Monday 8 February 2021

February 2021

Love is what happens when two hearts find their happy place right beside each other!


February is the shortest month but it definitely has the biggest heart!!

Well, we are past the half-way point in our preschool year! Only eighteen more weeks until the Summer break! Hard to believe! Things will be amping up around the school so make sure you don't miss a thing!

SEPTEMBER REGISTRATION

Registration for September is well under way! All currently enrolled families have handed in their registrations. You will all get an email on Feb. 16th regarding your child's registration. (Everyone got the days and times they wanted) Classrooms will be assigned at the end of summer and you will receive your Gradual Entry Schedule about 2 weeks before the start of school in September. 

We have now opened registration up to the community and they have begun to send in their forms and deposits. If you know anyone who will be needing childcare, please point them in our direction. Word of mouth is our BEST advertisement!!

SAMOSA FUNDRAISER

We will be doing our Oh So Popular Samosa Fundraiser again!! We will be sending out the ordering information Feb. 8th, and delivery will be March 10th. Don't forget to send the ordering information to your friends and family!! The more we order, the more profit St. Catherine's will get! And that means more fun and exciting classroom activities!!


THE CARD PROJECT

The Card Project is another fundraiser where your child's art is turned into greeting cards! They are amazing! The teachers have begun collecting your child's art work and we will be sending it off in March. Watch your email in March for further details!! 

THE BOTTLE DEPOT

We will be starting an account at the Bottle Depot on Brooksbank Ave. in North Vancouver and families will be able to donate their bottles and cans to St. Catherine's Childcare Society by attaching one of our special labels. MORE INFO TO FOLLOW!! Watch your email!!

IMPORTANT DATES & EVENTS

FEB. 15.............FAMILY DAY (PRESCHOOL CLOSED)
FEB. 16.............PANCAKE SUPPER (VIRTUAL)
FEB. 28............DEADLINE FOR SAMOSA ORDERS
MAR 10...........SAMOSA ORDER PICK UP
MAR 15-19......SPRING BREAK (PRESCHOOL CLOSED)
APR 2..............GOOD FRIDAY (PRESCHOOL CLOSED)
APR 5..............EASTER MONDAY (PRESCHOOL CLOSED)
MAY 14...........PRO-D DAY (PRESCHOOL CLOSED)
MAY 24...........VICTORIA DAY (PRESCHOOL CLOSED)

*As usual, if you are going to be away, please let us know in advance so we can better plan our days. 

*If you are traveling during Spring Break, or leaving the country, please make sure you are isolating or quarantining as per the Canadian Government Covid-19 protocols before returning to school. More information here:   https://travel.gc.ca/travel-covid/travel-restrictions/isolation

Virtual Pancake Supper Shrove Tuesday, Feb. 16th, 2021.

 Every year we celebrated Pancake Tuesday with pancakes, sausages, ice cream and cookies in the gym.  Donations collected were given to the Primate World Relief and Development Fund.  So many people came together to have a great meal and socialize.  There were crafts for the young ones, such a special event! 

Shove Tuesday is the traditional feast day before the start of Lent, on Ash Wednesday.  40 days leading up to Easter, Lent was traditionally a time of prayer, fasting and penance, so one ate pancakes to use up the rich foods before the fasting started.  So remember pancakes are not only for breakfast, they taste great for dinner.  Enjoy!

Please check out the Church's website to see how your can join this year's Shrove Tuesday Pancake Supper!! 

https://www.saint-catherines.org/events/virtual-pancake-supper/2021-02-16


FEBRUARY IS A SHORT MONTH BUT JANUARY WAS LONG!! We know you don't get a chance to see what is going on inside our classrooms so check out below to see what programming and activities the teachers do for the children. 
And there are pictures too! 

RAINBOW ROOM - Danielle, Marjan, Vibha

We hope you had a safe and relaxing holiday.

January was a busy and exciting month in the Rainbow room. 
We mostly talked about Winter, snow, snowmen, and Winter animals. We started with Winter sports. We had toboggans in the home corner with Winter animals.  On the light table we had a matching game and also ski equipment. 
On the science table we had a hockey jersey and some Winter sport books. In the water table we had shredded paper that children really seemed to enjoy.

For circle time, there was a hockey stick story and game, Winter Friends book, and we did some creative movement like skating, skiing, and also playing with an ice hockey activity game, and toboggans to sit in. 

For art, there was Jersey marble colouring, ice cube colouring with hockey sticks, sled painting with shaving cream, ski boot prints with paint and glitter, toques with shaving cream and paint, and ice skating painting with q-tips and cotton balls. 

