JUNE 2023

 

JUNE 2023 is our LAST MONTH OF THE SCHOOL YEAR!

We have made it to the LAST MONTH of the school year and it was ONE GREAT YEAR! We have done a lot of fun things and we learned a lot as well! 

The children strengthened their bonds with their old friends and also made new friends. Learning to meet new friends is a GREAT skill for children to learn. 

Children also learned some fabulous Self Help skills like walking down the stairs on their own, taking off their own backpacks, taking out their snacks, and of course, the best learned skill...putting on, taking off and hanging up their own coats!! (For some reason, when parents drop off and pick up at the classroom door they end up doing all these things for their children!!?!)

This summer, the best thing you can give your child is YOUR TIME. Put away your cellphone and play. 

Do things with your child that you enjoyed doing when you were young, and tell your children your stories of the past. Get out into nature and try to leave the screens turned off as much as possible.

And I do know, that as a mother of  boys, (26 and 30 years-old), your children will soon be grown and gone and getting them to come over to help you re-pot your aloe vera will be next to impossible!! 

IMPORTANT DATES & EVENTS

JUNE 16 - 4'S GRADUATION CEREMONY

      Sunflower Room: 11:45 am (Church)

      Treehouse Room: 1:30 pm (Church)

JUNE 16 - LAST DAY OF PRESCHOOL

JUNE 21 - PICNICS: All Classes 

Mahon Water Park: 11:30am - 1:30pm

Bring a blanket and lunch and stay to play in the Water Park. We will have a last HOORAH to say goodbye to all our friends and teachers. And the FAMOUS CANDY TOSS just might be happening!! 

HEY! St. Catherine's has a COMMUNITY GARDEN!

Do you love to garden but don't have the space? 

There are 9 garden boxes that are up for rent this summer! You can adopt a garden box for $40. 

Just contact the Church Office at scadmin@shaw.ca to order yours today! 

FUNDRAISING IN THE SUMMER

We have several fundraising partners that you can visit in the summer to keep supporting St. Catherine's Childcare Society while we are closed until September. Please think about sharing them with your friends and family as well! 

1. Scholastic Books: You can get books delivered to your home over the summer. Please go online and take a look at some of the fabulous books, activities and learning materials you can order. They make great gifts throughout the year for any age! 

https://classroomessentials.scholastic.ca/en/home Click on the link and use our Class Code: RC168576

2. Little Kitchen Academy: The first-of-its-kind Montessori-inspired cooking school in Edgemont Village for children ages three through teen. Let them know at Registration that you are part of St. Catherine's Childcare Society and you will receive a discount and our school will receive a $10 bonus!

3. Lovable Labels: Order personalized labels for your children's clothes, lunch boxes and containers and anything else that needs labelling. 20% of every order will support St. Catherine's Childcare Society. Place your order online at www.StCatherines.lovablelabels.ca

4. Cobs Bakery: When you make a purchase at the Edgemont Village Cobs store, you can mention you would like to support St. Catherine's Preschool and 5% of your purchase will be forwarded to St. Catherine's.

5. Return It Recycling at Brooksbank Ave: Take your cans and bottles to the Return It Depot on Brooksbank Ave. and you can donate them to St. Catherine's Childcare Society. You will need to print off a St. Catherine's Childcare Society sticker (or pick one up from the preschool office) and put that on your clear bag of cans/bottles/milk containers and St. Catherine's will get the proceeds! 

6. Boston Pizza on Esplanade: When you purchase food from the Boston Pizza on Esplanade & Chesterfield in North Van., take a clear picture of your receipt and email it to the preschool. We will forward these on, and we will receive a bonus for 5% of the food sales! 

Please remember that we will have fundraisers all year long so let your friends and family know about all our special events!

Future Events:

Pizza Night & Cake Walk:     November 2023

Purdys Chocolates:                 November 2023

Samosas:                                 November 2023

The Card Project:                    Spring 2024

THE CLASSROOMS WERE BUSY...

RAINBOW ROOM - Danielle, Susan, Vibha

In the month of May, we delved into two exciting themes with our children. The enchanting world of Under the Sea and the fascinating era of Dinosaurs.  Through engaging discussions, interactive activities, and hands-on exploration, we provided a captivating learning experience that explored the wonders of marine life and the prehistoric creatures that once roamed the earth.

