Monday 4 November 2019

November 2019




NO green grass.
NO blue sky.
NO bare feet going by.
NO birds.
NO bees.
NO leaves on trees.
NO wonder they call it NOvember!!


HAPPY NOVEMBER!

We are zipping through Autumn pretty quickly! November is a very busy month with Fundraisers and Preschool get-togethers!
Please check your emails for notices that have been sent out and please, check your child's bulletin boards daily for new notices. We don't want you missing all the due dates coming up!!
Please check out what went on in the classrooms last month: read the blogs below!

Important Dates

NOV 1 - PURDY'S CHOCOLATE FUNDRAISER BEGINS
NOV 6 - SCHOLASTIC ORDERS DUE
NOV 7/8 - PHOTO DAYS (3s & 4s)
NOV 11 - REMEMBRANCE DAY - PRESCHOOL CLOSED
NOV 20 - PIZZA NIGHT & CAKE WALK - 5:30PM
NOV 24 - CHURCH FAMILY NIGHT - 5-6:30PM
NOV 26 - PURDY'S ORDERS DUE
DEC 11/12 - CHRISTMAS SERVICES (3s & 4s)
DEC 18/19/20 - CHILDREN'S CHRISTMAS PARTIES
DEC 20 - LAST DAY BEFORE CHRISTMAS BREAK
JAN 6 - FIRST DAY BACK TO CLASSES
JAN 31 - STAFF PRO D DAY - PRESCHOOL CLOSED


Discovery Twos - Arsi, Danielle, Marjan, Vibha

Welcome to the Rainbow Room blog and thanks for your time for reading this blog to get an idea of the activities and other things that we do in the class.

We started this month with "The Leaves are Falling on the Ground" song during circle time with lots of colourful scarf dancing. Such a beautiful dance it was. We decorated the class with prints of leaves which was one of our art projects. The first Fall holiday was Thanksgiving and we made a beautiful painting with feathers. The children enjoyed using feathers as paintbrushes. After that, we went through the pumpkin carving fun for Halloween. The children used their senses to touch, smell and discover seeds and other stuff inside the pumpkin. 

We continued Halloween with decorating the room with lots of beautiful hanging materials, which then became prettier with more of the children's artwork. They made a ghost with shaving cream and used their fingers and hands for painting them. Also, the children made bats and pumpkins and we used blocks for painting pumpkins. During Circle Time, we read "Whooooo' s That?", a lift-the flap pumpkin fun book, and also "Halloween Treats", a touch and feel book.

We would like to thank all the parents who helped us for the Halloween parties. Our parties will always be prettier and more fun with your help and efforts. 

As usual, please come and talk to us if you have any comments or concerns. Thanks again for your time reading this blog.


Treehouse Classroom - Karen, Susan, Brita, Marjan, Carol


Welcome to the Treehouse room blog. Thank you for taking the time to read and review our class highlights, activities and messages from teachers.

The month of October got off to a beautiful start. The classroom was decorated with red, yellow, orange and brown Fall art and leaves. Here in the Treehouse room we love celebrating each season and holiday with decorations. The children’s Fall leaves were displayed throughout the class. The first Fall holiday was Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving brings art such as a hand print turkeys, books such as “There was an Old Lady who Swallowed a Turkey” and cooking apple sauce with fresh apples. Thank you to all of the children and parents who brought in a peeled apple for our activity.

Before the hype of Halloween hit, the Treehouse room teachers decided to make a fun day out of “crazy hair day”. The children came with some very creative hairstyles, us teachers joined in on the fun too. Throughout the year we will partake in fun and creative days that takes all of us out of the typical daily routine. We will keep you posted on our next special event via email.

We moved from Thanksgiving to Halloween seamlessly. Halloween is an exciting and lively celebration for the children in the Treehouse room. We began Halloween art with a pumpkin patch at the back of our classroom. Take a look at the “puffy paint” pumpkins. Skeletons were made with Q-tips and are also displayed on our school walls. This specific art work allowed the children to openly create a skeleton as well as follow the teacher’s directions. We all enjoy the energy of Halloween however we don’t want the classroom to become too “scary” or “spooky”. We thank the parents for following our costume rules on the day of our class party and celebrations.
Over the last month we have been able to take walking excursions during our afternoon class. We are lucky to be located close to Edgemont Village as well as calm roads to take a stroll. The lovely Fall weather has allowed us to walk through our preschool neighbourhood to pick leaves and acknowledge the changing colours. We were lucky enough to have a fun village visit this month. The students and teachers ventured over to Edgemont Village to have a hot chocolate at Delaney's, pick a small pumpkin from Columbus farm market and collect stickers from BC playthings and the firefighters. This walkabout was very fun for us all!
Elmer the Safety Elephant joined us for a morning lesson this month. The children enjoyed listening to him and his friend “Ruff” talk about the importance of road safety. Elmer highlights safe crossings when on the road, wearing a helmet and the different traffic light signals. At St. Catherine’s Preschool we feel learning road safety is imperative to our students, especially now that we are venturing into the neighbourhood for walks.
Team Clarke dropped off pumpkins at the preschool for our Halloween festivities. We would like to thank Team Clarke Real Estate for their generous contribution. 

