February 8 - Treasure Trunk Program at Brenda's House

Our February 8, Treasure Trunk at Brenda's House was a great success! It was a busy night with lots of children, all of whom seemed to thoroughly enjoy themselves.

Babies in the Story (BITS), led by Tammy Figol and assisted by Cyndi Cox, had the mothers and babies on their feet singing and dancing in between some engaging stories and rhymes.

Kids in Motion & Music (KIMM), led by Emily Roback and Nikki Stephenson and assisted by Robyn Ketchey and Jennifer Cox, had 13 children enthralled in a version of 4 square and "freeze".

Kids in the Arts (KARTS) rounded out the evening, led by Melanie Tewksbury and assisted by Lily Mioc and Philippa Gear. The 13 children assembled kaleidoscopes out of materials that can be found around the home - paper towel rolls, wax paper and rubber bands to name a few. The kids loved the craft and clean-up was a snap with all the JLC volunteers pitching in.

Our seventh Treasure Trunk session, delivered on February 22, was a night filled with great stories, lively activities, and fun food creations in the kitchen.

BITS, again led by Tammy Figol and Cyndi Cox, offered reading and the singing of a variety of nursery rhymes with four babies and parents.

Elaine Tsekouras, Lily Mioc and Jocelyn Egden worked with ten children during the KARTS story time, where they read “How Do Dinosaurs Eat?”.  While creating bracelets, which the children loved making, another three children showed up and joined in.

Kids in the Kitchen (KITK) was very lively with 13 children and three babies with parents making Pizza Pita’s.  Robyn Ketchey and Carla Gustafson couldn’t tell what the kids loved more, creating the fun faces or eating the delicious fruits and veggies. All leftovers stayed at Brenda's House for the staff and families.

Several of our JLC volunteers who had attended our January 28 Brenda’s House Training Event commented on "how the training helped make the experience of working at Brenda’s House smoother".

Sign up to be a part of this terrific program!  The five remaining sessions of Treasure Trunk for this year will be delivered at the Brenda’s House facility located in the Southwest neighbourhood of Killarney in Calgary.

Treasure Trunk Training Day at Junior League of Calgary

Showing how to create kaleidoscopes during 

KARTS training

On Saturday, January 28, the Junior League of Calgary hosted a Treasure Trunk training workshop for staff and volunteers of Brenda’s House and the Children’s Cottage Society of Calgary and JLC members. The Brenda’s House Program Planning Group (PPG) were the key trainers.  Attendees learned how JLC programs are developed, the history of the Treasure Trunk program and program elements that have worked well and not so well. Each attendee participated in the Treasure Trunk sessions of Babies in the Story (BITS), Kids in the Story (KITS), Kids in Motion & Music (KIMM), Kids in the Kitchen (KITK) and Kids in the Arts (KARTS).  

Participants are put through their
paces in KIMM

When asked what the training day meant to them participants comments were:

l Educational

l Interactive

l Creative

l Practical

l Show of teamwork

l Opportunity to experience activities from a child’s point of view

l Fun, fun, fun!

l Impressive organization of the day

l Feel more prepared to volunteer at the Treasure Trunk program

l Easy to understand the components and implement them into other programs

Learning during the KITK segment of training

l Well developed curriculum with every idea piloted and redesigned to be useful

l The background work done by the JLC will have a lasting effect on current and future programming at Brenda’s House and throughout the Children’s Cottage Society

To view the “Treasure Trunk Training Presentation” PowerPoint go to the Members’ Only section of the JLC website and click on the Community tab.

Demonstrating some of the activities used
in the BITS segment of the Treasure
Trunk program

Thank you to all the members of the Brenda’s House PPG for implementing such a thoughtful, well-organized and fun training opportunity for both our JLC members and our Community Partners.  Thank you also to JLC’s Office Administrator Wendy Baillie for preparing the materials that were given to all the participants.

Learning about the KITS segment

Treasure Trunk Program at Brenda's House

Brenda‘s House is a re-housing program with a sheltering component aimed at moving families toward independence and their own sustainable housing.  The Treasure Trunk program, presented by the JLC at Brenda’s House, targets key issues of nutrition and healthy eating, literacy, music and movement, and the arts.  We offer developmentally appropriate, themed activities for the various ages of children who may be in residence during our twice-monthly sessions.

Our fourth Treasure Trunk session of this season was delivered on November 9 with Babies in the Story (BITS), Kids in Motion & Music (KIMM), and Kids in the Arts (KARTS).  Twelve children and four babies were in attendance.  The night was filled with great stories, lively activities and a craft that really got the children's creative juices flowing. 

