With only a short time left at preschool we are looking forward to parties, picnics and 4's graduation celebrations! Last week our 3's and 4's participated in science workshops through High Touch High Tech Science and it was fun to observe all the children being so engaged in their activities - maybe our teachers should all wear white lab coats to preschool as that seemed to keep all the children mesmerized!
Thank you to everyone who made an order through The Card Project. We raised close to $500 and I know everyone I spoke to was delighted with their order! A special thank you to Jess Franco for coordinating this fundraiser!
Don't forget to pick up your tickets for the Parent Social happening on Friday June 17th at 7pm. A huge thank you to our parent board members Leslie Black, Hannah Sinclair and Jess Franco for all their hard work and commitment to the board as well as putting many hours of their own time into organizing this parent social and fundraiser. Thanks also to Connaught the developers who sponsored this event. Tickets are available through the office for $25 and include appetizers and 1 drink.
Fundraising is very important to non-profit societies as all the money we make goes to running our preschool and every dollar counts. We apply for various grants throughout the year and if we are awarded them we put them towards specific projects such as getting a sump pump system in our Treehouse classroom sink or towards helping families with children who have special needs, to attend our summer program. The fundraising we do ourselves has allowed us to replace our office computers, replace all the gym mats and buy a whole lot of new gym games, 2 light tables as well as many other fun classroom materials. As we move forward with fundraising we plan to revamp our playground!
From all of us here at St. Catherine's Preschool, we wish you all a wonderful, fun and relaxing summer with your little ones! Get outside, read, laugh, play and dance with them because the best memories are made not bought.
A note from Marion Porter - Developmental Resource Educator
It has been another great year with lots of laughter and
learning through play. All the children have demonstrated that they are
ready for new challenges.
The 2's have begun to make connections with their peers and
we can now hear some conversations emerging that are delightful to listen
to. Many of them have been successful with toilet training while others
are working on being ready for the 3's.
The 3's have learnt so much this year about sharing, using
their words and developing listening skills, especially at circle time. For some of the children, going into the 4's means they will coming to preschool
more often. In the 4's the children will learn to become more independent
with dressing and self-help skills. There will be lots of opportunities
for the children to develop their kindergarten readiness skills.
The 4's are moving onto Kindergarten. Parents can help
with this transition by:
 |
| Discovery 2's art! |
- Talking with your child about the impending changes.
- Helping your child acquire many self-help skills.
- Encouraging your child to ask for help when needed.
- Allowing your child to practice playing and working independently.
- Teaching your child to follow directions.
- Helping your child learn his/her full name, address and phone number.
I want to wish everyone a great, sunny summer. I am
looking forward to working with Cheryl, Stephanie, Sousan and Sali at this
year’s Summer Program. There are still a couple of afternoon spots
available. Wishing the grads best of luck and as usual I never say goodbye,
but see you in the “Village”.
Important upcoming dates:
Fri June 17 - 4's Graduation! 10:30am 401 12:00pm 402 1:45pm 403.
Fri June 17 - Final day of classes.
Fri June 17 - Parent Social/Fundraiser!
Mon/Tues June 20/21 - Picnics.
Wed/Thurs Sept 7/8 - Gradual entry begins.
For general information about our programs please contact Jen or Tina:
Tel: 604-980-1326
Fax: 604-982-3277
Email: stcpre@telus.net
Website: www.stcatherinespreschool.com
Please "LIKE" our facebook page "St. Catherine's Child Care Society" and take a moment to rate our preschool. Thank you!
A note from the Discovery 2's - Vibha, Susan, Arsi, Karen, Danielle, Stephanie, Sali
During this busy month we looked into Summer Fruit. We baked Blueberry Muffins with Arsi in 201
and made fruit Salad with Sali in 202. We used stencils to make fruit prints and used apples to make our own
prints. We read stories about Apples, Oranges
and Grapes. We sang the song "I
like to eat, Apples and Banana's".
We played a memory game with Summer fruit and tried to guess which one
was missing...??
Of course we were very, very busy making something very special for our dads for Father's Day!
