Today's top news stories for parents

There is lots of education news on the site today that you won't want to miss.

1. Our top story is on Ontario's plan to complete an overhaul of school curriculum. Education minister Kathleen Wynne says the move is a response to years of complaint from both educators and parents that the curriculum is bogged down with a staggering number of "expectations." The idea will be to take the focus off of cramming in "coverage" of these prescribed areas and onto deepening understanding and developing research and reasoning skills. That could mean fewer details on the War of 1812, and more context on how and why wars happen. There is a passionate discussion happening in the comments right now. Please read and add your thoughts.

2. Demonstrating what this sort of learning could look like, we've got a profile of a classroom where the teacher spends less time going through curriculum checklists and more on big-picture thinking. She also keeps keeps the students active and on their feet to keep them engaged.

3. We also have an update on all-day kindergarten. While the Toronto District School Board and Toronto Catholic District School Boards have asked for extra time to sort out which schools will offer full-day kindergarten in the fall of 2010, Sudbury is the furthest ahead when it comes to actually implementing the program. And attached we've got lists of schools tentatively slated to have all-day kindergarten in Halton Public, Peel Public and Peel Catholic boards. Remember you can be sure not to miss a story on the Pascal report and the implementation of all-day learning by bookmarking our Early Learning page.

4. And if you've got a teenager interested in a career in criminology or law enforcement (or even if you're simply a CSI fan), check out this story on Humber College's new forensic lab, dubbed the CSI classroom.

5. Also, a bill was passed Monday that formalizes school board's responsibility for student achievement, but critics say it should have done more to prevent conflict-of-interest violations, like those that have plagued the Toronto Catholic board in recent years.

Lots to keep up with. Have a great Tuesday!

Kid quote of the day

Cameron, 6, on trying to complete his worksheets in school:

"I'm trying REALLY hard not to be silly but I just can't STAND it!"

Parenting tip of the day

Here's a school-lunch cheat you might like to copy on a hurried morning.

When I'm in a local bakery, I've been grabbing a stuffed croissant as an occasional sandwich boredom buster for my son in Grade One.

It's admittedly a bit of a treat because of the high fat content (though Cameron is so skinny he has a little 6-year-old six pack), but there's goat cheese, spinach and roasted red pepper inside. Pickier eaters might prefer ham and cheese, or even the variety stuffed with a sausage, which kind of makes it like a big, portable hot dog.

I've been picking these up about once a week. The cost is around $2.50.

What are your lunch-box secrets?

Top news stories of the day for parents

The mood around H1N1 has shifted this week. It's as though the death of 13-year-old Evan Frustaglio made a light go on for parents all over Ontario. Worried moms and dads across the GTA have flooded vaccine clinics as they opened, prompting York Region to essentially cry uncle late yesterday afternoon with news that the clinics could only hope to vaccinate those currently in line.

Wondering where and when to get your family vaccinated? I've pulled together a list of links to H1N1 vaccine clinic hours at all the public health regions in the GTA. Canada's chief medical office of health, Dr. David Butler-Jones is one of many leading health authorities who express frustration at the number of vaccine myths circulating around the blogosphere and playground circuits. He likens believing that vaccines cause harm to blaming umbrellas for the rain.

I found a good overview of common vaccine myths and why they're not accurate from the Canadian authority, the Public Health Agency of Canada yesterday.

It's also available as part of my list of frequently asked H1N1 questions, including tips on when to call the doctor, how to care for a flu patient, and more.

Parents who think their child has H1N1 should be prepared for a bit of a health-care odyssey. This woman's story of trying to get care for her son, tells the tale.

But it's also important not to panic at every cough (I'm reminding myself this as much as anyone else, because I've got a child home from school with a cough and fever, and it's hard not to worry). Health reporter Joseph Hall's story, No matter what, kids always get the flu, gives us some important direction on when to go to the doctor and when to stay home, but also clarifies the likelihood that if your child has the flu, it is likely H1N1.

Some other news stories not to miss:

'Alarming' weight gain for kids on psych drugs

Catherine Porter's column on the swine flu vaccine and pregnancy

East York flu clinic opens a few hours early to meet demand

Ann Douglas's Mother of All Parenting Blogs on how H1N1 is affecting Canadian parents

Some fun diversions from all this heavy stuff:

How news stories influence Halloween costume choice

Stella McCartney's new line of kids' clothes for the Gap

Today's top news stories for parents

Among the most-read topics on thestar.com right now is single-sex classrooms. Toronto District School Board education director Chris Spence said earlier this week his new academic plan will include a raft of initiatives aimed at addressing the unique learning needs of boys, including more single-sex classrooms.

