For years, I’ve been a subscriber to the American magazine Family Fun. It’s been my reliable partner in crime throughout my kids’ childhood and it might become yours too during the coming Family Day, the Valentine’s Day fuss or the March Break.
In Family Fun, I’ve found a mom’s advice on how to visit an art museum with my young son (turning the visit into a fun “I spy” game to look for specific items on the paintings). I’ve learned how to create a super card game that caught a slice of our daily life (teaching my kids about the different things one needs to know to run a house).
I’ve had a blast at the expense of my kids by using fabulous tips for April’s Fool pranks (I normally buy milk bags but for the occasion, I put a milk pint on the table, in which I surreptitiously added blue food coloring. The look on my then 8-years-old son when he poured the milk into his bowl was totally worth the trouble!).
When I was involved with the School Council, we would often choose the theme for the school parties according to the best craft activities I found while browsing through my Family Fun copies.
Years ago, prior to the internet, the magazine’s main appeal already lied in the fact that they’d been able to get hundreds of creative parents to submit their great ideas to them. Now we can all access this amazing resource online for free.
Their crafts section is the best. You can search by age, type or even by material but the Holiday & Seasonal category is such a time saver. You won’t find a Family Day section in there since it’s an American website but Valentine’s Day, St. Patrick’s Day, April Fool’s Day, Easter and Mother’s Day will all come handy in the coming months.
Just to get an idea of the spread of crafts they offer, check the bottle-cap tambourines in the Recyclable Crafts category under Crafts by Material, or the newspaper fashion show (if I still were a member of the School Council, I’d use that idea to complement a Literacy day event for the students!). As soon as we get some snow, even just a little, I think we should try their Beach Bum Snowman. It would definitely cheer up the whole neighbourhood.
Most pages are followed by a Show & Tell section where you get to see pictures of craft ideas submitted by families just like us. Very often, parents also submit photos of one of the Family Fun crafts they tried for themselves. I should send them my daughter’s picture of the bubble bather costume suggestion we used during our school’s Crazy Bubbles end-of-the-year party.
The crafts are just the tip of the iceberg. Their Playtime section offers hundreds of games suggestions for all occasions and contexts. Their Parties menu allows to search by theme or age and includes Themed Cupcakes and Party Printables categories. They even have a how-to video section for cakes and cupcakes for the bakery-challenged among us.
Tips • Crafts offered online are not there forever. You can subscribe to their magazine online (or through the magazine sales of your school if they have one of those fundraisers). Check their website at www.familyfun.com.
In her personal yet practical 480-page guidebook, author Nathalie Prezeau describes hundreds of outings in and around the GTA she tested with her family and friends over the past twelve years. The 4th edition is out! It includes a new chapter on things to do with the kids around the 69 subway stations in Toronto, as well as exciting city walks to play the tourist in Toronto. Available in the Travel Section of GTA bookstores as well as Mastermind Educational Toys stores and currently at Costco. Visit www.torontofunplaces.com to learn more.
WRITTEN BY
Nathalie Prezeau, author of Toronto Fun Places
From a kid’s perspective, Vaughan Mills is all about animals: between the stuffed bears and wolves complete with live fish pond of the Bass Pro shop, the fluffy animals of Build-a-Bear Workshop, and the birds, cats, dogs, small mammals and fish of the new pet store Safari, not to forget Santa’s fishing cabin, it’s a zoo out there. And don’t miss the funky hermit crabs cart!
I recently went to check the Safari pet centre which opened a few months ago at Vaughan Mills. Located not too far from the NASCAR Speedpark, in the mall’s Section 3 they call the Rural Neighbourhood, the fantastic facade is quite a sight, adorned with tall statues and the tail of a plane which seems to have just crashed into the wall.
This nice addition will allow your kids to admire a wide selection of pets, including a good number of puppies, in an exotic setting (we especially loved the dark grotto showcasing the fish). But I suspect you’ll have even more success if you take them to see the dozens of little hermit crabs sold in a cart by the Toy’s R Us.
The independent cart is really catchy, filled with lively little fellows in their shiny shells painted in every colours with funny patterns. Since these land crabs are born without a shell, they spend their life “trading up” to find a better home (sounds familiar?). You can get a cage including a crab and two shells for around $45.
If you’re wondering about supplies, on Petsmart’s website, you’ll find that they carry a whole line of products to take care of your hermit crab. As far as I know, they unfortunately don’t carry the funky shells.
