May 2019

        

Wow! There are only 31 school days left in this year! It is hard to believe but the time has just flown by! We have accomplished so much! But we still have a lot planned so stay tuned....

Important Dates and Events

May 8/9 - Music Open House (watch for your invitation)

May 10 - Staff Pro-D Day PRESCHOOL CLOSED

May 20 - Victoria Day PRESCHOOL CLOSED

May 27 - Last Scholastics order due 

June 13/14 - 4's Graduation (watch for your invitation)

June 14 - Last day of Preschool Classes

June 17/18 - Picnics (Mahon Water Park)

A reminder to support our Fundraisers...

SCHOLASTIC BOOKS - Only one order left! If you order online you can pick a FREE book. So far this year we have raised almost $650 that will go towards new school supplies for next year! THANK YOU TO ALL THOSE FAMILIES WHO ORDERED BOOKS THIS YEAR!! 

LOVABLE LABELS - 20% of every online order will support our Preschool! And we all need labels! They have labels for containers that are dishwasher and microwave proof and are waterproof. The clothing labels are bleach, laundry and sunscreen safe! and the Mini-Metal Bag Tags are waterproof and sunscreen proof! THANK YOU FOR YOUR SUPPORT!!

PLACE YOUR ORDER AT: www.StCatherines.lovablelabels.ca

JEANS WEEK - Thank you to everyone who donated to The BC Children's Hospital through our Jeans Week Fundraiser! It's not too late to donate!! Look for the umbrellas in your child's classroom!

                        

JULY SUMMER PROGRAM - There are still spaces available! Contact Marion in the preschool office for more information!

I CAN'T BELIEVE ALL THE THINGS WE DO IN CLASS! 

Read below and see for yourself! 

DISCOVERY TWOS - Brita, Danielle, Vibha

Hello Everyone!  March and April have been busy months talking about farm animals and Easter.

We transformed our housekeeping corner into a Pet Shop.  The children really enjoyed taking care of the “animals” using the doctor’s kit.  

Then we moved onto Easter with baskets and eggs.  The children enjoyed filling the baskets and hiding the eggs in the housekeeping corner.

 

Here are some of the farm art activities we did: Tractor painting with coffee and sand, painted individual red barns, and Mommy and Daddy ducks with feathers and paper plate pigs.

At Circle children enjoyed Cows in the Kitchen and sounds on the farm books.  But Old MacDonald on the Farm was definitely the two’s favourite-especially naming and making the animal sounds.

Hop little Rabbit, hop, hop, hop

Hop little Rabbit, don’t you stop

Hop little Rabbit, 1,2,3

Hop little Rabbit hop to me.

Easter theme is always a big hit with our twos.  We decorated Easter cookies with icing and we face painted ourselves into Easter bunnies.  The children also enjoyed experimenting with egg tongs at the science table to pick up eggs and other small Easter objects.  It’s a great way to promote fine motor and eye and hand coordination skills.  We put shredded paper into the water-table with different coloured eggs to promote colour recognition.

 

For art, children enjoyed marble painting Easter eggs, decorating Easter bunnies with cotton balls, painting bunnies with forks, and making cute little baby chicks with egg cartons.

In amongst this busy month we decorated miniature Jeans for BC Children’s Hospital.

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

301 - Carol, Susan

Welcome to class 301 blog and thank you for taking the time to read and explore the many highlights of our classroom. 

The children in 301 thoroughly enjoyed the month of April. In the first half of the month the children engaged in the splendors of spring. Each child planted a seed in a tiny cup. The seeds were either radishes or beans. We hope your tiny seed has sprouted and you and your child enjoy taking care of them. 

Our car corner was changed into a farm area with farm animals and barns. The farm animals were a nice change for the children and they enjoyed playing, imagining and building with their friends. 

Along with transforming the car corner, we also transitioned our home corner into an Easter themed zone. The Easter eggs were out to hide, the baskets were hanging on the hooks and bunny ears were available to wear. 

Within the second half of the month the children had been practicing hard for their Easter service that was held in the gym and church. We were all thrilled with the outcome of the services and we have to say that this year was particularly delightful. 

Once the hype of practicing and singing was over the children enjoyed an Easter egg hunt within our classroom. The Easter bunny always has a sneaky way of dropping by and the children were over the moon when we got back from the gym with a special note taped to the door. 

We all hope you enjoyed your 4-day weekend; we know you all deserve it! The children were happy to be back at school after a few days off, we noticed confidence, enthusiasm and strong voices, we all know now that there are only a couple short months left of preschool! 

Jeans week kicked off April 22^nd with an umbrella hanging within our classroom, please take this opportunity to support an important cause and educate your children on the importance of giving back. The teachers love to get involved as well; we wear head to toe denim! Thank you for all who have already donated to the cause. The children have been very curious about helping the sick and injured. 

Before we close, we must not forget one of the highlights of the month was walking to the library for story time. The children did so well on the walks to and from and they listened beautifully. The story time was Spring time focused and we loved the many felt stories and books the librarian had chosen for us. Thank you to the parents who volunteered their time to help us that day, we really appreciate it! 