There's been strong reaction to this notion, both for and against. If you want to read what people are saying, check out the comments on School plan calls for boys-only classes and Boys-only school 'issue of choice,' not segregation, director says.

I'm pretty new to being a school parent, so I'm not quite sure where I stand on this. But I've been raising my two boys long enough to get the idea. There is a unique exuberance in boys. Many are not big on sitting still. Based on the number of times I say, "Two bum cheeks on your chair," or "Belly button facing the table," over the course of dinner, I can appreciate the job it is to get a dozen or more boys to sit at desks completing worksheets for long stretches. For her latest story in this series, Louis Brown takes us into a school with sex-segregated classes to see how it works. What do you think?

Here are the other major stories you're going to want to read today:

Students to protest police role in schools  A student's arrest at Toronto's Northern Secondary School, which made the rounds on YouTube, has become a point of controversy between those for and against having police and students under the same roof.

A hospital clerk has been fired after turning away a mother and her 7-year-old son The Mexican refugee family was refused help at Humber River Regional Hospital even though the boy had suffered a head injury.

The new bill to protect nannies includes jail time. Legislation introduced yesterday, following a Star investigation, includes a maximum fine of $50,000 and a year in jail for those caught charging a fee for work in Ontario.

Some fun stuff not to miss:

Michelle Obama performed 142 swivels of a hula-hoop at a healthy kids fair yesterday. How many can you do? Vegetable gardening...hula hooping...how are we ever going to keep up?

Love Joe Fresh? Here's some budget fashion inspiration. A photo gallery of Joe Fresh spring 2010 fashion from Toronto Fashion Week.

Ann Douglas's round-up of baby naming tools and advice on naming your baby Check it out, and make sure you subscribe to the RSS feed for The Mother of All Parenting Blogs while you're at it.

How to stylishly declutter your kids' art There's some good advice here on sorting the masterpieces from the, um, non-keepers.

The pop culture influences on this year's Halloween costumes. Learn about this year's best-selling costumes, and find all kinds of other tools on our Halloween Guide.

Today's top news stories for parents

It's no surprise that I'm getting a lot of questions from parents about swine flu these days. Whether or not you choose to vaccinate is a personal choice, but I'm urging parents to make informed decisions based on facts. Please take your advice from family doctors and public health authorities. I'm seeing all kinds of factually shaky and misguided emails and YouTube videos making the rounds in mommy circles, so it may be wise to consider the source.

Here are some news stories that may help you get informed:

Health reporter Theresa Boyle has compiled a list of common questions about swine flu.

Here's the latest on when swine flu vaccination is likely to begin.

This story contains information on the availability of adjuvant-free vaccine for pregnant women, and this one answers more questions regarding the vaccine and pregnancy.

In other news:

Food editor Jennifer Bain takes a critical look at the school cafeteria in a profile of a unique pilot project called the Good Food Cafe. Run by FoodShare, this place is whipping up yummy lunch choices and helping city kids make a real connection between what's grown in the field and what lands on the table.

In the latest in her series on the state of children's aid societies, Tanya Talaga takes a look at the sad state of Family and Children's services in Rainy River.

Fun diversions:

Michele Henry's hilarious blog admission of baby milestone jealousy

A Halloween craft you can make from those little cereal boxes

Our Halloween Guide

Please let me know if you think I've missed something that should be included in this list.

Back-to-school party

My oldest boy, Cameron, is headed back to school tomorrow. Not only that, but he starts Grade 1, which is a pretty big deal when you're accustomed to calling it a day at 11:30 a.m. and everything that happens outside of the kindergarten wing is cloaked in mystery.

Cam has taken a while to get comfortable with the notion of being in Grade 1. He doesn't yet know how to read and some of his friends do, so he's been concerned that he's not "proper for Grade 1." A little pomp and ceremony have been required to nudge him from plain old nervous to nervous excitement.

I wrote last week about the transitions that September brings, some of them welcome, some of them, not so much. Suffice it to say we both needed something to give Labour Day some shape, mark the end of summer on a high note and welcome the start of school.

We decided on a back-to-school lunch at noon. This way everyone could have a leisurely meal and good long play and still get to bed on time. (You could do this with school-bus themed invitations and a school-bus cake, but this was planned on short-notice, which I think is the easiest and lowest-pressure way to throw a party.)

I didn't feel like manning the barbecue all day, and I wanted to be able to talk to my friends, so I made platters of sandwiches (school-lunch theme, right?) that I could pull out of the fridge when guests were assembled. Along with a selection of other kid-friendly snacks, Irene's veggie tray and a plate of watermelon, this was all that was needed.

 

(Unfortunately, 2-year-old Alister sidled up to this tiered snack tray when I was busy setting up, and polished off the chips.)