We will also have a party on our last day...Thank you in advance to parents for providing yummy treats!
If you have any questions please feel free to speak to any of
us.
A note from the Treehouse room class 301 - Estelle and Gabi
It's hard to believe that we are nearing the end of the school year. It seems like only yesterday that we met some great young ladies and gentlemen for the first time, and for many of our little ones class 301 was the very first group setting they had experienced.They have all grown so much, not just physically, but more so socially and emotionally, they have become quite independent in almost everything they do in a day at preschool.
We really enjoyed learning about spring and the many new lives it brings, and the children were amazed to see the caterpillars in the classroom. They remembered the life cycle of the butterflies from stories and games, and they are fascinated to observe the process with their own eyes!
From flying high we moved right into the deepest parts of the oceans to 'meet' some amazing creatures. We were busy creating group projects for backgrounds, mixing different shades of blues, greens,black and white, discussing what makes colours appear lighter or darker. The children enjoyed making sea creatures, and of course, the highlight of finishing up the projects was shaking a few pounds of sparkles on to them (some of those you will find in your washer, dryer, on your car seats, on your sofa - sorry!!). Group activities at circle included a 'feed the shark' game (that they absolutely loved!), and a science experiment to see what floats and what sinks, and how the same objects float differently in highly concentrated salty water.
Speaking of science, we had our science workshop to learn about germs and how important it is to wash hands properly. We are growing germs collected from the floor and from the wall in a petri dish!
For the next two weeks we will be doing what we have been enjoying the most: being preschoolers by sharing our favourite stories, silly songs, playing new and old games. The children are welcome to bring in books they would like to share with their friends!
Thank you for sharing your wonderful children with us. We both have some great memories with each and every one of them, it was an honour to be their teachers. We will see some of you in September, and for the families we won't, we wish you all the best, enjoy these precious years with your little ones. With love, we wish you all a safe and healthy summer!
A note form the Treehouse room class 302 - Susan and Gabi
What a wonderful year we have had in class 302! We have watched our little group grow in confidence over the months, form friendships and learn lots. We have spent the last few weeks turning our classroom into an "underwater playground" and have really enjoyed playing lots of sea-life themed games, singing songs and reading stories all about the ocean.
This month we also enjoyed having our science workshop "Colour Mania"! We experimented with mixing colours together using pipettes and watching colours travel across diffusing paper strips and meet in the middle.
We are lucky that we have an aquarium set-up in our classroom containing caterpillars (well they used to be!!) We are now watching their transformation from tiny caterpillars to HUGE caterpillars and now to chrysalis and very soon we will (hopefully) see them emerge as beautiful butterflies ready to be released into the gardens around the preschool!
We are looking forward to seeing all our families at the picnics on Tuesday June 21st and celebrating the beginning of summer. We wish everyone a great summer and we look forward to having your children return as BIG 4's!
A note from the Treehouse room class 304 - Stephanie, Gabi, Sousan,
A note from the Sunflower room class 401 - Sali, Stephanie, Karen, Susan
A note from the Sunflower/Rainbow room class 402 - Arsi, Danielle, Sousan
It’s that time of year were we wrap things up and get ready for graduation! Wow!
The month of May we spent focusing on community helpers. We began looking at grocery stores and how they help the community by providing us with important things like food. We turned our house corner into the “Sunflower Supermarket” and the children enjoyed shopping.
During circle we talked about how farmers help the community too by growing fruit, vegetables and even meat to bring to the grocers. We baked chocolate chip cookies because we learned bakers help by baking breads, cakes, and many other delicious products.
For art we cut out shopping carts and glued our favorite items which we see when we go to the grocery store. We also acted out different community helpers like a post person, a hairdresser, a janitor, firefighter and a few more. The children were very interested in this topic so we continued next with a dentist. We looked at how important dental hygiene was and what different tools we can use to keep our teeth clean. We used these tools, toothbrush, floss, mouthwash, floss stick, to play a “What’s missing?” guessing game. For art, we cut out a big yellow tooth, glued it, and used a toothbrush to “clean” it white. No cavities!