Santa’s fish cabin (complete with fishing boat) is open again this year. There’s even a mailbox shaped like a trout to receive the kids’ letters to Santa. It was created in partnership with the spectacular Bass Pro shop right next door and that whole section of the mall is truly gorgeous. Life-size bears (stuffed) overlook a river, a fall and a tank with live fish. Throughout the vast store, there are more stuffed animals and plenty of sections to explore: an interactive shooting zone, the camouflage gear (which my kids declared a great spot for a little hide-and-seek session) and the series of fishing boats they could climb up into.
A little piece of advice for those with younger kids who still believe in Santa, in the back of the boat section inside the Bass Pro shop is another Santa in his village! You don’t want to enter this store directly from the parking lot if you want to avoid having to explain why there are two Santas at Vaughan Mills
TIPS
• My favourite way to tour Vaughan Mills with kids is to start at Entrance 4 (on the side of the NASCAR Speedpark). You then proceed to your right to see the Safari Pet Center. Further down, you’ll meet the hermit crabs by the Toy’s R Us, you’ll cross Build-a-Bear, then you’ll reach Santa’s cabin and nearby Bass Pro shop.
• Kids will be able to fish with Santa until December 23, Monday to Saturday from 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. and Sunday from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Bass Pro’s Santa is on duty until December 24. He’s there Monday to Friday from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m., Saturday from 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. and Sunday from noon to 7 p.m. Free crafts are offered from noon to 5 p.m. during the weekend.
• The Safari Pet Center is a chain originally from Montreal. Their website offers no information about their new store in Ontario but it is fun to visit, opening with an interactive image with lots of sections to click on. Click the drawers to read their Q & A’s about pets. Click their map to have access to five adventures to read (if you have kids in a French immersion program, they might want to compare the English stories with their French counterparts).
• If some family members ask you for suggestions on what they could give to your kids for Christmas, think Build-a-Bear Workshop! You could buy one of the cute outfits suitable for any of the animals they carry in the store and put it under the tree with an envelop inviting them to make their own animal with the family member (or a gift certificate). Many of the furry friends cost $15 and the outfits and accessories come in various prices.
• You can play an I-Spy-a-plane game in that mall! In addition to the crashed plane on the Safari pet centre, you’ll find two other yellow hydroplanes, one drawn on the gorgeous mural by Santa’s fish cabin and a real one hanging from the ceiling over the fish tank at Bass Pro.
In her personal yet practical 480-page guidebook, author Nathalie Prezeau describes hundreds of outings in and around the GTA she tested with her family and friends over the past twelve years. The 4th edition is out! It includes a new chapter on things to do with the kids around the 69 subway stations in Toronto, as well as exciting city walks to play the tourist in Toronto. Available in the Travel Section of GTA bookstores as well as Mastermind Educational Toys stores and currently at Costco. Visit www.torontofunplaces.com to learn more.
WRITTEN BY
Nathalie Prezeau, author of Toronto Fun Places
When Nature turns all grey, cold and wet on us, the weather calls for indoor activities. And there’s no better time to explore the gleaming Minerals gallery (less than a year old) and the superb Biodiversity gallery (which opened last May) on the Level 2 at the Royal Ontario Museum.
It had been over a year since my last visit at the ROM and, boy, was I in for a treat! As I climbed the majestic stairs by the large totem, I was greeted by a huge stone rhino at the entrance of the new Biodiversity gallery which has changed the whole look of Level 2. Gone were the sinuous dark corridors. Now, the open space is filled with glassed showcases featuring all kinds of animals, and big fish bathed in the light and floating from the ceiling, adding to the airy feeling of the place. Here and there, touch screens allow kids to choose from a selection of 30-second clips.
The Earth Rangers Studio set in the middle of this gallery is a wonderful multi-media room where we watched the short film Power of One with live commentary from a ranger, and the fun surprise of a real kestrel, a small bird of prey, flying over our head from a trap in the back of the room! (The 10-minute long activity is offered several time on Saturdays from 10:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m.) More free activities are offered in that room, with an insect theme on Sundays, a coral reef theme on Mondays and short projections on Friday nights.
