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Back in August the 11 year old goalie with the Napanee Crunch Pee Wee B team who attends Loughborough Public School entered a contest that is open to Montreal Canadian Fan Club youth members. She submitted a drawing to be considered for a special ticket to be used for a single Canadians game during a promotion the team was organising for Family Weekend in February when they were scheduled to play Saturday and Sunday afternoon games at the Bell Centre.

“I think we heard that she won in late August or early September,” said her father Adam, in a telephone interview this week. “It seemed like it was so far in the future we didn’t think that much about it. Then all of a sudden it was here.”

Meredith, along with her parents Sue and Adam, all Canadians fans who have been suffering through a disheartening season, had a big lift when they went to the game this past weekend. Meredith’s drawing had been transformed into an NHL ticket for Saturday’s game between the Habs and the Anaheim Ducks. The Canadians came into the game on a three game losing streak, with season record of 20 wins, 25 losses, and six ties, headed nowhere, but somehow they put a good game together and won 5-2.

The ticket had nothing to do with the team’s improved play, or did it? Nothing else changed for the team that hasn’t been able to score goals all season, except for the ticket.

The Canadians went on to win again on Sunday afternoon, as the Peters returned to their home base in the Godfrey area.

“We had a lot of fun,” said Adam, speaking for Meredith, who was under the weather, so much so that she missed a hockey practice on Tuesday afternoon.

As for the Canadians. They have been off until tonight, when they play in Philadelphia.

Published in General Interest
Wednesday, 07 February 2018 13:11

The Value of Lullabies

It’s 3 a.m. Your newborn baby is crying. You feed and change him but the reprieve from his sorrowful cry is only momentary. What now? If only he could talk. You cradle and rock your little one, patting his back, reaching into your memory for a soothing tune. “Rock a bye baby on the tree top. When the wind blows the cradle will rock. When the bough breaks the baby will…” You stop singing mid-rock. Why on earth is singing to an infant instinctual? And why would a song about a crashing cradle in gale force wind be of comfort?

 

Lullabies are one of the first ways in which we expose babies to literacy. We think of singing as an instrument in our parental toolkit for soothing babies’ emotions. Lullabies have great importance in doing just that. When a parent or caregiver sings to an infant, no matter how off-key, most infants absorb their parent’s calm though the music and warmth of being held. But lullabies also enable babies to make better sense of the jumble of speech they hear.

 

Lullabies slow language down. Singing puts words and phrases into rhythms that help children feel as well as hear syllables in words. Words are repeated with each verse reinforcing the combination of words and patterns of sound. Singing also pitches words slightly higher making it easier for babies’ small new ear canals and eardrums to distinguish the sounds. We have sung lullabies to our babies for generations because they comfort, but also because they help teach babies how to speak.

 

The connection between oral language and learning to read is enormous. A child must be able to distinguish the sounds of language before he or she is able to read well. Without the ability to tease out words into their smallest sound chunks a child cannot make clear sense of letter-sound relationships and how they are combined in print. The child will never be able to decode new words; only memorize words seen many times.

 

As you are reading this article pause for a moment to sing “Rock-a-bye Baby”. Notice how slowly the words are vocalized? Notice how the word “baby” and “treetop” are chunked out into its two syllables through rhythm and changing musical notes? Notice how the words are pitched higher than if you were to simply say the rhyme? When you sing to your baby you are doing more than calming your baby so you can both get a few more hours of valuable shut-eye. You are building the foundation children need for learning how to speak, read and write.

 

So all that’s left is to make those lullabies humane….

 

Rock a bye baby on the treetop,
When the wind blows the cradle will rock.
When the birds sing the baby will smile,
And fall asleep happy in a short while.
Bruce Lansky

Susan Ramsay

Early and Family Literacy This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Published in Early Literacy

Lilly Legacy-Zierer picked up the drumming bug playing the snare in her high school marching band. From there, she moved on to a Djembe troupe, the Fire Drums Festival and a host of other percussive pursuits.

And now, she’s the leader of the Frontenac Skies Community Drummers, a group of a dozen drummers ranging in age from 8-13.

“We’re currently rehearsing for the Frontenac’s Got Talent Show, Feb. 16,” she said while putting the kids through their paces at Rural Frontenac Community Services Child Centre in Sharbot Lake.

