team, and we will work together to outline what kind of group we are (what are things we all do well?) and what kind of group we want to become (what do we want to work on/practice/learn to become our best?)
The focus this month will be on COMMUNITY BUILDING and the AUTUMN HARVEST! I am hoping to make a trip to the Farmer's Market each week with the kids - we will pick out some delicious things to eat, and later in the week, we will cook up a storm! Mmm...
Here's to a delicious September!

Epilogue

Thanks for a great year! Here are some pictures from the last two weeks of the school.

We made lemonade on summer solstice.

Lemonade with "a hint of mint"! There were 20 lemons to squeeze. Phew!

We had three jugs of it to offer to friends and passers-by for free.

Henry the fortune teller 

"You'll face challenges... but you'll have a good life after all..."

Comics + Freezie at T.B. farmers' market

Showcase of Frank Viva's new children's book, Along A Long Road, at Type bookstore.

Thank you for making the carnival a big success!

Thank you for coming out to the carnival + potluck everyone!

Working on our play.
A few things had to be left out from the carnival because
we haven't had enough time for all of our ambitious projects:
a play/musical, a few dances, and a projection. Maybe next year!

We did manage to put together customs for the most part. 

Also this week, a NxNE concert at the park! 

Improv in the park

Henry showed us how to make his puppet's mouth move.

The puppet has a personality of his own!

He loves everybody and forces kisses on everyone.

Kensington market

We had a nice afternoon exploring Kensington Market. There wasn't enough time to explore all the shops that sell hand-crafted things made out of recycled materials, so, we'll be back in a couple of weeks!

After cherries, peaches and cheese empanadas, we each had
a mini cupcake from Miss Cora's Kitchen! Free for kids!

We appreciated the wider sidewalks and enjoyed looking at funny
hats and dresses as we walked leisurely with our cupcakes.

We found this great house in a very hidden street.

Some pictures from the previous week

We checked out an interesting exhibit at Magic Pony,

discovered a variety of mushrooms in Trinity Bellwoods,

and investigated a giant branch had fallen down.

Walking tightrope

We approached some friendly folks at Trinity Bellwoods on Friday and learned the basics of tightrope walking! Everybody gave it at least one try and was incredible at it! 

It was a beautiful day!

Elegant like a ballerina

Determined like a warrior

Comic Jam! Harmonica Dance!

More photos from last week to come.

Making videos with Joe, picture book, and T.B. bike excursion

Last week, we visited OZ Studio again and made videos with Joe on a special device he invented, consisting of an iPhone and lots more. Most of us enjoyed it a whole lot!

Playing with glasses taken from old camera lenses! 

Also, after making zines individually or as a pair, we're now onto making one large picture book all together!

On Friday, we did some cycling-specific stretches and biked all around Trinity Bellwoods, visiting all corners of the park through every trail.

Kung Fu: In the style of 詠春 (Wing Chun)

Guest teacher Bryan came to show and teach us Kung Fu on Friday! He brought special headbands that gave us extra power, all of us were able to break special purple Kung Fu paper with our newly learned punches and kicks!

Cherry Blossom Festival A.K.A. 桜まつり (Sakura Matsuri)

Last week, we paid a visit to High Park and had a picnic under a cherry blossom tree in full bloom. Angel told us about how snacking, picnicking with your friends and families during the cheery blossom season, which often lasts for only one week, is a very important tradition in East Asia and particularly in Japan.

We had lemonade instead of tea, also, dried mangoes, rice crackers and a bunch of dips!

Running up and down the hill

Typical!

Trying to catch falling cherry petals... to eat!

Record-breaking 30 seconds headstand!!!

Preparing surprises for our moms

Some of us made cards... 

some of us made cookies...

most of us did both!

We finally went to Joe's studio/gallery space

Joe is a good friend of Maylee's who runs a studio/gallery space on Ossington called Oz Studio. We'll sure be checking out more exhibits that are part of the CONTACT photography festival and learning to take photos ourselves! 

Discussing which artwork is the most scary. 

Storytime with Maylee, our favourite! 

Cycling little giants

We have been learning about bikes in the past few weeks. We've been talking about the importance and benefits of bicycles in a city like Toronto, we've talked about what bicycle advocates do to make biking safer and more fun in the city, we've also been learning about traffic laws and signalings that are important to cyclists. This month, we'll continue on this theme; we will spend a day learning about bike parts, another day doing bike maintenance, and maybe, just maybe, we will get to help put a bike together from scratch for one of our teachers!

Now that the weather is nice,
we're going to use the bicycle to get to places whenever we can.

Bike gang!

Suped up bikes!