The nearby Minerals gallery, by the gorgeous mosaic ceiling, is even more breathtaking. Hundreds of artifacts in glittering glassed windows are regrouped under compelling themes such as “Minerals from ancient lavas flow”, “The stories minerals tell”, “Exceptional crystals from special environments” and “Colour in mineral and gems”. There’s a whole section filled with meteorites, others on diamonds, fluorescent rocks, rock molecular structures and more. Two large screens feature great visuals on a loop and you can play I-Spy games with your kids, thanks to touch screens presenting the full display of each showcase, from which they can select the rock they want to know more about.
When visiting Level 2 with kids, I recommend starting your tour with the Dinosaurs galleries followed by the section with the mammoth skeleton in the Mammals gallery. From there, you can now access the Birds gallery (don’t forget to check what’s inside the drawers!) and the Discovery Gallery (with its big teepee, costume section, digging sandpit and more). This will lead you to a kids’ favourite at the ROM: the Bat Cave, and the Hands-On Biodiversity section (still featuring a live bee colony). You can then walk through the new Biodiversity gallery and finish with the Minerals gallery.
Last weekend when I visited the ROM, I was with a girlfriend, a mother of four (without her kids) who hadn’t been to the ROM for ages. I couldn’t wait for her to see the new architecture so I took her directly to the staircase in the Crystal section, aptly called Stair of Wonders (my favourite way to start the visit).
We climbed up to Level 4 to admire the staircase from every angle and to get to the Vanity Fair Portraits (a photograph exhibition presented until January 3rd featuring, among other artworks published in the magazine, many famous pictures from financially-challenged photographer Annie Leibovitz, complete with flat-screen projections of the making of these photographs).
We then went down to Lebel B2 to check the visiting exhibition Dead Sea Scrolls running until January 3rd (a very intesting collection involving lots of reading, that we would not have appreciated as much, had we been with our kids).
TIPS
• For more information, check their website at www.rom.on.ca.
• The museum is open 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. daily (it closes at 9:30 p.m. on Fridays). They offer Half-Price Friday Nights from 4:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. every Friday, which means the admission (not including the Dead Sea Scrolls) is then $11/adults, $9.50/seniors or students, and $7.50/4-14 years old instead of $22/adults, $19/seniors or students and $15/4-14 years old. It is free for kids 3 yars and under.
• They offer additional free family activities on the weekends.
In her personal yet practical 480-page guidebook, author Nathalie Prezeau describes hundreds of outings in and around the GTA she tested with her family and friends over the past twelve years. The 4th edition is out! It includes a new chapter on things to do with the kids around the 69 subway stations in Toronto, as well as exciting city walks to play the tourist in Toronto. Available in the Travel Section of GTA bookstores as well as Mastermind Educational Toys stores and currently at Costco. Visit www.torontofunplaces.com to learn more.
WRITTEN BY
Nathalie Prezeau, author of Toronto Fun Places
Not as psyched about back to school time as the parent in Staples’ hilarious ad? It may be because you’re realizing summer swooshed by once again and you never got to take your kids to one of the big-ticket attractions they begged you to. Well, there’s still some fun to be had after Labour Day. It’s not over till it’s over!
Here’s a list of major attractions normally associated with the summer, which are open beyond Labour Day. You probably won’t save on the regular admission cost but you can expect fewer visitors and cooler weather, all contributing to a more pleasant outing.
Marineland We prefer to attend Marineland during the fall. There’s lots of walking involved to enjoy the spread of activities, animals and shows throughout the site. The park is virtually shadowless. On days when the sun is blaring, it’s enough to melt most kids’ enthousiasm. On the other hand, when the temperature gets below 20 degrees, young visitors will climb up to the Sky Screamer like young mountain goats. Note that all the regular activities are offered in the fall. Hours: Open from September 6 to October 11, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. (doors close at 5 p.m. but attractions operate until nightfall). Admission: $40/10 years and over, $33/5-9 years old, FREE for kids 4 years and under (tax not included). Try to grab a promotional brochure of the area available in most attractions in Niagara. They normally include discount coupons.
Canada’s Wonderland Wonderland’s water park is now closed, which solves the usual dilemma of finding the time to do it all in one day. The other “dry” attractions remain open until the end of the season, weather permitting. Note that the regular admission does not include access to the Halloween Haunt event (held in October and recommended for kids 13 and over). Hours: Closed on September 12, then, open Saturdays and Sundays until end of October (from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. in September, and from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. in October). Note that the park has different opening hours for its Halloween Haunt event. Admission: During the fall weekends, the admission is down to $29.95 (tax not included). This does not include admission to their Halloween Haunt.