Armed with support from Blue Skies in the Community, a grant from Community Foundation of Kingston and Area and some buckets donated by Home Hardware in Sharbot Lake, Legacy-Zierer has embarked on a journey to bring world drumming styles together in the northern Frontenacs.

“I was assistant choir director for Young Choristers North when some bucket drummers came and I said ‘why aren’t we doing this?,’” she said. “I went to GREC and told them I’d do this on a volunteer basis and we had 28 students.

“But how can we make this sustainable?”

So, she partnered with Blue Skies in the Community and Rural Frontenac Community Services.

“The sole purpose of this is to have a performance-ready group to support community events, like the Heritage Festival and Santa Claus Parades,” she said.

And, it also gives kids the change to let off some steam.

“Drummers have a lot of energy,” she said. “And this is a way to channel it.

“This is something brand new and it’s based on the West African Dun Dun style of drumming so it’s not only drumming but movement too.”

She said they started off with rudimentary beats using recycled materials and gradually started adding world styles.

“Our bass drum is an old tire I had,” she said. “But it’s extremely rewarding.

“I regularly get parents thanking me.”

She said she’d like to build the program with an international drumming group of high school students and they’ll be holding open auditions for the current group in late February.

“We’ll likely bring in one or two more but that might be difficult because most of the kids say ‘I’m not leaving,’” she said. “My Grade 8 student, Draven Caddick, said he’s coming back to help when he gets to high school to get his volunteer hours.”

Published in CENTRAL FRONTENAC

Get ready to rock, Prince Charles.

That’s as in School of Rock at Prince Charles Public School in Verona.

SK-1 teacher Lee Casement has secured a $2,360 grant from the Limestone Learning Foundation and he’s using it to get gear. Now all he needs is some students to rock ’n’ roll.

“I’m teaching SK-1 so I haven’t got to meet many of the junior and intermediate students yet,” he said. “I’m hoping they’ll take a leadership role.”

Casement, a bass player by trade, takes his inspiration from the Jack Black movie, School of Rock where Black takes on a teaching assignment and ends up forming his students into a rock band.

“There’s actually a method to the madness of teaching kids rock music,” he said. “First of all, this is not a music class per se,” he said. “It’s an extracurricular activity featuring music and we’re not teaching music, we’re teaching songs. And because it’s rock, you can get dirty loud, and that can cover up a lot of mistakes which means the kids can learn quickly and sound decent, which goes a long way towards self-confidence.”

To that end, He plans to feature a repertoire of The Clash, The Ramones, and Pink Floyd.

And Casement knows what he’s talking about. This will be his third School of Rock having done similar programs at Tamworth Elementary and Perth Road Public School.

“What have I learned at those two previous attempts?” he said. “Well, I’ve learned how to write a grant application.”

“But I’ve also learned things like getting smaller keyboards and shortscale guitars. And things like tuning a ukulele to open D so that the less advanced kids can strum along and have some fun.”

He’s also learned to recruit help whenever it presents itself.

“At Perth Road, custodian Don Pollard is a drummer,” he said. “He jumped in a loved it.

“Here, french teacher Kevin Bailey told me ‘I play a little keyboard,’ so . . .” In the past, he’s done Neil Young, Nirvana and even Taylor Swift (“a little rockier version but sometimes you have to meet the kids half-way”) with the students.

“This time, we’ll have to see how it goes,” he said. “I like the idea of gender swapping the vocals on covers.

“We’ll probably do an assembly in March and maybe a concert.”

At Perth Road, he had enough students for four bands, including one allgirl rock band that kept their band, She Rock, going after they left the school.

But even if it’s only a power trio at Prince Charles, it’s worth his time.

“I’ve always wanted something that will bring kids together as a team, with a goal in mind,” he said.

Published in SOUTH FRONTENAC

When you think ‘martial arts,’ chances are your thoughts tend towards the Orient. When weapons are concerned, in particular, swords, the long, curved, slashing blade of the samurai — the katana — usually comes to mind, doesn’t it?

However, there is a long-standing tradition of European martial arts as well and Enterprise’s Robert MacLeod is dedicated to preserving and promoting that tradition.

MacLeod, an anthropologist by trade who teaches at St. Lawrence College in Kingston, is also head instructor at Ironwood Sword School. He runs several classes and is currently beginning an eight-week session at the Bellrock Hall in German Longsword for youths ages 10 and up on Saturday mornings with the motto “Strength, Flexibility, Growth.”

