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We have had such a fun month here at preschool, first we had a parent education seminar with Christopher Burt M.A. in April which was very well attended. Chris spoke about how we as parents and caregivers have the ability to influence our children's behaviour rather than trying to control it. He talked about setting up environments which are conducive to wanted behaviours such as looking at the areas in which we are experiencing the most difficulties, for example bedtime, and making changes in the way we approach this daily routine. Perhaps turning the television/computer/cell phone off for the hour before bedtime and having a snack/bath/story etc. every evening might begin the routine and set a calm tone. Next being very engaged with your children about the going to bed process and sticking to this routine as much as possible, could help to influence the perception of a child who sees bedtime as a negative end to a fun day.
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Now I am making sure that we have our outfits picked out the night before, all homework and notices ready to go, and packed lunches made the evening before (yes I know I should have been doing this stuff all along!) as well as making sure that Ayla in particular, has a snack half an hour before bed all translates into a smoother bedtime routine and then an easier morning. Another important part to this new and improved morning routine is that I am making myself get up half an hour earlier so that I am dressed and ready to be solely available to help Ayla and Kaitlyn begin their day. I am waking them up earlier too, so that if they are not having a great morning we don't have to worry so much about being late while simultaneously feeling grumpy and stressed!
Changing the environment by making things more organised and changing my own routine as a parent is proving to be much more effective than my previous method of basically letting the girls know that they needed to get up and be responsible for helping to get themselves to school on time. Even though I thought I was using positive language and letting them know what was expected of them, I didn't have the environment set up which would help them to succeed and my words meant nothing to them while we were rushed and stressed!
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I think many parents find themselves using language to either explain over and over what they would like to see in regards to their children's behaviours or going straight to a consequence which is often only something which works in the short term, and attends only to the unwanted behaviour rather than encouraging the behaviours we want to see.
Chris definitely focused a lot of his seminar on the ideas of acknowledging wanted behaviours frequently instead of putting so much effort into changing unwanted behaviours as well as changing the environments that our children are exposed to, rather than expecting great changes in their behaviours to come from within.
I would also like to say a big thank you to Leslie Black for introducing us to Chris and for her hard work in putting together this parent seminar.
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| Our Fantastic Board Moms! |
$500 cash donation: Jonathon Harbut, Jarvis McGee Rice Trial Lawyers.
Make-up application: Li-Sun Goh.Wine and Cheese basket: Laura Clarke/Team Clarke.
Gift certificate: Pizazz Gifts-Edgemont Village.
Computer Consulting gift certificate: Christian Behnke, NJOI MEDIA.
Garden clean-up gift certificate: Great Canadian Landscape Co.
Autographed Quattro Cookbook and $25.00 Liquor store gift certificate. Anonymous.3 mens/children's haircuts: Brenda the Barber, Capilano Barbers.
Golf accessory package: David Cechini, Sun Life Financial.
Shiseido Gift Bag: Holly Carpenter, Shiseido Cosmetics.Customised Garden Consultation: Heidi Woodley.
4Cats Art Studio gift certificates x2: Edgemont Village.
1 Night of accommodation and breakfast for 2 at the Westin Bayshore hotel.
Cookbook, Handsworth School 2012 Edition: Laura Clarke/Team Clarke.
Entertainment Book: Vibha Sisodraker.
Blue Mountain, Pinot Noir reserve 2009: Allison and Vince Sorace.
Cobbs Bread vouchers: Edgemont Village.
Black Bear Pub gift certificate: Molly Thompson.Stella and Dot jewellery: Nicola More.
Scholastic Book Basket: St. Catherine's Preschool.
Briefcase, Bugatti Leather portfolio and pen: Davidson & Co. Chartered Accountants.
A Kiss Goodnight Sleep Consultation: Leslie Black, A Kiss Goodnight.
Keg Steakhouse and Bar gift certificate: Patrick and Sarah Mackenzie.
Toys 'R' Us gift certificates x 2: Patrick and Sarah Mackenzie.45 minute in studio Photo Session: Mountain West Studios, Will and Heidi Woodley.
Bottle of wine and cap: Doug Chilton: Delta Sierra Construction and Millwork Ltd.
KidsBooks gift certificate: Edgemont Village.
Mani/Pedi: Four Seasons Nail Spa, West Vancouver.
Polly Pocket Extravaganza!: Danielle Moore.
"Morgan 2010" Cote Dupy Magnum: Julie Miller Homes, Prudential Sussex Realty.
Original Canvases 2013: Children of St. Catherine's Preschool.
Wow!! We feel so much love and support from you all!
From the Resource Office: Marion
The year is quickly coming to an end and we are starting to enjoy some warmer, sunny days. It has been a pleasure watching your children grow with their peers. For the 4’s this means leaving familiar friends, teachers and routines.