Ontario Place If the weather gets really warm in September, note that the waterpark within Ontario Place will remain open until the end of their season. Hours: Still open on September 12-13 and 19-20 from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. (the waterpark opens at 11 a.m.). Admission: You’ll save up to $3.50 per person by ordering online, which means admission cost is $30/6-64 years old, $16/4-5 years old and 65 and over, FREE for kids 3 years and under, $104/family of four ages 6-64 (tax not included).
Centreville Amusement Park The strike cheated us of a whole month of fun at the Centreville Amusement Park but we can still enjoy it on the weekends until the end of September. Hours: Open on September 12-13 and 19-20, from 10:30 a.m. to 6 p.m., and on September 26-27, from 10:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. (weather permitting). Admission: $29.50/over 48 inches, $21/4 years and under, $90/family of four (tax not included). The ferry is $6.50/adult, $3/kids, FREE for 2 years and under.
In her personal yet practical 480-page guidebook, author Nathalie Prezeau describes hundreds of outings in and around the GTA she tested with her family and friends over the past twelve years. The 4th edition is out! It includes a new chapter on things to do with the kids around the 69 subway stations in Toronto, as well as exciting city walks to play the tourist in Toronto. Available in the Travel Section of GTA bookstores as well as Mastermind Educational Toys stores and currently at Costco. Visit www.torontofunplaces.com to learn more.
WRITTEN BY
Nathalie Prezeau, author of Toronto Fun Places
Wondering where to go with the children on this nice summer day? To the park? To the farm? To the pool? There’s no need to take a vote. Half an hour away from Toronto, Bronte Creek offers a great farm-pool combination, with a play barn as a bonus! Not to forget a campground.
Not only does Bronte Creek Provincial Park have the usual walks and nature centre, it also boasts farmyard animals, a Victorian-style farm where they work the soil in the traditional way, and a barn transformed into an original playground. To complete this unique mixture of activities, it offers one of the largest pools in America.
Young families would be better advised to travel by car between activity centres spread throughout the vast park, in order to spare everyone’s energy. Save the giant pool for later in the day, when its shallow water has been heated to a comfortable temperature by the sun (in the morning, it’s cold enough to turn any moms’ legs numb!).
I recommend beginning the visit with a walk in the morning, while kids are still “fresh”. Park at lot F to access the trails by Spruce Farm. The Half Moon Valley trail is an excellent starting point for the whole family. It offers a 2-km walk, and it is bordered by wild flowers and old trees of unusual shapes. In certain spots, the wide path runs alongside the cliff by the wide Bronte Creek.
On your way back from the trail, you can visit the two-storey Spruce Farm, built in 1899. During the summer, there usually are costumed actors moving about and showing visitors a glimpse of rural life in the early part of the last century. There will be more activities around the farm during their special Farm Day on August 22, from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. (with extra fees for wagon and pony rides).
Turtles, snakes and fish await you inside the small nature centre near parking lot C. Bees go in and out through a long pipe connected to the outside. Not far from there, various buildings house rabbits, hens, chicks, pigs and horses.
All that becomes less interesting once kids spot the great play barn with its hanging bridges, tunnels, large tires to climb on and its second storey platform from which children can jump into the big cushions without breaking their necks. (It even has a heated section for parents who are waiting while their kids go wild during the colder months!)
The Bronte Creek pool, located near parking lot D, holds 1.3 million gallons of water spread over a 1.8-acre area. To give you an idea, it took me 500 steps to go around it! It is fabulous for children: no more than two metres deep in the middle, more than half its area is like a gigantic wading pool where little swimmers can frolic without swallowing mouthfuls of water. Those who seek shade can plant their umbrellas on the grass around it. Several picnic tables and a snack bar are located right outside the pool grounds.
Between that and the play barn, you’ll have them singing Old MacDonald had a pool, Ee i ee i oh at the end of the day!
If you want to try camping with your family, the provincial park’s campground (with over 140 relatively secluded lots) is located a 5-minute ride away from the main park, on another piece of land.
TIPS
• Bring mosquito repellent if you intend to stroll on the trails. One day, when we had some on and were really enjoying ourselves on the trails, we saw a family fleeing from the woods in a panic. Not the best way to initiate to kids to the pleasure of Mother Nature!