For those unfamiliar with the German martial art, it is a combat system taught during the 1300s by Johannes Liechtenauer.

“There were two schools of longsword, the other being Italian,” MacLeod said. “Actually there was also an English tradition but that wasn’t written down.

“And a big part of what we do is teaching the techniques that come from Liechtenauer and a number of his students. We try to stay close to the historical manuscripts.”

In addition to longsword techniques, MacLeod also includes dagger and wrestling in the Historical European Martial Arts (HEMA) tradition.

“Knives were actually my first love, I started collecting them when I was younger, and then in university I joined the fencing club and started doing sabre,” he said. “But soon after I joined, it went electric and good, clean cuts became flicks in order to score.”

As a young boy, he had taken judo classes and so returned to the Eastern martial arts traditions to study tae-kwon do for several years.

“But then, my son bought a collectable sword and my wife said ‘if he’s going to have it, he should know how to use it,’” MacLeod said. “So, in 2008, we found a group of guys in the park playing with swords and we discovered HEMA.”

That led him to join a local study group working in the German longsword tradition and he was hooked.

“A lot of people really don’t know the longsword,” he said. “It’s a lot lighter than you might think — less than three pounds and just under three feet (blade).

“And it’s a cutting weapon a lot more like a katana than it is like a club, which it often portrayed as in movies.”

MacLeod said he has no problem teaching beginners and has all the equipment needed for novice level students. All the beginners have to have is loose, comfortable clothes (no shorts), flat-soled, non-marking shoes and a pair of thin leather gloves.

The Bellrock classes begin this Saturday (there was actually a class last Saturday but he’s prepared to start again because of the weather issues last week). It’s $100 for an eight-week term, which should take most students through the novice rank to the scholar rank.

While the Bellrock classes are specifically for youths, MacLeod said he’s happy to start a class for adults anywhere in the area if there are four willing students.

Contact MacLeod at 613-358-9642 or www.irnwood.ca for more information.

“Swords are cool,” he said.

 

 

 

 

 

Robert MacLeod runs Benjamin and Anna Tucker through a series of thrusts and parries at the Bellrock Hall, as part of his ongoing series of German longsword classes. Photo/Craig Bakay

Published in SOUTH FRONTENAC

When you think ‘martial arts,’ chances are your thoughts tend towards the Orient. When weapons are concerned, in particular, swords, the long, curved, slashing blade of the samurai — the katana — usually comes to mind, doesn’t it?

However, there is a long-standing tradition of European martial arts as well and Enterprise’s Robert MacLeod is dedicated to preserving and promoting that tradition.

MacLeod, an anthropologist by trade who teaches at St. Lawrence College in Kingston, is also head instructor at Ironwood Sword School. He runs several classes and is currently beginning an eight-week session at the Bellrock Hall in German Longsword for youths ages 10 and up on Saturday mornings with the motto “Strength, Flexibility, Growth.”

For those unfamiliar with the German martial art, it is a combat system taught during the 1300s by Johannes Liechtenauer.

“There were two schools of longsword, the other being Italian,” MacLeod said. “Actually there was also an English tradition but that wasn’t written down.

“And a big part of what we do is teaching the techniques that come from Liechtenauer and a number of his students. We try to stay close to the historical manuscripts.”

In addition to longsword techniques, MacLeod also includes dagger and wrestling in the Historical European Martial Arts (HEMA) tradition.

“Knives were actually my first love, I started collecting them when I was younger, and then in university I joined the fencing club and started doing sabre,” he said. “But soon after I joined, it went electric and good, clean cuts became flicks in order to score.”

As a young boy, he had taken judo classes and so returned to the Eastern martial arts traditions to study tae-kwon do for several years.

“But then, my son bought a collectable sword and my wife said ‘if he’s going to have it, he should know how to use it,’” MacLeod said. “So, in 2008, we found a group of guys in the park playing with swords and we discovered HEMA.”

That led him to join a local study group working in the German longsword tradition and he was hooked.

“A lot of people really don’t know the longsword,” he said. “It’s a lot lighter than you might think — less than three pounds and just under three feet (blade).

“And it’s a cutting weapon a lot more like a katana than it is like a club, which it often portrayed as in movies.”

