Creating Together Blog

Sharing the Abundance!

February 18, 2020 by Melanie

Creating Together is so thrilled to have received some funding to refresh our space. If you’ve come in lately you’d notice a bright, fresh coat of paint and piles of cardboard boxes in the staff office – boxes of new high chairs, a change table, shelves, and so much more! To help make space for the new, we’d like to share the abundance and are selling a number of useful family items for amazing prices.

Crib sets, high chairs, shelves, books, the bathroom changing table – all for super affordable prices. So please spread the word, and come take a look at all the things awaiting a new home!

Come check it out and help us clear these things out so we can show you the incredible items we’ve been able to get for you all!

Minding Screen Time: Tips and Strategies

February 11, 2020 by Melanie

This generation, the digital generation, has never known life without a computer or the Internet. Screen time use has doubled in children over the last 20 years, and studies have linked high levels of screen time with delayed development in children. Dr. Aric Sigman, an associate fellow of the British Psychological Society and a Fellow of Britain’s Royal Society of Medicine, says:

Too much screen time too soon is the very thing impeding the development of the abilities that parents are so eager to foster through the tablets. The ability to focus, to concentrate, to lend attention, to sense other people’s attitudes and communicate with them, to build a large vocabulary—all those abilities are harmed.

But it isn’t easy to just unplug – parenting in the digital age also requires that we recognize our own habits. Not only do children mimic our own digital attachments, we also know from previous studies that limiting this face-to-face contact via extensive phone use could cause problems with development and reduce the level of bond between a parent and a child. A more recent study shows us that parents who spend more time with their phones have a greater tendency to shout at their children, while children also feel an increase in frustration, moodiness, and attention-seeking.

Information Session at Creating Together

In the face of this, Creating Together is offering 2 information sessions on Screentime for Children – one on February 10th at 1:30, and the other on the 28th at 10am.

Tips

Apart from the Information Sessions this month, here are a few tips:

Set Limits to Screen Time – Limits help build healthy habits for the future. Create rules to limit screen time and share them with the other adults in your child’s life as well to ensure consistency. There are plenty of apps that provide parental controls to block sites, and enforce time limits (no screen time for children under 2, and less than 1hr / d for children ages 2-5).
Be a Good Example – Children are more likely to act-out in order to get your attention when you’re distracted. Model healthy screen habits by engaging your child with play and books that build their brain and social development.
Create Healthy Habits – Keep devices in a common area so you can monitor age-appropriate use, while watching and talking to them. It’s also a healthy habit to turn off all screens an hour before bed to ensure a better sleep hygiene, and turn it off during mealtimes.
Get Outside – be it the snow, the rain, or the sun, there are plenty of games to enjoy outside to help you replace screen time with green time.

Continue the Conversation!

Interested in learning more, and sharing some strategies with other parents and caregivers? Speak with your family and friends to gauge tips and trends – and bring them with you to our next information session on February 28th at 10am.

See you there!

Black History Month 2020: Going Forward, Guided by Our Past

February 4, 2020 by Melanie

Across the country, February is the month that Canadians honour and celebrate the legacy of Black Canadians, with Black History Month.

Join us as we celebrate, for a special snack on Friday the 21st!

This Year’s Theme

With a different theme selected each year, the theme of the Government of Canada’s Black History Month campaign is “Canadians of African Descent: Going forward, guided by the past”. Feet forward, head turned backward, the Sankofa bird reflects on the past to build a successful future.

Rita Cox Collection, Parkdale Public Library

Resources to Learn and Share

This gives all of us an invitation to learn ore about our history, so we can move forward knowing from whence we came. Here in our own community, we are fortunate to hold the Rita Cox Black and Caribbean Heritage Collection at the Parkdale Public Library. This collection is recognized as one of the most significant Black and Caribbean heritage collections in Canada. The collection features over 16,000 print and audiovisual materials for adults, children, and teens about the Black and Caribbean historical and cultural experience. So in the spirit of literacy and connecting with your community, go and check out this incredible collection this month with your family!

Read! Read! Read!

January 29, 2020 by Melanie

Each year ABC Life Literacy Canada celebrates Family Literacy Day on January 27th, raising awareness of the importance of reading and engaging in other literacy-related activities as a family. An crucial indicator of child success, there are loads of free resources available to help parents and caregivers be the best possible support they can be.