• Admission is $15 per vehicle, plus $3/adults and $2/kids if you want to use the pool. The pool is open from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m., weather permitting. The park is open from 8 a.m. to dusk. The barn and farm are open from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.
• For directions, check the Friends of Bronte Creek website.
• To book a camping spot, go to the Explore the Park option on the Friends of Bronte Creek website and select Campgrounds in the upper menu, it will lead you to Ontario Provincial Parks online reservation service. Click the “By Internet” link in their “Make a Reservation” section to access a very useful Availability Grid in their Tools section. It will allow you to find out about availability on specific dates for each of the three campgrounds in Bronte Creek Provincial Park (with info regarding site quality, privacy and shade for each lot available appearing at the bottom of the page when you click on the site’s number).
In her personal yet practical 480-page guidebook, author Nathalie Prezeau describes hundreds of outings in and around the GTA she tested with her family and friends over the past twelve years. The 4th edition is out! It includes a new chapter on things to do with the kids around the 69 subway stations in Toronto, as well as exciting city walks to play the tourist in Toronto. Available in the Travel Section of GTA bookstores as well as Mastermind Educational Toys stores and currently at Costco. Visit www.torontofunplaces.com to learn more.
WRITTEN BY
Nathalie Prezeau, author of Toronto Fun Places
Hard to start the summer with a splash when a strike hits the public pools! Perfect time to head to the beach: Cobourg Beach for instance. Not only is this wide beach the real thing, with hard packed sandy bottom, clear water and infinite horizon, it comes with a super spray pad, a yummy ice cream parlour and a choice of dynamic festivals which have become traditions in Cobourg. The stuff great summer memories are made of.
Cobourg’s shallow water is pleasantly refreshing, yet it warms up quickly in the middle of the summer. Young swimmers can actually walk and meet the waves over a 50-metre distance without getting water over their head.
It never takes long for my daughter to join new friends for a game of wave catching and burying in the sand. Many embark on digging engineering projects (bring containers and shovels!). No wonder this beach is the location of the yearly Sandcastle Festival on the first weekend of August.
The spray pad by the boardwalk is simply lovely and much appreciated by the kids. There used to be a mini golf as well but I could not get a confirmation that it’s still offered.
The 19th Cobourg Waterfront Festival is taking place during the Canada Day weekend, from July 1 to July 4. It is chock-full of original attractions such as fireworks display on July 1st at 10 p.m., acrobatics and canopy formations demonstration by the Canadian Force Parachute Team over the lake on July 2 at 10:45 a.m. and the 1812’s re-enactment from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. on July 4 along with a midway on the pier, art shows and other activities spilling into nearby streets. Check the Festival Map on their website.
TIPS
• Cobourg Beach is located within Victoria Park in the City of Cobourg. From Hwy 401 East, exit #472/regional Hwy 2 southbound. Turn east on King Street, then south on Division Street. It takes about 70 minutes to get there from downtown Toronto.
• There’s normally plenty of parking places on a regular weekend but I was told by a parent who was there during one of Cobourg’s festivals that parking was an issue. I’ve seen that the city has organized free shuttles from additional parking lots around Division and Ewart Streets during the Cobourg Waterfront Festival so they seem to have solved the problem.
• Harbourlight Delights is the cute ice cream parlour at the junction of Charles and Division Streets, a walking distance from the beach. You’ve got to stop there at the end of the day, when the sunlight turns coral and most visitors have left. It’s soooo relaxing.
• If you follow the beach to the east (the seagulls’ favourite spot) you’ll reach adjacent Breakers Motel through its own private beach. They rent nice cottages, which would offer a really cool weekend getaway!
• I’ve never seen the Sandcastle Festival myself but check their website to watch the video clip. The creations are quite ambitious and don’t interfere with the water fun. It’s going on on the first weekend of August, with the competitions taking place on the Saturday and, weather permitting, the possibility of admiring the results on the Sunday. It costs $5 for a passport giving access to all the festival’s activities.
In her personal yet practical 480-page guidebook, author Nathalie Prezeau describes hundreds of outings in and around the GTA she tested with her family and friends over the past twelve years. The 4th edition is out! It includes a new chapter on things to do with the kids around the 69 subway stations in Toronto, as well as exciting city walks to play the tourist in Toronto. Available in the Travel Section of GTA bookstores as well as Mastermind Educational Toys stores and currently at Costco. Visit www.torontofunplaces.com to learn more.
