2014 Kid's Korner Talent Show a Success

The sounds of minions, wild things, and other creative performers boomed from the stage of Middletown's Woodrow Wilson Middle School as students from the Middlesex YMCA Kid's Korner program performed in their annual talent show on Wednesday evening. 

"We loved it, this is the first talent show we've been to, and we really liked the effort all the school put into it," said Barbara Humble, whose daughter Camille attends the Macdonough School Kid's Korner program. Macdonough performed a Beyonce-inspired medley called "Return of the MAC." 

 "I think Kid's Korner is a lifesaver and a work saver," said Humble on what the childcare program means to her family.

"What I love about this talent show is that it helps kids boost their self esteem," said Melanie Carfora, School Age Child Care Director at Middlesex YMCA, adding; "It backs up what we talk about all the time about positive youth development."

Other acts in the show included an informative skit on bullying by Snow School and a beauty and talent pageant by Woodside Intermediate School in Cromwell.

"It was great, the kids had a lot of heart," said Jason Hinners, a Cromwell parent whose daughter Olivia strutted her stuff in Woodsides' pageant.

"What makes this Kid's Korner program so special is the support of the families, because without their support we couldn't have events like tonight," said Carfora.

Hinners also praises the staff involved in the program noting the growth his daughter has seen by being in the program; "She loves it, she's grown, she's made great friends. We are very happy she is in the program."

"Tonight you could see how much the staff really do love the kids and want them to do well. That's what makes our program so unique, " said Carfora. 

The Y Participates in World Book Night

On Wednesday April 23rd, Kids' Korner at Macdonough School hosted the fourth Family Night Event of the 2013/2014 school year: Kn-'OWL'-edge is Power Family Fun Night: A World Book Night Event with Sandbox Arts and A Hope for Raptors.

 Kids' Korner site director Chaelyn Lombardo put in an application for World Book Night which was approved and her request for the book Hoot by Carl Hiaasen was accepted!  She quickly began planning for an owl-themed literacy event. The event was held on April 23rd, following our after school program for the day. A group of our fifth grade participants assisted in setting up the room for the event beforehand. The first 25 families to arrive received the WBN copy of Hoot. The first 30 children who arrived were given a card-stock owl crown which boasted, “Look Whooo's Great!” Each family was provided with a KIP Passport and an ink owl stamp to keep. Over a pizza and salad dinner, Chaelyn and staff explained to the families that they were going to travel around the cafeteria, completing a variety of owl-themed centers and challenges. Families were instructed to independently explore the centers and stamp the corresponding space on their passport as they completed each activity. We urged families to return their completed passports for a chance to win some owl-themed prizes that we had purchased (mugs, water bottles, stuffed animals, books, etc.). Each center featured a correlating FUN FACT about owls and a detailed explanation of the center's activities, with explicit directions. 

Our WBN Kn-OWL-edge is Power Centers were as follows:

• World Book Night Welcome Center: Create a customized owl book mark for your new copy of Carl Hiaasen’s Hoot using provided bookmarks and colored pencils.
• “Owl” Do Some Math Center “Create an Owl” Dice Game: Each roll of the dice earns a owl body part. Head, Wing, Talon, etc. A complete owl wins.
  
• “Owl” Do Some Math Center 2-“Color an Owl” Dice Game: Each roll of the dice earns another crayon color for a color-by-number owl picture provided. A complete owl wins.
• Super Science Center 1-Owl Puke: Owl Pellet Dissection Station, with bone charts and explanation sheets. Explore sterile owl pellets and decipher the bones within.
  
• Super Science Center 2-Owl Eyes: Owl Eyes-Spy Books and Eye-Spy Game to test visual acuity in comparison to an owl’s eyesight.
  
• Super Science Center 3-Owl Friends: Meet a REAL Owl (A Hope for Raptors, a raptor rescue organization with 2 live owls to share: One Barn Owl. One Great Horned Owl).
  

 
 

• NEST-le Up in the Owl Book Nook: Choose from a variety of Owl-themed fiction and non-fiction picture books and completed a FAMILY MINI-REVIEW Book Report.
  
• “Owl” Make Some Music Center: Sing some Owl Finger-Puppet Plays and Songs with plastic owl finger puppets and take-home song sheets provided.
  
• Sandbox Arts Movable Mural Art Center: Paint the Movable Mural with Sandbox Arts (a local art co-op that brings a large movable canvas to paint our owl theme upon). Follow the Owl/Knowledge is Power theme.
  

