November Game of the Month: The Machine

Purpose: This activity brings out strong communication and cooperation skills.

Materials: Just a group of participants.

Description:

• The object of this game is to create a machine out of a group of people (i.e. ceiling fan, hot air balloon, watch, etc.). 
• You might want to split your group into two or three smaller groups.  
• Each person is required to be accountable for one noise and one motion of the machine.  The group members should then put their motions and sounds together to create the machine.  
• Give each group about 5 minutes to work together and prepare, and then have the groups present to everyone. 
• Ask the other groups to guess what machine the group is.

Discussion/Reflection:

• At the end of the activity ask groups some of the following questions
• Why do you think we did this activity?
• Why did you choose the machine you did?
• If we were to do this challenge again what if anything would you do differently?

8 Creative Snowmen

With winter coming soon, we thought we would show you several unique snowmen that people have created. These are just some that really show off what thinking outside the box can accomplish.

The Breakdancer

Army of Snowmen

Snow Car

Spongebob

Workout Snowman

Phonecalling Snowman

Homer Simpson

Snowman Bowling

Share with us what you think of these snowmen and show us some photos of snowmen that you've created or seen that are real standouts.

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Why You Should Come To The Unicorn Gala

Come to The Unicorn Gala where Dynamix has donated a FREE birthday party to the silent auction to help them raise money to support the Max and Beatrice Wolfe Children's Centre so please come out and support this wonderful event as well. Here's more about the event:

The Unicorn Gala is taking place on November 6, 2012 at Arcadian Court in downtown Toronto. To date, the Unicorn Gala has raised over $500,000 in support of the Max and Beatrice Wolfe Children’s Centre at Mount Sinai Hospital. 

The Max and Beatrice Wolfe Children’s Centre was established in 2004 to provide home palliative care support to dying children and their families, and to provide a variety of counseling and bereavement programs for children and youth living with the dying and death of a loved one.  The Centre has developed a number of innovative and effective programs, services and academic ventures that have garnered local, national and international interest and recognition. The Centre also provides consultation and education sessions for health professionals, teachers and boards of education. The Max and Bea Centre is the only specialized Centre in Ontario that offers medical and counseling support for dying children and their families in their home. The Centre is funded entirely by donations.    

The theme of the event is GIVING and we are honouring three people – Dr. Larry Librach, Abby Tobias and Dr. Aubrey Green. These three honourees understand the power of giving. They are people who give of their time, skills and compassion in an infinite number of small and large ways, enriching their own lives and hearts in the process.

October Game of the Month: Back-to-back

Purpose: This activity brings out communication, cooperation, and trust.

Materials: Just a group of participants.

Description:

• Every group member must find a partner of approximately equal height and weight, if possible.  
• The partners will lock arms with their backs to one another. 
•  With arms remaining locked at all times, the partners will sit down on the ground, kick their legs out straight, and try to stand back up. 
•  Then groups of four will try the same thing.  Then groups of eight, sixteen, and eventually, the entire group together. 

Discussion/Reflection:

This is the perfect activity for building trust.

At the end of the activity ask groups some of the following questions

• Why do you think we did this activity?
• Were you comfortable during this activity or did you feel a little uncomfortable?
• Did you trust your partner/ partners? Why/Why Not?

How Social Media increases bullying

In this New York Times article, Emily Layden tells a story about her sixth grade brother’s friend posting a status on Facebook asking them to “LIKE if you hate” Emily’s brother. Shockingly, 57 people liked the status, confirming their “hatred” for Emily’s brother. Without a doubt, it would be incredibly damaging to a child’s self-esteem and self-worth to learn that 57 kids “hate” him or her.  As an adult, I couldn't imagine how this would affect me today.  Sometimes, it seems like it truly is “social warfare” out there for today’s youth, where social media is one of the strongest weapons in any potential enemy’s arsenal.

Does the boy who started this chain of “hate” for Emily’s brother grasp the extent of the harm he has caused? Do his 57 peers understand what that simple click of the mouse truly means? Could you imagine 57 children lining up at the cafeteria to tell one child they “hate” them? This would never happen, right?  Herein lies the power of social media messages, both positive and negative.  Simply put, it is so easy to spread the word, and as a result, bullying messages are spread at lightning speed.  In the cafeteria or classroom, a responsible adult usually takes notice and steps in. Alas, in the world of social media, it is quite difficult to take notice and step in before the damage is done.

So why are children so readily spreading these hate messages through social media?  Perhaps it’s the anonymity, perhaps it seems less harmful you can’t see the victim’s reaction or maybe it’s the freedom from adult supervision in the cyber world.

The question that has been asked over and over again by parents and educators is what do we do about this?  Should we simply ban the use of social media for our children?  Unfortunately, this is nothing more than a band-aid solution.  When addressing difficult situations like this we need to ask ourselves if  our “solution”  is really designed to teach our children, or does it just  make our  lives easier by making the problem go away. We need to seize every teachable moment we can, and cyberbullying is packed with teachable moments.  Below is a list of some things you can try to both prevent cyberbullying and address if it does occur:

Parents & Educators UNITE!
Note to parents: Cyberbullying is not only the teacher’s problem to deal with
Note to educators: Cyberbullying is not only the parent’s problem to deal with

Students UNITE!
Create connected school communities offline by helping your students get to know each other, unite as a team and foster positive relationships.  Students are less likely to act like a bully when they see each other as friends.  Even more powerful is the fact that other students are less likely to laugh with the bully, participate in the bullying, or stand idly by when they see the ‘victim’ as a friend.

Hold your children accountable for their decisions:
Whether online or offline, choices must be addressed and accompanied by consequences.  Notice here that we say “choices” not necessarily “bad choices”.  A good choice, like treating each other with respect should be accompanied by a good consequence.  Similarly, bad choices, like posting a negative online status a peer, should bring a negative consequence that creates an opportunity for learning.

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Are soccer skills more important than life skills?! Ontario minor soccer thinks so!

Posted by Mitch Zeltzer

Growing up playing various sports taught me athletic skills, coordination, sports knowledge, the value of healthy lifestyle, commitment/loyalty, and the importance of practice.  Possibly more importantly though, it taught me about team spirit, good sportsmanship, what it takes to rise to the top and be the best, respecting the game, how to win graciously, and one of the more difficult lessons - how to accept losses.

It was recently announced that Ontario minor soccer is going to stop keeping score and standings for leagues of players 13 years old and younger.  In this article, people who were involved in the decision making or the implementation of this new philosophy seem to be missing the point.  They keep talking about soccer skill development as though that is the only reason parents are encouraging their children to participate in team sports like soccer.

Sure, I grew up dreaming of becoming the next Wayne Gretzky, Michael Jordan, Babe Ruth, etc.  But we need to acknowlege the reality of the role sports should play in a child's life.  According to some sources less than 2% of high school athletes continue to play their respective sports in college, and the odds of going pro are event worse, with only 0.0008% of athletes making the big leagues (and the odds could be even worse depending on the sport you are going after!)

So knowing this, how could it make sense to sacrifice lessons of healthy competition and sportsmanship for more soccer skill development?  If every youth league followed suit, how are Ontario's youth going to learn how to deal with compitition appropriately?  How are they going to learn to become gracious winners and how to accept losses?  Competition is part of life, and like any other skills, in order to develop it, we must have the opportunity to practice it starting at a young age.

In my humble opinion, this is a step in the wrong direction.  What are your thoughts?