Our next community helpers were construction people. We learned how they need blueprints to begin projects and we even got to look at some real blueprints. Also, we learned that the foreman is the boss at a construction site. We read various books that showed us the safety gear that the crew wear like hard hats and safety boots. Furthermore, we took a small excursion to the edge of our parking lot to see the construction site across the street. We saw a big excavator and the children were excited to see a real site.There are definitely many trucks that also enter a construction site and we learned about those as well. The most exciting part was when the children used real hammer and nails to build their own wooden sculptures. Since the children were still very interested with community helpers, we also had 2 very special guests visit us to tell us a bit more about their profession.
Our first guest was Dr. Sharlene (Isla’s mom) who is a family doctor. She came in and talked to the children about what she does as a doctor and also brought some of her very important doctor kit tools such as a stethoscope and otoscope. The children asked questions and also shared their stories of being at the doctor’s office.
Our last visitor was Constable Rockhill and boy were the kids delighted!! They had many questions to ask him!! He talked to us about street safety, stranger danger, and showed us his uniform and gear. It was such a great experience!
We have noticed the children really taking a liking to dot to dot number puzzles.They
have made it a real social experience as they talk to each other while practicing their
numbers, hand-eye coordination, and fine motor skills by printing their names and
colouring.
We have enjoyed this year very much and watched the children learn and grow right
before our eyes. We wish them all a fantastic summer and a great school year ahead! We look forward to celebrating this special time at our graduation ceremony on June 17th.
To finish off the year, we will be looking at fossils, volcanoes, and Father’s Day.
A note from the Treehouse room class 403 - Estelle, Stephanie, Gabi, Karen, Sousan
Email: stcpre@telus.net
Website: www.stcatherinespreschool.com
Please "LIKE" our facebook page "St. Catherine's Child Care Society" and take a moment to rate our preschool. Thank you!
A note from the Discovery 2's - Vibha, Susan, Arsi, Karen, Danielle, Stephanie, Sali
It is hard to believe that our time with the children has
almost come to an end. We have watched
them grow from '"Little Two's" into independent "Big
Three's". The children have spent
the year playing, exploring and learning about each other and themselves.
Of course we were very, very busy making something very special for our dads for Father's Day!
Over the last few weeks we have been very busy expanding our world by talking about "Under the Sea" and all the wonderful
things associated with this. We did this
by using a salad spinner to decorate starfish and some of us made our own Paper
bag Octopus'. Some of us made Paper Plate Aquariums using sand and cellophane.
We will also be experimenting with colours, as we mix them together on
diffusing paper to make an unique pattern. For Circle we sang "Baby Beluga", "Slippery Fish" and rhyming songs
about the Sea. We read the stories
"The Pout- Pout Fish", "Clumsy Crab", "Fidgety Fish" and a story about a
Bear going to the Beach. We also played
an 'Under the Sea' Memory Game.
We will also have a party on our last day...Thank you in advance to parents for providing yummy treats!
As this is our last newsletter, we just wanted to say a very
big thank you to all our parents and children. It has been such a pleasure teaching your children this year and we
look forward to watching them grow over the next two years in the 3's and 4's. It is nice not to have to say
goodbye to those who are staying. For
those who are moving on, we wish you well where ever you go! Have a safe and
wonderful summer!
A note from the Treehouse room class 301 - Estelle and Gabi
It's hard to believe that we are nearing the end of the school year. It seems like only yesterday that we met some great young ladies and gentlemen for the first time, and for many of our little ones class 301 was the very first group setting they had experienced.They have all grown so much, not just physically, but more so socially and emotionally, they have become quite independent in almost everything they do in a day at preschool.
We really enjoyed learning about spring and the many new lives it brings, and the children were amazed to see the caterpillars in the classroom. They remembered the life cycle of the butterflies from stories and games, and they are fascinated to observe the process with their own eyes!