We moved on to snow and snowmen after that. At the science table, we had felt snowmen and we put a castle and princesses on the floor for the children to play with. We had lots of snowflakes and snowmen felt activities on the tables too. For circle time, we did some snowflake body movement, listened to the stories of Five Little Mittens, Five Little Snowflakes, One Snowy Day CD story, and the Mittens Game. For art, they made popsicle stick snowflakes and made melted snowmen with shaving cream.


For the last week, we talked about Winter animals. We had a beautiful house corner with the Penguin House and the children enjoyed playing inside with various other winter animals. 
On the light and science table, we had lots of winter animals for children to play with.

For circle time, there was Five Little Penguins felt story, a Penguin Big Surprise book, yoga, walking around the class  pretending to be a penguin, and Polly the Polar Bear story.

For art, we made penguins by using a potato masher tool to make a print and then the children added eyes and beaks to it. 

Children made polar bears with tissue paper and glitter, and also made foot prints on the paper with paint.

If you have any questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to talk to one of the teachers or call the office.

Thanks for reading. Looking forward to a great month of February!


TREEHOUSE ROOM - Arsi, Brita, Carol, Karen, Marjan, Rose

We hope you had a wonderful Winter break and are excited about starting the new year!

January has been an exciting and busy month for the children! We spent the first half of the month exploring all about Winter. We learned about the different types of Winter weather, the clothing we can wear, and some Winter animals.


For the last half of the month, we entered the world of Transportation. We discussed the the different forms of transportation and where you would find them.

For Winter art, the children decorated mittens with jewels, paint, and cotton, used shaving cream and water colours to colour toques and boots, and marble painted hockey jerseys. The children created snowflakes with water colours and Epson salts and melted snowmen with paint, glue, and shapes. They made penguins using various shapes such as circles, hearts, and ovals. They used fork printing to create a polar bear face and glued on the facial features. They also created igloos with bear tracks outside, and made snowy owls by sponge painting the body and head and gluing on eyes and a beak.

The artwork for the theme of Transportation consisted of paper plate sailboat scenes, hot air balloons out of shapes and string, and painting cars. They made traffic lights, school buses, and trains out of egg cartons, paint, and pre-cut shapes. The children painted a canoe and ocean scene, made a yellow school bus out of squares, circles, and rectangles, and edible street lights out of graham crackers, melted chocolate, and skittles!

Our circle time for Winter included the types of weather we experience, the warm clothing we wear, and learned about some Winter animals, such as penguins, polar bears, and snowy owls. Some of the books we read included: The Mitten, The Hat, Flip and Flop, So Much Snow, How to Hide a Polar Bear, CD story When will it Snow? and a short wildlife video of a snowy owl. The children learned some rhymes like 5 Colourful Mittens, 5 Little Penguins, 5 Little Polar Bears, 5 Little Snowflakes, the Hat and Scarf song and Find the Missing Mitten game. We played games like move like a penguin and hoot like an owl.

Our circle time for transportation consisted of the definition, how we travelled in the past and present day, identifying the different forms and where would you find them, such as the air, water, or on land. We played games like what is it and where do you use it, which colour bus is missing, we sang Wheels on the Bus, and 5 Big Airplanes Flying By, I am an Airplane movement song, and a transportation felt board story. The children listened to the books Things That Go, Fly, Wheels on the Bus, and Wake Up Engine. The children pretended to go on a canoe trip for a picnic lunch. We listened to the CD story We All Go Traveling and watched the DVD called Mighty Machines!


Our home corner was transformed into a winter castle,  where the children would walk across the drawbridge and enter the magical castle.  Inside, they played with smaller castles and a wooden castle set. The castle turned into a repair garage for transportation. The children pretended to be cars that needed to be repaired or filled up with gas. They used tools to fix smaller cars, trucks, and trains. Also, the children pretended to be bus drivers and drive their friends around town! We even had a large tent fire truck where the children would crawl inside and pretend to fire fighters!

Our treehouse went from being a warm cozy house with snow and icicles on the outside to a hot air balloon where the children could go for a ride.

Our block corner went from being a winter Groovy girl scene to a construction site. We  had large dump trucks and bull dozers where the children pretended to be construction workers. They would transport colourful blocks around the construction mat and work together to build towers.


Our classroom tables for winter had a large winter animal scene, lacing winter clothing shapes, large winter puzzles, colour and shape matching games, and matching mittens sets. For transportation, the children played with Lego, gears, transportation puzzles, toy airplanes with Little People, train set, and transportation matching cards.

For a special event, the children were treated to a street car zoom presentation from the new North Vancouver Street Car Museum! They learned all about the first street cars and where they would travel throughout the North Shore!


During our extended program, the children went for walks around the neighborhood and identified the different modes of transportation that they saw. They went to the library for a book presentation on transportation and hot chocolate at Delany’s!

It has been an action packed first month back!

Thank you for your continued support by always wearing face masks, social distancing, and keeping your child home if they are not feeling well. It is truly appreciated.



