Oakville North General
Follow the Progress of the New Hospital in North Oakville
Unless you’ve been asleep for the past year or so, you will know that the new Oakville Hospital will be located at the intersection of 3rd Line and Dundas in North Oakville. With the vast majority of our community’s population now residing north of the QEW, the move to have more direct access to medical facilities is a good one. And it will be even more important as Oakville continues to grow in the new areas north of Dundas. It’s an exciting project and you can follow it here at the official new hospital web site. You’ll also find a link over on the right. 
from Playborhood
Promote Your Kid Friendly Neighbourhood
The gang at Playbourhood is taking our mission to the streets! I’ve discovered that one of the best ways to help promote the development of our neighbourhoods into playbourhoods is to promote the idea. While I think I’m fortunate to live on a street where there’s lots of playing and interaction with the neighbours, it still amazes me how when I start talking about the Playbourhood idea, it opens eyes and encourages participation. The more we’re all aware, the more it seems people are willing to work together to help the process along. In that light, I’m thrilled that Mike Lanza has come up with the idea of promoting Playbourhood in a real way. By posting a sign you can announce to the world (and perhaps potential home buyers) that your’s is a great neighbourhood to live in. Check out the signs here.
Playbourhood
Spring Thaw and Being Active
Now that the weather is finally turning warm, it’s about time we all shake off the hibernation blahs and get outside. Around my Playbourhood the number of kids out on the street has certainly grown in the last few weeks and I’m thrilled by all the excitement. One of our neighbours is teaching his daughter how to ride her bike without training wheels. Kids are slowing down traffic with their pick up hockey games and several basketball nets have been moved to the curb. It’s a wonderful time to get outside and spend some quality time with the kids and the neighbours. And to encourage that healthy attitude, the folks at Today’s Parent magazine have a new contest going on. It’s called Every Minute Counts and you can find out more about it here. The idea is to promote a healthy and active lifestyle, but I’m sure they won’t mind if we suggest that it also helps to build great Playbourhoods, too. The contest has an educational element where you track the activities of your family members (walking the dog, doing yoga, or playing basketball at those curb-side nets I mentioned) for a week. The results can be quite enlightening. Then with that information in hand, you log onto the contest site and enter to win a great prize or two. Check it out here. Even if you don’t win, the benefits of being outside, helping to build your own neighbourhood connections are well worth the effort.
Playbourhood
The Right Fix
A recent article posted on the Toronto Star web site addresses a concern for school-aged children who don’t have access to “structured programs” in the hours between the dismissal bell and the dinner-time arrival of parents returning home from work. You can read the article here. This kind of story always catches my interest because it speaks directly to the kinds of things we talk about here at Playbourhood. The difficulty, of course, is reconciling our need to protect and nurture our children with our desire to just “let them be kids”. In other words, what is the problem we’re trying to fix, and are we fixing it right?
from Playborhood
Stick it to Ya!
The National Museum of Play in Rochester, New York recently announced its 2008 inductees into the Toy Hall of Fame, and to the surprise of many (though not to ten-year-old boys the world over), the stick was one of this year’s recognized toys (the others were the Baby Doll and Skateboard). In celebrating the stick as one of the most important toys of all time (and this is a case in which “all time” really means ALL time), the Museum writes, “The stick may be the world’s oldest toy…. When children pretend with sticks, they cultivate their creativity and develop their imagination…. They are the original building blocks for creative play. Sticks also promote free play—the freedom to invent and discover. They encourage playing outside instead of inside. Sticks are all around us—they are natural and free.”
Continued on Playborhood
- by Matthew Perry
Oakville North General
You get what you pay for…
It’s an adage that we’ve all heard countless times. But what happens when the amount you pay is nothing but a smile, a kind word, a simple gesture? Recently, I experienced two different events that highlight the differences between these two concepts. 
Oakville North General
Failing the Grade
Last week, the Community Foundation of Oakville released a report that explored a number of issues deemed important to ensuring a healthy, happy, strong and well-balanced community. Entitled “Vital Signs” the report measures the vitality of our community, identifies significant trends, and assigns grades in 11 areas critical to quality of life. This particular report is part of a series of similar studies coordinated nationally by Community Foundations of Canada. The purpose of these studies is to encourage dialogue, increase awareness and, hopefully, develop a desire to deal with these important issues. You can read the whole report here, but let me point out a few things I found particularly disturbing about how we are failing our kids.