From flying high we moved right into the deepest parts of the oceans to 'meet' some amazing creatures. We were busy creating group projects for backgrounds, mixing different shades of blues, greens,black and white, discussing what makes colours appear lighter or darker. The children enjoyed making sea creatures, and of course, the highlight of finishing up the projects was shaking a few pounds of sparkles on to them (some of those you will find in your washer, dryer, on your car seats, on your sofa - sorry!!). Group activities at circle included a 'feed the shark' game (that they absolutely loved!), and a science experiment to see what floats and what sinks, and how the same objects float differently in highly concentrated salty water.
Speaking of science, we had our science workshop to learn about germs and how important it is to wash hands properly. We are growing germs collected from the floor and from the wall in a petri dish!
For the next two weeks we will be doing what we have been enjoying the most: being preschoolers by sharing our favourite stories, silly songs, playing new and old games. The children are welcome to bring in books they would like to share with their friends!
Thank you for sharing your wonderful children with us. We both have some great memories with each and every one of them, it was an honour to be their teachers. We will see some of you in September, and for the families we won't, we wish you all the best, enjoy these precious years with your little ones. With love, we wish you all a safe and healthy summer!
What a wonderful year we have had in class 302! We have watched our little group grow in confidence over the months, form friendships and learn lots. We have spent the last few weeks turning our classroom into an "underwater playground" and have really enjoyed playing lots of sea-life themed games, singing songs and reading stories all about the ocean.
We are lucky that we have an aquarium set-up in our classroom containing caterpillars (well they used to be!!) We are now watching their transformation from tiny caterpillars to HUGE caterpillars and now to chrysalis and very soon we will (hopefully) see them emerge as beautiful butterflies ready to be released into the gardens around the preschool!
We are looking forward to seeing all our families at the picnics on Tuesday June 21st and celebrating the beginning of summer. We wish everyone a great summer and we look forward to having your children return as BIG 4's!
A note from the Treehouse room class 304 - Stephanie, Gabi, Sousan,
This has been a great year with this group of children.
We have done so many interesting and fun things throughout the school year. It
has been such a joy being with your children and watching them form
relationships with one another. They have built on many of their skills and
have developed so many new ones.
For the month of May we explored the theme of everything
that's under the sea. Each time at circle we would talk about a different sea
creature and then for art we would create it. We decorated octopuses with
tissue paper, sea stars with glitter, whales with paint, sea horses with
sequins, paper plate jellyfish, hand-print crabs, and paper plate sea turtles
with puffy paint.
We had a science workshop called colour mania come to our
classroom. We had the chance to experiment with different colours and then
mixed our own colours together to see what would happen.
Next we will be working on a special surprise for our dads.
We wish all of our families a wonderful summer and look forward to seeing you back for the 4's in September!
It is amazing how fast this year has gone by. We had an
awesome group of children and it was such a pleasure being with them each day.
It is going to be tough to see them leave but they are definitely ready to move
onto the next chapter in their lives. They have come so far since the
beginning of the year; the skills they have obtained and the friendships that
they have formed will set them up for a great experience in Kindergarten.
Recently we noticed that the children were very interested in
magnets when we put them out one day. They were curious about which things would stick to them and why it was that one end repels while the other end of a magnet draws things closer. By observing
them and hearing their questions we decided to spend two weeks doing science
experiments and talking about magnets. The children really enjoyed doing this
and finding out the answers to their questions.
Next we moved onto talking about Hawaii. At circle time we
looked at a globe to see where Hawaii was and how far it is from where we live.
We also talked about how Hawaiian islands were formed by volcanoes and talked
about the different volcanoes that are still in Hawaii now; which ones are
dormant and which ones are active. For art we made flower leis, tie-dyed
t-shirts, and baked gluten free coconut cookies. To end things off we had a
luau. It was so much fun learning how to do the hula dance and doing the limbo
to some Hawaiian music.
We also had a science workshop all about being botanists.
The children created their own greenhouse in a Ziploc bag and they learned
about leaves.
Next we will be working on a special surprise for our dads and getting ready for graduation! We look forward to celebrating this special time with all our families!
Gluten free coconut cookies (2 dozen)
1/2 cup melted coconut oil
1/2 cup light brown sugar
1 egg
2 cups oats
1 1/2 cups sweetened coconut flakes
Pre-heat oven to 325 degrees.