Family Literacy in Canada

Children spend five times as much time outside the classroom as they do in school, so parents and caregivers need the tools to support their learning (The Read-Aloud Handbook, Jim Trelease, 2006).
Children whose parents are involved with them in family literacy activities score 10 points higher on standardized reading tests (The Effect of Family Literacy Interventions On Children’s Acquisition of Reading: From Kindergarten to Grade 3, Conducted by Monique Sénéchal for the National Center for Family Literacy, 2006)
One year of parental education has a bigger positive impact on whether a son or daughter will attend a postsecondary institution than an extra $50,000 in parental income (Higher Education Quality Council of Ontario, 2011)
A mother’s reading skill is the greatest factor to affect her children’s future academic success, outweighing other factors, like neighborhood and family income (National Institute of Health, 2010).

Did you know that early literacy begins before a child can read? According to research by the Canadian Language and Literacy Research Network, children who are successful readers have usually engaged in many early language and literacy activities before starting school. In fact, hearing and engaging with books read aloud to them is one of the most important activities for infants, toddlers, and pre-school children.

We are here to help. In fact, given literacy has such a positive impact on children and families, each Monday at Creating Together is committed to literacy. We hope you will join us!

Designed for one-on-one or small group storytelling, Literacy Mondays feature developmentally appropriate books and CDs. This gives children the opportunity to read and sing along with parents/caregivers and a staff member. Through the week, you can enjoy our reading nook at Creating Together with your child, filled with a wide range of books and comfortable seating.

Out in the Toronto community, there are lots of other opportunities to create positive memories of literacy with children:

Check out the Parkdale Library’s “recommended reads” for family literacy.
Welcome to School is a program offering resources and programs for newcomer student success.
Children’s Book Bank provides free books and literacy support to children living in low-income neighborhoods across Toronto, such as dictionaries for newcomers, and these family literacy tips.
Toronto’s ReadUP‘s mission is to provide children with access to free reading support that complements and consolidates the literacy learning they receive in school.
Enjoy your favourite children’s stories any time with Dial-a-Story and OverDrive eBooks & eAudiobooks for Kids.
Handbook of Language and Literacy Development

Lunar New Year Celebration

January 22, 2020 by Melanie

The Lunar New Year, Chinese Chunjie, Vietnamese Tet, Korean Solnal, Tibetan Losar, also called Spring Festival, is celebrated during the second new moon after the winter solstice, usually between January 21 and February 20 on the Gregorian calendar.

The festival is typically celebrated in Asian countries, beginning with the first new moon of the year and ending on the first full moon of the lunar calendar, 15 days later.

Chinese New Year, January 25th

This year’s Chinese New Year begins January 25th, as we move into the Year of the Rat. Here are a few rituals that are traditionally done to celebrate the Chinese New Year:

Visit family and friends – This tradition is so crucial that LNY travel is annually heralded as the ‘world’s largest human migration’. In 2019, 3 billion trips were projected to be made during the holiday season.

Share wealth with family – Red packets carrying cash gifts are given to friends and family. It is also tradition for children to give a gift to their grandparents / elders.

Clear out last year’s clutter – In the days leading up to the Lunar New Year, the last year is washed away: windows, walls and furniture are all cleaned and dusted. However, all cleaning stops on the first day of the Lunar New Year, so good fortune is not swept away.

Hang red decorations – it is said, according to lunar new year mythology, that red is hung to ward off Nian – a lion-like monster that is afraid of the colour red.

Watch a traditional dance – Further to the red decorations, Nian also doesn’t like loud noises, so drums and cymbals accompany a flying lion dance outdoors.

You won’t want to miss the festivities in Chinatown this Saturday from 12-5pm: https://www.chinatownbia.com/eventsnews/lny2020/

Come and Celebrate with Us!

We hope you’ll join us this Friday at Creating Together to celebrate with some food and origami mouse activities! Take a look below for a tutorial on how to do this at home!

Happy New Year!

Next month, we’ll be celebrating Tibetan Losar as well, which fall this year on February 24-26. Stay tuned for more information on that!