Blue Sky School

We have had an amazing experience this year to have at least one guest speaker come into our school each week. One of the incredible guest speakers that have come into our school is Anya. Anya works for a charitable organization called Ausome. Ausome is an incredible organization that makes sure that children on the autism spectrum have the opportunity to participate in group sport activities that they would not normally be able to participate in due to sensory/anxiety issues. Every session they experience a new sport to try to find a sport that the children will excel in and enjoy. Since Ausome is a charitable organization they rely heavily on volunteers, to volunteer with their organisation all you need to commit to is volunteering to at least one session a month and be at least over the age of 15.  That was our amazing time with Anya from Ausome! “ This was so inspiring, I have always wondered how children on the autism spectrum play sports and now I know how!”-anony...

Last Thursday Blue Sky had yet another guest speaker, One of this week's guest speakers was Katie Hession. Katie is the community director at Mealshare Ottawa and an instagram influencer with over 20k followers! Katie began her career as an instagrammer in 2015 when she had her first child and moved back to Ottawa. She didn't like the fact that when she asked someone about the best things about Ottawa the answer the majority of the time would be “There's nothing in Ottawa” or “Ottawa's boring”. She felt like she needed to change this so she started her instagram account @Yowcitystyle to showcase the fashion industry in Ottawa and showcase stylish people in stylish places around the city. In the past 2 years she has gained yet another amazing career with Mealshare as a community director, she is in charge of getting new restaurants to join the Mealshare platform. Incase you don't know what Mealshare is, it is an organization that restaurants partner with, if yo...

Responsibilities by Mikey At Red Pine Camp, we each contributed at meal times. Some learners set tables and some cleaned the dishes. At RPC, washing the dishes is called slopping. The “sloppers” wear rain boots and aprons because you can get wet. The staff really appreciated our help in the kitchen.  Red Pine Waterfront by Julia Something that is always a highlight  when we go to Red Pine Camp is the amazing waterfront and beautiful Golden Lake. In the beginning we were all worried that it was going to be rainy and the water was going to be cold. Boy, were we wrong! When we got there the weather was sunny and a crisp 19 degrees. The first afternoon we were there we had independent choice time, practically everyone wanted to go swimming, boating or just hang out by the water.  We made our way down to the waterfront and immediately jumped into the water! It was very refreshing and crisp (in other words really really cold). After a few jumps in and out, the...

How do I learn?  This is a question that I ask myself all the time.  What hinders and what helps my learning? Before I came to Blue Sky School,   I was only ever exposed to one type of learning style. That was the teacher at the front of the classroom explaining a concept and then giving us a worksheet. This worked for me.  I didn't have any trouble learning this way, but I was bored. This stunted my creativity. I never felt like I had an opportunity to take my work to the next level or challenge myself.  It was the same thing day after day. I had always thought that this was the only way of teaching/learning.  When I came to Blue Sky I learned that there are actually many different ways of learning.  At Blue Sky we don’t call our “teachers” teachers, we call them coaches. Something that our coaches say a lot is, “Everyone learns in different ways on different days.”  I was really excited to discover what type of learner I ...