• Owl Arts and Crafts Center: Great Horned Owl Toilet Paper Roll Craft. Create an owl using recycled toilet paper tubes, designer paper cuts and craft eyes.
• Origami Owl Center: Owl Origami. Fold a square piece of paper into an origami owl using the take-home directions provided.
• Barn Owl’s Dinner-A Literal Scavenger Hunt: Barn owls eat 12 mice a night. Spot the 12 mystery mice hidden around the room before the WBN Family Night is over.
• Owl Art Gallery: Famous Owl Art Pictures from around the world/history, set up behind the food station. Enjoy some artistic owl pictures.
• Owl Celebrity Search: Spot the 10 “famous” owls around the room from movies, television, books, and more (Woodsy, Hedwig, Jareth, Soren, and more).
• “Owl-ing” Photo Booth: Pose for the camera based on the Internet sensation of “owling.” Though we aren’t sure if these are legit owl poses...
   
  
  
  
  

  Our World Book Night event hosted 94 people, with 28 of our program’s families in attendance. It was our biggest Family Night Event turnout of the school year (of many years, actually). At the end of the night, every copy of Hoot was distributed. Each owl crown was atop a child’s head. Families were enthusiastically involved in the centers; thumbing through their free copies of Hoot, basking in the natural wonder of our live owl exhibit, painting an artistic owl rendering on the 8 foot mural, breaking apart owl pellets and marveling over the interesting discoveries within.  A fun time was had by owl!

Kids' Korner Talent Show 2013

Hundreds of family members and friends came out to the auditorium of Woodrow Wilson Middle School on Thursday night to support their favorite Kids' Korner site. They were treated to an awesome show from all our after school sites. There was so much dancing, singing and really cool skits that we didn't want the night to end! Here's just a little taste of some of the talent that was on display last night.

This kid can DANCE!!!

Spencer Kids' Korner's Geek Squad

The children and staff have been working  hard for months to create and practice these skits and routines. We are so proud of their hard work and believe we have the most talented kids in the world in our programs! Congratulations to everyone who participated last night and thank you to the families and friends who came out to support the children. A special thanks to Josh for being our emcee for the night!

Macdonough Style

Spencer Geek Squad

Wesley Surfin' Birds

Girls Outside and Kids' Korner

“Girls Outside” is a fun outdoor education program for girls that is funded by a grant from the Middlesex County Community Foundation. The primary objective of this program is to enable more girls and women to have positive outdoor experiences and develop the skills, knowledge and comfort level to enjoy some of the many benefits that nature can have in our lives. The program teaches environmental and science education (identifying basic trees and plants, vernal pool studies) and skill building activities (reading trail maps and using a compass) that encourage girls to explore the natural environment and have experiences that develop the confidence to over time be able to explore and connect with nature without an organized group. 

The girls at Snow School Kids' Korner recently hit the trails with Lucy Meigs, founder of Everyone Outside. Lucy took the girls on a hike where they had the opportunity to follow some marked trails and even found a letterbox site! 

For more information about the Everyone Outside program please click here to visit their website. Thank you to the Middlesex County Community Foundation for supporting this program.

A New Y Blog to Follow!

Want to see all the fun stuff that goes on at one of our after school sites? Check out the new blog started by our staff at Macdonough Kids' Korner. The staff have been hard at work planing and facilitating all sorts of fun activities and they want to show it off! Here's a sneak peek at some of the activities:

JoJo, Kashyss, Jenna and Kaley show off the bunnies they made for the Easter holiday!

The youngers were hard at work creating some colorful bunnies!

To visit the Kids' Korner at Macdonough School Blog, please click here. We hope you enjoy this new blog!

Keigwin Middle School Scholars in Action Program

Often when people think of the term “child care”, their minds are automatically conditioned to envision preschool childcare centers or occasionally before and after school programs for elementary school children. We seldom recognize that this term also encompasses an often overlooked, but incredibly crucial, age group. On any given afternoon, there are 3.7 million unsupervised middle school children, left to their own devices after the school day ends. 

Fortunately, here in Middletown, the benefits of quality afterschool programming are felt by this key age group. At Keigwin Middle School, home of Middletown’s 6th graders, “The Scholars in Action Program” provides after school academic support, recreational and environmental science enrichment related activities, field trips and group projects. Thanks in large part to 21st Century Community Learning Center grant funding, Keigwin School partners with the Northern Middlesex YMCA, Middletown High School, and other choice enrichment groups to “foster within students an understanding of the relationships between human beings, the natural world, energy and the impacts of change on these systems” (Scholars in Action Mission Statement). Each week, the Y provides partner enrichment, including recreational and environmental science activities to program participants.  

The ability of “Scholars in Action” to help fill the void in structured after school activities is essential in the continued personal growth of its participants. The vital benefits provided to the middle school children enrolled in the program make us proud to be a partner and to continuously expand our child care programming, reaching the maximum number of youth we can. If you would like more information about the Scholars in Action program provided at Keigwin Middle School, please contact Maegan Musanti at mmusanti@midymca.org or (860) 343-6247.

Check out some pictures below from the Scholars in Action recent Y Egg Drop Challenge! Six teams worked together using paper plates, straws, and tape to engineer structures that would hopefully prevent a raw egg from breaking when dropped from three different heights!