To end the blog post, us Treehouse room teachers would like to take the time to go over a couple housekeeping notes. First off, with many children staying all day, it is important to pack a generous amount of food/snacks. We are finding many of the children are running out of food at last snack. Please come and chat with us if you have any questions. Secondly, we would like to thank all of the parents who contributed to our Halloween parties. The parties would not be possible without your help. The children always love party days and eating yummy food.


Thank you for taking the time to read the blog and we hope you check back here next month! 


Sunflower Classroom - Arsi, Danielle, Carol

It is hard to believe we have only been at school for 2 months…We have been so busy doing so many things.
For the Month of October, we started with Thanksgiving and what we are Thankful for.  It was lots of fun to hear each child show and share their ‘Tom Turkey” they made with their families. There were some very interesting places the Turkey got to hide in.  We listened to the Story about ‘The Little Old Lady who swallowed a Turkey’ & sang 5 Little Turkeys.  We listened to a Felt story about Harvest Time and talked about what we were Thankful for. We also played ‘pin’ the feather on the Turkey.  We painted with corn, carrots potatoes & peppers and decorated Turkey’s.

We then moved onto Fall…and talked about all the beautiful colours we could see on the trees and on the ground. We listened to the story about why the leaves change colour.  We listened to a Felt story about a Scarecrow and sang 5 Black Crows and listened to the story ‘Going on a Leaf Hunt’. We played games where we matched different colour leaves or had to guess which leaves were missing. For art we made prints with real leaves and used diffusing paper and water colour and watched the colours red & yellow merge together to make orange. We also turned our home corner into a pumpkin patch and collected our own ‘pumpkins’.
Of course it was now time for Halloween…We talked about how we make pumpkins into Jack o Lanterns and we listened to the story about the Pumpkin who didn’t want to be orange. We put our muscles to work and cut out and decorated our own pumpkins. ‘We listened to the story “There was an old Lady who swallowed a Bat’ and ‘Room on a Broom’. We played games with our 5 Witches and sung “The Spooky Hokey Pokey’. We laughed when we heard about the Skeleton with the Hiccups and we also discovered a skeleton in our water table.  We used Q-tips to make our own skeleton body and work out how many ribs we needed.  We decorated Bats and glued our own Witches together. We also had the opportunity to meet Elmer the Safety Elephant. On our last day of the week we come to school in PJ’s and made Pumpkin Pancakes…Yummy…Thanks to all the families who brought our yummy party food…it was enjoyed by all!!

Just a reminder that it is getting chilly outside and we do play outside if it is not raining so please pack a warm jacket.  Any questions, please feel free to ask us.  


Music Program - Tiffany


Image result for halloween stompCongratulations on a successful October, filled with many tricks, musical treats and spooky surprises! In October, we danced to the ‘Halloween Stomp’ and sang like witches, ghosts and werewolves! We also used shakers to get to know our body parts by, ‘Shaking our Skeleton Bones’. One of our biggest achievements from October is learning the difference between ‘forte’ which is to sing or play loudly and ‘piano’ which is to sing or play quietly.

Image result for forte and pianoThe children are singing loud and proud with confidence and careful musical intention. As we continue to build our vocal technique, we have also become more comfortable with the listening portion of creative music. We are enhancing our ability to recognize different types of instruments by listening and then guessing which one we are listening to. The music wall is a great tool for instrument identification.

Image result for keyboard familyIn October, we covered the instruments in the Keyboard family and this month we are focusing on the string family. We enjoy listening to the instruments on the music wall and we love to pretend we are playing; Just like the real thing!


November brings excitement for the holidays as we prepare for our annual Christmas Service. We will continue to experiment with various instruments that resonate, such as the triangle and the hand bells. Our voices resonate too! Stay tuned, as we add even more vocal texture to our toolbox, by learning to sing ‘legato’ and ‘staccato’. Our upcoming Christmas Service is just around the corner and we can’t wait to showcase all that we have learned. WE LOVE TO SING!

Resource Office - Marion

I hope everyone had a good October.  I was away in Australia visiting my youngest son, Derek and his wife Gemma. They are expecting their first baby in March.  We had a great holiday, but it is nice to be back home and see all the children and staff.  I have been at St. Catherine’s for 22 years and it is a very big part of my life.  It was so nice to see all the wonderful bulletin boards with all the amazing art projects.  I thought I would start this blog by describing two of our classroom activities and what they bring to your child’s development. 

DRAMATIC PLAY: We are:
  • We are sharing, taking turns and cooperating
  • Making sense of our world
  • Speaking and listening
  • Problem solving
  • Role playing
  • Expressing our ideas
  • Making connections to our world
  • Imagining and creating
  • Understanding feelings.
ART ACTIVITIES: We are:
  • Creating
  • Expressing ourselves
  • Exploring a variety of media and textures
  • Building self esteem
  • Experimenting with colour, line and shape
  • Using the language of artists
  • Taking risks
  • Using big and small muscles

If you have any questions or concerns about your child please speak to the teachers and/or drop by the office.


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