Okay, this? Best parenting advice I’ve read in a long time, and very in line with my ever-strengthening philosophy of giving kids room to be kids. Thank you to my friend and longtime reader Kim for sharing this article in the weekend Globe and Mail: Bucket list for kids: 50 things to do before they’re 12
I love this, because I think each and every one of these is an excellent activity — and yet it makes me sad and kind of tired. Do we as parents really need to make an itemized checklist of experiences our kids must achieve? Meh, maybe the grey Ottawa skies and cold, damp temperatures are making me cantankerous. It actually sounds like a road map to a pretty great summer, if spring ever decides to return.
Here’s the official list, editorialized with my own local spin:
1. Climb a tree
2. Roll down a really big hill (Mooney’s Bay has a great one for this!)
3. Camp out in the wild (did you know there’s a campground on Prince of Wales just north of Hunt Club? Practically downtown!)
4. Build a den
5. Skim a stone (I recommend Britannia Beach for this one!)
6. Run around in the rain (or puddles, maybe?)
7. Fly a kite
8. Catch a fish with a net
9. Eat an apple straight from a tree (we love Kilmarnock and Cannamore orchards)
10. Play conkers
11. Throw some snow (can we wait until December for this one, please?)
12. Hunt for treasure on the beach
13. Make a mud pie
14. Dam a stream
15. Go sledging
16. Bury someone in the sand
17. Set up a snail race
18. Balance on a fallen tree
19. Swing on a rope swing (the rope swing is hands down the kid-favourite feature in our backyard)
20. Make a mud slide
21. Eat blackberries growing in the wild (there are – or were – wild raspberries growing along the boardwalk at the Chapman Mills Conservation Area)
22. Take a look inside a tree
23. Visit an island
24. Feel like you’re flying in the wind
25. Make a grass trumpet
26. Hunt for fossils and bones
27. Watch the sun wake up
28. Climb a huge hill
29. Get behind a waterfall (or maybe go caving?)
30. Feed a bird from your hand (bring some seed to the Lime Kiln Trail or Hogsback Falls for this one!)
31. Hunt for bugs
32. Find some frogspawn
33. Catch a butterfly in a net
34. Track wild animals
35. Discover what’s in a pond (Mud Lake is great for this!)
36. Call an owl
37. Check out the crazy creatures in a rock pool
38. Bring up a butterfly
39. Catch a crab
40. Go on a nature walk at night
41. Plant it, grow it, eat it
42. Go wild swimming
43. Go rafting
44. Light a fire without matches (um, no thanks)
45. Find your way with a map and a compass
46. Try bouldering
47. Cook on a campfire
48. Try abseiling
49. Find a geocache
50. Canoe down a river (although you might want to wait until they’re older than 3 and 5 yrs old!)
I figure the boys have a good half of the items crossed off, and I can tell you for sure I won’t be taking them abseiling any time soon – although the zip-line at a local aerial park is not out of question. What do you think? Is there anything on here a child of 12 can or cannot live without doing? Something you’d add to the list?
Looking for a fun idea for family fun this weekend? How about hopping over to the Ottawa Humane Society to celebrate spring during their open house? Here’s some info:
Come visit our new shelter and enjoy lots of family-friendly spring activities – including an Easter egg hunt, crafts and having your photos taken with the Easter Bunny!
When: Sunday, April 1, 2012
Where: 245 West Hunt Club Rd between Merivale and Price of Wales
Time: from 11am-2pm
Leap over to the OHS with your friends and family. For more information check out our website at: http://ottawahumane.ca/events/easter.cfm. If you still have questions, call 613-725-3166 ext 298 or email programs@ottawahumane.ca.
I love this idea, as I haven’t been out to see the new OHS since their renovation — but I fear I would not make it home without another furry, photogenic addition to our family!
Holy cow, did you see the weather forecast for March Break in Ottawa? Sunny and 10C to 15C! Glad we’re staying in town to enjoy it!
If you’re also staying around town and looking for ideas to keep the kids entertained, here’s a handful of ideas for you!
1. RCMP Musical Ride Stables
I wrote about the RCMP Stables earlier this week, and I said then that it shot to the number one spot for my recommendations for FREE family fun in Ottawa. Gorgeous horses, a bit of history, and completely free. You can read the blog post here!
2. Movies and Popcorn
The Rainbow Cinema at St Laurent have some fun kids movies playing this week, and admission is only $5 per person (or $2 if you go on Tuesday!) This week, you can see The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn, Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked, Hugo and (yay!) The Muppets.
