Libby has worked at St. Catherine's since 1992.
Cheryl 1993.
Marion 1997.
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| 303/403 Salt dough snowmen! |
Estelle 2005.
Danielle 2005.
Stephanie 2006.
Vibha 2006.
Joanna 2007.Vibha 2006.
Jen 2008.
Tina 2009.
Rachel 2012.
Sali 2012.
Karen 2012.
Gabi 2012.
Krystal 2012.
That means that collectively we have 116 years worth of experience at St. Catherine's Preschool!
From the Resource Office: Marion
Thank you for all your special gifts and well wishes for Christmas and for the New Year, they were much appreciated.
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| The Treehouse Room is looking fabulous! |
While visiting the classrooms I am excited to see the changes in all the children. The 2’s are beginning to make connections with peers and I can hear some conversations emerging that are absolutely delightful to listen to. The 3’s have learnt to use their words and are developing their listening skills, especially at circle time and the 4’s will be moving into Kindergarten and leaving a place where they feel comfortable so this is a time for their teachers to be building their confidence and working on kindergarten readiness skills.
As soon as you know which Kindergarten your child will be attending please let your teachers know and they will post it on the bulletin boards so that you can arrange play dates which can help your child enter school having made some connections. You can also help your child by talking to them about the impending changes; helping them acquire self help skills; encouraging them to ask for help when needed; allowing your child to practise working independently; teaching them to follow directions and how important it is to follow rules. If you have any questions about Kindergarten readiness please talk to your teachers or drop by my office for a chat.
I also want to take a moment to tell you about our Summer Program for this year:
Theme: Kings, Queens, Castles and Things!
This program runs during the month of July. It runs 4 days per week and you can register for either mornings (9-12pm) or afternoons (1-4pm). Cost $85.00 per week. Registration will begin April 15th 2013. Children who will be 3 by the end of Dec. 2013 or have just finished Kindergarten may attend.
Please contact Marion for more information (604) 980-1326.
Creative Music: Cheryl
Hi everyone! What a fantastic job all our 3's and 4's did with the Christmas Services, I can't begin to tell you how hard they all worked, and I am always so proud to see them up on the stage singing and playing their instruments for their families and friends to enjoy. It's such a special part of my job!
Now that we are back to our regular music classes we have been focusing on a story called "Stranger in the Woods" which is about a snowman who is standing in the forest and all the animals are nervous and curious about what he is doing there. After reading the story we broke into groups and acted out the story which was a lot of fun.
This month we are also focusing on how loud or soft music can be. We learned that forte means that a piece of music is loud and piano means soft. We played games which involved listening and recognising which parts of the music were forte and which were piano.
February is a time for love, friendship and caring and there are a lot of fun songs, games and beautiful pieces of music on this topic which I am looking forward to sharing with the children.
Creative Music: Cheryl
Hi everyone! What a fantastic job all our 3's and 4's did with the Christmas Services, I can't begin to tell you how hard they all worked, and I am always so proud to see them up on the stage singing and playing their instruments for their families and friends to enjoy. It's such a special part of my job!
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| Lots of lanterns in the Rainbow Room! |
This month we are also focusing on how loud or soft music can be. We learned that forte means that a piece of music is loud and piano means soft. We played games which involved listening and recognising which parts of the music were forte and which were piano.
February is a time for love, friendship and caring and there are a lot of fun songs, games and beautiful pieces of music on this topic which I am looking forward to sharing with the children.
From the 2's: Vibha, Danielle, Cheryl, Gabi, Estelle, Karen and Krystal.
We can't believe it is February already!
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| Discovery 2's adorable penguin art! |
In January we were learning about winter and we discovered that penguins and polar bears live where it is very cold. We also learned about what clothes we would need to dress ourselves in for the cold weather. Some winter art activities that the children enjoyed doing were decorating mittens and gluing penguins, in which some children decided to glue more than two eyes! Some eyes were also on their penguin's tummy (too cute!). We decorated polar bears and igloos with silver glitter. We made snowflakes out of diffusing paper and watched how the paper absorbs the water colours.
At circle time we talked about winter animals, enjoyed a five little snowmen felt rhyme and participated in a winter animals memory game.
As more of our children become skilled in using the toilet, their friends who wear diapers are also taking an interest. If you are actively toilet training at home we would love to help you at school!
We would also like to ask that you as parents continue to support your children's independence with a few simple tasks when they come into the classroom. Continue to have your children walk up and down the stairs of the preschool by themselves holding the railing and/or your hand. When they get to their cubbies, please have them hang up their jackets on the hook. We find that when you have the same expectations as we do here at preschool then your children realise that both their parents and teachers are working together on these important developmental goals and children respond well to consistency!
For the rest of the month of February we will be talking about love, friendship and Valentine's day.
As always, please come and talk to us if you have any concerns.