MacLeod said he has no problem teaching beginners and has all the equipment needed for novice level students. All the beginners have to have is loose, comfortable clothes (no shorts), flat-soled, non-marking shoes and a pair of thin leather gloves.

The Bellrock classes begin this Saturday (there was actually a class last Saturday but he’s prepared to start again because of the weather issues last week). It’s $100 for an eight-week term, which should take most students through the novice rank to the scholar rank.

While the Bellrock classes are specifically for youths, MacLeod said he’s happy to start a class for adults anywhere in the area if there are four willing students.

Contact MacLeod at 613-358-9642 or www.irnwood.ca for more information.

“Swords are cool,” he said.

 

 

 

 

 

Robert MacLeod runs Benjamin and Anna Tucker through a series of thrusts and parries at the Bellrock Hall, as part of his ongoing series of German longsword classes. Photo/Craig Bakay

Published in SOUTH FRONTENAC

Rural Frontenac Community Services has been awarded $8825.00 from the Community Foundation of Kingston and Area for our project “Let’s Get Drumming”. From the Woodbury Enterprises WE care Youth Fund and the Sunnyside Children’s Fund.

LETS GET DRUMMING! Is a percussion program that features children and youth using bucket drums to create sound, rhythm and songs. This project addresses the need for free, fun musical activities in North, Central and South Frontenac Townships that encourage rural youth to learn an instrument, be active and connect with a group in their own community in a fun environment that promotes inclusion.

Published in SOUTH FRONTENAC
Wednesday, 10 January 2018 12:37

Telling Tales in 2018

Susan Ramsay, Early Literacy Specialist This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

 

 

“Know what?” When we hear that lead-in we know our child has a story to tell.

 

From the time children begin to understand language we teach them about storytelling. A parent arrives home after being away for the day and asks, “What did you do today?” The response may be a single word or a long involved monologue, but it represents the child’s story.

 

Most cultures rely on oral storytelling to teach the next generation who they are as a nation, or to pass along knowledge of ancestors or family history. But storytelling is a-literate. We don’t have to be able to read or write to tell stories. Yet Canadians value reading and writing skills as essential components of education and employment. Print and digital texts are infused into every aspect of our lives from social media to banking to shopping to managing our health. Why emphasize oral storytelling as a way to help children learn to read and write?

 

The answer is simple. Reading is much more than decoding print. I may be able to decipher and read aloud “From overhead the snake bounced across the grassy clouds.” but it doesn’t make much sense. Children experiment with meaning and humour, sentence and story structure through listening to and creating stories.

 

When children hear stories they discover patterns. They learn that the English language has a certain order to the words. (“Cats eat mice” makes sense. “Eat mice cats” doesn’t.) Children learn that stories have beginnings, middles and endings. They learn that “Once upon a time” marks the beginning of a fairy tale; “lived happily ever after” ends it.

 

When children tell stories they become authors who have ideas to express. They practice combining words to tell facts and convey their ideas or imagination. Oral storytelling strengthens their comprehension skills and is integral to literacy learning.

 

Telling your child stories and helping your child become a storyteller can happen anytime and anywhere. Are you and your child returning indoors after a sledding or skating adventure? Put mittens, scarf, hat, socks, a plush animal or other items found in the house into a bag or box. Start a story with “Once upon a time in a cold, snowy land there lived a….” Pause for your child to pull out an object from the container. Weave that object into your story. For instance, if your child pulls out a toque you might continue your story with “….a tiny mole that found an enormous red toque.” Continue the story pausing throughout to pull out more objects to incorporate into the plot. The story can be silly. It can be surprising. It only matters that it’s fun to create together.

 

Familiar stories can be retold by modifying the personality of the main characters. How would the story of the Three Little Pigs play out for the wolf if the story was about the Three Stinky Pigs; or for Goldilocks if she visited the house of the Three Sloths instead of the Three Bears?

 

Familiar true stories are important to share with your child too – stories about your own childhood and stories about your child’s birth and her life as a baby and toddler. New Year’s is a great time to reflect upon the true stories you want your child to know and remember.

 

So how do we respond to our child’s exclamation, “Know what?”

 

“No. What? I can hardly wait to hear.”