Please check the boards for the lists of which Kindergarten everyone is going to and see if you can arrange some play dates in the next month and during the summer. It can be helpful to visit your elementary school playground before school starts to meet some friends.
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You can help your child with the transition by:
- Talking with your child about the impending changes.
- Helping your child to acquire many self-help skills.
- Encouraging your child to ask for help when needed.
- Allowing your child to practise working independently.
- Helping your child to learn his/her full name, address and telephone number.
- Teaching your child about rules and how important they are.
From Creative Music Cheryl
After all the work of the Easter Services it has been nice to settle back in to our regular routine in the music room. We have been reading Shel Silverstein's poem "The Yippie Yuck" which is so full of imagery and a great poem for young children. We spent time acting out the poem and thought about what the Yippie Yuck might have looked like and sounded like.
We have our music open house next week on Wednesday May 22 and Thursday May 23.
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Parent/caregivers are welcome but we do ask that you find care for younger siblings so that you can focus and engage with you preschooler and make this a special time just for you and them.
In preparation for the music open house we are learning a song which is played in three parts. It is called "Come follow, follow, follow, follow, follow, follow me"! and we are learning to play the xylophone for one part, the drums for another and bells for the final part of the song.
From the Discovery 2's Danielle, Estelle, Vibha, Gabi, Cheryl, and Karen
What a lovely April the Discovery Two's have had this year. We focused on the theme of Spring and all the beautiful things we discover when the weather starts to get warmer and it rains a little less.
We read "The Lonely Firefly", "The Hungry Caterpillar", "The Grouchy Ladybug" and many more books about spring. We listened to felt rhymes: "5 Little Bunnies", "5 Frogs", "5 Ladybugs" and more! We felt the texture of cherry blossoms, a bird's nest, pieces of wood, bee hives, and pine cones as well as spending time outside, searching for bugs!
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We made our own Cherry Blossom trees, experimented with water colour and made Butterflies and Dragonflies. We also made tulip hand prints and spotted Ladybugs. Some of us even made our own 3D bugs with coffee grinds! Next we glued and painted flowers and used our hands to make bees wings.We explored Animal Yoga poses and 'grew' from a small seed into a flower. We danced around the room with scarves and we have started to use bubbles to try to understand our own "personal bubble".
We have also been talking a bit about using our "Gentle Hands" and using our words with our friends. Two books we read where "Hands are not for Hitting" and "Words are Not for Hurting".
As the children are becoming more comfortable in the classroom and used to the routines and expectations we find that they are beginning to try to test the boundaries that we have set with regards to appropriate behaviours in the classroom. We find it is important to be consistent with our directions and follow through on them. It is also important to provide the children with a couple of choices to encourage their independence but yet still be socially appropriate for all involved.
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| Buzzy bees and Cherry trees! |
Just a quiet note to let you know that even though the weather is getting warmer, our playground stays cool and shaded for most of the day, so please pack a warm sweater/jacket, thank you!
We hope you enjoyed your Mother's Day surprise!
From the Rainbow Room 301 Sali, Joanna and Karen
We hope you all enjoyed watching your children perform at the Easter services and that you enjoyed meeting other parents at the tea. The children practised very hard to learn their songs and play their instruments.
In early April, we talked about planting and spring. The children planted their own bean seeds and were very excited to see them beginning to sprout. We read a book called "Grow Flower Grow" in which a little girl is trying to figure out the best food to help her flower grow. We made daffodils out of cup cake cases and displayed them on our back wall. We had a garden centre in the house corner and had so much fun wearing gardening gloves and arranging and watering bouquets (and of course giving them to the teachers!)
We talked about weather and displayed all our weather art work on the bulletin board. We made raindrops out of diffusing paper which hung from a cloud covered in black hand prints. We painted rainbows and suns and made ‘stained glass’ kites with tissue paper. For circle, we learned how to spell some weather words to the tune of B-I-N-G-O.
Toward the end of April, we had our Jeans week in which the teachers and children wore jeans in support of BC Children’s Hospital. We decorated our own mini pairs of jeans and read the book "Franklin goes to the hospital" to explain what going to the hospital is all about. The children were so excited to toss their donations into the umbrella. Thank you to all the parents for your generous donations, it goes towards a very worthy cause.
We have just started a unit on ‘Classic Children’s Stories’. This week, we read and acted out "The Three little pigs" we also read a story about "Three little Wolves and a big bad Pig!" We learned a tickle rhyme “This Little Piggy” to play with baby siblings, cousins or friends.
We are so proud of the progress the children have made since September. They have become very independent with snack time and dressing themselves. Thank you to the parents for helping your children with these skills at home. The children are also doing really well at walking in a line and keeping quiet voices while walking outside the classroom. They are really ready to go to the ‘Fours’ classes in September.