Stir coconut oil, sugar, and egg until smooth.
Add the oats and stir until well combined.
Stir in coconut flakes.
Scoop 2 tbsp portions onto parchment paper lined sheet.
Bake for 12 minutes.
Let cool for 10 minutes before removing and putting on a
wire rack.
We wish all our families a wonderful summer break, we will miss those of you who are moving on and for those of you who will be back next year - we will see you in September!
It’s that time of year were we wrap things up and get ready for graduation! Wow!
The month of May we spent focusing on community helpers. We began looking at grocery stores and how they help the community by providing us with important things like food. We turned our house corner into the “Sunflower Supermarket” and the children enjoyed shopping.
During circle we talked about how farmers help the community too by growing fruit, vegetables and even meat to bring to the grocers. We baked chocolate chip cookies because we learned bakers help by baking breads, cakes, and many other delicious products.
For art we cut out shopping carts and glued our favorite items which we see when we go to the grocery store. We also acted out different community helpers like a post person, a hairdresser, a janitor, firefighter and a few more. The children were very interested in this topic so we continued next with a dentist. We looked at how important dental hygiene was and what different tools we can use to keep our teeth clean. We used these tools, toothbrush, floss, mouthwash, floss stick, to play a “What’s missing?” guessing game. For art, we cut out a big yellow tooth, glued it, and used a toothbrush to “clean” it white. No cavities!
Our next community helpers were construction people. We learned how they need blueprints to begin projects and we even got to look at some real blueprints. Also, we learned that the foreman is the boss at a construction site. We read various books that showed us the safety gear that the crew wear like hard hats and safety boots. Furthermore, we took a small excursion to the edge of our parking lot to see the construction site across the street. We saw a big excavator and the children were excited to see a real site.There are definitely many trucks that also enter a construction site and we learned about those as well. The most exciting part was when the children used real hammer and nails to build their own wooden sculptures. Since the children were still very interested with community helpers, we also had 2 very special guests visit us to tell us a bit more about their profession. 
Our first guest was Dr. Sharlene (Isla’s mom) who is a family doctor. She came in and talked to the children about what she does as a doctor and also brought some of her very important doctor kit tools such as a stethoscope and otoscope. The children asked questions and also shared their stories of being at the doctor’s office.
Our last visitor was Constable Rockhill and boy were the kids delighted!! They had many questions to ask him!! He talked to us about street safety, stranger danger, and showed us his uniform and gear. It was such a great experience!
We have noticed the children really taking a liking to dot to dot number puzzles.They
have made it a real social experience as they talk to each other while practicing their
numbers, hand-eye coordination, and fine motor skills by printing their names and
colouring.
We have enjoyed this year very much and watched the children learn and grow rightbefore our eyes. We wish them all a fantastic summer and a great school year ahead! We look forward to celebrating this special time at our graduation ceremony on June 17th.
To finish off the year, we will be looking at fossils, volcanoes, and Father’s Day.
A note from the Treehouse room class 403 - Estelle, Stephanie, Gabi, Karen, Sousan
We can't believe the year is coming to an end. We have
had such a great year with this group of children. It is going to be hard to
say goodbye. They have come together so well and have built so many
friendships. They are all so ready for kindergarten and the new challenges that
come with it.
Then it was on to talking about Hawaii. We looked at a
globe and found where Hawaii was and how far is it from where we live. We
talked about how the Hawaiian islands were formed by volcanoes. We did a
science experiment and saw what happens when a volcano erupts. Then we created
our own volcanoes by drawing out and cutting up the volcano and then dripping
foamy lava from the top. We also made leis and tie-dyed t-shirts. Then to end
things off we had a luau. It was so much fun learning how to do the hula dance
and the limbo!
Next we will be working on a special surprise for our
dads and getting ready for graduation. We are looking forward to celebrating this special time at the ceremony on June 17th! We wish all of our families a wonderful, relaxing summer!
HAVE A WONDERFUL SUMMER BREAK!
HAVE A WONDERFUL SUMMER BREAK!
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