From the Rainbow Room 301: Joanna, Sali and Karen
Since we have been back to preschool from Christmas vacation we have had a very busy month. All the children transitioned so well back to class that the teachers were surprised but knew they must have missed their friends and teachers over the break!
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| Mixing primary colours on butterflies! |
Over the first few weeks we started to learn our colours. We found that this was review for most of the children so it was exciting to play lots of different colour matching and mixing games with them. At art we experimented with mixing the three primary colours red, blue and yellow. At circle the children loved to listen to Mouse Paint, a prop box story about three curious mice that jumped in and out of paint jars changing to a new colour each time they came out of a jar. Even though the teachers had other things planned for circle the children would keep asking to see the mice again. Circles started to get longer and longer but the teachers enjoyed seeing the wonder in the children’s eyes as the mice changed colour.
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| Shapes and colour printing art! |
Next we talked about shapes. The children enjoyed making a different art activity each day with a new shape. We made triangle fish, we did stamping with squares and with circles. Now we have moved onto new themes but shapes and colours are still very important to these children’s learning so the teachers are aware that these themes need to be revisited in various ways throughout the curriculum going forward. At circle just this week Joanna played a coloured heart guessing game. The children closed their eyes and Joanna took away one heart. The children had to guess what colour was missing.
We also spent a week talking about Chinese New Year. The children learned lots about all the special things that happen in preparation for the New Year. New clothes are bought, houses are cleaned and big dinners are cooked. They learned all about the Dragon Dance and the special parades that take place during the festival. The children made dragons and paper lanterns to decorate their houses. We taught the children to say happy New year in Chinese. Gung Hey Fat Choy!!!!
Thank you to all the parents who came in to play. We had so much fun!! It was great to talk with you about how your children are doing and to observe the children feeling so proud to be playing with their parents and showing them what they do at preschool. If you did not get a chance to come play please talk to one of the teachers, we have an open door policy and want to make sure everyone has a chance to come and enjoy a preschool day.
From the Treehouse Room 302: Rachel, Stephanie and Joanna
We can't believe that we're already half way through this year. We've been talking about dinosaurs of all different kinds and their names.The children have created a lot of wonderful art work as well as participating in some really fun science activities. During the dinosaur topic the children became paleontologists when we buried bones in plaster of paris and once it had hardened they used goggles, chisels and hammers to try and find dinosaur bones!
We made a volcano out of paper mâché and then we did an experiment using baking soda, vinegar and red food colouring to make the volcano erupt. The children had so much fun watching the volcano erupt and wanted to do it over and over again!
A song that the children really enjoyed was: Down by the Bay
Down by the bay
Where the watermelons grow
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| 2013 is the year of the snake! |
Back to my home
I dare not go
For if I do
My mother will say
"Did you ever see a moose
Kissing a goose?"
Down by the bay
Down by the bay
Where the watermelons grow
Back to my home
I dare not go
For if I do
My mother will say
"Did you ever see a whale
With a polka dot tail?"
Down by the bay....
We are now talking about Valentines Day and how it's a time to tell your family and friends how much you love and care about them. Don't forget to come dressed in your favourite colour pink, purple or red for our Valentine's party on February 14th.
From the Treehouse Room 401: Rachel, Steph and Krystal
Wow, can't believe the first half of the year has already passed! We have been doing a winter theme in our classroom and we talked about the things we need to do to keep us warm when we're outside in the winter and what we can do with snow when it snows such as building snowmen, making snow angles and catching snowflakes on our tongues! The children have made some wonderful icy art projects! During the winter theme the children made snowmen that spelled out their name and they practiced writing each letter in their name. Another project the children enjoyed was making a pair of mittens which they cut out themselves and decorated as well as using tape and water colors to make beautiful snowflakes.
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| Can you see the dragon in our clssroom? |
A song the children enjoyed was
Snowflakes, snowflakes, falling to the ground. Snowflakes, snowflakes, falling to the ground. I am bundled to my chin. See my footsteps where I've been. Snowflakes, snowflakes, falling to the ground.
We are now talking about Valentines Day and how it's a day to tell your family and friends how much you love and care about them. Don't forget to come dressed in your formal party clothes for our valentines resturaunt party!
From the Treehouse Room 303/403: Sali, Stephanie and Vibha
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| Our awesome ice sculpture! |
Next, we moved on to a winter theme, the children made penguins, winter dioramas and sculpted with ice. They sang winter songs such as 'I'm a little snowman" and played games such as ''mitten match" and "snowflake counting".
We have recently talked about Chinese New Year, the Year of the Snake and the customs associated with the celebration.
We are now celebrating Valentine's day, a good opportunity to discuss friendships and kindness.
After Valentine's we will move on to a review of shapes.
From the Down-under Room: Libby, Permjit, Gabi and Joanna 402/404
We would like to welcome everyone back and wish you all a Happy New Year. We hope you enjoyed the winter break and had fun with your family and friends. Thank you for all your wonderful thoughts and wishes for Christmas along with your cards and gifts.
