Memory Lane Family Place
22 Memory Lane, Lower Sackville, NS.
Phone: 864-6363 Fax: 864-4998
Spring, 2013
Happy Spring!
Fall 2011
National Volunteer Week -April 21st
It has finally sprung (or is springing.) Winter
felt long and cold - warmer days ahead! We
look forward to families attending spring
programs.
Watch all bulletin boards at the centre for
updated information. Enjoy the months
ahead.
~ Staff
We would like to say a big –
“THANK YOU”
To the Association’s Board of Directors,
The Parent Advisory Committee and all those who help
support programs at The Memory Lane Family Place.
Family Fun Active Challenge
Preschool Information Meeting
May 15th -7pm
An information meeting will be held at the
Memory Lane Family Place for parents
interested in enrolling children in the 2013-2014
preschool program. Join us for a tour of the
preschool, hear about the program and meet
the staff.
Memory Lane Family Place
Saturday, June 1st – 2:00-4:00 pm
(rain date: Sunday June 2nd)
“Come One, Come All -We’ll Have A Ball
It Will Be Fun Doing It,
Staying Active & Getting Fit!!!”
Fun activities, snacks & prizes
Sponsored by the Memory Lane Family Place Parent Committee
Shorts - t-shirts – sandals – hats – dresses
Clothing Depot
Spring is in the air and the clothing depot is
brimming with spring and summer clothing for
the whole family.
Clothing depot hours:
Tuesday & Thursday 2:00 -4:00 pm
Shorts - t-shirts – sandals – hats – dresses
Family Fun Night
April 26th - Movie Night - Title: Brave
May 30th - Lego Night
Basic Shelf Cooking
Recipes from the Family Table
Would you like to know more about providing nutritious,
affordable meals for your family?
Tried, tested, and true by real families!
The Basic Shelf cooking program is a series of cooking classes which
uses a list of basic ingredients to prepare healthy meals for your family.
Each participant will receives a cookbook with a variety of recipes that are
nutritious, tasty and are quick and easy to make. Using these recipes will
help you save money and you will still be able to enjoy healthy, nutritious
foods.
The Basic Shelf Cooking Program will begin on
Wednesday April 17 at 9:30
We welcome you to pick-up a copy of
Memory Lane’s cook book. Compiled by
the Parent advisory Committee, each and
every recipe has been meticulously chosen
to meet the requirements of a healthy
lifestyle within a budget. Copies will be
available through the office.
Check breeze-way for more information.
Child care will be provided in the PlayShop. Space is limited.
If you are interested in signing- up, please speak to Beth.
HRM’s Citizen Contact Centres
Emotional Coping Group
211- An information and referral service that will connect people
with the most appropriate services to meet their needs for human,
social and health-related information and referral services. Our
call centre is staffed with information specialists who are trained
to deal with the most complex and sensitive challenges and they
know how to get to the real issue facing a caller. It is free,
confidential and available 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.
Memory Lane Family Place
May 1st -June 19th - 1:30 -3:30
311- More than a telephone number, 311 is your direct
connection to important municipal services and information. Call
toll-free from anywhere throughout HRM and our friendly and
knowledgeable agents can provide you with a wide variety of
municipal information and services in over 150 languages using a
telephone interpretation service.
Hours of operation: 7 a.m. to 11 p.m. daily
After-hour urgent service- 11 p.m. to 7
a.m. Requests for Transportation, Municipal Operations,
Facilities, Animal Services, Waste Water Services and Illegally
Parked Vehicles
Are you pregnant or postpartum?
Do you want more control over your emotions?
Do you struggle with over reacting or under
reacting?
Have you had struggles with important
relationships?
Do you have feelings of isolation?
Emotional Coping is a group for women struggling with
regulating their emotions and wanting to learn
different ways of tolerating distress.
Happy, Healthy & Safe
“Is active play becoming extinct?”...
Children and youth are not
getting enough active play –
especially outdoors. Forty- six
per cent of kids are getting
three hours or less of active
play per week, including
weekends.
Children and youth are not
using their “free time” for active
play. School Lunchtime, after
school and weekends are
opportune times for kids to play
actively; however, 63 per cent
of kids’ time after school and
on weekends is spent being
sedentary.
Furthermore, at lunch and after
school, kids are getting only
24 minutes of moderate- to
vigorous-intensity physical
activity out of a possible four
hours. The proportion of
Canadian kids who play outside
after school dropped 14 per cent.
over the last decade.
This is a question being posed by many health professionals when they are considering the present and future health of children. The facts mentioned
above are ‘Highlights from the 2012 Active Healthy Kids Canada Report Card on Physical Activity for Children and Youth’.
What are children doing all day? Stats gathered in this study revealed that… On average, only 12% of Canadian children take part in enough physical
activity. By the time children reach grade 6to 12 they are spending seven hours and 48 minutes per day in front of screens. The largest source of screen
time is television, followed by computers and then video games.”
Why should we be concerned?. Studied are showing that.... ”Screen time has adverse effects on physical health, health behaviours and sociocognitive outcomes. Seated video gaming, specifically, is associated with elevated blood pressure and blood lipids, which are risk factors for
cardiovascular disease. Additionally, in a study of students in Grades 6 to 10, video game and computer use were associated with violence such as
physical fights and bullying.
What can we do to reverse this trend toward inactivity? The experts advise that parents - “Supporting and encouraging opportunities for safe, free,
unstructured play, this may be one of the most promising, accessible and cost-effective solutions to increasing child and youth physical activity in
Canada”.
Active play offers cognitive, emotional and social development benefits. It has been shown to improve and foster motor function, creativity, decisionmaking and problem-solving skills, the ability to control emotions, social skills such as taking turns and helping others, and preschoolers’ speech. A study
in Ontario showed that children aged three to five who play outdoors for at least two hours a day were more likely to meet physical activity guidelines.
Following are some tips to increase activity in children .
 Start early and get your toddlers moving
 Encourage your young kids to play.
 Provide a safe, nurturing and minimally structured play environment.
 Get your child to climb, swing and play at the local playground.
 Instead of using a stroller, encourage your child to walk part of the way.
 Too wet or cold out? Turn up the music and have a dance party. Dance, dance, dance
 Take a walk/wheel after supper – and make it an adventure
 Organize neighbourhood games to help children make active choices
 Create a walking/wheeling school bus
 Pretend to slither like a snake and roll like a rolling pin down a small grassy slope
 Play throwing games – including having your child throw at a target as hard as they can
 Jump, make shapes in the air or jump to see how high or far you can go
 Join learn to swim programs
 Ride a tricycle, or a bike – with or without training wheels to develop dynamic balance
 Encourage unstructured play with their friends everyday
 Enroll your child in a range of different activities
 Leave the car at home when going on short trips
 Skip rope
 Jump from one foot and from both
 Introduce your child to skates or skis
 And above all remember the things you enjoyed doing as a child, recreate these games and adventures with your child. They will love it
For more information on encouraging activity in our children visit http://www.participaction.com/get-moving