3. Visit a Museum
Do your kids like airplanes? Visit the Aviation Museum. Animals? Visit the Experimental Farm. Dinosaurs? They’ll love the Museum of Nature. Art? Take ‘em to the National Gallery. Trains and rocketships? You’ve got to go to the Museum of Science and Technology. Really, you could spend the whole March Break museum-hopping and not double-up once!
4. It’s Maple Season!
I’m a fan of the Log Farm sugarbush off Cedarview Rd in Barrhaven, but there are tonnes of sugar shacks around Ottawa. We’ve been to Stanley’s Old Time Farm, too. It will be great weather to get out and enjoy one of Canada’s best seasonal treats!
5. Take a day off
It’s fun to be doing stuff, but it’s also fun to be doing nothing. Make sure you schedule some downtime with quiet activities like board games, crafty projects and other fun stuff that doesn’t require you to get dressed and leave the house!
Still looking for ideas? Check out these blog posts in my archives for more suggestions!
Five warm and frost-free indoor places to visit on Family Day
Seven days of free family fun in Ottawa!
Five crafty ideas to keep kids busy
What will YOU be doing this March Break?
Edited to add: Ha! Listen to the scheduling mom with a plan (me), a bunch of kids and a laid-back dad named Pedro are all approaching March Break from our own perspectives with this fun clip that aired on CBC radio Ottawa Morning today. Warning – funky music alert!! 
I have been blogging about raising a family in Ottawa for seven years and this? May be the best discovery of them all. I’ve recommended a tour of the RCMP Musical Ride Centre a couple of times as an excellent idea for free family fun in Ottawa, but I’ve never actually gotten around to doing it before now. This one has just shot to the top of my list of awesome (free!) things to do with kids in Ottawa!
Most people have heard of the RCMP’s Musical Ride, featured on the back of the Canadian $50 bill, but did you know the stables where they keep and train those magnificent horses is right here in Ottawa? I’d been meaning to take the boys down there for ages, but never got around to it. On Sunday morning, we were invited to join Simon’s Beaver scout colony for a private tour, and I have to tell you, I was amazed that I don’t hear more people raving about this.
There’s a bit of a museum, with a history of the Musical Ride, and a tack station and a farrier’s station. You can see the landau that Princess Kate and Prince William promenaded in when they visited – it was hand-crafted in 1890 in Austria and is still used for ceremonial transport of heads of state. But the real treat is the horses themselves. They’re beautiful, friendly, docile creatures (with a few exceptions!) and I was completely enamoured by Turbo in particular. He was so tall I had to stand on my tiptoes to pat his downy forehead, which he willingly crammed his face into the bars of his stall to allow me to do!
Our tour guide was Constable Ben Macconnell (how cool is THIS? they even have their own Musical Ride trading cards!), and I wish I could remember half of the interesting tidbits and lore he shared with us. For example, did you know the RCMP’s horses are at minimum 16 hands tall, which is a couple of hands taller than they were even 20 years ago, and they’re always black, and have been since, um, a former RCMP Commissioner at some point in the past (sorry, I forgot to take notes!) decreed they would all look the same. Each year, 16 new RCMP members train to join 16 existing members of the team, and they tour Canada and the world as the Musical Ride. Some members who join the team have never even been on a horse before, and they go through an intensive training program and during their 18-week lead up to touring season they spending hours each day putting the horses (and the riders!) through their paces. This year, they will be travelling to England to perform for the Queen for her diamond jubilee. (Can you imagine the logistics of getting 36 horses across the pond? Yikes!)
Since we toured on a Sunday morning, we didn’t get to see the exercises, which is why we’ll be heading back during the March Break! What a great March Break activity, eh? Here’s a peek at our tour.
This is my new number-one favourite Ottawa family activity, and I can’t recommend it highly enough! I’m not entirely clear on whether you can see the horses and riders going through their paces all the time or just in the 18 weeks that lead up to the summer performance season, so you might want to check ahead of time. Here’s the information from the Musical Ride Centre website:
Musical Ride Visitors’ Centre information: tours@rcmp-f.ca
Tours are available:
May 1 – August 31: daily 9:00 a.m. – 3:30 p.m.
September – April: Tuesday and Thursday 10:00 – 2:00 p.m.
Don’t miss this one!
