March 2018

LEFT...RIGHT...LEFT...RIGHT...LEFT...RIGHT...

We are MARCH-ing into the next month so GET READY FOR SOME FUN!!

We are moving through this school year like nobody's business! We have plenty of things planned in the weeks to come so make sure you are checking your child's bulletin boards and the main bulletin board for daily messages!

UPCOMING DATES TO REMEMBER:

FRI. MAR. 16 - 4's Skating Party. 1:30-2:30 pm @ Harry Gerome. 

MAR. 19-23 - Spring Break - PRESCHOOL CLOSED

MON. MAR. 26 - Scholastic Book Orders Due

FRI. MAR. 30 - Good Friday - PRESCHOOL CLOSED

MON. APR. 2 - Easter Monday - PRESCHOOL CLOSED

TUE. APR. 10 - Easter Services - 302/402

WED. APR. 11 - Easter Services - 301/401/403

ALL DAY PRESCHOOL is happening for next year!! Let us know if you would like to find out more! Tuesday/Thursday all day program gets PEL program for FREE!!

EXTENDED HOURS! Add the PEL program to the end of your morning program or to the beginning of your afternoon program to get an extra 45 minutes added to your child's preschool program!

WHO WOULD HAVE BELIEVED THE THINGS THAT HAPPENED IN THE CLASSROOMS!!!?? Check out below and see for yourself!

DISCOVERY TWOS - Arsi, Brita, Marion, Vibha

February was a snowy but fun month. The children in the two's program enjoy partaking in the theme of friendship and love.

Our highlight of the month was our adorable Valentine's Day party. The children always enjoy eating party food and celebrating in our classroom. The classroom was decorated with hearts and the colours pink and red.

To encourage friendship and love, the children created a friendship hand collage which is displayed in our classroom. This activity promoted teamwork, social interactions and creativity.

Other art activities we engaged in was our "Love You to Pieces" project and tissue paper art. 

We also brought our theme into Circle Time with the twos. We taught the students how to say "I Love You" in sign language, we read "Kiss, Kiss" and we listened to a tape story called "Special Friends".

Toward the end of February we celebrated Chinese New Year. We took this day to show the children traditional Chinese pictures, sang songs and painted with chop sticks.

The twos teachers want to thank the parents that contributed to our Valentine's Day party. It is always very much appreciated!

CLASS 301-Estelle and Susan

For the month of February our themes were Valentine’s Day, Chinese New Year, Friendship and Feelings.

The children enjoyed decorating their Valentine’s bags, drawing and collaging on paper dolls and decorating heart shapes. We also talked about whom we love such as family and friends.

For Chinese New Year we talked about what we do to prepare for Chinese New Year such as cleaning and decorating and that this year is The Year of the Dog. The children made paper bag dragons, then had a parade in the class and were pleased to receive their red envelopes.

Next we talked about feelings like happiness and sadness and how to express them. We moved on to reminders about using our words to ask for a turn or when we don’t like something. Sometimes the children talk about best friends and then other children feel excluded. We talked about how we are all friends at preschool even though we sometimes like to play with different people and that all children are welcome in all areas (block corner, home corner etc.) unless there is a space issue and then we take turns.

For the Card Project the children painted with small paintbrushes and tissue paper. We hope you will be pleased with the cards when they come out. The children took extra time for their paintings and took inspiration from an art book of Renoir.

Next up...we are starting to practice for the Easter Services!

And don't forget to say hi to our practicum student Patty from Capilano University

CLASS 302 - Karen, Carol and Brita

Hello Parent’s of 302! So glad you checked out our Blog!

Every time I write I can’t believe that another month has gone by! Goes well with the saying, “Time flies when you’re having fun”!

February was a busy month with lots of different activities. We focused on Friends and Feelings which took us to group art projects, stories and felt rhymes about what it means to be a friend. Music to my ears when we hear “Let’s take turns”, “Can I have a turn after you?”, or “We can do it together”.

We have noticed that there is a lot more parallel and group play since we came back in January. Lots of talking and awareness happening in the classroom.

We celebrated Valentine’s Day with a party and by making Valentine’s bags. Thank you to the parents who contributed snacks.

