City of Calgary Adventure Play School Visits Children's Village School
On May 30, 2018 a crew of Adventure Play leaders from the City of Calgary visited
Children’s Village
School. Early in the morning, they unloaded a cube van filled with tires,
ropes, tarps, pipes, crates, barrels, boards, pieces of old playground equipment
and all sorts of other lovely ‘junk’. Over the course of the day, forts, balance
beams, slingshots, corner stores and spaceships emerged. Kids climbed on, over
and under things, built structures, deconstructed structures, tied things up,
dug holes, and told stories. They played. They learned. It was beautiful.
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Occupational Therapist, Erin Novak, first made the connection with
representatives from the City; she had been working closely with two teachers to
facilitate learning through play all year, and the time was right for their
loose parts play to extend to larger-scale outdoor exploration. Prior to the
Adventure Play day, City staff hosted an after school in-service with CVS staff.
They described the process of creating dynamic spaces where children can create,
explore, imagine and learn, and they answered questions from CVS staff about
both pragmatics and safety. City staff joined CVS’ first day of play and
learning, providing support and guidance for both students and staff.
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Children’s Village students loved Adventure Play—they beamed with pride while describing what they had created and the adventures they had experienced. A CVS psychologist commented on the value of this kind of experience for our students, noting that the opportunity for sustained imaginative, creative play has tremendous value for kids whose learning profiles tend towards impulsivity, inflexibility or reactivity. One teacher commented that she wished she could
make Adventure Play part of learning every day.
Children’s Village students loved Adventure Play—they beamed with pride while describing what they had created and the adventures they had experienced. A CVS psychologist commented on the value of this kind of experience for our students, noting that the opportunity for sustained imaginative, creative play has tremendous value for kids whose learning profiles tend towards impulsivity, inflexibility or reactivity. One teacher commented that she wished she could
make Adventure Play part of learning every day.
Children's Village School "Plant Village" Raises More than $2000 for Charity
Upon doing a quality of life study in their Social Studies class, a group of
Grade 3 and 4 students at the Children’s Village School identified that they
wanted to help those less fortunate. Through the Entrepreneurial Adventure
Program, supported by the Learning Partnership, 10 students participated in a
countrywide program to raise money for charity. Using the design
process, students created surveys and engaged in building and testing a variety
of products to decide their final project: a business that would design and sell
terrariums. These students, along with the help of their community mentor and
teacher sponsors, created the “Plant Village” and began mass-producing
terrariums, which they then sold to the school, family, friends and community
members.
In total, these students from Children’s Village School raised just over
$2000 for The Alex and won a National Award from the Learning Partnership for
Originality.
The Children’s Village School is a unique setting within the CBE designed to
meet the complex learning, social, and emotional needs of elementary school-aged
children whose severe emotional and behavioral difficulties in their current
school, community and home create significant barriers to their ability to
engage in learning. Through participation in this project, students reinforced
academic and life skills around persistence, confidence and learning while also
developing citizenship and character.
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