From the Tree House Room 302 Stephanie, Rachel and Joanna
Where did all the time go? We are already into a new month. The children did a wonderful job singing at the Easter service. Thank you to Cheryl for all the hard work she put into everything. All of the rehearsals really paid off. It was a great service. It was lovely to have a chance to see everyone at the tea enjoying themselves.
This month our topic was flowers and growing. During circle we talked about the life cycle of plants and what they need in order to grow. We then planted our own bean plants. We are keeping a close eye on them to see when they will start to sprout. We made gardens using Popsicle sticks and cut out flowers, decorated a variety of different flowers, and made sunflowers.
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This month our topic was flowers and growing. During circle we talked about the life cycle of plants and what they need in order to grow. We then planted our own bean plants. We are keeping a close eye on them to see when they will start to sprout. We made gardens using Popsicle sticks and cut out flowers, decorated a variety of different flowers, and made sunflowers.
For jeans week we decorated jeans that we hung up in our classroom. During circle we talked about why we had an umbrella hanging in our classroom and why we were donating all of that money to children's hospital. Thank you to everyone for the generous donations.
As the weather is starting to get nicer we will be going outside to play more often. We would like to remind parents to send your children to school with proper running shoes.
For the next month our topic will be on bugs.
If you have any questions or concerns please feel free to speak to the teachers.
From the Treehouse Room 303/403 Sali, Vibha and Stephanie
In April, our class had a fun and interesting time learning about space. In circle, We learned about a different planet each day, it was amazing how much the children remembered. We sang “Five little men in a flying saucer”, “Zoom, zoom, zoom” and “Twinkle twinkle little star”. We read “Little Pip and the rainbow wish” and the Fours thought up their own ending which we helped them to write in their journals.
For art, we made a paper mache solar system and hung it above the circle carpet for all the classes to enjoy. We coloured diffusing paper with blue and green to represent Earth, painted bright yellow and orange suns and finger painted with red like Mars “Our red planet”. We also made play dough moons and salt dough rocket ‘cookies’ and shiny astronauts and constellations.
Next we had fun dressing up like astronauts with realistic jet packs and helmets and tasted real astronaut ice cream. We made ‘space’ cake pops and ‘moon juice’. Yummy!
On Fridays, we have started our yoga class with Vibha. The children are showing a great interest and are carefully learning the ‘poses’.
The last month seemed to fly by so quickly. I guess that's what happens when we are so busy at preschool! The Easter service was a huge success. The children sang beautifully up on stage. Thank you to Cheryl for all the hard work she put into making everything come together so smoothly. It was such a pleasure to have a chance to chat with the parents at our tea afterwards.
As the children are going to be entering kindergarten soon, we are putting out more challenging materials and encouraging them to be more independent. There is a sheet on our bulletin board to write which school your child is going to be attending next year. This can give you an opportunity to make play dates with the children who are going to the same school.
From the Treehouse Room 303/403 Sali, Vibha and Stephanie
We hope you enjoyed the Easter service and tea. The children were so proud to perform their songs and worked very hard practising.
In April, our class had a fun and interesting time learning about space. In circle, We learned about a different planet each day, it was amazing how much the children remembered. We sang “Five little men in a flying saucer”, “Zoom, zoom, zoom” and “Twinkle twinkle little star”. We read “Little Pip and the rainbow wish” and the Fours thought up their own ending which we helped them to write in their journals.
For art, we made a paper mache solar system and hung it above the circle carpet for all the classes to enjoy. We coloured diffusing paper with blue and green to represent Earth, painted bright yellow and orange suns and finger painted with red like Mars “Our red planet”. We also made play dough moons and salt dough rocket ‘cookies’ and shiny astronauts and constellations.
Next we had fun dressing up like astronauts with realistic jet packs and helmets and tasted real astronaut ice cream. We made ‘space’ cake pops and ‘moon juice’. Yummy!
Toward the end of April, we had our ‘jeans week’. The teachers and children wore jeans in support of BC Children’s hospital. The children decorated tiny pairs of jeans. We had an umbrella in each classroom to collect donations. The children were enthusiastic about bringing their coins to toss in!
We have recently moved on to planting. The home corner was converted in to a garden centre. This week, we are planting bean seeds in a glass jar so we can watch the seeds germinate. We will also be planting our own bean in a pot.
On Fridays, we have started our yoga class with Vibha. The children are showing a great interest and are carefully learning the ‘poses’.
It has been great to have such lovely sunny weather over the past week, the sandbox is now open and the children are busy working together building and digging.
From the Treehouse Room 401 Stephanie, Rachel and Krystal
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| Nests and baby birds! |
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| Our first experiment! |
For the month of April we decided to focus on science experiments with the children. The children loved being scientists and making guesses about what they thought would happen. You could see the excitement on their faces when they did the experiments and saw the results. This was such a neat topic because it brought up many questions and much curiosity in the children. It was great to explore these questions and make observations about what was happening.