It was a gorgeous day, so the backyard was the perfect place to gather.

 

Left to right, that's Alister (he's not going back to school), Maddie, Davis, Ella (who declared her intention to marry Davis several times during the party), Cameron and Emerson.

The kids had plenty of opportunity to burn off some last-day-of-summer energy...

...sliding...

...climbing...

...colouring...

and playing "Octopus." (Octopus? Cameron explains: "One person is the octopus and they say 'run!' and if you get touched, you're seaweed.")

Naturally, all of this requires refreshments...

Of one kind,

Or another.

Because after keeping kids entertained through nine weeks of summer vacation,

the grown-ups deserve a little fun, too.

Hurray!

Naturally, the centrepiece of this sort of gathering is always the cake (who doesn't like cake?).

 

I swung by Baskin-Robbins late Sunday afternoon and selected this ice cream cake from the few left on the shelf. I asked the young man helping me if someone could pipe the words "Back to school!" on top.  He said yes, but added, "I dunno why anyone would want to celebrate THAT." He then proceeded to spell it S-H-C-O-O-L. The above is his fix-it job.

It went over Okay.

 

 

But the important part is that, by dinnertime, Cameron had declared that he was now more excited than nervous, and that going into Grade 1 "makes me feel so much bigger."

And that's the point.

Have a great first day of school.

September

I want to tell you all the things I've always believed about the start of school. That I've written about numerous times as a parenting editor and writer.

I want to share the fervent belief I've held that the first of September is the real New Year. That it cleans the floor with January 1st, whipping it soundly with its beautiful weather, sense of possibility and fall fashions. How compared to the consumer hangover of darkest New Year's Day, the beginning of September and the start of school hold all the promise of new routines, countless dreams of skills we may acquire, harvest menus we'll plan, and leaf-crunching walks in the park. That from summer's lazier and less-structured days, our lives - and our families - will come into their true shape, and anything will be possible.

While it may be the kids who go back to school, it's always seemed to me that anyone is entitled to the satisfaction of a new box of pencils (hell, a box with a pencil skirt could do the job nicely as well). We send our children back to the classroom, perhaps stumbling under the girth of out-sized backpacks, but sporting new shoes, haircuts and shiny faces. A little stunned that summer is over, they may be, but nonetheless riding a wave of good esteem, nervous energy and snazzy sneakers.

Whether I had a new baby on my hip or a job to get to, I've always tried to hold on to the sense of renewal and possibility I felt with the arrival of the school year. Who knew how many yoga classes I'd get to, goals I'd meet or dinner parties I'd throw. Maybe I'd pen a book pitch or just wear something cable knit and feel delicious.

Surprising, then, a year ago to find life unraveling like a cheap sweater. A marriage coming apart, my father dying a death none of us could comprehend (lung cancer in a non-smoking marathon runner), this was not a season of happy possibility and enriching extra-curricular activity. Beneath a veneer of work-place productivity and family business - nights punctuated by a wakeful one-year-old - was a life I didn't recognize.

The first-born daughter, the one who does everything in the right order, certainly doesn't fail at marriage, you see. The healthy, hard-working Norwegian doesn't kick-it from a smoker's disease. And a parenting editor, for Christ's sake, certainly doesn't find herself signing the kids up for a lifetime of "who's-got-me-this-weekend?" How's that for a grief and guilt sandwich?

But then I'm smart enough to know that every life has its seasons of discontent. That it throws two or three biggies at you at once because it just does. That we can go from owning the crisp fall morning to falling right over. And that, little by little, while the psyche resists, we can put together something that begins to feel like a new normal.

Hitting a bump once more at exactly this time of year, when I want to reclaim myself, is a gift, I guess, even if it's wrapped in fish paper. The job is to fall in love again with September. To imagine things that will feel right. And to own my old New Year.

Lego birthday party

Cameron turned six on Saturday.

Since he lives and breathes Lego - Star Wars Lego in particular - there was really no doubt that he had to have a Lego-themed birthday party this year.

We agreed that the party would start with about an hour of indoor play at various Lego stations. Even the dining room table, territory he and I struggle over in Battle-of-the-Somme-type fashion (me daring to advance with meals and baskets of lemons, he trying to establish planet Tatooine), would be fair game.

We set up various Lego stations on the table, living room rug and a small kids' craft table. Naturally, the dining room table's prime real estate was devoted to Star Wars.

Ellis (left) and Cameron assembled some sort of Star Wars fighter jet thingie....

...and the whole cast of characters...


 

...including these guys, (prequel and original film characters mixed together - yes, I know), made for a pretty popular set-up. Anticipating fights over the Star Wars dudes, I coerced my tallest (and hopefully suitably intimidating) friend, David, to help Derek and I supervise. Luckily, there were no scuffles over storm troopers, Luke Skywalker, Han Solo, Anakin, or even Princess Leia.