SUNFLOWER ROOM - Arsi, Danielle, Carol

It is hard to believe we have been back for a month now, where did the time go? We had a very busy month venturing into space and then returning to Earth to explore Winter.


We started off learning about Astronauts, what they wear into space, how they need to exercise to keep fit, how there is no gravity in space and that we need spaceships to get there. We turned the house corner into a space ship, with our own rocket ship & command center. We read ‘The Space Walk, There was an Old Astronaut Who Swallowed the Moon, Sheep Blast Off, Come back to Earth Esther & Look Up’. We had lots of fun using creative moment to be astronauts, walking around space or even blasting off as rockets. We played the games ‘What Color Helmet is missing? Where is the Spaceship? Rocket Ship, Rocket ship what do you see? What spaceship is missing (memory game) & Which star is hiding behind the moon?’ We listened to the felt rhymes 5 Astronauts, My Astronaut, 4 Rocket Ships & sang “Zoom, zoom, zoom we are going to the moon, Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star & Bumping Up & Down in my little Space Shuttle’. For art we made our own Astronauts wearing a space suit, a Name Rocket ship and a Sun using paint under cling wrap were the children got to use their fingers to move it around the paper.


The next week we moved into exploring the planets in our galaxy. We started with Mercury, Venus, Earth & Mars and then moved onto Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus & Neptune. We talked about the different planets and their surfaces, their distance from the moon and how close they were to Earth. We discussed how some of the planets were cold, some hotter than others, some had rings and some had lots of moons. We read ‘The Man on The Moon, Chicken & Space, Life on Mars & The Planets ‘. We sang ‘Earth (Bingo song) & Solar System in Motion’. We learnt some Space Yoga poses and watched an interactive DVD Called ‘Little Einstein’s space Race Rematch’. For art we used diffusing paper and water colors to make Mercury, Venus, Earth & Mars.  For Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus & Neptune we Marble Painted with many different colors to try to create the planets.  We traced a circle for the moon and used paint mixed with flour & lids to make craters, to create the moon.

We landed back in Earth, right into Winter. We talked about Winter Animals: Penguins, Polar Bears & Harp Seals. We read facts about the animals, how Penguins only live in the South and Polar Bears live in the North and harp seals are born white. We read “The Snow Bear, There was an Old Lady who Swallowed some Snow, Winter Friends & The Little Penguin (CD Story)’. We listened to the felt stories ‘Polly The Polar Bear & Sammy the Seal Counts to 11’ & the felt Rhymes 5 Polar Bears, 5 Penguins & 5 Smart Seal’. We played the games ‘Which Penguin is Missing? & Marco the Snow Seal’. We acted out ‘I’m a Little Penguin, Polar Bear Twinkle & The Seal went over the Iceberg’. In the water table we added ‘snow’ that was fluffy and felt cold. 


For Art we used paint, a fork & glued on ears, a nose & eyes onto paper to make a polar bear. For the penguins, we cut the bottom of his body and then we glued it all together and put on a beak & googly eyes. With the seal we glued on his face and then used glitter for his body. We turned the house corner into a tobogganing hill with winter animals to pull around. We also had huge fun taking turns to pull our friends on the toboggans at circle time.

RESOURCE OFFICE - Marion

The Essentials of Development:

 Emotional Development means developing a full range of emotions, from sad to happy to angry, and learning to handle them appropriately.  This leads to deeper qualities – sympathy, caring, resilience, self-esteem, assertiveness and being able to rise to life’s challenges.

 Cognitive Development means being able to communicate, to think both creatively and abstractly, to pay attention and to solve problems, and develop keen judgement and a lifelong readiness to learn.

 Social Development means being able to make friends and get along with others, work as part of a team and be a good leader, all of which are built on self-confidence, cooperation and trust.

 Children learn at various rates and will show strengths in different areas.  The following is a list of what your child needs to learn before Kindergarten:

  • To play and imagine
  • To pay attention to others
  • To imitate others; verbally and physically
  • To understand and use language
  • To initiate and make choices
  • To function independently and ask for help

The 4’s teachers will be starting their curriculum to support the children’s Kindergarten Readiness Skills, and all these will be taught through play i.e. swatting letters with a fly swatter, counting and sorting toys and planning small group activities where the children need to communicate their choices to one another.

 Readiness: invokes 3 key factors:

  1. The task at hand makes sense to the child.
  2. The task builds on prior accomplishments and learning flow.
  3. The child demonstrates a real and visible interest in the task and in the next steps.

Young children lean best through play because it is meaningful, engaging, interactive, interesting and enjoyable.

If you have any questions or concerns please e-mail the office and the classroom teachers or myself will get back to you.  Our priority is your child’s development and self-esteem.

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