WRITTEN BY
Nathalie Prezeau, author of Toronto Fun Places
Not only is Awenda Provincial Park your best bet to enjoy Georgian Bay’s clear water, it offers no less than four beaches to explore, all accessible from a 2-km trail and each one very different from the next.
The first beach you’ll encounter is a short walk from the first two parking lots. It is my family’s favourite, with gulls resting on rocks sitting above the water and small pebbles nestled in patches of nice sand.
From there, we could walk to the second beach, crossing over a small rocky section in the water (also just a short walk from the second parking lot). Last time we visited, the water had receded so much that what used to be a narrow stretch of pebbles on a previous stroll had turned into a sea of rocks, great for imaginative play. The whole place was an amazing playground to explore with the kids. One of the park’s rangers told me this had nothing to do with global warming but depended on levels of snow fall in the area. Which means that you never what awaits you at the second beach.
A lazy half-hour walk from the second parking lot along the wide and well-groomed Beach Trail, you’ll find the third beach. Located in a small tree-sheltered bay, this beach seems to be everyone’s favourite because of its emerald water and good sand with fewer pebbles.
Then, a further 10-minute walk brings you to the fourth beach, for a completely different panorama that embraces a wide view of the Georgian Bay. Very few people choose to do the extra walking. When we visited, it felt like we owned this beach adorned with little dunes and plants.
On our last visit, we were able to pull the kids from the beach to check out a few trails (all well indicated on the park’s map you get at the entrance). We did the Dunes Trail, a 3-km path which took us to a steep sandy slope. We actually just walked to that slope and turned back, which was all my 6-year-old could bare. Bring water! We also enjoyed a 1-km trail strolling around the Beaver Pond and later on, we walked a bit along the 5-km Wendat Trail which runs around Kettle’s Lake.
TIPS • The provincial park is open year-round. Admission was $11/vehicle in 2008. It is located 1 1/2 hour from downtown Toronto. • The flat Beach Trail (2-km one-way) is perfect for beginners. Note that you can easily drag a wagon with the picnic (and a little passenger) on that trail.
• The park’s page on the provincial parks’ website indicates that they rent canoes at Kettle’s Lake from the end of June to Labour Day but this page was last updated in 2006 so you will need to double-check with them.
• Awenda Park includes 333 campsites over 6 campgrounds. Nicely set under tall trees, many of them offer good privacy. I strongly recommend you visit www.ontarioparks.com to get great info regarding each campsite. You’ll have to persist a bit to find your way to the park’s campground maps. I don’t find it super user-friendly and you’ll have to indicate a date to access them, but once you’re there, you’ll know about site privacy rating, site shade, ground cover and, most importantly, about availibility for the dates you’d like to visit.
• Once we made a last-minute decision to go and could not get a site so we went to Camping Lafontaine, a 15-minute drive from the park (www.lafontaine-ent.on.ca) and got a spot in a very decent campsite amidst the trees.
In her personal yet practical 480-page guidebook, author Nathalie Prezeau describes hundreds of outings in and around the GTA she tested with her family and friends over the past twelve years. The 4th edition is out! It includes a new chapter on things to do with the kids around the 69 subway stations in Toronto, as well as exciting city walks to play the tourist in Toronto. Available in the Travel Section of GTA bookstores as well as Mastermind Educational Toys stores and currently at Costco. Visit www.torontofunplaces.com to learn more.
WRITTEN BY
Nathalie Prezeau, author of Toronto Fun Places
The Toronto Beaches Lions have been organizing the Easter Parade for over 30 years with the help of the whole community. What a wonderful excuse to do a daytrip in one of Toronto’s quaintest neighbourhoods.
There could hardly be a better setting for a successful Easter Parade than the stretch of Queen Street East running from Victoria Park to Woodbine Street, in the heart of the Beach Neighbourhood (still called The Beaches by many locals).
Expect lovely architecture, pretty storefront signs, wide sidewalks, cafés, restaurants, boutiques, parks and, to top it off, a string of beaches lined by a boardwalk and accessible from any street off Queen.