Lego expert Noah channelled his inner Jedi knight.

 

A couple of new, more basic kits were assembled during the party, which was satisfying for kids newer to Lego (the youngest guest was three). More experienced Lego builders were able to help out, with only a moderate number of "Brandie, I need another window piece/blue flower/picket fence piece" kind of requests. That's Maddie in the background. She knows from Lego.

My favourite thing that happened spontaneously was this group effort to make a Lego plane fly using helium balloons (not that any of these kids had seen the movie Up).

Note the engineering using pieces of Lego to attach the ribbons to the wing. One side of the plane was actually raised a little.

I can only handle 10 kids inside the house for so long, so they were all kicked outside after about an hour, a plan Cameron and I agreed upon ahead of time. We had no outdoor activities planned, but they got up to their own thing on the play structure...

...while the adults "supervised" from the patio table.

 

Cameron (left) opened his presents (Charlie, middle, Seamus, right)...

 

...and then it was time for cake!

The cake was made by Sweet Escapes in the Distillery District. The red brick was red velvet, the yellow brick lemon, and the blue brick chocolate.

I've never commissioned a fancy birthday cake before, but this time it seemed worth it, since I wasn't killing myself with elaborate and clever Lego games and crafts, and this would enforce the theme in a way Cameron will (hopefully) remember. (And I don't have the cake-decorating chops to take on something like this without serious risk of meltdown.)

 
I think he was pleased.

 

Everyone had their preferred colour or colours of cake...

Adults lingered over cocktails and cake at pick-up time, while the kids played inside and out. Each kid took home a $4 box of Lego and (after a clean-up that seemed to last 24 hours) that was that.

(Only we've gotta do it all over again this Saturday for little brother Alister's 2nd birthday. Help.)

School stress

When you look at what you've got on your plate (kids, work, committees, house, garden, food, bills, aging parents, carpooling, Scholastic book orders, salvaging marriage, etc., etc.), compared to your child (school, playdates, colouring, gymnastic, Lego, park, snack,  TV, and so on), naturally, you're going pick yourself as the more stressed individual.

Of course, we know and accept that teens experience all kinds of pressures, but through our grown-up lenses, the life of younger kids can seem pretty sweet and simple. It's easy to forget that they have their own real-life worries, or to dismiss the ones they express as inconsequential.

Sadly, my confident and fun-loving five-year-old seems to be at that age when the notion of peer acceptance dawns, and sometimes that manifests in the oddest ways. It would still never occur to him to be embarrassed by his own nudity, but if a new T-shirt is too big he might say,  "That's so embarassing." When he hurt himself for the third time in short-succession yesterday (an unhappy trifecta of slipping down the basement stairs, bonking his nose on an arm rest and stubbing his toe), he said, "Everyone will think I'm so silly for hurting myself three times." I mean, who cares what they think? And who would I tell? (Oops!) But it's as if, in his mind, his whole senior kindergarten class might get wind of this.

With the return of school and the adjustment to new routines and new relationships that it brings, Concerned Children's Advertisers offers these suggestions for helping children manage stress, however big or small.

• Anxiety about anything new is a normal experience. Share a situation from your

childhood in which you experienced anxiety as a way to let your child know you

understand what he or she is going through.

• Be open and available to talk with your child. Let your child know that you will

always find time to talk about what is going on in his or her life.

• Routines are important to your child’s level of comfort. Set a bedtime, homework

time, sharing time, play time and down time. Try to keep to the schedule as much as

possible.

• Communicate with those who influence your child’s life. As soon as you see

signs of stress, make an appointment to speak with your child’s teachers, coaches

and/or family doctor.

• Maintain important friendships. Reinforce how relationships with friends play an

important role in our lives. Take the initiative to set up play dates for your children with

a variety of their friends.

• Exercise appropriate strategies handling your own stress. Children are very

observant and watch how parents handle stressful situations. Be a good role model

as your child is likely to adopt the strategies you use to cope with stress.

• Eat Smart. A balanced diet, in accordance with Canada’s Food Guide to Healthy

Eating, provides the necessary fuel to nurture your child’s brain and body.

• Move More. Encourage your child to find a good balance between active and passive

activities. Sport, fitness and playtime do a lot to help reduce stress.

• Be Media Wise. Be aware of the content and amount of time in which your child

interacts with various media.

Speaking of stress, here's a story about a teen who has had plenty to deal with, and her quest to dispel myths about mental health.

And check out the passionate exchange happening between readers of this story on the school agenda with an unfortunate typo.