April 2020

Usually March comes in like a lion and out like a lamb...but I feel we may be in for a SAFARI during the month of APRIL!!

Well, here we are on April 1st and no joke, these have to be some of the strangest times that many of us have ever been in before!

Hopefully our building will open for May but unfortunately, it is out of our hands and we must wait to hear how this pandemic will play out for us in North Vancouver. We will keep you informed as soon as we hear anything.

All preschool spaces will be held until the end of the year for those currently enrolled.

Refunds will be issued for those who have already paid for April, and other months, once we find out if we will be continuing in May or not.

Take this time to spend quality time with your families. We may never get this opportunity again and let me tell you, they grow up fast and one day...they do move out! 

Get plenty of sunshine (as the Covid virus does not like it!) and fresh air and STAY HEALTHY!!

If we all do our part, keep social distancing and washing our hands, we will get through this.

The Preschool Office is open for responding to emails and phone messages if you have any questions or concerns.

March was a great, but a short month for us at preschool. But we did do some great stuff in our classrooms. Please check it out below!!

AND WHILE YOU ARE AT HOME: You can KEEP SUPPORTING THE PRESCHOOL and help to keep your child's boredom at bay!! 

PLEASE think about ordering from SCHOLASTIC BOOKS! All orders are shipped to your home!

Visit: www.scholastic.ca/clubshop

NOTE: SUMMER PROGRAM REGISTRATION HAS BEEN POSTPONED TO A LATER DATE. Hopefully we will be able to run the program in July!! We will  keep you informed.

IMPORTANT DATES & EVENTS (Note: May Change)

APR 8/9 - Easter Services - *CANCELLED*

APR 10 - Good Friday - PRESCHOOL CLOSED

APR 13 - Easter Monday - PRESCHOOL CLOSED

APR 27 - MAY 1 - Jeans Week to support Children's Hospital *POSTPONED*

MAY 4 - Possible Preschool Start Date - Look for Confirmation Email in late April

MAY 6/7 - Music Open House (3s & 4s) *POSTPONED TO A LATER DATE*

MAY 18 - Victoria Day - PRESCHOOL CLOSED

JUNE 15-19 - Extra week of classes added in lieu of extra week taken at Spring Break

JUNE 19 - 4's Graduation

JUNE 19 - Last Day of Preschool

JUNE 22/23 - Picnics

DISCOVERY TWOS - Vibha, Arsi, Danielle, Marjan, Rose

March was a short month for us but before we left for Spring Break, we did a lot of stuff!

At the sandbox, we had beautiful yellow flowers and rocks, which the children enjoyed playing with together. 

At the water table, we had a few small frog toys and one big beautiful frog in the middle and the children were having fun with them as well. 

At the science table, there were some nests and birds and a few logs, and the children enjoyed working with them. 

At the art table, children made birds with beautiful colourful feathers. They also made amazing flowers with their hand prints and you would be thrilled to see how the beautiful flowers were made with their little hands!

 

Other days, the children made caterpillar collage art and leaves with marble painting for the caterpillars to sit on. They were beautifully done!

They also painted their own rocks, and used pine cones and little brushes and leaves for painting another day. 

For circle time, we had Five Little Birds felt story, Blue Bird Blue Bird What Do You See? felt story, Five Little Peonies Flower felt story, the Rain Story book, Five Little Tulips felt story and rhyme, Little Birds rhyme and action song, Mouse's First Spring book, Dancing with Sunflowers, I am a Little Sunflower, My Sunflower action rhymes, and the 10 Little Speckled Frogs book.

We had a great and focused two weeks in March. We look forward to more preschool in the future. Stay healthy and we hope to be back at preschool soon.

TREEHOUSE ROOM - Karen, Susan, Brita, Marjan, Carol

I hope you all had a good Spring Break and a great relaxing time with your family before this pandemic has made us all so anxious!

Welcome to the world of Dr.Seuss. We were talking about Dr.Seuss for two weeks. In the house corner, we had cages and lots of stuffies which the children really enjoyed playing  with.  

At the water table, the children were playing with alphabet crabs, referring to the Dr.Seuss alphabet book that was read for children on a previous day at the circle time.  

At the circle time, we read many other Dr. Seuss books, including the Green Eggs and Ham, One Fish Two Fish, and Red Fish Blue Fish books. We sang "I'm a little fish song" and the "Green Egg Green Egg What Do You See" felt story. 

Another book was "Cat in the Hat", "Hands Hands Finger Thumb", "What you can do in a people house", "The Foot Book", and "Hop on Pop". We had games about finding the Lorax behind the Truffala  tree, and what colour Truffala tree is missing. Also "What hat is the cat in the hat behind" game with Dr. Seuss characters. During the circle time, we also had learning fun facts about Dr.Seuss, like his full name, the number of children's book that he wrote and illustrated, his funny hat collection, how he visited his dad when he worked at a zoo, and how he came home and doodled afterwards. 

