Aura Fitness Studio

It's hard to believe, but APAC Dance 2012 has come and gone. The students were amazing and worked so very hard, dancing for 6 hours straight for four days in a row. A BIG thank you to the entire Canadian Academy team again for hosting the APAC dance event this year. They all worked tirelessly to put on a great event. The Concordia students really enjoyed visiting their school. We are more motivated than ever to continue progressing as dancers and artists. Sayonara, Japan!

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Another fun day at school this past week!! We celebrated the 3rd annual international day, sponsored by our amazing PSO. The event was a great success and a wonderful celebration of the diversity of CISS. Pictures are below. Enjoy!

The Phoenix Dancers had their first performance of the season at the Cityweekend Family Day at Sunshine Stadium in Jinqiao. The girls did a really great job, despite some hiccups like a random drum set left behind on the stage, and a smaller-than expected stage. They were true performers; they had great energy, stage presence and remembered the moves to our jazz piece, "Wings". I'm so proud of them. Great job ladies!

I can hardly believe it, but this week is the 10th week of school. Quarter 1 has ended, and we celebrated Halloween this past week by doing a Thriller/Gangnam Style mashup. The kids loved traveling in the "time machine" to 1983 to learn some original Thriller moves (Funny quote/moment: They all gasped in horror at the realization that "back then" in the "1900s", there was no internet, computer, cell phones, iPads, etc. etc. One student wanted to know, "But how did they live?!"). Then we traveled to the future, and played a super-fast version of Gangnam Style to make the students laugh, as they attempted to perform the same Thriller moves at lightning fast speed. We ended with the Thriller moves using the normal Gangnam Style song from 2012. We even had a surprise guest-a Thanksgiving "turkey"-do the Gangnam Style with us! This Halloween seemed much more festive than last year. More stores were offering Halloween knick-knacks, bars and restaurants were offering costume parties, and the costumes themselves seemed to be more complex and authentic, closer to the quality of what you'd find in the States, and not the cheesy plastic knock-offs that you'd find at Chinese markets like Yu Yuan garden. Overall, I had a great time at work and with my friends, celebrating Halloween, and can't wait for next year! Now, I'm off to decorate the house for Thanksgiving!

This past Thursday, November 1st, was the first meeting of the S.P.P. (Shanghai PE Professionals).  We met at the Big Bamboo on Hong Feng Lu in Jinqiao to socialize and swap ideas for teaching.  We had teachers from international schools in Puxi and Pudong attend the event.  We specifically focused on "rainy day group activities", or games that can be played with a large group of students in one gym that allows for maximum time on task/range of abilities.  We talked about games like "Battleship", "KCC", "5 bats", "4 corner soccer" along with games for Omniken balls, and pool noodles.  We also discussed the ways to implement a roller skating/in-line skating unit at our respective schools.  Finally, we talked about the upcoming EARCOS conference, which will be sponsored by Concordia in April.