HAPPY NEW YEAR AND WELCOME TO 2023!
Happy New Year Everyone!
I hope you all had an amazing holiday and you managed to have some great visits with your family and friends. Let's just jump right in with both feet, and get this year started!
First off, the teachers, Marion and I want to say a big THANK YOU for all the wonderful cards, gifts and well wishes we received. We love working with your children and we really do feel appreciated!
ILLNESS POLICY
And THANK YOU parents for keeping your sick children home when they are showing symptoms of sickness. December was a low attendance month as it was just like a revolving door of sickness.
It is very important that your child stays home when they have symptoms of sickness and they should not return until all their energy has fully returned.
We do find that some children come back to school too soon and they end up rebounding, spreading germs and having to stay off sick again!
Some mornings you may find your child does not have a fever, cough or any obvious signs of sickness, but if they are uncharacteristically weepy or whiny, they may be coming down with something so best to keep them home. They are usually contagious before any symptoms are present so this may help with spreading sicknesses around the classroom to the children and teachers.
Thank you for continuing to let us know as soon as possible if your child will be absent and for letting us know what symptoms they have when they are sick.
REGISTRATION
for September 2023
All of our 2s and 3s will be receiving Registration Forms for you to fill out if you want your child to attend preschool in September 2023.
Currently enrolled families will get PRIORITY placement IF they return their registration forms WITH their deposit cheque attached BEFORE JANURARY 31st.
Community Families will be slotted in to all the remainder spots on Feb. 1st so if you do not get your registration in on time, you will not get priority placement.
If your child is in the 4s program but you have a child born in 2021, please let the office know and we will forward you a Registration Form. You can pick up a copy in the Office or download one from our website: https://www.stcatherinespreschool.com
THANK YOU for voting St. Catherine's Childcare Society as a finalist for BEST NON-PROFIT in the North Shore News Reader's Choice Awards!
Thanks so much for your support and voting for us! Next year, we hope to win the BEST PRESCHOOL category!
IMPORTANT DATES & EVENTS
JAN 31- Current Families Registration Sept/23
FEB 1 - Community Registration Sept/23
FEB 13/14 - Children's Valentine's Parties
FEB 20 - FAMILY DAY - PRESCHOOL CLOSED
FEB 21 - Church Pancake Supper
MAR 13-17 - SPRING BREAK-PRESCHOOL CLOSED
FUNDRAISING
Thanks so much for all your fundraising efforts! We have an amazing group of supporters and that is why we have a fabulous Play yard!
Here are some numbers:
Samosas: Sold $3061.97 Profit: $765.49
Purdys: Sold $5258.93 Profit: $1314.73
Pizza Night: Profit: $1029
Class Photos Donations: $125
Return It: $143
Little Kitchen Academy: $80
Other Fundraisers we have: Cobs Bread (Edgemont Village), Scholastics, Little Kitchen Academy (Edgemont Village), Lovable Labels, Boston Pizza (Esplanade), The Card Project (in May).
Little Kitchen Academy: "A huge thank you from Little Kitchen Academy Edgemont Village to your school community for your continued support during the Fall Session. We will continue to donate $10 back to your school for every registration for the upcoming seasons and donate a full package for your school's fundraising event.
Winter registration is open at Little Kitchen Academy. 3 hour classes are available weekdays after school and weekends. Register here for the winter session.
As a small token of our appreciation, use code SCCS2023 for a $50 discount for the winter session. Please register to be on our email list for access to classes prior to the public for our upcoming sessions before they are sold out: Register here"
The Classrooms are getting ready for the New Year but we want to show you what we did in December!
Head to our website and look for the BLOG LINK!
RAINBOW ROOM - Danielle, Susan, Vibha
Happy New Year!! Considering how much snow we received just a few days prior, we hope that everyone had a lovely and relaxing Christmas. What fun the snow is to play in!! We want to express our gratitude for the lovely cards, gifts, and Christmas greetings we received.