We talked lots about how there is no right or wrong in science. Science has endless possibilities and some experiments may not turn out the same if you do it a second time. The experiments that we conducted were:
1. Flowers in coloured water
2. Milk, salt and food colouring
3. Bubbles
4. Epsom salt and water
5. Cornstarch and water
Once we were done being scientists we decorated jeans for jeans week. During circle we talked about why we have jeans week and why we were collecting money. We talked about how we are helping children who are sick and have to go to the hospital. We would like to thank everyone for their donations in our umbrellas.
As the children are going to be entering kindergarten soon, we are putting out more challenging materials and encouraging them to be more independent. There is a sheet on our bulletin board to write which school your child is going to be attending next year. This can give you an opportunity to make play dates with the children who are going to the same school.
As the weather is starting to get nicer we will be going outside to play more often. We would like to remind parents to send your children to school with proper running shoes.
For the next month we will be focusing on caterpillars and butterflies.
If you have any questions or concerns please feel free to speak to any of the teachers.
From the Down Under Room 402/404 Permjit, Libby, Gabi and Joanna
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| Our pop bottle jet-packs! |
Writing the May Newsletter in the beautiful sunshine really makes us appreciate the summer being so close! We can picture hanging out at the beach and making endless sandcastles and running in out of the waves. We are so lucky to live in such a beautiful place. Summer means that preschool is almost at an end and sometimes it feels as if we have only just gotten to know all the amazing and awesome personalities before it's time for them to move on. They are so grown up and independent and at the same time you just what to protect them because they are so sweet!
We have (as you must have gathered!) been visiting space. We turned our home corner into a space station with the help of the children. Computers, keyboards and writing pads were a big hit. They organized their friends to put on helmets and oxygen backpacks before venturing out into the great unknown! We discussed why we had to have them on when we are in space because there's no gravity, which keeps us grounded on Earth.
Next the children made space goggles so that their eyes would be protected from the sun. We made 'stardust' in little glass jars which they were very careful at handling. One of our art activities was to create a Supernova picture where the two stars crashed together and it created a beautiful colourful scene. The childen loved making these, not sure whether it was the mess or the fact that they crashed and the effect it caused!
We discussed constellations and we made arrangements of different ones on the ceiling for the children to see, then we turned off all the lights and shined a flashlight on the stars which glowed in the dark. The children loved it and could point out which was the Big Dipper, Hunter, and Little Dipper. In a different part of the ceiling we created the Milky Way. They wanted to do this again and again, it's the quietest we have ever seen them because they were busy concentrating and figuring out the constellation they were looking at.
Tel: 604-980-1326
Fax: 604-982-3277
E-mail: stcpre@telus.net
Website: www.stcatherinespreschool.com
Please "LIKE" our facebook page St. Catherine's Childcare Society
Listening to the conservations in which the children tried to rememeber which planets were nearest to the sun was so priceless! We had a magnet board game in the home corner and one of the children suggested getting a book from the shelf so they could find out the correct postions for each planet. Then they proceeded to work together to do that and were so happy with the end results.
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| Our Space Station! |
These are just some of the things we discussed, showed pictures and read stories around:
The Sun and all the planets around it. Why Pluto wasn't a planet anymore. Which was the biggest planet? Which planet was the coldest and which was the hottest and why? The moon and why can you see it from your window? What is gravity? Where is it?
The children wondered why the planets didn't crash into each other if they all go around the sun?
Astronauts; how do they sleep, where do they sleep? Why do they need a spacesuit?
Constellations; and how long ago people navigated by stars.
Phew! There were infinite questions and discussions on this topic, rather like space itself!
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| Moon Craters |
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| Moon Art |
We painted our jeans for jeans week. I know there were a lot of sparkles everywhere and its always fun to decorate our jeans with sequins and as many sparkles as we can. Yes some of us went home covered in sparkles including the teachers! Thank you for your generous contributions to the Children's Hospital.
Now we will be moving on to exploring Ancient Egypt, pyramids, mummies and much more.
Please do come and see us if you have any queries or would like to know how things are going.
Dates to remember:
Monday May 20th: Victoria Day, no preschool.
Wednesday/Thursday May 22nd and 23rd: Music Open House
Tuesday/Wednesday June 18th and 19th: 4's Graduation.
Wednesday June 19th: Last day of preschool classes.
Wednesday June 19th: Last day of preschool classes.
Thursday/Friday June 20th and 21st: End of year picnics.
For general enquiries please contact Tina or Jen in the office.
Tel: 604-980-1326
Fax: 604-982-3277
E-mail: stcpre@telus.net
Website: www.stcatherinespreschool.com
Please "LIKE" our facebook page St. Catherine's Childcare Society
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