Waybuloo, or why I love Canadian Children's Television

Treehouse is a children's television channel in Canada. It has a number of shows new to my children, but my favorite is Waybuloo, mainly because the music is super chill, it has a prayer wheel and they do yoga.  Let me repeat that: they do yoga. It is on during the day, but it is also on at 8 p.m., which is such a groovy way to end the day.  The entire show is like taking a Xanax for child and adult.  (It probably would be more relaxing if we actually got up and did the yoga, instead of just watching, right?)

There are other reasons I love Canadian television. I've learned a lot about Canada!  This is Emily Yeung is a show that is about 5-7 minutes in length that shows a 7 year old interviewing and learning about different careers and topics.  We've seen her make chocolate croissants, become a blue man in the blue man group, visit Cirque du Soleil (Canadian, of course!), learn about water safety and learn about trick jump roping.  How cool is it to have a confident, poised child show other children interesting things?  

They also read and teach poetry.   It is on a show called 4 Square, which may be local to Toronto, but we've learned some cool poems. This is also a 5-7 minute show-between-show.  We've also learned that Toronto has a poet laureate.  Awesome!  

Bad things about Canadian children's television? A lot of Caillou. He has not moved past 4, unfortunately, and still has that annoying voice (he is also Canadian).  And, Barney. Seriously, did we need to export him? NO. Past students will know my feelings about this character and his show.  

One other thing: there are French stations, so while we haven't explored them yet, I do know popular kid shows, like Wonder Pets, are in French. Also pretty awesome!

Education in Canada

This could be a much longer, separate post. Briefly, a few comments:

• They have a surplus of teachers. So if I wanted to work here, I would have to apply and be interviewed by a panel of administrators to be a supply, or substitute teacher.  Maybe, after a few years, a job would open up and I would be able to get it.  This is even in hard to staff areas, like inner city schools.  This is a generalization, and I don't have all of the facts, but generally speaking, this means that there is no D.C. situation where we are hiring 500-750 brand new teachers every year to teach the neediest kids.   
• Maternity leave is one year, ladies. One year. And then you get your classroom back (or school, if you are an administrator).
• They assign in-services based on test scores. Testing is completed in grades 3, 6, and 9.  If your school is in the middle, for example, you go to one set of trainings, versus another school, who may be at the bottom or top.  
• Test scores are reported in a really cool way, where first they report how they students feel about their abilities (I can solve challenging math problems, for example) and the demographics from the school, and then the scores from the tests. (I linked to a school above as an example, but not our school.)
• Every child learns French, either in Francophone schools (native speakers from Quebec parents), immersion, or core French in grades 4-8.
• Catholic schools are funded in Toronto. Weird, right? 

I've been really impressed with Toronto District School Board as an example of a large city school board that has a multi-cultural population and apparently consistent results across the city.  Again, this is fairly uninformed, as I've only been in the city a few weeks, but just being in my daughter's school, I'm impressed by the consistency and quality of what you see in the classrooms - the anchor charts, the behavior of the children, and the focus on what we in FCPS thought of as core values and best practices. They seem to be ahead of us here, and more unified in their approach. (You should see their arts standards!) I wonder why that is? I wonder what the teachers think about this? I'll have to ask and find out. More to come.

POP QUIZ

When is Canada Day?

Answer in our next post. No googling!

Bloor West Village

One of the cool things about Toronto is that it really is a city made up of neighborhoods. I live in the Kingsway, but went over one village to Bloor West Village, because it has a better independent bookstore, Book City.  Bloor West Village (and my neighborhood) are both on the TTC, or local subway line.

I wanted some books about Canadian history and culture. It is amazing that I've lived South of the Border for so many years and really know nothing about Canada. Nothing about it's history, politics, etc.  Yet Canadians are remarkably more worldly and well-educated about the world, including the U.S.  The wonderful and informative salesperson was able to point me to these three, after remarking she hasn't read anything about Canadian history since high school!:

• A Short History of Canada
• A History of Canadian Culture
• Just Watch Me: The Life of Pierre Elliott Trudeau
• Apparently Trudeau is a famous and influential politician, to the point that this is Volume 2 of his biography, but they didn't have volume 1 so I will have to start in the middle.  Um, I've never heard of him before. I feel like this is like someone moving to America and never hearing of Roosevelt, so I feel particularly guilty.  

I was also able to find You Can't Say That In Canada, by Globe and Mail columnist Margaret Wente, who've I've decided is the Canadian version of my friend M.D. from college: opinionated, controversial, funny.  I'm enjoying her book of extended columns so far. (Her cover design is pretty funny.)

Now that I've enrolled myself in Canada 101, I'm hoping to remedy my ignorance, and I'll let you know the high points. And because I'm a teacher, there may be a pop quiz.  You never know.

On the fun reading side, I also picked up The Poisoner's Handbook, about how forensic science developed to identify death by poisoning, and Terry Pratchett's I Shall Wear Midnight, a new Tiffany Aching novel from his Young Adult series.  If you've not read Terry Pratchett, go. read. him. right. now. (My favorites: Night Watch, Nation)

As for the weather, it got up to a balmy -1 degrees C, so we enjoyed the warm weather and didn't even wear gloves!

Costco in Canada

S and I went to Costco today to get snow tires for the car.  While I guess they aren't really necessary, they are for me, since I grew up in SoCal and my snow driving capabilities aren't the best. I could have gone to Canadian Tire,  but the ladies at E's school suggested Costco because they also install them right away, so off we went.

While we were there, we were told by the helpful tire salesperson that we would remove our snow tires around April.   Yes, you read that right.  There may be a freak snowstorm in April, Nazz says, but you should be O.K.  And you should be wearing long sleeved t-shirts and jeans without a jacket in May.  My most important question was when I would be wearing flip-flops.  He said, "Maybe by late June?"  Then, we will put our snow tires back on our car around October.

Costco is a great adventure.  I was not a big Costco shopper in the states and tried to avoid going for the sake of our bank account. While the $2 hot dog/soda (pop, here) is a deal, it isn't when accompanied by a $500 purchase, eh?

The fun thing about going here, like everything, is the differences. The main one is no alcohol - all alcohol here is sold at the LCBO, so there is no wine and beer section. They have a fabulous baked good section, with apple turnovers, ciabatta rolls, and different varieties of breads.  The cheese is super expensive.  I did used to shop at Costco to get cheaper parmesan and a large wedge here was over $30 Canadian, so no cheese!

I also bought milk.  Milk is sold in bags in Canada, much to J's chagrin.  It caused us much confusion on our first trip to Costco!  Milk comes in a 4 liter large bag, with 3 smaller bags inside.  The smaller bags go in a plastic milk pitcher, available in any grocery store, and you cut the corner off and pour out of the smaller bag in the pitcher.  It is great for my kids, because they can pour their own milk (most of the time!), but I feel like I go through milk much faster this way than with using the large gallon jugs we have in the U.S.

The best difference of Canada Costco, though, is the book section. There were hardly any authors I knew! Hooray! They had a lot of Canadian authors, or international authors, but it was not the same section as the one in Virginia, and I'm looking forward to getting to know more Canadian authors.  For the kids, I found an emphasis on Richard Scarry (is he Canadian?*) and Robert Munsch.  Of course, they did have some popular or familiar novels, because everyone needs to read the unauthorized biography of Oprah by Kitty Kelley, right? Otherwise, I picked up The Sea Captain's Wife and I'm looking forward to my first Canadian read.

*No. He's from Massachusetts, according to Wikipedia.  But he lived in Switzerland for awhile.