The month of December was extremely busy for the Discovery Two. We started by making your special surprise gift for you. We sincerely hope you enjoyed it and that it made it to your Christmas Tree. It will be something you can keep for years to come.
On our science table we explored ‘Christmas’ with our senses. We had sparkly ornaments, bumpy beads, soft bows, crinkly foil paper, fluffy pompoms, a pine Christmas tree as well as soft puppets for the children to explore. On the light table we set up the Nativity Scene so the children could play with the Characters including Baby Jesus, Mary, 3 Wisemen. We remodeled the housekeeping corner into a Christmas Bakery, with cookies, aprons, measuring cups, muffin trays and Christmas Baskets. They had lots of fun baking, serving themselves and others and using their imagination.
For Art we started with making our special Christmas Presents, where we carefully choose what to put inside the ball and used our hand eye coordination to push things through the small opening. We then decorated the bag we used to wrap our present with stickers & felts. We also used Christmas sequins to decorate popsicle trees and made a paper plate wreath with green paint, foam Christmas shapes and tissue paper squares. We enjoyed the different textures of the slippery sequins and the soft foam/tissue paper pieces mixed in with the wet paint/glue. We had lots of fun icing & decorating our Gingerbread Men which we got to eat at snack time. We also had fun decorating our own Reindeer Hats with crayons, stickers, and stamps. We enjoyed wearing them on our Party Day with a little red nose paint. Thank you to those parents who brought party food.
For circle we listened to many stories. We read the books ‘Silent Night’, ‘5 Christmas Penguins', ‘Christmas’ & ‘Here Comes Christmas’. We listened to the felt story Christmas Tree, Christmas Tree, What do you See? And played the game What Christmas Shape is Missing? We also listened to the felt rhymes: 5 Santa’s, 5 Gingerbread Men, 5 Stockings & 5 Christmas Trees. We sang Shake it Santa with a Santa shaped shaker, I’m a Little Pine Tree & We wish you a Merry Christmas.
In the upcoming weeks we will be talking about Winter and what we might see or do outside or what we wear when it’s cold.
Just a reminder, that if it’s not raining or snowing, we usually go outside to play, so please pack a warm jacket, mittens & hat.
We would also like to mention that if anyone is starting toilet training, please let us know as consistency is the key.
If you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to come and talk to us.
TREEHOUSE ROOM - Carol, Gabi, Karen, Kamalpreet, Rose
Welcome back after our 2 week winter break. We want to start off this blog with a big THANK YOU to all the parents for your generosity with the Christmas gifts that we received.
We started off the month of December talking about nativity. This is a time where we sit together in a circle on the floor and tell an interactive story to the children. For art we made Angels, Baby Jesus in a manger, donkeys and bright stars.
During this time, we were also practising for our Christmas service. This was particularly exciting as we haven’t had one in the last few years. We hope you enjoyed it I know we did.
And a few days before the end of school we received our Santa letter back from the North Pole and the children were very excited to have it read to them.
The children worked very well on their Christmas gift this year. We had good fun making it. We hope it will be a treasure for years to come.
Every day before the children left, they were each given a treat from the interactive gingerbread house on the board in the hallway. Sorry, this was only from December as we’ve had a few children ask why they’re still not getting them
.
Last, but not least, thank you to the parents who brought in goodies to share for our Christmas parties. The children love sitting together in a large group and talking about the food that they brought to share with friends.
All the Best to you and your family in this coming year!
SUNFLOWER ROOM - Carol, Danielle, Rose
Hello Sunflower
Families,
Although December was
a short month in terms of number of days at preschool, we certainly packed in a
lot of art, secret gift making, secret rehearsals for the Christmas service,
paint, glitter and FUN! We really needed the extra half hour that we gained
starting this month.
We started the month
learning about the Nativity, the story of the first Christmas. We used books,
toy figures and felt stories to help the children to learn about Mary, Joseph,
the baby Jesus and the shepherds and Wise men. We made nativity scenes with
popsicle sticks and painted scenes using block paints.
