Roy Thompson Hall and Edwards Gardens
I've hit both of the Toronto hot spots above over the last two days.
I took my Gr. 5 class to Roy Thompson Hall yesterday for a concert with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra. TSO puts on wonderful student programs and we took all of our students from Gr. 3 to 5. The theme of the concert was "Magic and Mystery" and among the pieces that were performed were "In The Hall of The Mountain King", "Flight of The Valkyries", "Danse Macabre", "Hedwig's Theme" from John Williams' Harry Potter soundtrack and a sing-a-long version of "Puff, The Magic Dragon".
One of the coolest parts of the program, though, was a set of two simple recorder rounds, which had been sent to the teachers in advance so we could teach them to the Gr. 4 and 5 students as part of their in-class recorder program. The students memorized the pieces and then brought their recorders to the concert hall with them where they then played the songs along with the orchestra. Quite an exciting thing for a young musician to say they have played with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra! :)
Today was a gorgeous spring day here so John and I decided to initiate our warm weather nature walks again. Being that it's only April, and many of the more rustic hiking paths would still be pretty wet and muddy, we decided to head out to Edwards Gardens in north Toronto. It was a really nice walk on a winding paved path, with little arcing bridges crossing a stream at several places. The water was flowing swiftly and bouncing off the rocks in its path. Again, I found myself wishing I'd taken my digital camera, but the nature walking season is still young. There were lots of people on the path with us as well as lots of strollers and lots of dogs. According to my pedometer, we walked four miles. We may go out to find another walking trail tomorrow.
That four miles now takes me up to 41 miles on my Walk to Rivendell. Only 407 miles to go :). My TORC Rivendell group continues to be ambitious and enthusiastic. Funny what will motivate folks to walk, too, like this page here: http://home.insightbb.com/~eowyn2challenge/Milestones/milestones.html . This records page is on the main "Walk to Rivendell" site and you earn a shield next to your name every time you walk another 25 miles (I'm 'Shaal' over there and you can see one shield beside my name, though I'm getting close to a second shield!). Cathy, the WtR web designer, has recently colour-coded the shields to show which walking group you're affiliated with, so all the green shields over there are walkers affiliated with the TORC walking group that I run. There's about nine of us on the records board right now with more to come soon. It's fun to read messages over in our thread now where people say they -must- get out to walk because they want to earn their shield! Hey, whatever works to keep you on the road :).
I took my Gr. 5 class to Roy Thompson Hall yesterday for a concert with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra. TSO puts on wonderful student programs and we took all of our students from Gr. 3 to 5. The theme of the concert was "Magic and Mystery" and among the pieces that were performed were "In The Hall of The Mountain King", "Flight of The Valkyries", "Danse Macabre", "Hedwig's Theme" from John Williams' Harry Potter soundtrack and a sing-a-long version of "Puff, The Magic Dragon".
One of the coolest parts of the program, though, was a set of two simple recorder rounds, which had been sent to the teachers in advance so we could teach them to the Gr. 4 and 5 students as part of their in-class recorder program. The students memorized the pieces and then brought their recorders to the concert hall with them where they then played the songs along with the orchestra. Quite an exciting thing for a young musician to say they have played with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra! :)
Today was a gorgeous spring day here so John and I decided to initiate our warm weather nature walks again. Being that it's only April, and many of the more rustic hiking paths would still be pretty wet and muddy, we decided to head out to Edwards Gardens in north Toronto. It was a really nice walk on a winding paved path, with little arcing bridges crossing a stream at several places. The water was flowing swiftly and bouncing off the rocks in its path. Again, I found myself wishing I'd taken my digital camera, but the nature walking season is still young. There were lots of people on the path with us as well as lots of strollers and lots of dogs. According to my pedometer, we walked four miles. We may go out to find another walking trail tomorrow.
That four miles now takes me up to 41 miles on my Walk to Rivendell. Only 407 miles to go :). My TORC Rivendell group continues to be ambitious and enthusiastic. Funny what will motivate folks to walk, too, like this page here: http://home.insightbb.com/~eowyn2challenge/Milestones/milestones.html . This records page is on the main "Walk to Rivendell" site and you earn a shield next to your name every time you walk another 25 miles (I'm 'Shaal' over there and you can see one shield beside my name, though I'm getting close to a second shield!). Cathy, the WtR web designer, has recently colour-coded the shields to show which walking group you're affiliated with, so all the green shields over there are walkers affiliated with the TORC walking group that I run. There's about nine of us on the records board right now with more to come soon. It's fun to read messages over in our thread now where people say they -must- get out to walk because they want to earn their shield! Hey, whatever works to keep you on the road :).