Our art activities included creating marble painting seahorses, decorating jellyfish, crafting sea turtles, making sea creatures stencil collages and designing a starfish using tissue paper.

Circle time is always an exciting, enriching part of our day, where we come together to learn and explore. The "Goodnight Ocean" book and the stories about "Slippery Fish" and "Fidgety Fish" were enjoyed by our children. And our Five Blue Whales and Slippery Fish felt rhymes were a big hit. 

Young children are naturally curious about dinosaurs whether it is the terrifying T-Rex, the long necked Brachiosaurus, or the funny looking Triceratops.

Dinosaurs are super cool! We did a fantastic art project by creating a dinosaur skeleton with Q-tips and a tissue paper Stegosaurus. The Shake It Dino Egg action song was an engaging experience for the children. Another energetic and fun body movement activity was Stomping Like a Dinosaur. Five Huge Dinosaurs felt rhyme allowed the children to actively engage in the storytelling process. 

This blog post marks the end of our journey together, and we want to take this opportunity to express our heartfelt thanks for all the love and support you have provided us throughout the year.

It has been an absolute joy to have your children in our care, watching them grow, learn, and explore the world around them. Their enthusiasm and curiosity have brightened our days, and we are grateful for the opportunity to be a part of their lives. We wish you and your family a safe and fantastic summer.

TREEHOUSE ROOM - Carol, Gabi, Karen, Rose, Catriona

In a few weeks, your children will move on from preschool to either start in a Kindergarten class, or hopefully they will return to St. Catherine's in the Fall.

They are so ready to do so! We are confident that they are prepared, equipped with lots of new skills in so many areas of their development, and also a little bit scared and very much excited for the upcoming changes.

One thing for sure, they are bolder, louder and faster - definitely keeping us moving to get those 10 000 steps by mid day. They are also more observant, curious, passionate, and very keen to be part of fun activities and little groups that captures their interest. 

Instead of a detailed description of our activities for May, please excuse our spying on your children while we share what we witnessed by watching them play. We strongly believe that children learn best through play, and that must be the main reason we all ended up at St. Catherine’s. 

It’s an amazing feeling to witness a group of young minds coming up with a grand idea, and to help them to create and learn through this idea, then multiply it into a hundred other ideas. 

Well, it all started with a box of chalk. A big box of big, chunky, colourful chalk pieces that were meticulously worked into a small handful of tiny pieces in about two weeks of time. In the beginning, a few friends decided that they wanted to make FAIRY DUST. Geniuses! They worked like there was no tomorrow. They gathered tools, pails, small rocks, small twigs, leaves. 

The initial idea was that if they got enough ‘fairy dust’ on our shoes, our wishes would be granted. Dirty shoes did not make everyone happy, so dust was produced on our hands. Some people were assigned to work in the sandbox to mix different colours in different containers. Some were building roads, some were mixing the dust with sand. Some of the workers hid some chalk pieces for later realizing how valuable they were at the moment. 

Geniuses! They compared, measured, planned, tested, organized, and most importantly, worked in groups, in teams. They negotiated, compromised, coordinated and communicated. 

I’m sure that most of you know the expression “everything I know I learned in Kindergarten“. It needs a correction. “Everything I know I learned in preschool.”

SUNFLOWER ROOM - Carol, Danielle, Rose

How time flies! The last 9 months have flown by with lots of learning, playing and having fun and we packed May full of so much it is hard to remember it all.

We started with learning about the author and song writer ‘Raffi’. It was exciting to learn that Raffi lives in BC and is Canadian. We sang soooo many of our favorite songs like "Baby Beluga", "Willaby, Wallaby Woo", "Brush Your Teeth", "There is a Spider on Your Head" and "Down by the Bay". The children enjoyed making their own beluga whales and elephants. They also glued tissue paper onto paper spiders and watermelons.

We then moved onto Mother’s Day. The children were asked ‘What is something you love about your Mom?’ We talked about how special they are to us. We decorated clay pots and planted flower seeds to go inside the pots. We made a lovely flower card with ‘buttons’. We read books on how we love our Mom’s and sang “MOMMY’ (to the tune of Bingo).

