5 Things You Need to Know Today: April 22

Our daily column, 5 Things You Need to Know Today, will help you to get your day started and offer you some fodder for water cooler conversation.

1. An orientation session for new Town Meeting members will be held at 7 tonight in the Blumer Community Room of the Memorial Building. The orientation will provide an overview of Town Meeting, introduce some Town Meeting customs and procedures and explain the duties of various committees and officials. For more information, see a release on the town's website.  

2. Today will be the first day back to school for Framingham students following April vacation. In addition, it's the first school day since the Boston Marathon bombings and subsequent shootings and lockdowns. The Framingham School Department has on its website a list of resources for talking to children about the tragedies. If you have some ideas for how to talk to children about such situations, or want to share how you talked to your kids, please pass them on in the comments.

3. Patch sites in and around Boston have been furiously updating Patches across the state with coverage of the Marathon bombings and associated news. We've created a page that includes all the coverage on Framingham Patch. Click here and bookmark it; it will automatically update it when a new story on the issue is published.

4. The city of Boston is encouraging communities to share in a moment of silence for the Marathon bombing victims today at 2:50 p.m.: the time the bombs went off within seconds of each other.

5. Residents are invited to join Framingham Town Manager Bob Halpin and Town Meeting Moderator Teri Banerjee at 7 p.m. this Thursday, April 25, at the Framingham Public Library, for a review and discussion of the articles that will be considered at the upcoming 2013 Annual Town Meeting.