This week, the City of Toronto is celebrating its 8th annual Feeding Toronto's Hungry Students Week (October 1-5, 2012). To mark this special week, Toronto's top chefs are asking parents to try their personal, childhood-inspired school lunch recipes at home, and to also consider making a donation to The Angel Foundation for Learning, a 25-year-old registered Canadian charity that’s dedicated to supporting the Toronto Catholic District School Board's most vulnerable students. These recipes have been donated by Chef Corbin Tomaszeski from the ROM's C5, Chef John Horne from Oliver & Bonacini's Canoe (see recipe below), and Chef James Gao from Kanji, in the hopes of raising awareness and funds to fight student hunger.

Over the past few weeks, I have been making a more conscientious effort to live a healthier and more environmentally-friendly lifestyle all with the help of Seventh Generation. Prior to participating in the Green Your Routine campaign, I wasn't aware that the
 average 
Canadian 
child 
throws 
away 
66 
pounds 
of 
lunch
 packaging 
waste each 
year. 
If 
all 
that 
disposable 
packaging
 was replaced with 
a 
reusable
 lunch
 carrier,
 you could 

save 
an 
average 
of 
$250 a 
year!

As part of the Green Your Routine campaign, Seventh Generation challenged bloggers to adopt 
four small 
and
 simple 
changes that can 
save 
money, make
 a 
lasting 
impact 
on the 
environment 
and
 positively 
affect 
the 
family's health.

Last year, I blogged about Étienne, one of Canada's favourite children's artist, and how much I love using his songs to help teach key concepts in my FSL classes. His music is known for its appeal to the younger generation since it incorporates popular music styles that kids love to listen to. But even moreso, Étienne's music is simply unforgettable. Don't believe me? Check out this video of Justin Bieber in a recent interview during "Boîte à questions" where he was asked to sing a French song. Here he is singing what may very well be one of the most requested songs at Étienne's concerts: Avoir II.

For parents of preschoolers, watching TV often means tuning into Nickelodeon for D-D-D-D-D-Dora and her trusty friend Boots as they embark on a myriad of adventures. With help of Map, Dora and the viewer must solve problems and overcome obstacles along the way to their goal. At the end of each episode, Dora and her friends, along with the viewer, celebrate with her signature "We Did It" dance. Now young viewers are invited to join Dora and Boots by taking part in a digital adventure unlike any other. With some adult help, Dora fans can create a personalized story featuring Dora and the gang along with a customizable likeness of themselves. When you purchase specially marked Dora products at Walmart, you will find a unique PIN code which will grant you access to the Dora Digital Story Book.

The back-to-school season has always been a time to pull out last year's fall styles and school wear in order to assess what still fits and what appears to be in decent shape. With young children ages four and seven, it's almost a guarantee that most, if not all, of last year's clothing will have been outgrown. And lately, my kids have been growing like the weeds on my lawn - relentlessly. Sometimes, though, my kids will wear out their clothes before they outgrow them. Most of the time, this means tears at the knees. I had to throw out so many of my son's pants last year for that reason, but I did turn some into shorts for the summer by cutting the pant legs off. When it comes to buying children's clothing, it's nice to know that I can always find a good deal at The Children's Place. Every bit of savings helps to remain within the budget. So bring on the super sales and money-saving deals!

It is 10:00 pm on a Friday night and I am completely and utterly exhausted. It might have a little something to do with the fact that I have been up since 4:00 am. But before I lay me down to sleep, I simply had to share with you a 'light bulb moment' I'd had today at work. Now, please note that it surely wasn't of Einstein proportions but merely a 'slap-the-forward-why-didn't-I-think-of-it-sooner revelation.' And I wouldn't have thought of it if it weren't for the fact that Rogers had so graciously sent me a Samsung Galaxy Tab 8.9 LTE to share my experience with it. What I can tell you so far is, that, as of this week, my daily planner is now digital and, because I carry my tablet with me to every class, I can now easily record anecdotal notes without the use of paper. However, this is not the real reason why I am too excited to go to bed. Oh, no.

After seven days of being back at work and the kids back at school, I am feeling worn down already. To my defense, I was hit with a nasty cold/flu bug last week and it was so bad, I had to take a day off of work. This left me trying to recuperate over the weekend and then back at work on Monday with a sore throat and a stuffy head. Seriously uncool. It served as a reminder that back-to-school season is one of the most important times to instill a sense of routine and healthy eating habits among our children. This week, I have set out on a goal to prepare nutritious lunches the night before, and with Butterball's Turkey Chicken Trio, making sandwiches for the family just got a lot easier.

The other day, while watching my daughter play in her semi-final soccer game, I sat on the ground next to my four-year-old son as he pointed to the sky. This, my friends, is a glimpse of the world and its inherent beauty as viewed from the eyes of a child.

This week, my daughter returned to school and my son began junior kindergarten. It has been an exciting week but also a bit draining trying to establish a routine. While my son will still have lunch at his daycare, we still need to prepare a snack for him and a full lunch for my daughter. Truth be told, my husband usually takes care of that. And since I'm being honest here, we don't do a very good job of planning out our meals. This makes meal prep a little more stressful than it should be. While a part of me would much rather avoid planning our meals altogether, I know it would be smarter, much more efficient and less costly to prepare a shopping list and meal ideas well in advance. When it comes to making lunches, I almost always resort to making sandwiches since they are fairly easy to prepare. But there have been times when I open the fridge door and I'm all out of deli meats and there isn't a can of tuna to be found anywhere. Yikes!

With school in full swing, there is very little that gets me more excited than browsing through a catalogue of teacher resources, pop-out letters and bulletin board sets. What really catches my interest most are the various manipulatives available today that help elementary students progress in their learning by stimulating their kinesthetic intelligence. This is probably due in part to an innate preference I hold towards being able to manipulate tactile objects and using my visual-spatial strengths in everyday applications. Even as a young child, I remember being drawn towards the sand box, building blocks and puzzles when others would prefer to curl up with a book or two. Reading and writing, I hate to admit, were never my forté and it took many years of studying French, Italian and Spanish for me to have a better understanding and appreciation of English grammar, syntax and linguistics in general. Looking back, I struggled with writing and reading while growing up, and now that both my kids are in school, I fear that they may experience similar difficulties. This is why I am grateful to have had the chance to review the Learning Magnets High Frequency Word Kit from Barker Creek Publishing Company.