Published in Early Literacy
Wednesday, 13 December 2017 12:09

Community Foundation of Kingston and Area grants

Frontenac County did well by the Community Foundation of Kingston and Area this week. 5 of the 15 grants announced at a ceremony at Sydenham Street United Church in Kingston are going to projects that are located in Frontenac County.

They include a $13,104 grant to the Elbow Lake Environmental Education Centre’s Winter Ecology Education Centre. The grant is intended to provide the opportunity for youth to actively learn and research about winter. The grant will go towards new equipment and a bus subsidy.

“Youth and new Canadians will access and study winter ecology first hand. They will learn what is happening above and below the snow and ice. This will inspire local youth to feel connected with the environment around them and be empowered to become environmental stewards,” said the release accompanying the grant announcement.

Southern Frontenac Community Services is receiving $3,658 for a professional 10 quart mixer to go in the commercial kitchen at the Grace Centre. The mixer will be used for the meals on wheels program that delivers 150 hot meals a week to seniors in the community, as well as to broaden the meal variety for Adult Day Program clients. SFCS is also considering expanding their Meals on Wheels program and the mixer will help them move closer to doing that,.

The group that has been working to develop a community recreation and cultural centre at the former Hinchinbrooke School in Parham, received a grant from the foundation last year to help them fund a feasibility study for the project. This year they are receiving a grant of $2,597 to recruit new partners to develop a multi-stage business plan for the project.

Finally, Rural Frontenac Community Services is receiving $8825 for the popular “Let’s Get Drumming” youth program. The project is active in North, Central and South Frontenac, “addressing the need for free, fun musical activities that encourages rural youth to learn an instrument, be active and connect with a group in their own community in a fun environment that promotes inclusion,” according to the release.

The total dollar value of the 5 grants, $28,184, represents about 20% of the $150,000 that was handed out by the CFGK this week.

Details on the Foundation’s Community Grants program and the projects they have funded can be found on their website at www.cfka.org.

Published in SOUTH FRONTENAC
Wednesday, 06 December 2017 12:18

What’s a “Diabuddy”?

Chris Jarvis is a former Olympic rower who has had type one diabetes since he was thirteen. He rowed for team Canada for eight years, competing in Athens in 2004, Beijing in 2008, and in 2007 he won a gold medal for Canada in the Pan American Games. Competitive rowing is a tough, demanding team sport, and diabetes can be a difficult disease to manage.

Today, Chris dedicates his time to helping young people who are dealing with diabetes, by going into schools to spread information about diabetes on his “Diabuddies” tour, and through a non-profit group he founded, called ICD. The letters stand for “I Challenge Diabetes”, and the goal is to help people take control of diabetes while challenging themselves physically.

Chris was invited by Jennifer and Kyle Palmer to speak at Harrowsmith Public School last week.

Their son Kieran, who is in Junior Kindergarten there, was diagnosed with type one diabetes when he was two years old. He’s one of two children at the school who are living with diabetes.

The whole school filed into the gym and settled on the floor, sounding like a convention of coyotes, suddenly quieting when Chris began to speak. He told of his sense of isolation as a child, not knowing how to explain his frequent need to test his blood sugar level, and the insulin pump he wore on his belt.

He talked about the coach who kicked him off the team when he learned Chris had diabetes, saying “I don’t want you; if there are complications, you could ruin it for everyone.” And of the friends and teammates who stuck up for him many times, and in that particular case, got the coach to change his mind.

Chris demonstrated how he tested his blood sugar level. He explained that with Diabetes 1, the pancreas, which normally regulates the level of sugar in the blood keeping it neither too high nor too low, has stopped functioning, so the individual must take over the job. This requires a careful balancing of food, exercise and insulin, the chemical usually provided by the pancreas, for without the right amount of sugar a person could grow dizzy and pass out.

Chris reassured the children that Diabetes 1 wasn’t a disease that a person could ‘catch’ from others, or by eating too much sugar: it happened when a person’s pancreas stopped working. He spoke of ways friends could help a person with diabetes through their understanding, support and willingness to go for help if needed. Throughout, he emphasized and demonstrated with his own life story, that a person can live with a disease and still be healthy. From the applause of the audience, it sounded like Chris encouraged a lot of ‘Diabuddies” at Harrowsmith Public.

(Note: for more accurate and detailed information about diabetes, go to the Diabetes Canada website)

Published in SOUTH FRONTENAC
Page 3 of 16
With the participation of the Government of Canada