We also read "What pet should I get?" book. We listed the pets that each child would like. We also read "How the Grinch stole Christmas" book, and discussed the message of the book, which is the true meaning of Christmas. Dr. Seuss ABC was another book; we sang the alphabet while rowing our boats, we wrote a list of words that started with the letters of the alphabets. We also practiced our Easter songs.

 

For art, we had "Cat in the Hat" collage and also Truffala trees on water colour. Children also made a red fish, blue fish with the hand prints of both their hands. They also made green eggs by stamp painting. Children were sponge painting, decorating pet shapes, onion stamping the grinch face and decorating it, and painting the letters of the alphabet and corresponding shapes.

We also watched video about Dr.Seuss called  The Lorax, Cat in the Hat, and Green Eggs and Ham. 

And last but not least, we went for a neighborhood walk, and the children enjoyed their yummy hot chocolate from Delany's. 

We hope to see you all in the preschool soon!

SUNFLOWER ROOM - Arsi, Danielle, Carol

To our 401 parents, we’d like to start by saying we hope your family and friends are healthy and safe. We miss our children very much and we hope they are all doing well.

Our month of March began with looking into Spring! We began by talking about planting seeds and flowers. During circle, the children helped Danielle plant a seed, using soil and a shovel. This opened up the conversation about seeds, pollination, and ways flowers can start to grow. 

We read the book “Seeds to plant” which showed us the parts of the flower as it’s planted. We learned about roots, stems, leaves and the flower. We also looked at items needed for gardening such as gloves, shovels, rakes and pots to name a few. 

The children were excited to learn that even the wind and birds can help Mother Nature by planting seeds! Furthermore, we learned about how  bees pollinate flowers. Bees are so important to us! We also looked at the books, “Flowers,” “Grow Flower Grow,” and “This is the Sunflower.” We pretended to be sunflowers and danced to “I’m a little Sunflower.” We had fun with the felt rhymes called “5 little Flowers” and “My little sunflower.” For art, we sequenced from 1-3 the steps of planting a seed, we drew a flower using dot to dot numbers, we made our own flowers in a pot using different shapes, and we used sunflower seeds to make our own sunflower!

On our second week, we read the book “Mouse’s First Spring,” “When will it be Spring?”, “It looked like spilt milk,” and “Outside inside.” These books talked about the change in weather and how outside looks a bit different. The children mentioned such things as we hear birds, trees start budding with leaves, grass starts to grow, we wear boots and rain coats, and the temperature becomes a bit warmer. We played a felt board guessing game called “which colour flower is missing?” and sang a song called “Spring time.” 

The children loved and giggled through the story of “It looked like spilt milk,” and enjoyed watching the felt pieces of each cloud as it was put on the board. We then talked about why we need rain in spring and what shape clouds they’ve seen when they look up into the sky! There were some amazing shapes!  We also played a felt board game where the moon hid behind various coloured clouds! The children were super excited when the moon was found each time. That silly Herman the worm also made an appearance at circle as we sang his song! He got bigger and bigger as he ate a grape, an apple, a banana, and a watermelon!! Ask the teacher what happened to him at the end??  It’s quite funny!

We also did a funny action song called “Wiggly Worm,” a felt board rhyme called “6 little worms,” and a fun rhyme named “Where can they be?” For art, the children used nature as their brush to paint a nature art. It was neat to see how the children really enjoyed using nature to create amazing pieces of art! Moreover, we used our fine motor skills to practice cutting out a worm. This worm loved mud and so the children used wide brushes to paint “mud” for their worm to sit on!

What a fun month March was so far!!! We learned many things about spring and nature!

We wish you all a healthy and happy spring break and hope to see you soon once it’s safe!

MUSIC PROGRAM - Tifany Oakes

Dear families,

Thank you for always showing up to music class with joy and excitement. As we all know, March was a short month for the preschool and we aren’t sure when things will be up and running again.

In March, we talked a lot about our upcoming Easter Service and how excited we are to perform for our loved ones. We practiced our words, singing and we had prepared a dance, as well. At this time, the children may be feeling confused as to why we are no longer practicing. Maybe the children are wondering if and when we will finally get to perform what we had been working on; What we had been talking about so much over the last couple of weeks, spent together. I am so proud of their hard work and focus.

Please let your children know how amazingly musical they are. Ask them to sing and dance, for you, what they remember. Give them the opportunity to perform for you, if they wish.

For the rest of March we were going to continue on with Easter rehearsals, focusing on singing loud and proud as well as memory games to help with learning lyrics. I would have rewarded their hard work with sparkly Easter stickers and a game of freeze dance or musical chairs. Can you play musical chairs with them? They LOVE it.

 

I hope for the chance to be musical with the children in the near future. I miss them dearly. Until that time, stay safe and healthy. Above all, stay musical!