March 2017

MARCH MADNESS has hit ST. CATHERINE'S PRESCHOOL!!!

Winter went out with a ROAR and Spring has come in with an UMBRELLA AND A PAIR OF BOOTS!!

Important reminders:

1. Call or email the preschool when your child will be absent with the reason for the absence.  604-980-1326 / stcpre@telus.net

2. If your child has had a fever they cannot return to the preschool until they have been 24 hours fever-free and medicine-free AND all their energy has returned.

3. If your child has vomited OR had diarrhea, they cannot return until 24 hours after the last vomit or solid BM and their energy has returned. They should be medicine-free for 24 hours before returning.

4. If your child has vomiting and diarrhea together, they cannot return until 48 hours after the last solid BM and vomiting has stopped for at least 24 hours and all their energy has returned. They should be medicine-free for at least 24 hours before they can return.

When we all follow these health rules we help to ensure the spread of communicable illnesses to the children and the staff is kept to a minimum. Thank you for your cooperation in this matter.

Important Dates

April 10 - Summer School Registration (Spaces going fast!!)

April 14 - Good Friday (Preschool Closed)

April 17 - Easter Monday (Preschool Closed)

April 20 - Easter Services & Tea - Class 302 & 402 -- 10:30 am

April 21 - Easter Services & Tea - Class 301 & 401 -- 10:30 am

                  - Easter Services & Tea - Class 304 & 403 -- 1:45 pm

April 24-28 - Jeans Week

May 12 - Staff Pro-D Day (Preschool Closed)

May 17/18 - Music Open House 

May 22 - Victoria Day (Preschool Closed)

June 16 - 4's Graduation

                - Last Day of Preschool

June 19/20 - Picnics (Mahon Park - 11:30 am - 1:30 pm)

Did you hear what happened in the classrooms????

Resource Office

I hope everyone had a wonderful Spring Break.  I think we can now expect some warmer weather.  It is a time for lots of outdoor activities.  Arranging play dates in a park with a picnic is always fun.  

The 4s will be visiting their Kindergartens soon and the teachers will post a list of where each child will be going to school.  The 4s are working on lots of kindergarten readiness skills.

Toilet training in the 2s has been going well and many of the children are out of diapers/pull ups.  Sometimes it is just a matter of going for it!   At the beginning it is important to just take the child to the washroom and have them try, maybe every half hour or so.  When they start initiating wanting to go,  you can start giving them choices.  When children are engaged in play they often say no to going to the washroom, but you can give them a choice of going now or in a few minutes.  If they choose “in a few minutes” you need to follow through and take them and remind them what they chose.  There will be accidents and we need to be calm and talk to them about letting someone know that they need to go.  The teachers are very good at seeing the signs of toilet training readiness.

Marion Porter, Developmental Resource Teacher

Music Program

I bet you’re all wondering what we got up to in Music Class this month! 

The month of March began with marching around class to Hungarian marching music. We then explored how music can remind us of different emotions by listening to various melodies and matching them to emoji faces. We also read a story called “Sing and Dance in Your Polka Dot Pants!” and practiced some dance moves of our own. We celebrated the beginning of Spring by listening to Vivaldi’s famous "Four Seasons: Spring" and colouring whatever the music inspired. Now, it’s full speed ahead getting ready for our Easter Service next month! We can’t wait to show you what’s in store!

Rachel 

Discovery Twos

Hope you all had a wonderful Spring break.

What a fun, busy and exciting month of March we had talking about farm animals.  Here are few of our art activities that the children really enjoyed doing: stamping and gluing cotton wool on sheep, pigs in the mud, paper plate ducks and chickens as well as tractor painting.

At Circle Time we sang many farm animal songs. The favorite definitely was "Old MacDonald Had a Farm" and the children got so excited naming animals and making the sounds.  Our twos really enjoyed Cows in the Kitchen and funny/ farm Old MacDonald Had a Truck book.  We also practiced some yoga poses such as Cow, Cat and a Happy Baby pose.

Here is one of our favorite songs:

Horsey, Horsey, don't you stop
Just let your feet go clipety clop
Your tail goes swoosh and your head goes flop
Giddy up, you're homeward bound
Giddy up, you're homeward bound.

As always, please come and talk to us if you have any questions or concerns.

Vibha, Danielle, Arsi, Stephanie and Susan.

301

Happy spring! We are so glad winter is over and now we can enjoy some sunny days outside.

For the month of March, we have been focusing on Spring and Easter. The children are working hard to prepare for the Easter Services.

This past month we have had a grocery store, flower shop and now Easter baskets and eggs in the home corner. Some of the children were happy to work with us to make the changes in the home corner.

We have been doing lots of different art experiences such as eyedroppers and fusion paper, painting with marbles and different types of sponges and brushes.

At Circle Time we have been doing some name games, action songs as well as learning a few songs in French and learning the colours in French.

We look forward to seeing you soon at the Easter Services.

Estelle, Gabi and Karen

302

We hope everyone enjoyed the Spring Break and had some great family time together!

In the past month we celebrated and explored the many wonders of the awakening nature from a very, very long sleep.  (Hopefully we are past the crazy winter weather and can actually see some signs of spring soon!)