Falgarwood
Playground Review - Sheridan Valley Park
Sheridan Valley Park reminds me of a little playground I used to frequent when I was a kid. Nestled deeply among the trees and in the heart of the neighbourhood, this little park is wonderful. Located just south of Upper Middle Road at the intersection of Grand Boulevard and Fleetwood Road, the park boasts direct links to a number of other parks, natural spaces and walking trails in the area - Fleetwood Park, Iroquois Shoreline Woods, Lancaster Woods and Valley Brook Park.
Playbourhood
Homework doesn’t work!
Alfie Kohn is a Boston-based author who regularly speaks about educational and parenting issues. He was in Toronto this week to talk about his belief that homework just doesn’t work. It’s the kind of argument that’s been made here before on Playbourhood. Our contention is that kids need time to just be kids - to play and develop in an unstructured manner. It isn’t necessary to restrict formal learning to the classroom - after all there are all kinds of educational toys, games and activities that reinforce and benefit the academic foundations. But they also need a healthy dose of social and emotional interaction that can be gained by spending time with their families around the dinner table and friends outside playing in the neighbourhood.
Playbourhood
Why Didn’t I think of that?
”
A Club for Active Kids. Outdoors! Clearly the kind of thing that we’ve been promoting here at Playbourhood is not an isolated concern. The folks over at Active Kids Club have taken up the challenge and are putting the concept into action. Here’s a quote from their web site expressing the importance of playing outdoors starting at a young age: “Increasing your child’s exposure at an early age to outdoor play doesn’t just benefit their physical development. It enriches all aspect of early childhood development, mind and body. By exposing your child to both structured activities and unstructured play not only are you are building the foundation for a healthy active lifestyle that the child will embrace life, you are supporting their mental and emotional health as well.
from Playborhood
Luddite or Visionary?
Here at Playbourhood, we talk a lot about kids playing outdoors, doing things on their own in an unstructured environment and putting away their GameBoys. There’s nothing wrong with television, computers or organized sports - they all have a valuable role to play in our kid’s development. But it’s only one part of the bigger picture. Providing a good balance is what it’s really all about. Mike Lanza talks a little bit about this over on the Playborhood site in this great post about “shunning technology” in favour of more “face time” with family and friends.
College Park
Playground Review - Martindale Park
Martindale Park is located in a wonderful spot. It’s smack dab in the middle of a thriving and well-established residential part of town just south and east of the Trafalgar and Upper Middle intersection. The park is large and backs onto the main campus of Sheridan College. That means the area has a great mix of people of all ages which makes for a healthy Playbourhood atmosphere.
Playbourhood
Streetlights and Hypocrites
This week I’ve found myself wondering if I’ve become a hypocrite. It stems from a struggle between a sincere belief that a living in a Playbourhood is both desirable and vital for our children’s healthy development and the natural instinct as a parent to protect my kids.
Looking around my own neighbourhood, I see plenty of kids interacting with each other, playing in the street and having a great time just being kids. Recently the kids a few houses down invented a game of tag played on their scooters. They race up and down, back and forth, around and around. They’ve found a way to make their own fun. And, by their laughter and the loud droning hum of little rolling wheels, it is apparent they are enjoying themselves. It has become a nightly ritual that lasts until well after the streetlights come on. I’m elated by the opportunity this presents for my own children, when they get a little older, to get involved with this sort of fun with their neighbours. And that’s where the problem begins.
Oakville North General
Little Geeks Need You!
If you’re reading this post, there’s probably two things that are certain. First, you are reasonably computer literate and can appreciate the value and importance of having access to the resources and information they can provide. And, second, you are most likely a parent who is concerned about the welfare of your children. So, let me introduce you to a wonderful organization that puts these two things together. Little Geeks is a charity that collects, refurbishes and re-distributes donated home computers to children in need. These computers are given free of charge, and are coupled with an Internet connection at the child’s home. The Mission of Little Geeks is to provide free computing technology and education to children and families who cannot afford this resource on their own. If you can donate your old computer equipment, you won’t have to worry about trying to sneak it into the trash. Please, consider helping them out.
Playbourhood
Get Active!
Yet again, reports and studies show that a rising number of children are becoming obese because they are not active enough. They are spending far too much time in front of television screens, at computer terminals and with game consoles in their chubby little hands. Here’s an article from Parentcentral.ca which talks about this very problem.
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