The Country Day School - Balance and Innovate - A Co-ED, JK-12, Independent Day School in the Greater Toronto Area

Paws for Stories

5/9/2019

The Junior School Library hosted a wonderful event for our Grade 1 readers on Friday, May 3. Each year, as part of the ‘Paws for Stories’ program, volunteers from the St. Johns Ambulance Service Dogs visit our school with their four-legged partners to enjoy some stories with our young readers.

Budding Gourmets Learn Alongside CDS Master Chefs

11/29/2018

For years, CDS has offered a Cooking Club to its Senior School students. While the location always varied, sometimes in the staff kitchen or the kitchen behind the Performing Arts Centre, students had fun baking cookies or cupcakes, sometimes even crepes.

Integrating Technology in the Classroom: Desmos

11/8/2018

Jennifer Weening

One of the primary principles at the heart of technology integration in the classroom is that the technology must fulfill an authentic purpose. The question must always be asked, “How can using the technology actually improve teaching outcomes or student learning”?

My Life Online

10/18/2018

Lara Gee

On October 2nd, our Grade 5 and 6 students were fortunate to have Blake Fly, co-founder of My Life Online, join us for a special presentation. My Life Online is a worldwide education platform that includes in-school workshops, Media Literacy curriculum, and programs for parents in an effort to bring students, educators, and parents together on the topic of Social Media.

Little Things Can Make a Big Difference

5/10/2018

Steph Collins, JS Outdoor Education Coordinator

Our Grade 1 students have been learning about monarch butterflies and how human development has impacted their habitats. They learned how planting milkweed seeds can give the monarchs a safe environment and can help to boost the monarch population. The classes decided that they wanted to help out any way that they could.

At CDS, GREEN is all there is to be!

4/30/2018

The Country Day School celebrated Earth Week this week on multiple levels throughout the School.

Technology in Music

4/5/2018

While technology, in general, has the capacity to execute common practices and processes faster, and thereby make them more efficient, its real transformative and paradigm-shifting power comes in the form of allowing students to view the world, subject matter and even themselves, in completely novel ways.

Help Us Restore 500 Acres of Parkland to the Moraine

3/29/2018

In February, a proposal was unveiled to create a 500-acre park on land to the southeast of CDS. This proposal, while celebrated, still requires extensive support from the provincial government to become a reality.

Robotics Team Kicks Off Competition Season in Barrie

3/8/2018

Chris Wappel, Robotics Advisor, Faculty

The CDS High School Robotics team, consisting of 15 members from Grades 9-12, made its debut at the First Robotics Competition this past weekend (March 2 - March 4) hosted at Georgian College in Barrie. Each year, the team designs and constructs a 120 lb robot to work in an alliance to complete different challenges. This year’s game was called “Power Up”, an arcade theme where human operators are trapped in a virtual game. The teams work to defeat a boss in order to escape the arcade.

Senior School Eco Council

2/8/2018

Story by Dima Kalander ’19

A few months ago, Mme Colucci approached some CDS students in the hopes of starting the Senior School Eco Council again, and of course I jumped at the chance!

Hour of Code @ CDS

12/7/2017

Lara Gee, Junior School Technology and Integration Specialist and Annie Dearden, Associate Teacher

During the first week of December, 139,329 Hour of Code events are taking place around the world, and 290 Junior School students at CDS participated in one of them!

SmartMusic: Practice Smarter – Not Longer

11/23/2017

Sheldon Rose, Director of Technology and Creativity

“Practicing” can be one of the most frustrating aspects of mastering a musical instrument. It seems that for all the many hours of solitary rehearsal, progress is slow and onerous. Although the process of regularized repetition is a well-recognized denominator in any skill acquisition activity, it is also the Quality and Deliberateness of that practice that matters more than simply the number of hours invested.

Inaugural Breakout Week

10/12/2017

Celia Bland, Director of Senior School

Do not ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come ALIVE and go do it!

Digital Citizenship

5/4/2017

What is Digital Citizenship? How is this addressed in school? What should I do as a parent? Digital Citizenship is the concept of developing foundational habits of mind to use technology safely, responsibly and ethically, while still leveraging the benefits of collaborating and communicating in a globally connected world.

Breakout EDU: Immersive Learning Games

4/20/2017

The Breakout EDU immersive learning games platform was introduced to the CDS faculty this past June at our custom Google Apps for Education professional development summit. It consists of a combination of physical and digital puzzle elements that must be solved in a race against the clock. Players are challenged to open the locked Breakout EDU box using their powers of critical thinking, communication, collaboration, and creativity.

NEW! Senior School Breakout Week

4/13/2017

On Monday morning, we were very excited to introduce our first Senior School Breakout Week to the students in assembly. This will take place from October 2-5, 2017, and is an excellent opportunity to break out of the classroom doors and take our educational journey to all sorts of exciting places.

CDS Cyclones Impress at Robotics Tournament

2/16/2017

Julia Garbe, Grade 12

On Saturday, February 11th, three CDS Robotics teams travelled to St. Michael’s College School in Toronto to compete in our second and final VEX tournament of the year. Out of a substantial number of competitors from schools across the GTA, the CDS Cyclones are proud of our impressive standings!

Technology in the Classroom

12/22/2016

Sheldon Rose, Director of Technology and Creativity

While laptops are certainly the star of the show in the modern classroom, there are a multitude of peripheral devices and software platforms that have become invaluable assistants to the individual learner at CDS. Technology with balance means considering and applying the most appropriate digital hardware or software for the tasks at hand - and there are many fantastic learning solutions to be selected from and benefited from.

Hackergal Hackathon Comes to CDS!

12/15/2016

On Tuesday this week, 27 Middle School girls took part in a six-hour coding marathon where they worked in teams of three to create a video game. They had to incorporate the theme of gravity into this programming task, which resulted in a lot of references to Bugs Bunny, outer space and falling objects.

Hour of Code @ CDS

12/8/2016

This week, 151,339 Hour of Code events are taking place around the world, and thanks to our Technology Integration Specialist Lara Gee and new Associate Junior School teacher Annie Dearden, 280 Junior School students at CDS participated in one of them!

How Serving Others Contributes to Balance and Wellness

11/17/2016

Krista Koekkoek, Director of Student Life

One of our eight Guiding Principles is to raise social and global awareness. As well, one of the goals of our new long range plan is to build and engage our community. This year, CDS is developing a partnership with Habitat for Humanity both to do projects locally in the GTA, as well as nationally next June in the Yukon.

Grade 7s Take Part in Killarney Adventure

10/20/2016

Earlier this month as part of our fall Outdoor Ed trip series, Grade 7 students travelled North to an exciting new destination – Killarney Provincial Park. This three-day trip was planned to be a cross-curricular outdoor education trip, which included experiences from the Geography, History, Art, Science and Physical Education curriculum delivered by subject teachers fortunate enough to go along.

The Temagami Experience

10/6/2016

In September, several Senior School students took part in the Temagami Experience, an expanded version of previous years' canoeing adventure. This year, the program allowed students the opportunity to choose from different activities including a wilderness canoe trip, yoga and mindfulness classes, en plein air art lessons and a writer's workshop. Students could choose from a range of activities and experiences. Read on for a point of view from both Mckenna Ryan and Julia Garbe, Grade 12 students.