The children had some great ideas to share what to learn in the few weeks alongside our "Spring" theme. We talked about frogs, bugs, birds, new siblings, travel and good manners as well! Looking through our windows we saw dark clouds and the many  shades of gray and black, so we decided to cheer up the classroom with beautiful pastels and strong primary colours through paintings, reading happy spring picture books, flannel stories and singing loudly (like no one is watching)!

In our weekly Music Classes and at circle times we have been practicing our songs and rhymes for the Easter Services. We are looking forward to sharing the joy with you as you watch them sing in the church!

Karen and Gabi

304

Spring is in the air! We are finally getting some sunshine. It has been great going outside while the sun is shining. We are excited to see all of the Spring changes that are happening all around us, especially the colourful flowers that have started to bloom. We hope everyone had a nice and relaxing Spring break. We can't believe how fast this year is going. The children have settled into this classroom very nicely and play together so well as a group. As we are nearing the end of our school year, we are adding more challenging material to our program to encourage them to explore on many different levels. 

For the month of March we talked about Spring. At circle we sang spring songs and read stories about Spring. We learned about all the different changes that we will be seeing around us. For art we made coffee filter butterflies, hand print trees with fingerprint cherry blossoms, bumblebees, and used watercolours to decorate diffusing paper flowers. 

We have also been practicing our songs for our Easter Service that will be held in April. Keep your eye out for more details about the service. 

Next month our theme will be Easter! 

Stephanie and Gabi 

401

Happy Spring!

We are sure happy to see the Cherry blossoms blooming and Daffodils popping up from the ground. March was a great month and there was so much positive energy in the classroom. We had the great pleasure of hosting our practicum student Rosie. Rosie was a great addition to the classroom. She provided the students with new and exciting explorations. Rosie focused her explorations on planting since as a classroom, we were currently reading "A Tiny Seed" by Eric Carle. This story came to life with Rosie's activities. A beautiful Rose garden was decorated and planted for us to enjoy. We now have this planter box to remember our wonderful practicum student. 

As mentioned earlier, our classroom took about a month to get to know Eric Carle and his imaginative stories. We brought many of the stories to the art table to recreate. The children enjoyed getting to know this author on a deeper level. 

As we look towards April we plan to celebrate Easter with classroom activities and our annual Easter Services. Hope to see you all there!

Susan and Stephanie 

402

We hope everyone had a great spring break! 

This time of year, it is great to see how the children have bonded with their friends! They all come to preschool eager to play and learn new things.

Before we went on our spring break, we had a chance to look at some of the many works of children’s author, Eric Carle, and also looked at bugs. We read the following books: The Grouchy Ladybug, The Very lonely Firefly, The Very Quiet Cricket, The Very Busy Spider, The Little Cloud, and The Tiny Seed. In looking at these books, the children were able to see how Eric Carle uses a collaging technique with hand painted papers as a way of making his pictures. We used various colours of tissue paper and cut them with our fingers to make this effect. It was neat to see how the children were very carefully cutting their tissues to fit the picture they were making. Moreover, we looked closer into bugs, such as spiders, beetles, ladybugs and discovered many different/similar characteristics of them.

We can’t forget our 4’s skate party either! We hope everyone that came had a great time. It’s a great way to have a little fun and enjoy some hot chocolate, marshmallows, and cookies.

Our next topic took us to the alphabet and kindergarten readiness. This is an ongoing topic that we will be continuing for a few weeks. We are looking at the letters of the alphabet and what sounds they make. We are also tying the letters with familiar items or pictures so that the children can remember them. For example, A is for apple. We have also started our alphabet box which will be a fun activity for the children to do at home and then share it at school. 

In the coming weeks, the children will also be working on their journals. This is a great way to practice printing their names and also to use their imagination to draw and tell a story. It’s interesting to see what they draw each week!

We are looking forward to the next few weeks when we will be doing a little bit on Easter. We have started practicing our Easter Service songs and it will be great fun! We will continue with our alphabet and practicing writing the letters and also our names. We do encourage the children to keep practicing putting on and zipping up their own jackets, opening/closing their containers, pouring their own water into their cups, and bucket filling!! These are important learning experiences that will

give them their independence and confidence as they journey into kindergarten.

If there are any questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to ask your teachers. 

Danielle, Arsi & Sousan

403

Hello everyone.   We hope everyone had an enjoyable and restful spring break.  Our long winter is over and now we can enjoy some nice time outside.  

For the month of March, we had a few themes going on. We finished off with dinosaurs, which the children thoroughly enjoyed and have started on Spring and Easter.  The children are working hard to learn their songs for the Easter Services.

For art, we have been exploring with lots of different mediums; pastels, watercolours, using different sponges and brushes.  We made ladybugs, flowers and butterflies for art.  The children really enjoyed the story of the Grouchy Ladybug that went along with their artwork.  

In the Home Corner, the children played in the grocery store, flower shop and as an area with Easter baskets and decorations. The children enjoy the changes to the home corner and it is fun to watch their imaginative play flourish.

As your children to will soon be entering kindergarten, they have started journaling. Each child has their own journal, which they use every week and will get to take home at the year’s end. The children can draw what they like (sometimes the teacher will give requests) and they then tell us about their picture, which we write down in their own words. This encourages their fine motor and language skills.

Here’s to more sunny days.  We hope to see everyone at the upcoming Easter Service.

Estelle, Stephanie, Gabi, Karen and Sousan