We have ended the year with a trip around the world. The children grabbed their ‘passports’, packed their bags and headed off to discover new places. Each child had the opportunity to choose a country they ‘identified’ with and shared it with their friends. This has created a great learning environment as the children have the chance to speak in front of their friends and the children have learnt about each other through listening to their friends, sharing food, pictures and customs.

We started in Australia and painted Boomerangs, then to Korea and learnt how to play the game Ddakji. We made a Chinese Flag with red tissue paper and gold stars and Rose told us about Taiwan and we can say ‘Ni hao’ to say hello. We had YUMMY Iranian candies and chocolate burgers and learnt there are many, many big animals in South Africa. We also enjoyed some delicious treats as well.  We made windmills and ate cheese from Holland and learnt about Leprechauns, shamrocks and shortbread in Ireland.

We then moved on to Scotland while listening to bagpipes and dancing a ‘Highland Fling’. We also read ‘The Loch Mess Monster’. We visited England, talked about Big Ben, saw lots of castles and sang ‘London Bridge’ & ‘Grand Old Duke of York’.  For our last few days we have finally returned to North America. We started by exploring Manitoba, having polar bear cookies, played hockey in the gym and read the story “Making a Moose out of Life”. We watched short videos about life in a cabin in Indian Arm.  In Hawaii we learned how to ‘hula dance’ and we decorated surfboards.  We also learned about all the different types of animals in Honduras & The San Juan Island. We finally returned to Canada and celebrated our own city, beautiful Vancouver.

In amongst all of this exciting travel we didn’t forget about our Dad’s. We painted our secret glass bottles, mixed and poured some special ingredients and made Dad portraits for a card. We sang ‘DADDY’ and One Little Hug and read ‘Best Dad in the Sea’. For our last week we will relax and have fun with our friends.

We have loved spending time over the last ten months with your children and will miss them a lot. We hope to see some of them again in September and if they are graduating, pop by for a visit.  We would like to wish you all a Wonderful Warm Summer!        

 Carol, Danielle & Rose

RESOURCE ROOM - Marion

"Are we at the end of the school year?"- you may be asking this very question, as am I.  

It seems like only yesterday that the Discovery 2s were dealing with Gradual Entry schedules and separation, and the 3s were back making new friends, connecting with old ones and getting to know their teachers.  The 4s came back from the Summer break with all new skills and an excitement for learning and preparing for the next chapter in their lives.  I have enjoyed spending time in all the classrooms and watching the children grow and meet their developmental milestones at their own pace through play.

A few things to think about over the Summer:

Emotional Development: a strong sense of trust, security, confidence and self-esteem - is the foundation for learning and growing.

Social Competence: making friends, sharing, turn taking, cooperation - are identified in all research as a critical factors for school success.

Language Development: vocabulary building, rhyming, oral communication, listening - is identified in all research as a prerequisite for academic success.

Please enjoy your Summer break, while you relax and enjoy these early years.  I know I certainly did and now as Mere Mere to three beautiful grandchildren, I am confident that my 3 boys will carry on our family values of love, respect and having fun together.  

Remember to laugh. it is good for the soul.

 

MAY 2023

Well, here we are in May and we certainly know that the weather can change at the drop of a hat!! 

The word of the Month is LAYERS: Outer layer to inner layer goes Rain Coat, Sweatshirt, t-shirt, tank top! I always have a small umbrella tucked into my lunch kit so I never get caught in the rain on my walk to and from work! I've lived in North Van. for almost all my 56 years and I have learned a few tricks over the years!     

IT'S WET CLOTHES SEASON!

WE ARE LOOKING FOR PLASTIC BAGS! 

IF YOU HAVE ANY SPARE PLASTIC BAGS PLEASE THINK ABOUT DONATING!

DATES TO REMEMBER 

MAY 5 - Pro-D Day: PRESCHOOL CLOSED

MAY 22 - Victoria Day: PRESCHOOL CLOSED

JUN 16 - Graduation Day (All 4s)

JUN 16 - Last Day of Preschool

JUN 21 - Picnics (All classes)

SAVE THE DATE!!

GRADUATION for the FOURS will be held on FRIDAY, JUNE 16TH. 

Both the Treehouse MWF class and the Treehouse TU/TH class will have their Grad Ceremonies together on FRIDAY, JUNE 16TH. 

Sunflower Room will have a separate ceremony on this day as well. More specific class information to follow.