Some of the members of The Purple Ninjas work together on their Egg Holder!

Team Purple Ninjas!

Team Holla Backk hard at work!

Team Doggies with their final product!

Team Purple shows off their flying saucer egg holder!

Will the egg survive the initial drop?

 The second round!

Ceiling height!

Middlesex YMCA Kids' Korner CATCH Kids

Our Kids' Korner Before and After School Programs are committed to providing children with opportunities to participate in an active, healthy lifestyle. The main way that we do this is through implementation of our CATCH program.The message of our CATCH program is that it is fun to be fit, to play hard, to run and jump and move your body. In 2006 the YMCA Kids’ Korner after school programs introduced the CATCH (Coordinated Approach to Child Health) curriculum in our eleven after school programs. This wellness curriculum is comprised of fun physical fitness games, activities and nutritional resources. Y staff facilitates a daily active game and integrates the nutrition materials into cooking clubs, group discussion and science clubs.

This school year we have begun to recognize children in our programs as "CATCH Kids of the Week". Within our programs, hundreds of children participate in our CATCH program each week. CATCH Kids of the Week are  chosen because they show great enthusiasm during CATCH games, participate daily in our CATCH activities and have great attitudes about daily physical activity.

MEET OUR CATCH KIDS!

RT is in 2nd grade. In addition to making silly faces, he enjoys playing basketball in the gym. His favorite CATCH activity is the lame dog walk. Jai'lyn is in 4th grade and her favorite CATCH games are any aerobic games. She enjoys playing Fishy Fish in he gym.

Ally is in 4th grade and loves basketball. Her favorite CATCH game is Scatterball. Osiah is in 5th grade and loves basketball. His favorite CATCH game is also Scatterball. You can catch him in the gym any day working up a sweat. Jenna is in 1st grade and her favorite sport is soccer. Her favorite CATCH game is Dino Ball.

 Nicholas is in fourth grade and loves soccer. His favorite CATCH game is Frisbee Tag. Cole is in second grade and he loves baseball. His favorite CATCH games are Rolling Coconuts and Warlords. 

Patrick is in third grade. His favorite sport is lacrosse and his favorite CATCH game is Foxes, Squirrels and Trees. Ava is in first grade. Her favorite CATCH game is Everybody's It and her favorite sport is basketball.  

Stephen is in 5th grade. His favorite activity at Kids' Korner is "anything in the gym". Amelia is in 3rd grade. She loves running CATCH games and she taught the other kids "hoop challenges". Her favorite thing to do at Kids' Korner is playing in the gym and arts and crafts.

Kristen and Raymond are both 8 years old and are best friends. Kristen's favorite sport is basketball and her favorite CATCH game is team bowling. Raymond's favorite sport is baseball and his favorite CATCH game is Fishy Fishy. 

We are proud and excited to celebrate these kids for their hard work. We cannot wait to add more kids to this list for recognition! For more information about CATCH Programs please visit the CATCH Info website by clicking here. For more information about what's happening at our Kids' Korner programs please visit our Facebook Page.

The Importance of After School Programs

High quality after school programs play an extremely important role in the development of a child's mind, body and spirit. Long gone are the days of being able to send a child home after school to an empty house. Times have changed and a new set of challenges and pressures are facing children in the United States. After school programs play a large role in providing children with the skills and support they need to avoid negative peer pressure and become productive, healthy adults.
Knowing that your child is safe and supervised during the after school hours has always been one of the top reasons that parents choose to enroll children in after school programs. Research is now showing that there are additional positive educational and social outcomes to participation in after school programs. Here are some of the other benefits of after school programming:

• After school programs support a parent's ability to maintain employment. Parents have piece of mind knowing their children are safe and can concentrate more on their work. They have less childcare issues which can lead to a decrease in absenteeism from work.
  
• After school programs support academic achievement and help children feel more connected to their school. Children participate in homework clubs and enrichment activities that focus on learning concepts in a fun, hands on way. Children who participate are less likely to be tardy or absent from school.
  
• After school is a fantastic opportunity for children to learn social and problem solving skills. A group setting is the perfect venue for children to learn and practice how to interact in a positive way with children and adults from all backgrounds and cultures.
• The Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention states that quality after school programs can cut the risk of youth becoming involved in crime by up to 75 percent. Boredom that can lead to experimentation in risk behaviors or crime is eliminated by an adult supervised environment that provides activities that are of interest to children.

After school care is so much more than just babysitting. It has evolved into an environment for children to gain new skills, participate in activities that reinforce learning in a fun way while spending time with positive adult role models. The field of after school has truly turned into a profession with networks of professionals who are dedicated to positive youth development. I am very proud to be in this field and to work with the dedicated youth development staff here at the Middlesex YMCA.