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Please join us in welcoming Ms. Hilary to the VVA team! We are excited to announce the start of an exciting year with Hilary on board! Ms. Hilary joined us early September as VVA's first ever Program Coordinator - directing after school programming, managing extra programming within the school, supporting students and teachers wherever she can. We are all sooooo thrilled to have her! And, we are extremely grateful to have found such a unique and wonderful soul to join our VVA team. We are ALSO excited she shared with you a personal passion of hers. A true delight to read! Hilary's kindness, understanding, and experiences make her an excellent support for our school. Enjoy!  Remember art class as a child in school? Approximately once a week, it was a time to dedicated to exploring artistic ability. Remember sliding your tiny little fingers across the white sheet of paper covered in way too much paint? Mixing colors, using markers, stickers and adding just a splash, or maybe more, of glitter. Remember how proud you were to bring it home and post it on the family fridge or your own bedroom wall? Maybe you gave it as a gift because you loved it so very much and knew the receiver would love it just as much as you did (even if it wasn't quite true!). As a child I too experienced this joy of art. Having an artist father, I felt more drawn to it than most of my peers. As an adult, I developed a love for abstract painting. I had experienced a surgical procedure which left me nearly incapacitated. Being in a place where i had no control and was confined to my home, placed a strain on my mental well being. I began to explore art as I once did as a child and adolescent and in doing so, discovered a new passion that eased my angst at being housebound and isolated. I could escape for hours into my medium of choice and lose myself in the process. The zen-like state that I achieved, I believe, greatly improved my healing journey. I was able to lose myself in the fluidity of Abstract painting. It allowed me to escape into a meditative flow, letting my worries disappear. It aided my concentration, lessened my anxiety, and assisted me in letting go of the tension I was holding due to my circumstances. This form of art allows one to just simply let go and observe the way in which the paint chooses to flow...allowing the artist to simply enjoy the essence of being one with your canvas and your paint. Even the process of mixing your paints can create a zen experience, giving your mind a break from its regular reel. Art has so many benefits for us all: • Healing • Exploration • Letting go • Moving forward Art is a creative way to fully immerse yourself into what you are feeling. It allows you to create a zen space to clear and quiet the mind. It doesn’t come at the snap of your fingers and there are so many different styles of art. I used art as a form of therapy and it has been a great success. Being introduced to art from a young age I was able to tap into it as an adult to cope. It allowed me to move forward in the healing process. I believe that art can have a similar, yet greater impact on the minds and hearts of children. Children who have trauma or have complex needs often find ways to express complex emotions through art that they may not be able to articulate verbally. It provides a release of pent up energy in some children as they become lost in the creative process, in whichever medium they are involved. The joy in a child's face when they can learn how to create a piece of art to which they can relate and/or share with a loved one, is priceless. Children are proud of their creativity, and often, undiscovered talents are brought to light when children are permitted to play artistically, with no encumbrances or preconceived notions. I believe that art not only speaks to children, but that it gives them a voice that may not otherwise be heard. As adults, we only need pay attention to what they might be saying, while remembering that sometimes, the only expression being shown is joy! 
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 Please welcome our youngest writers in the school! Ages 4 and 5, our Pre-K & K class, with the help of their teacher, Ms. Meghan, has written their first blog post! Hint: Our classes pick their own class names for the year. This year, the youngest and smallest decided to pick Pygmy Shrew as their class animal! Other classes are the Coyotes, Bobcats and Moose. Common language for Via Vita, but we realize the rest of the world has no idea what we're talking about! Enjoy the read, straight from the mouths of our youngest, and especially inquisitive, students! One day the Pygmy Shrews went to school. We wake up at home and we get dressed in Via Vita Clothes. Then we eat breakfast so we don’t get hungry. We get in our car and go to Via Vita. We get our jacket and boots off, then get your lunch box and bring it into the gym. Then you play in the gym with toys and friends and with imagination. After a little while we clean up then go upstairs for Morning Meeting. We sit quietly with everyone in the school and put your hand up if you have to say something. We have a morning talk and we talk about suff that’s going on and what is happening. We then read the quote and its about hard stuff and its about anything, important things, so we can learn. Then we sing O’ Canada and start the day.