JEANS WEEK FUNDRAISER for the BC CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL

THANK YOU SO MUCH to all of you who wore your denim and threw your coins into the umbrellas at pick up and drop off last week! We collected $410.00! That is amazing!! Thanks again for all your support!

HEY!! DID YOU HEAR WHAT HAPPENED?? Please check out what went on in our Classrooms. We are at the end of the year and the teachers have been amping up their programs. We have the finish line in our sights!

RAINBOW ROOM - Danielle (T/Th), Susan (M/W), Vibha (M,T, W, Th)

Hello two’s families,

We have spent another enjoyable month within the Rainbow Room.  A few of the highlights have been celebrating Easter, getting up close and personal with bugs and fundraising for an important charity.

Within the month of April the Preschool takes on an important role in fundraising for the BC Children's Hospital. The fundraiser is called Jeans Week and we encourage our families to come to school in denim to show their support. Money raised will go to the hospital to help children in BC who need medical care. We feel fortunate to have such generous support from all the families within the preschool, thanks again.

Easter celebrations were a pleasure to facilitate this year and the children were very engaged with the idea of it all. We decorated cookies, went on a hunt for the Easter Bunny and created some lovely Easter art. We hope that each of you enjoyed some family time.

Now that the nice weather is upon us, we are hoping to spend lots of time in our playground. The playground provides the children with the opportunity to climb, jump and use large body movements. The teachers love to spend time outside as well, so we are all looking forward to it!

As usual, please send your children with weather appropriate footwear and clothing, this helps them enjoy their time at preschool even more. 

A couple reminders for the next month ahead: The preschool is closed on Friday, May 5^th for a Professional Development Day, as well as May 22^nd  which is Victoria day.

Thank you for taking the time to read the Classroom Blog. It is always nice to have the parents learn more about what their children are doing within the school. 

TREEHOUSE ROOM - Karen (M-F)), Gabi (M-F), Carol (T/Th). Rose (T/Th)

Hello Treehouse Parents

We started off April with getting ready for Easter. Each child made an Easter basket in preparation for our surprise visit from the Easter Bunny. We had practised finding eggs hidden in the classroom and outside in the playground. The children used watercolour paints to create some colourful works of art from eggs, bunnies, flowers, chicks and so much more. 

Other art consisted of a paper bunny hiding in the grass, decorating bunny shaped cookies and making bunny crowns. We celebrated Easter with a party, a short video about Easter, face painting, freeze dance and musical chairs. A slide show was emailed to all parents through Smilebox,  and we hope you all had a chance to see it. A big thank you to the families who brought sent in food to be shared.

Spring is here, or is it? We took a neighbourhood walk and saw all the sights of Spring from birds, insects, smells, sounds, the air temperature, weather and the flowers, oh the flowers. For art the children made painted daffodils, watercolour flowers, purple crocus, forsythia and paper mache bird nests.

During Circle Time we have been talking about planting seeds and what they need to grow and how earthworms are a sign of good soil and the roll they play in nature. The clothing we wear in Spring can be very difficult to choose because it starts off cold in the morning and then it's much warmer in the afternoon. 

For Jeans Week every April Marion cuts out small shaped jeans for the children to decorate. We talk about why we are raising money for the BC Children's Hospital and all the things it does for families. So many children have stories about going to the hospital for earaches, body injuries, injections and much more.

A special day is coming up and the children have been preparing a special surprise for MOM! 

We will be starting Community Helpers at the end of April leading into May. Then we will talk about popular children’s authors, Sea Life and then it will be summer break!

 

Thanks for reading.

SUNFLOWER ROOM - Danielle, Carol, Rose

Spring is here, hurray! Thankfully, we’re able to spend even more time outside and the sandbox has dried out enough to be put to good use again.

Our April programming started with Easter. We had a great time in the Sunflower Room making Easter eggs, bunny rabbits, bunny masks and baskets to collect chocolate eggs in. On the Wednesday before Easter, the Easter Bunny mysteriously visited St. Catherine's (leaving big pink footprints on the floor) and hid chocolate eggs for the children to find and collect in their baskets. To help keep things fair and to practice their counting skills, the children were shown a diagram of how many and which types of eggs they were to find. A great game that was lots of fun and good practice.

