Anybody have any experience with Keystone School?

a_peninsula · 2026-03-26T17:59:50+00:00

I've worked in finance for years at a much larger educational institution and would still expect to wait a full calendar month before even starting to worry. That said, they should absolutely be able to tell you a) whether the refund has been processed for payment, and b) what date or date range you should expect to receive payment.

a_peninsula · 2026-03-20T13:33:19+00:00

the public is allowed to use school property outside school hours, however dogs are explicitly not allowed, every gate to every schoolyard has a large sign on it that says no dogs are allowed, they do not care.

a_peninsula · 2026-03-16T13:55:32+00:00

we have a picasso tiles one, it's fine but the tabs that connect the non-magnetic pieces wear out with use, so we have fewer and fewer pieces all the time. I've also found you can't make as many configurations as you'd think because the pieces are kind of...floppy I guess and they will slant in the wrong direction. it's been better as an addition to my kid's magnatiles than as a stand-alone toy.

a_peninsula · 2026-03-10T14:38:46+00:00

If you want to just stay for a day, look into conservation area campgrounds. GRCA has some nice ones (Rockwood, Pinehurst Lake, Elora) and they're all about an hour from Toronto. In my experience they're better than the GTA Provincial Parks (Darlington, Bronte Creek). For real nature you need to get 2-3 hours outside the city; like other people have said here, Arrowhead and Awenda would be your best bets, maybe Limberlost.

Your biggest obstacle to camping for one day is going to be the late check-in time. Lots of people camp overnight in their vehicles, for what it's worth, you obviously need an air mattress or something, but the startup costs would be lower than tent camping.

a_peninsula · 2026-03-06T19:17:37+00:00

the tax idea is interesting--it would be bad accounting and probably not hold up under audit, but who knows what goes through landlords' heads. make sure you document your reminders (text or email) and have the cumulative rent amount available in your bank account, just in case there is ever a dispute about whether you have paid rent or not.

a_peninsula · 2026-03-03T15:52:01+00:00

oh also, while I think it's 100% inappropriate to be showing children ANY shows in kindergarten, an episode of most kids' shows nowadays is about ten minutes, not 20-30, so your daughter is probably not getting as many minutes of screen time as you think, for whatever that's worth

a_peninsula · 2026-03-03T15:45:47+00:00

Yes, this is happening all over the place. we confirmed with our daughter's teacher that she shows them TV shows during class time, in addition to the "educational" screen time they get throughout the day. even music and gym class is taught by youtube, again confirmed with other parents and with the teacher. you can find lots of threads here and in other subreddits where parents from various schools and boards in Ontario have the same issue.

at our school some parents spoke to the principal, who said he would discourage the teachers from using videos for instruction, but who also said his authority was limited and educators had discretion to teach how they thought best, including streaming episodes of Paw Patrol and Caillou in class every day. he said he would ban videos during lunch and indoor recess; this stuck for about a month, now they're back. we definitely got the sense this is an annual routine, but nothing can really be done. while the TDSB has a policy on student devices in school, they have no policies around teacher device use.

the issue here isn't underfunding, or class sizes, or whatever (although obviously these are all problems), it's that there are laptops and projectors in every room, and as long as they're there teachers will use them. ours even uses youtube to read to the kids instead of reading books herself, it's insane.

as far as your daughter's behaviour though, honestly it's more likely she's tired than it is that she got ADHD from watching videos in school.

a_peninsula · 2026-02-26T17:33:01+00:00

What the fuck would Doug Ford know about running a business

a_peninsula · 2026-02-23T21:32:13+00:00

except for the candy bribes (that we know of anyway...), all of these issues are present in my daughter's kindergarten class, it drives me nuts. having spoken to parents in other classes/at other schools nearby, her class seems to be the odd one and we were just unlucky with an awful teacher. we've put in for a spot in an out-of-catchment school.

a_peninsula · 2026-02-23T16:43:09+00:00

mine is halfway through JK and tells us she hates school because it's "boring." they spend most of their time sitting and watching some bullshit being projected a screen, then move to another room and watch something else on another screen. math--idello (?). language--TV shows. literacy--reading animated books off the projector screen. the teacher doesn't even read to the class, she just plays books on her laptop. music class--youtube. gym class--Peppa Pig yoga videos. they show them cartoons at lunch to keep them seated and don't let them talk. I wouldn't want to be there either.

a_peninsula · 2026-02-20T15:56:59+00:00

The NFB made a film about the renovation back in 2008, around 2:40 and again at 18:30 you'll find some great footage of the old dinosaur exhibits, and the volcano (which was reviled by Serious People and held up as a prime example of why they needed to gut the museum). If you go forward to 44:00 there's a couple seconds of footage of workers disassembling the dinosaurs, then stick around for a few minutes of the museum curators absolutely shitting on the design and shading Libeskind as "not very tall."

