This month, children in kindergarten start bringing independent reading books home. While the kids we’ve talked to seem thrilled, some parents are feeling stressed about how to help their child learn to read. So we turned to Dr. Christianne Hayward, founder of the Lyceum of Literature and Art, for some tips. Christianne has a PhD focused on children’s literature curriculums, teaches at post-secondary institutions, and has been running her parent/youth bookclubs (preschool-grade 12) since 1996.
Archives: Places
to market, to market we go
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We’re a little late in the day in singing the praises of Le Marché St. George as they just had their first birthday and were recently featured in The New York Times Travel Section. But this combo café, grocery, and gift store is très charmant (and family-friendly), so we wanted to chime in as well.
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membership has its benefits
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Toronto has plenty of attractions to keep even the highest energy kiddos happy and entertained. But they can certainly become expensive ways to while away a day, especially for larger families. However, most attractions offer a family membership, which typically pays for itself in only a couple of visits. Now while many of the city’s attractions are seasonal, we’ve highlighted a few that are open year round for those families who want to play rather than hibernate. And with March Break not far off, it’s a great time to consider a membership so you don’t become your kids’ main source of entertainment.
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a good cuppa
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Personally, we’d never survive parenthood without coffee … ideally, tasty, fair trade, and organic coffee. But, sadly, we’ve been forced to drink less than palatable java at (desperate) times. So we love it when we find coffee that suits our palate, as well as our sensibilities. On that note, we’d like to introduce you to the Crema Coffee Company.
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pizza pizza
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When it comes to food for the family, there are few things that satisfy a crowd like pizza. Pizza is one of those universal foods that almost everyone loves. But the thing is, there’s a lot of crappy pizza out there: Greasy, cardboardy, gross, pizza. We feel strongly that our kids should never have to experience nasty pizza (until they head off to university and it becomes a staple of their diet, of course). Which is why we take them to Me-n-Ed’s.
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daytripping: port moody
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Even though the summer sun has left and sweater season is upon us, we can still pack up our car and enjoy a cool weather road trip. And feeling the need for a bit more culture in our lives, we headed out to breathtaking Port Moody, the City of the Arts.
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if the shoe fits
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While we can always roll up our kids’ sleeves and pant legs if we buy too big, shoes are more problematic (our kid has literally run right out of a too-big pair of shoes). So when we heard OLLY shoes has an easy, reliable, and accurate solution to sizing up our little one’s feet, and three GTA locations, we ran right over.
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a cut above
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One of our favourite ways to pamper ourselves is to go to the hair salon. Sadly, our children do not seem to feel the same way about getting their hair cut. Thankfully, Sparkyz Kutz for Kidz has the solution to that problem.
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peter, peter, pumpkin eater
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Okay, so while you’re unlikely to eat your Halloween pumpkin once it’s past its prime, you can always roast the seeds before tossing the carved orange orb into the compost. And super fresh pumpkins are best for carving and seed roasting, so try to hit up a local patch. To give you a hand, we’ve complimented our Halloween events listings from last week with a handy list of local pumpkin patches. We’ve gone a bit farther afield than usual with this list because, well, there just aren’t that many pumpkin patches right in the city. All patches are organized alphabetically:
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for the love of pie
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Nothing beats a homemade pie. Except homemade pie with a scoop of vanilla ice cream. But between getting the fresh fruit and making the fiddly piecrust you need some time, which many of us simply don’t have. So we love that T.O. has a shop dedicated to nothing but pie: The Pie Shack.
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