BITS - Jodie Bereznay, with the help of Christina Murez, led moms and babies through an evening of songs and stories.  Each child left with a bag that included a puppet book and other reading materials. 

KIMM - Emily Roback lead an exciting night of KIMM. The limbo stick was a huge hit and the children danced and sang and passed the bean bag.  Everyone had a blast and could have kept going longer but.... the KARTS craft was more than they could resist. 

Melanie Tewksbury guided the children through creating their very own ocean scene port-hole. This craft was made from everyday supplies that may be around the house.  Everyone was covered in glue and marker by the evening's end but the smiling faces made the clean-up a joy.

PLEASE sign up to be a part of this terrific program!  The remaining eight sessions of Treasure Trunk for this program year will be delivered at the Brenda’s House facility located in the SW neighbourhood of Killarney in Calgary.

Treasure Trunk Program at Brenda's House

Brenda’s House is a re-housing program with a sheltering component aimed at moving families toward independence and their own sustainable housing. The Treasure Trunk program presented by the JLC targets key issues of nutrition and healthy eating, literacy, music and movement and the arts.  We offer developmentally appropriate, themed activities for the various ages of children who may be in residence during our twice-monthly sessions.

Our second Treasure Trunk session of this season was delivered on October 12 with Babies in the Story (BITS), Kids in Motion & Music (KIMM), and Kids in the Arts (KARTS).

In Babies in the Story, the parents, babies and toddlers were engaged with reading books, singing songs, playing hand clapping games, and laughter within the shared delight of reading and discovery.  Each family left with a bag of reading materials and finger puppet books.

The Kids in Motion & Music component was led by JLC member Natalie Wynn-Dempsey, who had the young children dancing, moving with scarves, chasing bubbles and shrieking with laughter and delight at the various surprises she pulled out of her hat to engage and stimulate the children.

During the Kids in the Arts component, the children made masks with an ample supply of objects, feathers, jewels and glitter to stick on them.  Several of the children stated they would use the masks for their Halloween activities, as they planned on being animals, princesses and pirates!

On October 25 we delivered our third Treasure Trunk session with the Kids in the Story (KITS) and Kids in the Kitchen (KITK) components presented to a house full of children by our JLC members.

JLC President Alice Gardner-Boreta (L) and local author
Lisa Youns share Lisa's book at Treasure Trunk

Local Calgary author Lisa Young came as a guest and read her book, “Friendship of Magpie and Crow” to all the children present.  She sat on the floor with the children, engaged them with her delightful story- telling style and had the children acting out parts of the book.  Each child was given a signed copy of her book for their personal libraries.  Many, many thanks to Lisa for adding such an enriching component to our Treasure Trunk!

KITS then progressed to the children making their own Friendship Bracelets, which complimented the theme about friendship in Lisa’s book.

Kids in the Kitchen capped a great evening with the children creating “spider snacks” with cracker bodies, pretzel legs, raisin eyes and Cheese Whiz gluing the animals together. Each child left with their own apron to wear in future cooking fun.

The nine future sessions of Treasure Trunk for this year will be delivered at the Brenda’s House facility located in the SW neighbourhood of Killarney in Calgary

Treasure Trunk Program at Brenda’s House March Update!

The Junior League of Calgary is partnering with Brenda’s House/Children’s Cottage Society to implement the Treasure Trunk program. This program targets the key issues of literacy, nutrition and healthy eating and the fun of music and movement and the arts by developing a resource tool that staff will be able to utilize to implement developmentally stimulating activities with the ever changing residents in the home.

Our March 2 session focused on "Kids in Motion & Music" (KIMM) and "Kids in the Arts" (KARTS). The children were soon bowling, throwing bean bags, walking on a balance beam taped to the floor, talking about art, and making their own crowns. Each child was given a bag of arts and crafts supplies to create their own artwork and crafts projects and carry on with the impact that the JLC started with them.

Our March 23 session focused on "Kids in the Story" (KITS) and "Kids in the Kitchen" (KITK). In KITS, children listened to stories and then made crafts to reinforce the message in the story. Children were given their own books to take home to add to their personal libraries. In KITK, children donned aprons and cut food items on small cutting boards with safety knives, creating delicious snacks which they got to eat while chatting with JLC volunteers. Each participant took away their personal apron.

At both sessions several parents with young babies were engaged in our "Babies In the Story" (BITS) program, with JLC volunteers reading stories, singing songs and getting the parents to share their favourite songs as well. Each baby’s family was given a hand puppet book as a gift.

Many thanks to our JLC volunteers!