Again, thank you for taking the time to read our class blog and we hope you enjoy the month of May! 

302/404 - Karen, Susan, Carol

Welcome to our class blog! We are so happy to have you here reading our highlights over the past month. 

The month of April was focused on the excitement of Spring and Easter. The Spring flowers bloomed within our classroom with our back wall displaying the children’s Spring art. Our car corner was changed into a farm area with farm animals and barns. The farm animals were a nice change for the children and they enjoyed playing, imagining and building with their friends. 

Within this classroom of multi-age children we are able to focus on activities such as “Echo” and “Show and Share”. The orca whale “Echo” is a stuffed animal that the children take home for the weekend. “Echo” can enjoy going to the park, eating dinner out or practicing soccer. The premise of this home activity is to encourage the conservation of our local orcas and bringing awareness to our preschool’s contributions to the BC whales. 

Along with introducing “Echo” our classroom also started the fun activity of Show and Share. This is a great way for the children to bring a piece of home to school. 

As we moved deeper into April the excitement of Easter began to rise. First off was our Easter services and tea. The children worked very hard to practice for this important event. We were very pleased with the results; we hope you were too! 

Secondly, the Easter bunny came to our classroom! The children took part in an Easter egg hunt with baskets they had hand made. Along with making Easter baskets the children created an adorable bunny art that is on display in our hallway. Please take the time to look at these art boards as many of the pieces are made with love and care! The children were very excited for the holiday ahead and having a couple extra days with their families. We hope you all enjoyed the long weekend. 

Jeans week kicked off April 22^nd with an umbrella hanging within our classroom. Please take this opportunity to support an important cause and educate your children on the importance of giving back. The teachers love to get involved as well; we wear head to toe denim! Thank you to all who have already donated to the cause. The children have been very curious about helping the sick and injured. 

To carry on the idea of helping and caring we set our home corner up as a veterinary office. The children had the opportunity to provide care to the animals with our doctor’s kit. 

Unbelievably we only have a month and a half left of school! We are looking forward to spending time outside in the sunshine and welcoming caterpillars into our classroom on May 7^th. 

Again, thank you for taking the time to read our class blog and we hope you enjoy the month of May! 

401 - Arsi, Karen, Lisa, Marjan

April brought us letters J,K,L,M,N,O,P,Q,R,S and T. Our art projects were Jellyfish painted with JELLO, kites, lollipops, masks, P with puzzle pieces glued onto paper, rainbows, snakes and tulips.

Our Easter service was held on the 10th and the children did a wonderful job! We hope you enjoyed the tea, sandwiches and cookies afterwards. This was such a nice time for the parents to sit down and talk with each other.

The Easter bunny paid us a visit on 17th. We decorated paper plate baskets and when the Easter bunny was hopping by, he saw them. There was a note left on our door and the children were left 4 chocolate eggs to find.

We also started our week to support the Children’s Hospital. The children decorated mini jeans (cut out by Marion) with glitter glue, glitter, buttons and sequins. We have an upside down umbrella in our room for donations.

The season changed from Winter to Spring this month and we are starting to talk about seeds, planting, how things change with the changing season. A few days ago the children were sent home with a small cup with a Sunflower seed in it. Please replant them once the cup becomes too small. We would love to see some pictures of their progress.

A special day is coming in May and we are working on a gift. We hope you like it.

Our whale Echo has one more student to go home with. We just wanted to say a BIG THANK YOU to everyone for taking such good care of him while you had him. Some of his adventures were going to birthday parties, bouncy castles, skiing, swimming, meeting other stuffed animal friends and there was lots of cuddling.

Show and Share has been a great success. Everyone has been so happy to share with the group what they have brought in.

Last but not least, thank you to all the parents who supported our annual Card project. It is such a great way to show off the children’s art.

Thanks for reading.

402 - Arsi, Danielle, Marjan

Graduation is just around the corner, so we’ve kicked it into high gear for our kindergarten readiness this month. We have been learning our alphabet and what sound(s) each letter makes. We have been tracing the letters each week by using dot to dot or following numbers. By doing so, we have also started to use our pincer grip to write. It is really important for the children to practice this grip at home as well for this will help them when they begin writing more in kindergarten. Furthermore, this allows them to use their fine motor skills and hand eye coordination when it comes to other activities. We would like to encourage parents to keep practicing the letters at home. This may be in the form of dot to dot tracing letters or just pointing out letters you may see around the house/grocery store (on a toy box, sign,poster etc). When it feels like a game, it’s more fun to learn!

The children have also worked really hard on the letters of their names and printing their name. We are encouraging them to print their own names on their art at school. This can also be extended at home with their drawings, paintings, or even a birthday card. A fun activity is writing their names in shaving cream on a cookie sheet! (Easy clean up too!)