At the same time, work
started on our multidimensional tree scene (with lights!!). This involved
gluing tissue to upcycled jars, painting and decorating trees, attaching the
trees to a wood round, adding hemlock cones, glitter, and a piece of fabric
“personally signed by your child”, AND stringing lights to add that special
touch. The children were truly delighted and rightly proud by the sight of
their creations.
The children also
personalized the gift bags using cookie
cutter stamps, paint and glitter, and printing their names with a fabric pen.
The attached card was
two little reindeer made from their thumb prints adding faces and quite amazing
legs and antlers.
Of course we also did
lots of other art projects: We made angels out of coffee filters and feathers,
a tree snow scene, cedar rounds
decorated to make an ornament, stockings, candy canes, Christmas ball collages,
Christmas lights and much more.
On the science table
we had a display of red and green objects which were of interest for their
tactile properties. We then changed that to explore our sense of smell, with
whole and ground spices, bringing back memories of the gingerbread men we made
last month.
We listened to some
stories on CD: Santa’s New Jet, Santa Knows, Christmas for the Snowmen and A
Magical Christmas. We read stories to the children every day at preschool, and
these included: The Lady Who Swallowed a Bell, The Little Christmas Tree,
Christmas Angels, Christmas Song, Merry Christmas Big Hungry Bear, and Peppa’s
Christmas.
Each day we also sing
songs, action rhymes, tell Felt stories and play games. A lot of our songs this
month were learned and practiced in preparation for the Christmas Service. The children thoroughly enjoyed becoming
proficient in some new songs and some old favourites. It was lovely to see them
so happy when performing for their families.
Early in December we
wrote a letter to Santa, including pictures drawn by the children; and good old
Santa sent a letter back, which we read together.
We went caroling in
Edgemont village, making stops at the Amica retirement home, (they gave us
candy canes) Cobbs Bakery and Thrifty Foods. It was a lot of fun, and we made
many people smile, hopefully spreading the Christmas spirit.
As always, we ended
the term with a party! Good food (thank you to the parents who helped this
time, you’ll all get a turn), music and party games (Freeze Dancing, Head
Shoulders Knees and Toes, Find the Stocking). We made reindeer hats and Santa
faces as well. It has been a busy month, but we all had a great time.
Carol, Danielle and
Rose would especially like to extend our thanks to you, the parents, for your
thoughtfulness and generosity at Christmas time. It was very much appreciated.
Going into the new
year, we will be continuing to work on each child’s independence, in personal
life skills, such as putting on and taking off jackets, hanging up their jackets
and backpacks, etc. They have all made great gains already and we will continue
with this. Our four year olds will start to focus more on Pre Kindergarten
skills and will start weekly work in a journal.
We hope you all had a
happy and relaxing break over the Christmas holidays and that you’re as keen as
we are to start the new year and new term at St. Catherine’s Preschool.
Please always feel
free to get in touch if you have any questions or concerns,
RESOURCE OFFICE - Marion
Wishing all our families a healthy and happy 2023 and I hope everyone had an enjoyable break. Thank you for all your kind wishes and gifts, they were all much appreciated.
As we start the new year, the children will continue to develop their independence and social skills while learning through play.
The classrooms are set up each day to provide the children with opportunities to learn skills on their own, in small groups or in a larger group, such as during Circle time. The teachers are aware of age appropriate activities and while focusing on Kindergarten Readiness skills for the 4s, the 3s will have an opportunity to learn these same skills at their own pace. This is one advantage of a multi- age classroom.
Please speak with your teachers about any questions or concerns you might have and you can email the office and messages will be passed on.
We then moved onto taking local transportation with a
BC Ferry and the Skytrain. We stamped people walking onto the ferry and read
“’The Ferry Boat Ride’. We listened to the felt rhyme 4 Ferry Boats & 5
Sailboats. We read ‘ I am a Subway’ and listened to the felt rhyme
“Traffic Light’ we used different transportation cookie cutters to make our own
collage. Some of us decorated Hot Air Balloons and read “Ride the Big Machines
in Winter” and listened to the felt ‘Red car, Red Car’ what do you see?’.