Echo

We have finished with the project of sending Echo, our orca, home with each child, but we have kept the book (binder) containing the pictures and captions of each visit. It sits on our bookshelf and the children are really enjoying looking through it. They don’t just want to look for their own entries and pictures. We’re hearing them ask their friends about their section: “What’s happening here?” “Tell me about it.” It’s lovely to see these friendships maturing. Thank you, parents, for participating in our Echo unit, it really means a lot to the children.

Jeans Week

We started Jeans Week with the now traditional art of glitzing and glamming up a small pair of denim jeans. Sequins and glitter are always a popular addition to the art table.

We’d like to thank everyone who supported our fundraiser for B.C. Children’s Hospital. Our children enjoyed putting donations into the upturned umbrella, and in the classroom we talked about what that money might be used for. We linked this with discussions about caring for others, sharing and being helpful; this also flowed into early plans for Mother’s Day and the special gift the children have been working on. (Which of course is still a secret.)

The children have developed great friendships in the Sunflower Room. Each day, we see examples of genuine empathy for each other. When a child recently misplaced something important to them, the rest of the class stopped what they were doing and hunted all over the room to find it. This was spontaneous, and “child-lead” ( the teachers didn’t ask them to help). They are becoming more and more helpful towards each other, sharing and taking turns is becoming easier and more common place.

Alphabet

We have wrapped up our theme of looking at each letter of the alphabet. The children really enjoyed bringing in the Alphabet Box when it was their turn, and showing the class the objects they’d found at home starting with “their letter”. It’s a very worthwhile exercise and we thank the parents for their help with this.

Theming our art and science tables with the alphabet lead to some fun and “experiential” projects and experiments; the experience being as or more important than the outcome. For instance, V for volcano, meant a multi- day art project making a clay volcano and then painting it and adding smoke! We were so pleased at the fun the children had making them as well as how unique and individual each one was. Of course, we also created a “real” volcano for the science table with foaming lava making a wonderful mess. The children helped measure out the ingredients and we were all very excited by the awesome results.

For the letter X, we had a few xylophones on the science table and also used xylophones in our music class that week.

Eric Carle

We ended April looking at the books and artwork of Eric Carle. We combined this with a theme on bugs. The books we featured included:

The Very Hungry Caterpillar

The Very Busy Spider

The Lonely Firefly

The Grouchy Ladybug

The Mixed up Chameleon

For art we used a lot of tissue paper, glue and water colours to make abstract pictures as well as a butterfly and a chameleon, all in the style of Eric Carle.

Included in our bug study was a bug walk outside, searching around our building, around the gardens, as well as finding the odd tiny spider inside!

What a great month we’ve had. We look forward to going “ Around The World” in May, and learning about each other’s cultural and familial heritage. It will be another  opportunity for each child to share something of themselves with the class and to practice speaking to the group.

Thanks again for your ongoing support for our classroom

RESOURCE ROOM - Marion

May is a very special month with our Butterfly Kits arriving on May 10th and Mother's Day on May, 14th. The caterpillars will start off in the office to give them a chance to eat and grow.  Once all the caterpillars have formed their chrysalises, they will reside in an aquarium in the Treehouse Room (2 weeks).  All the classes take turns visiting and anxiously waiting for the Painted Lady Butterflies to emerge (10 days). They are kept in the classroom and then are released into the Memorial Garden.

I have been visiting the classrooms and observing the children as they practice all the new skills that they have learned throughout the year. 

As the 4s move on to Kindergarten they are working on their readiness skills.

  

Parents can help with this transition by:

* Talking with their child about some of the impending changes.  Do not overwhelm 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 and jackets)

* Encouraging 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 your child to print their own name. (use the dot to dot method if needed)

Graduation Ceremonies will be held on Friday, June 16th, 2023. Individual invitations will be sent out at a later date with more details.

Staffing Change:

Kamal, who has been a Program Assistant in the Treehouse Room, Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, will be returning to school to complete her Early Childhood Education at Vancouver Career College.

 GOOD LUCK KAMAL!

 

APRIL 2023

APRIL SHOWERS bring...

a) May flowers

b) puddles

c) boots & umbrellas

d) all of the above

Answer: d) all of the above!

It's no JOKE, but we have made it to April already! Not even 3 months left to go! 