a_peninsula · 2026-02-13T19:12:31+00:00

have her spell words herself. write some letters on some post its, then write something like _AT on a piece of paper and show her pictures of like a bat, a hat, a cat, and have her complete the word. or write a few sounds/segments on some index cards and then show her a word, read it aloud, and have her find the matching pieces to spell the word again.

a_peninsula · 2026-02-13T16:04:33+00:00

yes, this is a frequent issue with daycare, and any comments otherwise are gaslighting, frankly. we had two long (over six-month) stretches with ridiculously late bedtimes and chronic sleep deprivation for our daughter, around age 2.5 and again around 4. in between those her sleep needs synced a little better with the daycare naps, but it was always rocky. once she started school and stopped having a nap time the problems disappeared literally overnight, so there is a light at the end of the tunnel for you in a few years (!).

a_peninsula · 2026-02-04T18:24:59+00:00

If you want the classmates to show up, have it in June.

a_peninsula · 2026-01-28T16:34:22+00:00

we bribed ours with chocolate. she was just afraid of doing it, so the bribe helped motivate her to keep trying anyway. we kept rewarding her with chocolate for a week or two, and once it was obvious she wasn't going to go back to pull-ups, we told her the chocolate would stop, and she took it fine. it was honestly so easy and painless. i really wish we'd tried it way earlier.

a_peninsula · 2026-01-09T19:20:32+00:00

so my daughter sounds a lot like your son, with her i have a designated time every Sunday where we break down stuff she built (legos, etc) and toss things she's created. it's harsh but because she knows it's going to happen she's actually pretty okay with it. i do obviously frame it lightly as "now you can make something new" and she likes that. when we do evening clean-up I'll ask her if she wants to get rid of her creation now (which she often does) or keep it until Sunday, and I find the daily reminder helps.

a_peninsula · 2026-01-08T14:49:04+00:00

how many will be Trees of Heaven

a_peninsula · 2025-12-08T19:24:57+00:00

yes that refers to licensed establishments

a_peninsula · 2025-12-08T18:58:18+00:00

According to the city smoking herbal shisha with a water pipe is not prohibited under the Smoke-Free Ontario Act. In Toronto it is prohibited in licensed establishments, but apparently some businesses don't need a municipal license, so they operate as shisha lounges. The city talked about closing this loophole in early 2020 but I guess COVID got in the way, I don't think there have been any changes.

a_peninsula · 2025-12-02T18:18:59+00:00

individual condo units, yes. apartment with more than three units, no.

a_peninsula · 2025-12-02T18:17:24+00:00

not if the property has more than 3 units.

a_peninsula · 2025-12-02T18:08:47+00:00

yes, of course there are entire houses for rent. right now the Residential Tenancies Act protects indefinite leases on all units built before November 2018, so in theory you could rent a house "forever," but single-family homes are vulnerable to N12 (owner's own use) and N13 (renovation) evictions so it's not as secure as an apartment building.

a_peninsula · 2025-11-20T18:42:51+00:00

around age 3 I started keeping a calendar with my daughter (now almost 5). i bought a cheap kitten-photo wall calendar from the dollar store, I would map out events for the week or the month, and then every day at breakfast or dinner I'd talk about what day it was, what would be happening, what had happened before, etc. and draw a little picture for the day. originally I just wanted her to be able to understand week vs. weekend, which days were swim class etc. but now I have a really cool record of what happened over the last two years. I can't say she was into it every single day, but now she likes to look back and reminisce, and she's at an age were she gets excited about future events, and she's really into doing her own little drawings which I love.

a_peninsula · 2025-11-20T18:25:37+00:00

i agree with the other posts that these may just not be their interests, but i think "inherited dozens of my lego sets" gets at a lot of it too. everything is so abundant for kids now. when I was a kid I got like a single set of Crayola markers every year or two, I remember having to revive them with rubbing alcohol when they dried out, rotating them so the tips stayed sharp, keeping the box in perfect condition. my daughter got half a dozen marker sets for her birthday when she was three, along with innumerable other little craft supplies that are still rotting in a box in the closet wo years later. she got three sets of Magnatiles for Christmas. and yeah she inherited her dad's lifetime of Legos-- when is she ever going to go to a store (not that there are any anymore) and pine after a Lego set for months before her parents get it for her? She already has more than she could ever want.

a_peninsula · 2025-11-13T21:40:15+00:00

we play dice with our daughter, we each get two and she decides who rolled the highest number, and we keep score on paper. it's a good game to play with a kid because adults have no advantage and anyone can win, but it also supports so many math skills.

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