It is lovely to see all the children back and excited to be at preschool again. They are more aware of each other and a lot more cohesive now that they know each other so well. We soon got back into the routine and they seem more independent than ever, pouring their own water from the jug and helping others who find it difficult. We are working on getting them to put on their own coats, do zippers up and beginning to emphasise kindergarten readiness.
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| Volcanic eruptions in the 4's! |
Now we are noticing that the children will verbalise what they would like to happen and request certain activities. For example the Children in the afternoon 4’s asked if we could have a volcano party and build one. They did it with so much enthusiasm that we think there was more brown paint on the children than on the volcano! Then we watched the Volcano explode. We loved it and could not get enough of it exploding. Please can you do it again, again and again?! We loved helping to add bicarbonate and vinegar to get the red lava affect and we added red water paint for realistic lava! For our party we had Red Lava cup cakes with juice which was an awesome end to the afternoon.
We have been very busy bees! Thank you everyone for your help in making the ice. We enjoyed making our enormous ice sculpture, which was a real hit even though it was very cold to handle. We chose two water colours (red & blue) to drip over our sculpture, to see what would happen and we used salt to gel the ice together. It was tough holding on to a piece of ice (it was sooo cold) so that we could make it stick together. The children were fascinated with what would happen if salt was added and why it melted so fast without heat, just salt. We kept adding more and more salt and just watched the ice fuse together. Some of us decided we did not want to mix the two colours and wanted it to be blue, like the Canucks and some of us just wanted it to be all red.
Next was our hockey game, we could take on the Canucks because we were so fast at hitting the coloured ice cubes across the table that they broke into two! This was such a big hit; it was so much fun and very noisy. You would probably think we were at the arena, it definitely felt like it! With so much enthusiasm and helping our friends to hold the hockey stick the right way up it was lovely to see the children’s cooperation when making sure that everyone had the same number of turns.
We also learned about Orca Whales and a special one called Echo that we adopted through the Vancouver Aquarium. Each child gets to take Echo home for one weekend and bring him back on Tuesday and tell us all about Echo’s adventures with them. Echo has loved going to soccer matches and hiking to name just a couple of the adventures he has had but he loves the hugs and cuddles the best. All our friends at school look forward to hearing about his weekend.
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| Orcas in the ocean! |
These are just some of the things we have done in the month of January, if we wrote down everything it would soon become a book to read!
Now February is upon us and love is in the air. Yes you've guessed it! We will be moving into Valentine’s and Chinese New Year for this month.
Please do not hesitate to let us know if you have any concerns. We do love teaching your children and have lots of fun being with them. Like they say never a dull moment!
Some dates to remember:
Wednesday/Thursday February 13th and 14th Class Valentine parties.
Thursday February 21 Vision Screening for 302.
Wednesday February 27 Vision Screening for 301 and 303.
February 1-28 We are collecting soaps, shampoo, toothpaste, toothbrushes etc. for local shelters. If you would like to donate there is a box in the main foyer as you enter the building. Thank you to everyone who has already donated, you have made a big difference in people's lives!
A special thanks to Leslie Black one of our wonderful board moms who put on a kindergarten readiness seminar and to Libby Beaton our fantastic 4's teacher who works so hard organising our scholastic orders every month. The money we earn through Scholastic books helps us to purchase new books, toys and classroom supplies so we are very fortunate to have Libby to help us to run the program.
If you have any questions, comments or concerns please pop by the office and speak with Tina or Jen or you can reach us via:
Tel: 604-980-1326
Fax: 604-980-3277
email: stcpre@telus.net
website: www.stcatherinespreschool.com
facebook: Please "Like" our page: St. Catherine's Childcare Society.
Some dates to remember:
Wednesday/Thursday February 13th and 14th Class Valentine parties.
Thursday February 21 Vision Screening for 302.
Wednesday February 27 Vision Screening for 301 and 303.
February 1-28 We are collecting soaps, shampoo, toothpaste, toothbrushes etc. for local shelters. If you would like to donate there is a box in the main foyer as you enter the building. Thank you to everyone who has already donated, you have made a big difference in people's lives!
A special thanks to Leslie Black one of our wonderful board moms who put on a kindergarten readiness seminar and to Libby Beaton our fantastic 4's teacher who works so hard organising our scholastic orders every month. The money we earn through Scholastic books helps us to purchase new books, toys and classroom supplies so we are very fortunate to have Libby to help us to run the program.
If you have any questions, comments or concerns please pop by the office and speak with Tina or Jen or you can reach us via:
Tel: 604-980-1326
Fax: 604-980-3277
email: stcpre@telus.net
website: www.stcatherinespreschool.com
facebook: Please "Like" our page: St. Catherine's Childcare Society.
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