We read books, like Annie and Jack’s story, and we go on Epic! to read whatever we want. We can’t go on other peoples things, but we can watch other peoples books. We like books about kitties, big foot, and dogs, and sharks! We draw pictures about what we read and then we sit in a circle and tell about what we drew. Before we leave the room we have to do our sight words. We wash our hands and we sit with any of our friends in the whole school, like the big kids. We play outside in the snow, hide and seek, sledding, and throwing snowballs at everyone but we don’t hurt them, we throw it at their legs. We go inside and the big kids help us hang our coats and snow pants up and we line out boots up against the wall. With our teacher we do our weather, the things of the day like the calendar and numbers. Then we draw a picture and write of anything that we like! In the kitchen, we get dishes out, we stir up the food to make it mixed all together. We can cut stuff too but we use these round things to cut, knifes are sharp, be careful! We put some stuff in the oven, or it goes in the heater on top. The food is yummy and tasty. It can be sour, yummy sometimes. We make cakes for birthdays for everyone, and sing with candles and it’s happy! We learn about the world so we know what’s around and so when we go somewhere, we know stuff like how stuff is made. Gym can be Taekwon-do where we kick and punch, but not at people. It can be outside at the playground to play. We do Yoga adventures. Sometimes it is with the big kids, and sometimes the big kids show us how to do stuff they can do. We like to play with them because they help us and they are fun. The other teachers come and teach us, too! Ms. Adele does music and we sing, dance, play games like pretend, and we practice what we’re going to do for the next show. Ms. Yolanda does art like painting and colouring and cutting. Ms. Alicia does French and we say Bonjour, and Merci. We do french songs. She also does patterns and math. At the end of the day we do Chores. Like clean the kitchen, sweeping the floors, vacuuming upstairs and downstairs, wipe the walls, clean the stairs, clean the sinks, flush the toilets, and wipe down tables. The yuckiest job is compost because its smelly and yucky. The best job is vacuuming, toilets, wiping the whiteboards. Those are easy peasy! Then we go home, but sometimes we don’t want to. We want to stay at Via Vita. It’s fun!  Let's go down memory lane for a moment here... Images of kids running out of school, throwing their school work into the air as summer vacation begins. You may even start singing Alice Coopers 'Schools Out' song -- No more school, no more home work, kids get to do what they want for two months! Wahoo! Remember those days? Carefree summers of playing sports, playing with friends, and going on vacations. Boy oh boy, those were the days! We want to help make sure that those memories of fun summers continue on..  Don't let the words summer slide, brain drain, summer learning loss, make you think that it's impossible for your child to have an enjoyable summer and keep up their skills at the same time! Yes, the studies can be a touch shocking when they are reporting that in the summer kids can lose about one month of overall learning, two months of reading skills, and that teachers can spend up to six weeks re-teaching old material that was lost in the summer months. It sounds scary and alarming. We know. But don't despair! And definitely don't buy those curriculum activity books just yet! It's actually a lot easier than you think to keep 'em smiling and skilled in time for September. Enjoy those precious months of sunshine, warmth and family memories. They're worth more than anything else! You don’t have to sacrifice your summer plans in order to keep your child’s skills sharp. Five Ways to Boost Summer Learning While Still Having Summer Fun Keep them reading Everything in this list is helpful, however if you only have time to do one thing, do this. Reading feeds into nearly everything else, is one of the most practical and useful skills, and it can be done anywhere. Read to them, have them read to you, read signs, newspapers, road signs, menus, instructions, anything, story books, chapter books, comic books, anything. Anything that comes up and is of interest, take it! Reading for 20-30 minutes at bedtime, in the car, all at once or throughout the day will help your child to continue to expand their vocabulary, grow their knowledge and questions about the world, and will help keep their academic skills progressing. Let them experience real life mathematics Plan a budget for a weekend camping trip and shop together. Read maps, figure out distance and time, divide food equally, follow recipes, measure ingredients, figure out money spent and change. Get them using their math skills in real life situations as often as possible. This will help reinforce what they’ve learned, help them make a connection (maybe even question!) how to do other skills and can bring real value to practising math skills. Ask them as many questions as they ask you If you're planning a trip to the zoo, do some research ahead of time to learn more about some of the animals and where they came from. If you're heading to the beach, look up some strategies on how to make a drool-worthy sandcastle. Ask them, 'Why do you think that?" "How does this work?" "Where would we find out that information?" Get them thinking about the world around them, but more importantly, instil the idea that they have the power to learn to about the world around them. All they need is an interest, a question, and someone like you to help them out. Keep them active and outside To keep the mind sharp you have to make sure the body is staying active. Try new activities! Go for a hike! Spend the day at the beach! All of these things keep us moving, keep us exploring, teach us new skills, and inspire our whole bodies to grow. Let alone the memories you'll make! Maybe even give logrolling a try! Try something new this summer. There are so many things to do outdoors and many of them are free or cost very little. You never know, a new family favourite activity could be discovered!  Have fun and let children be children
Let's be honest, the summertime is supposed to be laid back and fun. The last thing we would want to suggest is that you take all the fun out of it by over-planning or overdoing it on any end. Life truly is about balance. With all of our suggestions above try to incorporate as much excitement and ‘fun’ into the activities as possible, but also remember to relax and let the moments happen on their own. Learning honestly is so natural, that if we push too hard, we can take all the fun out of it to begin with. Children naturally want to learn about the world, but will take in more and make something of what they've learned if they get to experience it, usually, on their own terms. So, let them run. Let them play. Let them explore. Let them ask questions. Let them experience summer. Be sure to follow Via Vita Academy this summer on Facebook and Twitter. Every Sunday, we’ll set a new weekly Summer Brain Gain Challenge to encourage everyone to have fun while learning this summer! |
Welcome to Our BlogEach post is written by a supportive member of Via Vita Academy, be it a teacher, parent, student, community member, who is invested in the topic of education. Take a read and comment below! Archives
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