Every kid 10 years and younger that I have taken with me to see this parade has had a ball. I think it is due to the intimate ambience and the community spirit of the event… and the fact that we would treat them with a hot chocolate in nearby cafés and would allow them to stretch their legs in the adjacent park. During the parade, the small give-aways handed by some businesses are always a big hit.
Many store owners and organizations create ambitious mini-floats. In the past, we’ve seen a pick-up truck topped by a giant Easter hat, a “steamboat”, a travelling garden, a tractor pulling a multicoloured cart full of clowns and even a tractor-trailer filled with kids costumed as little chicks. The Easter Parade also features majorettes, small marching bands, amateur acrobats, fire trucks, children on decorated bikes, Star Wars characters (!) and other original characters. Last year, a dozen of costumed dogs showed up with their masters.
This year, I myself will join the parade with my own little “float” to promote Toronto Fun Places, my guide on family outings. Look for a couple of giant fish (I’ll say no more)!
While you’re there
After the parade, if you watched it from our favourite spot by Glen Manor Drive (less crowded and right next to a cute little park), you could walk northbound further down the narrow park. It will lead you to Glen Stewart Ravine in 5 minutes. Perfect for young adventurers, the ravine offers a 15-minute trail but the kids will want to explore the surroundings so it will take you longer to visit the place.
Another nice option is to walk a few minutes southbound off Queen Street to reach the Lake Ontario. To your left, you will find Balmy Beach and a small playground nearby. If you walk further east, past the boardwalk, you’ll be able to admire some great houses by the beach! If you choose instead to walk 10 minutes westbound to your right, you’ll reach the entrance to the Kew Gardens, stretching up to Queen Street and featuring one of the loveliest playgrounds in Toronto. Look for the big carved tree within the park on you way.
TIPS • The parade takes place, rain or shine. It starts at 2 p.m. on April 12 off Victoria Park and runs west along Queen, up to Woodbine. The whole affair is roughly an hour long.
• Don’t be scared off by the small crowds gathering at either end of the course. In between, I’ve always found lots of room for us to watch the parade. Since Queen Street is closed to motor vehicle more than one hour prior to the parade, I recommend that you park along Glen Manor Drive, accessible from Kingston Road. We never had problems finding a parking spot along Glen Manor Drive East or West.
More TIPS about Easter events at the farm
• For those of you who intend to visit a farm during an Easter event, expect mud! This is not the place for nice Sunday shoes or pretty suede boots. I even recommend bringing a set of extra clothes for the kids and some garbage bags to store their dirty boots once they’re in the car… Just in case.
• Not all the scavenger hunts for easter eggs are alike. Many farms have opted to offer different scavenger hunts for different age groups, which is my favourite scenario. I once went to a farm where they did not do this and our group of 4 families with 4 preschoolers left empty-handed! (The big kids were too quick!)
In her personal yet practical 480-page guidebook, author Nathalie Prezeau describes hundreds of outings in and around the GTA she tested with her family and friends over the past twelve years. The 4th edition is out! It includes a new chapter on things to do with the kids around the 69 subway stations in Toronto, as well as exciting city walks to play the tourist in Toronto. Available in the Travel Section of GTA bookstores as well as Mastermind Educational Toys stores. Visit www.torontofunplaces.com to learn more.
WRITTEN BY
Their crafts section is the best. You can search by age, type or even by material but the Holiday & Seasonal category is such a time saver. You won’t find a Family Day section in there since it’s an American website but Valentine’s Day, St. Patrick’s Day, April Fool’s Day, Easter and Mother’s Day will all come handy in the coming months.
Most pages are followed by a Show & Tell section where you get to see pictures of craft ideas submitted by families just like us. Very often, parents also submit photos of one of the Family Fun crafts they tried for themselves. I should send them my daughter’s picture of the bubble bather costume suggestion we used during our school’s Crazy Bubbles end-of-the-year party.
The independent cart is really catchy, filled with lively little fellows in their shiny shells painted in every colours with funny patterns. Since these land crabs are born without a shell, they spend their life “trading up” to find a better home (sounds familiar?). You can get a cage including a crab and two shells for around $45.
which has changed the whole look of Level 2. Gone were the sinuous dark corridors. Now, the open space is filled with glassed showcases featuring all kinds of animals, and big fish bathed in the light and floating from the ceiling, adding to the airy feeling of the place. Here and there, touch screens allow kids to choose from a selection of 30-second clips.