We also celebrated Chinese New Year by making red paper lanterns and the children received red envelopes with chocolate coins. Thank you to Serena’s family for bringing in a Year of the Dog stuffed toy and a Chinese Zodiac calendar.

For our Card Project we tried two different ideas. The first was drawing with pastels and then painting over it with watercolour. The second was painting with yarn using bright colours. When we were finished we asked the children to decide which one was their favorite. The sample cards should be ready the week of April 9th and the order deadline April 18th. Orders should be ready by May 4th.

We have been playing in the gym due to the snow and cold temperatures, but it has been a great time to focus on gross motor skills. Our gym provides a big space with a climber, bikes, balls, balancing apparatus and many other toys to promote all kinds of movement.

We also introduced the Turtle game for earthquake awareness. We will continue this game until the end of the year.

Now on to Spring and Easter.....!

CLASS 401 - Karen and Rosie

What a wonderful month February has been! 401 has been very busy celebrating Valentine’s Day, Chinese New Year, completing their Card Project art work, working on their Journals and learning more about the world of Numbers!

Together for Valentine’s Day, the children created splatter paint art and made their very own special Valentines bags for each child to give one another a Valentines treat in. It was lovely to see the children dress up for our Valentine's Day Party and as they entered for snack with partners they were given a menu and asked to sit down. Celebrating Valentines was a great way to emphasize the things we talk about daily, like kindness and being a good friend! Kindness is a practice that is focused on in 401, and the notion that when we are kind to one another, it makes others feel good, and it makes us feel good too!

As a class, we also celebrated and discussed Chinese New Year, made red and gold lanterns, and learned about special traditions and rituals that happen during the festivities.

 For the Card Project this year the children worked incredibly hard on their three step piece of art. There was an emphasis on fine motor skills, as the children used Pipettes to add colour to their diffusing paper, and then later on to cut the unique pieces that would make up the final product. It was a delight to see the children so excited with something they worked so hard on!

 This month we also started discussing more about numbers. With an emphasis on counting, and that “numbers are everywhere”, we sang lots of different "number songs" that can assist the children to count at other times in the future.

Exciting news! We have started something new in 401 called “Friday Shake Up!”, where in the last few minutes of free play, the children will be given a shape and a play station to go to with a group of their friends. This exercise is to promote play with all children and open up a conversation about inclusion. It will also be a nice way to introducing some children who will be going to kindergarten together in the fall.

During snack time we are encouraging independence by letting the children pour their own cups of water. So please remember to send a cup with your child each day.

We also practiced our "Turtle Game" this month, as an Earthquake Drill. The children all practiced quickly becoming a Turtle, crouched down with their hands over their heads as a safety precaution in case of an Earthquake.

We look forward to another great month, filled with learning, laughter, and kindness with 401.

CLASS 402 - Arsi, Permjit and Rosie

Love is in the air and so was a lot of snow!! February was a fun month filled with discussions and activities about friendship, caring, sharing, Chinese New Year, and kindergarten!

We started off by reading a few great books such as  “One Love”, “Plant a Kiss”, “Love, Splat”,  and “The Night Before Valentine’s Day” just to name a few.

We then did a collage of hand prints with a friend and we also made a friendship tree by using our hand prints as well. We talked about how we can be good friends and the boys gave ideas such as: sharing, playing together, hugging, giving high fives, and listening. We made a heart shaped person by gluing together springy arms, legs, and feet! The boys really enjoyed making bracelets using pipe cleaners and beads! Our Valentine's Day party was really fun and the boys looked great in their red and whites. Thank you to the parents who volunteered to bring goodies for our party and thank you parents for taking time to hand out the Valentine’s cards to your child’s classmates!

 Right after Valentine’s Day, we jumped into Chinese New Year. We learned that it is the Year of the Dog and we learned some traditions such as cleaning the house, buying new clothes, and cooking a great meal which is part of getting ready! The boys also practiced saying “Gung Hay Fat Choi” which means happy new year in Chinese! For art, we practiced cutting on straight lines to make our lanterns. We also tried writing the Chinese symbol for friendship by using black paint and a fine tip brush. It was neat to see how different the symbols were from our alphabet.

We have now started talking about Kindergarten! We looked at some books and realized there are many similarities and differences between preschool and kindergarten. For example, we learned that in kindergarten the bell rings at the beginning and end of the day whereas in preschool, we sing a morning and a goodbye song! The boys were excited to see that kindergarten still had many fun activities just like preschool. 

