By / Mark Janzen
When you’re a young and impressionable Vancouver Canucks fan, going to a game is a much-anticipated event.
Stepping inside the doors of GM Place as a kid is like the first time you walked into one of those just-candy stores. You’re in awe. Your eyes are dashing around like pinballs making sure you don’t miss the Itzakadoozies or the ‘Not for Girls’ Yorkie Bars.
While the concourse of the Canucks hallowed sanctuary isn’t plastered with teeth-rotting gems, there is one thing that might even top the Curly Wurly Bar.
And that is a child’s first encounter with Fin.
Roberto who?
It’s most often the lovable orca whale who high-fives hands and bites heads that becomes the hero of the night. Not every child remembers each player, but every child definitely remembers Fin. Now imagine if the Curly Wurly Bar…er Fin…is part of the elementary school curriculum.
For four years, the Vancouver Canucks’ community initiative, Fin’s Friends, has been in more than 1400 classrooms across B.C. all in the name of anti-bullying and character building. And the kids love it.
Sponsored by the Canucks for Kids Fund, Fin’s Friends is a program that uses specific children’s books, lessons and activities to teach character education. The curriculum focuses on children in kindergarten to Grade 3 and gives students an opportunity to develop a variety of characteristics.
The kindergarten classes focus on compassion and fairness. Grade 1 students are taught kindness, peacefulness and perseverance. In Grade 2, the focus is respect and responsibility and Grade 3 students learn courage and citizenship.
Classic stories such as The Recess Queen, A Ball for All, Enemy Pie and I Like Me, combined with corresponding crafts and activities, all help in developing valuable characteristics in children. Because everyone knows if Fin ‘says’ it, it must be right—each kit comes with a plush Fin hand puppet to accompany the lesson.
While hundreds of students around the province get to learn from a miniature version of the Canucks mascot, 15 to 20 randomly selected classes also get a sampling of the real Fin right in the classroom.
Imagine if your very own classroom is now the candy store.
For about 45 minutes, Fin will entertain and teach the students by acting out the selected book and engaging students in a fun, yet productive, story time that has the children hanging on his every action.
A gesture or suggestion from the Canucks’ favourite orca is sometimes all it takes to teach a valuable lesson; and for the Canucks, Fin’s Friends is another grassroots community initiative aimed simply at molding better people.
Oh and best of all, this candy shop is free. Thanks to the Canucks for Kids Fund, any teacher can apply for these program kits and become a friend of Fin at no charge.
Registration for the 2009/2010 school year starts on March 1 and space is limited. |