Monday - Painting

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Roll up your sleeves, it's time to think like a painter! This wild card invites kids of all skill levels to explore painting through the lives, techniques, and creative worlds of influential female artists from a variety of time periods and artistic movements. Each week participants will study a different painter’s unique style and story before creating original works of their own inspired by the artist's approach. They will work with acrylic, watercolour, gouache, and mixed media, and develop core painting skills including colour mixing, texture, and brushwork while strengthening their artistic voice in a supportive studio environment.

 

Tuesday - Search Smart

 

In a world overflowing with information, opinions, headlines, and distractions, the ability to think critically and research thoughtfully has become an essential life skill for everyone. This course is designed to help JU kids learn not only how to find information, but how to question it and use it wisely. Younger kids will build early media literacy skills through stories, discussion, and activities such as identifying motives and morals. A child who can ask “Why did the character do that?” is already beginning the work of real research by learning to analyse and interpret meaning in the world around them. Older kids will research their passion topics and along the way build competencies such as safe and effective search engine use, scanning reference materials for key information, note-taking, interpreting interviews, narrowing down useful info in video clips, and recognising misinformation and sensationalised media. 

 

Wednesday - Environmental Science

 

This science class, aligned with the QEP, examines current environmental issues through hands-on inquiry and real-world investigation. JU kids progress from general study of the natural world, including water, weather, habitats, and human impact on systems in Cycle 1, to guided study of topics such as waste, energy, ecosystems, and climate patterns in Cycle 2, and finally to deeper analysis of pressing global challenges including climate change, biodiversity loss, and resource use in Cycle 3. Each at their own level, kids will practice interpreting issues from a scientific point of view, weighing possible solutions, and understanding how human choices shape future outcomes.  

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Thursday - Indigenous Peoples of Canada

 

This course, grounded in the QEP, invites kids to explore the histories, cultures, and contemporary realities of Indigenous Peoples. In Cycle 1, kids begin with foundational understandings of place, identity, and cultural diversity via art and legends, learning about how multiple Indigenous Nations exist with distinct languages, traditions, and worldviews. Cycle 2 kids move towards the comparison and contextualisation of ways of life across regions and time periods, examining how communities relate to land, knowledge, and change. And finally in Cycle 3 we engage more directly with significant periods including colonisation, treaties, residential schools, and current efforts toward cultural revitalisation and self-determination. By identifying bias and the ways narratives are constructed, participants will learn to understand history not as a closed story of the past but as an ongoing set of relationships and responsibilities in the present.  

 

Friday - The Wellness Club

 

This brand new wild card offers kids across all ages a fun and engaging introduction to mindfulness, movement, relaxation, and holistic self-care... in other words, a day at the spa! JU adults and special guests will be helping them develop tools to understand and care for both body and mind, for example: aromatherapy, soap making, nail care, balance/stretching/breathing games, face masks, worry stones, candle making, yoga, forest immersion, mood journals, gratitude projects, herbal tea tasting, flower pressing, prompted meditation, knotted friendship bracelets, and more. This class emphasizes emotional well-being and self-regulation as important life skills, and supports kids in recognising their inner states, calming their nervous system, and increasing focus and resilience in daily life.