It’s hard to believe a whole ten years (!) have passed since I showed up for my first Strollercize outing at Boomerang Kids on Bank Street. I can barely remember being that girl, shy and still overwhelmed by being a new mom, looking for any excuse to get out of the house and interacting with grown-ups for a change.
I remember showing up clutching my signed waiver, trying to stand near the back and getting pulled in with a warm welcome. I remember loving the circuitous loop we did along Queen Elizabeth Drive and the Canal, and the way the instructors made it possible for everyone to work at their own speed and their own level while still challenging us and keeping us energized. I remember sitting in the sun on the grassy bank near Lansdowne Park doing stretches, and doing pushups against benches and the rail along the Canal. I remember those outings becoming the highlight of my week. And I remember in October of that year I ran my first 5K, pushing Tristan’s stroller in the CIBC Run for the Cure, something I’d worked toward that whole summer at strollercize.
It’s a shame, really, that I haven’t blogged about how great that experience was before now. I’d more or less forgotten all of it, though, until I got an e-mail a few weeks ago from Jules Hilliker. She’s the coordinator for the (completely FREE!) strollercize program offered through Boomerang Kids stores in Ottawa, and the energy behind Fitness with Jules. You can’t read an e-mail from Jules without feeling energized and enthusiastic — she’s got that infectious kind of energy that radiates out of even her written words. And when she asked for my help to spread the word about the strollercize program, I couldn’t help but say yes. Jules’ e-mail said in part: ‘Over the years hundreds of new families have found Strollercize through word of mouth, the only thing that saddens me is when a Mom shows up with an 8 month old and says, “This is amazing, how come I did not know about this earlier?”‘ And I was smiling, both from Jules’ enthusiasm and from the warm memories from my own strollercize experience.
Strollercize runs all year long out of the Bank Street location, but the program will be returning to all stores in March. If you’re looking for a fantastic FREE way to get out of the house, meet other moms and get a little exercise, I can’t say enough great things about it. Interested? Here’s the details from the website:
WHAT you need…
The baby!
Comfortable walking shoes
Dress appropriately for the weather – we walk rain or shine
Water bottle (for you)
Small snack
HOW to join…
Just show up on the day of your choice, and bring the signed waiver (available at the stores, or download one from the site).
Call Boomerang Kids if the weather forecast is calling for +30C or -30C.
Thanks to Jules for reaching out and reminding me about this terrific program. Makes me want to have another baby — or maybe I can borrow one and join in?
If you’re looking for another great suggestion for free outdoor fitness, stay tuned! I have a great suggestion for you coming up. No babies required!!
Looking for a great way to spend next Monday, Family Day, in Ottawa? Head downtown and make your way through these three fun events!
Start out on ice and join Mayor Jim Watson for a Family Day skating party from 11 am to 2 pm at the city’s new Rink of Dreams in front of city hall. It’s free, and there will be hot chocolate too!
Then warm up at the National Art Centre with an afternoon of fun “for children age five and up and the people who love them.”
The National Arts Centre English Theatre is proud to present its second annual celebration of family on Monday, February 20, 2012. This special family day event, launched in 2011, features a cornucopia of hands-on activities for children and the people who love them…and it’s all free!
Join us for a memorable day of stories, games, interactive displays, homemade treats and special workshops throughout the NAC lobby. The NAC English Theatre family day event is proud to be a part of Winterlude 2012 festivities.
Come and be part of the NAC Family on February 20.
Join us for:
storytelling
theatre and dance workshops
large-scale interactive games
activities with themes of creativity and environmentalism
arts and crafts
button-making
ArtsAlive website demonstration
face-painting … and much more!
Monday, February 20, 2012 from 12 – 4 p.m. in the NAC Lobby
See the NAC website for more details!
And finally, drop by Old Navy in the Rideau Centre for the Funnovation Imaginarium.
Kids from all over the Ottawa area are invited to this special in-store event to experience the Funnovation Imaginarium, a place where you have insane amounts of fun while being crazy creative. Highlights include:
A Crazy Cookie Bar!
A Funky Floor where kids can show off their dance moves
An accessory creation station
A Funnovation Catwalk to model their wacky accessories
A Funnovation Lab to create crazy creatures and monster machines; and
A free gift with purchase
Disclosure: Smile for the camera while you’re there — I’ve been hired to photograph the Funnovation Imaginarum event!
Do you have any ideas to share for Family Day fun?