Fundraising

Thanks to everyone who purchased items from our Samosa fundraiser! We raised $436.67 in profits that will go towards upgrading and maintaining our outdoor playground and gym equipment. Thanks for your support!

Also, watch out for your child's CARD PROJECT fundraising card to come home. Go online to see the beautiful products made with your child’s art:

greeting cards, tote bags, mouse pads and tea towels, notebooks, sketchbooks, art prints, and canvasses. They make great gifts for grandparents!

To order, please go to www.TheCardProject.ca

Our school access code is – ST98

Order deadline is Easter Monday, April 10

with delivery in time for Mother’s Day.

LITTLE KITCHEN ACADEMY Fundraiser

A huge thank you from Little Kitchen Academy - Edgemont Village for your continued support. We are delighted to continue our partnership as an official fundraising partner. The LKA GiveBack Program will continue to donate $10 to your school every time a student registers for a drop-in class, session and/or camp. At booking, you must select your school’s name from the drop-down menu for the question "How did you hear about LKA?” to ensure your school receives the donation. 

As a bonus for parents, use code SCHOOL2023 at check-out for a $50 discount applicable to any session and/or camp booking of 3 classes or more.  Little Kitchen Academy is the first-of-its-kind Montessori-inspired cooking academy for kids aged 3-18 providing a safe & empowering environment to learn practical life skills, confidence, independence, and healthy eating habits to last a lifetime. With only 10 students per class, spots fill up quickly. Join our email list to gain early access to upcoming classes before they are available to the public.  

Spring & Summer registration is ongoing! Click here to Register. 

IT'S WET CLOTHES SEASON!

WE ARE LOOKING FOR PLASTIC BAGS! 

IF YOU HAVE ANY SPARE PLASTIC BAGS PLEASE THINK ABOUT DONATING!

SAVE THE DATE!!

GRADUATION for the 4's will be held on FRIDAY, JUNE 16TH. 

Both the MWF classes and the TU/TH classes will have their Grad Ceremonies together on FRIDAY, JUNE 16TH.

DATES TO REMEMBER 

APR 7 - Good Friday: PRESCHOOL CLOSED

APR 10 - Easter Monday: PRESCHOOL CLOSED

APR 24-28 - Jeans Week

MAY 5 - Pro-D Day: PRESCHOOL CLOSED

MAY 22 - Victoria Day: PRESCHOOL CLOSED

JUN 16 - Graduation Day (All 4s)

JUN 16 - Last Day of Preschool

The Classrooms are busy with all the activities that are going on! Please check out what happened last month in class! 

RAINBOW ROOM-Danielle (Tu/Th), Susan (M/W), Vibha(M-Th)

We hope you all had a wonderful Spring Break. Can you believe it's already April? Time really flies when you're having fun, and at St Catherine’s Childcare, we definitely had a blast!

Last month, our preschoolers learned about three exciting themes: Flowers, Farm Animals, and Easter. We explored these topics through a wide variety of songs, stories, and art activities. 

But the highlight of the month was definitely our Easter Service. The youngest children performed for the first time in the Church, and they were absolutely adorable! It was heartwarming to see how much they've grown. 

Speaking of growth, we've noticed that our little 2-year-olds are starting to develop into little 3-year-olds. Their play is incorporating more and more friends, and the most exciting area of development is language. It's amazing to see how much they've learned in such a short amount of time!

Another interesting development is the emergence of pretend play, also known as imaginary play. It's amazing to see the children's imaginations come to life as they create their own worlds and scenarios. Who knows, we might have some future actors and actresses among us!

In the month of April we will be focusing on Easter, Bugs and Jeans week. 

So let us laugh and let us play,

Learning new things every day.

Preschool is a special place,

A world of wonder, a smiling face.

TREEHOUSE ROOM- Karen (M-F), Gabi (M-F), Rose (Tu/Th), Carol (Tu/Th), Kamal (MWF)

Spring has sprung, at least according to our calendars, but we have been wearing our heavy winter coats while spending time outdoors during free play time. Speaking of unpredictable weather, please continue to send your children to preschool in layers, comfortable shoes/ boots, and in clothing that you might have to launder several times before you discover their original colour. Our troops love to sit on wet bark mulches, roll on the ground, dig in dirt or sand, paint, glue, and touch things that you wouldn’t.