In our last week of February, we read a crowd favourite, “Chicka-Chicka-Boom-Boom.” This is a perfect book to get us into our alphabet! The boys made their own coconut trees with their names climbing up the tree! How fun!

In the coming weeks, we will continue learning our alphabet and also recognizing and practicing the letters of their names. We encourage parents to practice their child’s name at home as well. At this time of the year, the boys should also be more independent with putting on their own clothes, shoes, jackets (zipping up/down), and opening/closing containers for snack or lunch. These self help skills are what they will need entering kindergarten and practicing now will make it easier.

If you have any questions or concerns, please see your teachers. 

CLASS 304/403 - Estelle, Karen, Rosie and Susan

This February, in our classroom we talked about and explored Valentine’s Day, Chinese New Year and the concepts of friendship and feelings. The children did everything from making heart people, to dragons, to decorating  rainbow fish for our friendship art.

The children are continuing with their Journals and are getting to be quite creative in their drawings and descriptions. We are also continuing with our Kindergarten Readiness such as recognizing different shapes, cutting and gross motor skills such as hopping, skipping and using a ball. At circle time we are working on sitting still, waiting for our turn to talk by putting up our hands and listening to others or the teacher when it is their turn to talk.

Please remember to send a cup instead of a water bottle so your child can practice using the water jug to pour their own water.

Welcome to our new student Louie!

We also worked hard on our Card Project paintings so be sure to check those cards out when they arrive! 

The children are enjoying taking home Echo the Orca and having a turn with Show and Share. We are about halfway through the list of children to have a turn with each activity.

We are learning our songs and dances for the Easter Services!

Hopefully Spring weather is just around the corner so we can play outside more.

MUSIC - Rachel

Throughout February we learned some new music terms: crescendo and decrescendo! We sang songs and played instruments to learn that crescendo means to get slowly louder, and decrescendo means to get slowly quieter. 

Some other February activities included  reading a book about the Alphabet and using instruments to help tell our story and on Valentine’s Day we sang songs about hearts and love, and played a special freeze dance game. 

And now we are beginning to practice for the Easter Services in April! Stay tuned...!

RESOURCE OFFICE - Marion

I have enjoyed working in the Discover 2s program. Danielle should be back on her feet after Spring Break. 

Each child’s individual personality is emerging and they are working on their social skills.   They are moving out of Solitary and Parallel play and into Associative play.  During Solitary play children will often play alone and may be uninterested or unaware of what others around them are doing.  Parallel play occurs when children play side-by-side from one another, but there is a lack of group involvement among them.  This stage is usually seen in toddlers between the ages of 2 ½ and 3 ½ .  

The next stage is Associative play and typically begins around 3 or 4.  At this stage, children begin to play together, but not focused towards a common goal.  It is slightly different than Parallel play as children may continue to play separately from one another, but they start to become more involved in what others around them are doing. This is an important stage of play because it develops necessary skills such as cooperation, problem solving and language development. 

The last stage is Cooperative play.  It is where play finally becomes organized into groups and teamwork is seen.  Children are now interested in both the people that they are playing with as well as the activity at hand.  Cooperative play is the culmination or bringing together of all the skills learned across previous stages into action, giving the child the necessary skills for social and group interactions.  Wow, your children have been busy this year.

It is a big change to be leaving the preschool years behind, but the teachers are busy preparing the 4s for next year.  The children have started their journals and are practicing printing their names.  They are counting, sorting and sequencing throughout their day.  Small groups of children will work together on a large floor puzzle or will build a sky scraper with blocks. They are also given more responsibilities for dressing themselves and cleaning up after snack and play time.

Play dates are very important, especially for the 4s, as they head off to Kindergarten.  Soon, the teachers will post a list of the children and which schools they will be attending in September.  It is always easier to go into a new environment with someone you know, so plan some play dates.  As the weather improves, play dates in a park can be easy and lots of fun.  Play enhances feelings of acceptance of differences, increases empathy, compassion and sharing.

If you have any questions or concerns regarding your child's development, please do not hesitate to come in to speak to me.

If you are reading this sentence, please make a comment below and your child will win a prize! Don't forget to tell us what class your child is in!