The nearby Minerals gallery, by the gorgeous mosaic ceiling, is even more breathtaking. Hundreds of artifacts in glittering glassed windows are regrouped under compelling themes such as “Minerals from ancient lavas flow”, “The stories minerals tell”, “Exceptional crystals from special environments” and “Colour in mineral and gems”. There’s a whole section filled with meteorites, others on diamonds, fluorescent rocks, rock molecular structures and more. Two large screens feature great visuals on a loop and you can play I-Spy games with your kids, thanks to touch screens presenting the full display of each showcase, from which they can select the rock they want to know more about.
When visiting Level 2 with kids, I recommend starting your tour with the Dinosaurs galleries followed by the section with the mammoth skeleton in the Mammals gallery. From there, you can now access the Birds gallery (don’t forget to check what’s inside the drawers!) and the Discovery Gallery (with its big teepee, costume section, digging sandpit and more). This will lead you to a kids’ favourite at the ROM: the Bat Cave, and the Hands-On Biodiversity section (still featuring a live bee colony). You can then walk through the new Biodiversity gallery and finish with the Minerals gallery.
We prefer to attend Marineland during the fall. There’s lots of walking involved to enjoy the spread of activities, animals and shows throughout the site. The park is virtually shadowless. On days when the sun is blaring, it’s enough to melt most kids’ enthousiasm. On the other hand, when the temperature gets below 20 degrees, young visitors will climb up to the Sky Screamer like young mountain goats. Note that all the regular activities are offered in the fall.
Wonderland’s water park is now closed, which solves the usual dilemma of finding the time to do it all in one day. The other “dry” attractions remain open until the end of the season, weather permitting. Note that the regular admission does not include access to the Halloween Haunt event (held in October and recommended for kids 13 and over).
If the weather gets really warm in September, note that the waterpark within Ontario Place will remain open until the end of their season.
The strike cheated us of a whole month of fun at the Centreville Amusement Park but we can still enjoy it on the weekends until the end of September.
Young families would be better advised to travel by car between activity centres spread throughout the vast park, in order to spare everyone’s energy. Save the giant pool for later in the day, when its shallow water has been heated to a comfortable temperature by the sun (in the morning, it’s cold enough to turn any moms’ legs numb!).
summer, there usually are costumed actors moving about and showing visitors a glimpse of rural life in the early part of the last century. There will be more activities around the farm during their special Farm Day on August 22, from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. (with extra fees for wagon and pony rides).
The Bronte Creek pool, located near parking lot D, holds 1.3 million gallons of water spread over a 1.8-acre area. To give you an idea, it took me 500 steps to go around it! It is fabulous for children: no more than two metres deep in the middle, more than half its area is like a gigantic wading pool where little swimmers can frolic without swallowing mouthfuls of water. Those who seek shade can plant their umbrellas on the grass around it. Several picnic tables and a snack bar are located right outside the pool grounds.
Cobourg’s shallow water is pleasantly refreshing, yet it warms up quickly in the middle of the summer. Young swimmers can actually walk and meet the waves over a 50-metre distance without getting water over their head.
The spray pad by the boardwalk is simply lovely and much appreciated by the kids. There used to be a mini golf as well but I could not get a confirmation that it’s still offered.
y, when the sunlight turns coral and most visitors have left. It’s soooo relaxing.
From there, we could walk to the second beach, crossing over a small rocky section in the water (also just a short walk from the second parking lot). Last time we visited, the water had receded so much that what used to be a narrow stretch of pebbles on a previous stroll had turned into a sea of rocks, great for imaginative play. The whole place was an amazing playground to explore with the kids. One of the park’s rangers told me this had nothing to do with global warming but depended on levels of snow fall in the area. Which means that you never what awaits you at the second beach.
it felt like we owned this beach adorned with little dunes and plants.
• The flat Beach Trail (2-km one-way) is perfect for beginners. Note that you can easily drag a wagon with the picnic (and a little passenger) on that trail.
Expect lovely architecture, pretty storefront signs, wide sidewalks, cafés, restaurants, boutiques, parks and, to top it off, a string of beaches lined by a boardwalk and accessible from any street off Queen.
This year, I myself will join the parade with my own little “float” to promote Toronto Fun Places, my guide on family outings. Look for a couple of giant fish (I’ll say no more)!
Queen, up to Woodbine. The whole affair is roughly an hour long.