The first week of March was busy with practicing for the Easter Services; the children were excited to show their talents again, remembering standing in front of their loved ones before Christmas ( or remembering how they did not want to do it again, ever again..: ) We were proud of them as always, and we are sure that you were too. Thank you for visiting our classroom afterwards as it meant a lot to your little ones to show you around!

It is always hard for our children to get back to a daily routine after spending days with family members at home or on a holiday. After the week-long Spring Break some of our very young children had some emotional moments missing home, and that did upset some of their friends. I know it’s hard to believe, but they are resilient, resourceful little people who usually settle in quickly and play happily a few minutes after you drop them off ( crying, and with a death grip around your neck .) 

We decided not to follow any themes after returning to school, letting the children lead with ideas for some activities, art projects and desired stories. We had some great fun reading their chosen books, playing their favourite games and messing with paint for the longest time, and we took leisurely walks around the neighbourhood. We discussed how to walk safely and pointed out traffic lights, traffic rules and signs that we have recognized from the books and rhymes that we had shared during the Transportation theme earlier.

We have been focusing on Kindergarten Readiness by playing a lot of Alphabet/ Number games at Circles, and practicing cutting, gluing, colouring and painting at the Art table with more complex, multiple steps projects.

Our busy days burn calories, so please send a healthy, well balanced meal and please leave the sweets home, or we will have no choice but let your child eat the chocolate bar a few minutes before you pick them up!

SUNFLOWER ROOM- Danielle, Carol, Rose

Spring has sprung and the children have started to blossom as they continue to learn, develop and explore in the Sunflower Room.  The older children are continuing with their Kindergarten Readiness with writing in their journals and continuing with their self-help skills. The younger children are starting to try and write their names and they are learning to put on their own jackets. 

The children’s imaginations are also blooming. We turned the home corner into the Circle carpet, complete with a calendar, leaders & helpers names, books and mats. Their play was creative, they took turns being the teacher (either Danielle or Carol) or leaders and they were communicating with their friends.  This was a great learning curve for our older children as they tried to recognize their friends’ names when picking the leaders. We even had one child typing on a computer saying, “I’m Tina”.

For our first week in March, we began our learning journey into the Alphabet. Each letter is introduced by a song that sounds out how the letter should ‘sound’. It is then followed by an Alphabet Soup Can with examples of things that start with the letter of the day. We have then incorporated the ‘Alphabet Box’ into our circle time where every day, one child has the chance to take the next letter that we are learning about home & bring back 5 things that start with that letter in the box for the next school day. This is a great opportunity for the children to extend their learning at home, then come back and share it with their friends. This also helps with their confidence and participation in front of their friends.

Over the last few weeks, we read and listened to many books. For example, “Apple Countdown, Chick a Chick a Boom Boom, Dinosaur, Dinosaur, Farm Flu, Giraffes Can’t Dance, Rumble in the Jungle, The Lamb Who Came for Dinner, The Jellybean Tree. We have listened to many felt rhymes & songs like 5 Apples, Ben the Beaver, 5 Camels, 5 Elephants, 5 Frogs, 5 Green Grapes, Sleeping Mice, ABC & 5 Little Rabbits.

For Art we glued, painted, cut and decorate many different things like Apples, Carrots, Ducks, Giraffes, Hedgehogs, Iguanas, Jellyfish, Kites, Lions, Mice, Nests, Owls, Pigs, Q for Quack and Rabbits.

The children also spent time practicing for their Easter Concert and what a great performance we had. We were very proud of them all.

We also spent a week talking about Spring. The children had fun exploring real plants & flowers instead of playdough and they had the opportunity to plant seeds that grew into Alfalfa Sprouts. We hope they continue to grow at home, and you can eat them. We also turned the Home Corner into a garden with ‘sunflowers’ to plant, seed packets to buy and flowers to water. We learned that for seeds to grow they need soil, water and sun. We also talked about the signs of Spring, the changing of the weather, wearing less clothes, the sun shining more and seeing new life in the garden. We read “Mouse’s 1^st Spring", "A Seed Grows" and "Plant the Tiny Seed". We ‘grew’ from a seed to a flower, and we matched flowers by colours.

For the next few weeks, we will continue our journey learning about the rest of the alphabet, Easter, Eric Carl and bugs. If you have any questions please let us  know.

RESOURCE ROOM- Marion

On vacation! Check back next week!