Some of the activities we did to incorporate the alphabet this month:

*find the matching upper and lower case letters

*guess which letter is missing

*find the friend with the matching upper\lower case letter

* alphabet box

This month we also said goodbye to Echo as he went back to his family. It was so much fun sharing all the wonderful adventures with our friends at school. Thank you, families for taking such good care of Echo!

    We hopped our way into Easter and we painted paper plates and made them into our Easter baskets! You can’t have Easter without decorating eggs! We traced and cut out egg shapes and used shaving cream and water colours to make a mosaic pattern. We decorated bunnies and listened to the story of “Peter Cottontail.” Furthermore, we had a special visit from the Easter Bunny who left us some treats to hunt! What a fun time! We hope everyone had a great Easter!

It was such a fun art to decorate mini jeans as we discussed the importance of giving and helping others with Jeans Week! The children were very engaged as they listened to each other talking about who had been to a hospital and what a hospital was for. We learned that the umbrella in our classroom was meant for collecting money to help the families and hospitals that are in need. Thank you to everyone who donated for such a worthy cause!

In the upcoming weeks, we will continue to work on our alphabet and other aspects of kindergarten readiness!  We will also look into how flowers grow and do some planting. We will talk about Mother’s Day and what goes on in the jungle!

If you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to talk to us!    

304/403 -  Karen, Susan, Brita, Carol

Hello and welcome to your child’s class blog! 

The month of April has been filled with many exciting highlights. First of all, let’s start with the class visit to the library. The children and teachers attended the Capilano library story time. We were entertained with spring themed books, felt stories and songs. The librarian did a great job with keeping the children interested and engaged. 

Secondly, within the classroom we focused on the themes of spring and Easter. The children were able to dive deeply into spring with planting their own seed. The children carefully chose their tiny seed to plant and we hope you are able to enjoy and care for them at home. 

Our car corner was changed into a farm area with farm animals and barns. The farm animals were a nice change for the children and they enjoyed playing, imagining and building with their friends. 

Within mid-April we were into the thick of Easter. We all practiced very hard for our Easter services; we hope you enjoyed them and much as we did! Of course, lots of Easter decorations and art was displayed in the classroom and hallways. Please take the time to check out the art boards! 

Lastly, once back from a long weekend, we started jeans week. Jeans week kicked off April 22^nd with an umbrella hanging within our classroom, please take this opportunity to support an important cause and educate your children on the importance of giving back. The teachers love to get involved as well; we wear head to toe denim! Thank you to all who have already donated to the cause, the children have been very curious about helping the sick and injured. Unbelievably we only have a month and a half left of school!

We are looking forward to spending time outside in the sunshine and welcoming caterpillars into our classroom on May 7^th. 

Thank you for reading our blog and we hope you enjoy the month of May! 

MUSIC PROGRAM - Tiffany

May is here and we’ve got the rhythm of the hands, the feet, the eyes and the hips! Woo-we! Congratulations, children, on a successful Easter Service. You are all great musicians.

This month, we will be focusing on basic note identification, using the Rhythm Family and the Cousins Three. We will drive our cars along the grand staff and go on an epic search for middle ‘c’. Additionally, we will learn new musical terms, such as ‘treble clef’ where the high voices sing. And ‘bass clef’ where the low voices sing.

We will practice our note value recognition with a memory matching game and we we will refine our musical ears by learning the major intervals through ‘solfege songs’. Did you know that ‘do-do-sol-sol’ sounds just like ABC? And ‘do-fa-fa-fa-fa’ sounds like The Wheels on the Bus. Try it!

 

As we head into our final months of the school year, the children are invited to bring in an instrument or musical item, from home, that they would like to share with the class.

Happy sing-I mean, Spring!

RESOURCE OFFICE - Marion

May is such a special time in the preschool.  We hope you enjoyed the Easter Services and the Tea afterwards.  

The caterpillars will be arriving on the 7^th of May and will reside in the Treehouse Room as they turn into butterflies.  All the classes are invited to visit and see how the process unfolds.  When the butterflies are ready to be released they will be set free in the Memorial Garden.  

The classrooms are so much brighter with Spring colours.  The sandbox was recently opened in the playground after the long winter months.  

I have been visiting the classrooms and observing the children as they are practicing all the new skills that they have learned throughout the year.  As the 4s move onto Kindergarten they are working on the readiness skills.  Parents can help with the transition to Kindergarten by:

• Talking with their child about some of the impending changes.  Do not overwhelm them with too much information.  A good time to talk to them would be after their school visit.
• Helping your child acquire new self help skills (putting on their own shoes or jacket)
• Encourage your child to ask for help when needed
• Allowing your child to practice working independently
• Teaching your child to follow directions
• Teaching your child about rules and how important they are
• Encouraging you child to print their own name

SUMMER PROGRAM:

Registration is on going and several morning sessions are already full.

 I have lots of spaces in the afternoons 1-4 pm.  Please drop by the office and sign up.

JEANS DAY – Thursday, May 2^nd.   Every year we collect donations for the BC Children’s Hospital.  The umbrellas will be upside down in all the classrooms this week.

Thanks you for your kind donations.