House on my pick for Playbourhood of the Year

I sat down a while ago with the intention of writing an article about my pick for a Playbourhood of the Year award.  I’m easily distracted I guess, because I never did get around to it.  I did however write this little article about missed opportunities.  And I promised not to let another one go by.  So here you are.  A house listing on a great Playbourhood street. 

• by Chris Churchill

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Lease a home in a great Playbourhood

If you’re visiting this site, you obviously appreciate the value of living in a great neighbourhood that is play friendly.  If you’re also in the market to live in one, why not check this out. This place is just down the street from where I live.  It’s a great street with lots of families and lots of activity.  I won’t try to sell you on the merits of the house, but I can tell you it’s a great area to live! 

• by Chris Churchill

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Vital Signs Stagnant

Last week, the Oakville Community Foundation released it’s 2009 version of Vital Signs, a study that measures a number of important issues facing our community.  It looks at things like health, culture, the environment, safety, learning and housing issues.  The first significant results of the study were released last year and showed a few disturbing things that are important to young people in our town.  If we consider those results as the baseline, then this year’s updates should provide us with an understanding of the trends and let us know where we need to focus our attention.  Sadly, in my opinion, we’re not improving.  And in fact, the OCF has chosen not to even highlight these imporant areas. I talked about them in this article.  I hope as we move forward, things will improvem, not only in terms of the statistics, but also in what community leaders consider important.  Remaining stagnant is not an option where our children are concerned.  Read the entire report here.

• by Chris Churchill

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The Message is Spreading

I was thrilled to see the editorial in last week’s Oakville Today newspaper promoting the idea of holding street parties.  The author, Michael Howie told a story about attending a nearby neighbourhood party held on Rushbrooke Drive in the the Glen Abbey area of North Oakville.  He says that “the kids were running around (safely), the adults were laughing (without malice) and everyone was having a good time.  The best part was that it brought an entire community together”.  Isn’t that what Playbourhood is all about?  Congratulations to the folks who planned and hosted the event.  And thanks to Michael for telling the world about it in the newspaper.

• by Chris Churchill

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Missed Opportunities

The interesting thing about having a blog is that you need to spend time writing on a regualar basis in order to be relevant.  The problem I have is that the reason I do this is to encourage people to spend more time with their kids, playing outside, connecting with their neighbours and generally having fun.  Over the last while, I’ve been following my own advice and have been spending a little time on the former and a lot of time on the latter.  Which has been great for me, and I trust, good for my kids.  The problem, however, is that I’ve missed out on some great opportunities to write some great stories.  Sorry about that.  Or not… depending on how you look at it.

• by Chris Churchill
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Local Day Care and Nearby Schools

Remember when we all walked down the street to school.  Remember when “day care” meant you spent the day at a neighbour’s house a few doors down the street?  My how times have changed.  My son has just finished kindergarten and will be in school full time next September.  For now, however, he attends a pre-school day care centre part-time along with my daughter who is there full-time and will be there until she too reaches grade one.  Luckily, both the school and the day care centre are a short walk from our home and when we can, my wife or I or both, walk or ride bikes back and forth.  What’s really amazing is how these nearby facilities have helped us build a stronger Playbourhood.  Mike Lanza recently posted an article about how kids attending the same school can develope closer ties to their own community and neighbourhood.

• by Chris Churchill
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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.

• by Chris Churchill

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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.

• by Chris Churchill

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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. 

• by Chris Churchill

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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?

• by Chris Churchill
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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

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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.

• by Chris Churchill
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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. 

• by Chris Churchill
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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. 

• by Chris Churchill
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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.

• by Chris Churchill
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