JUNE 2021

 

It's getting HOT!

The sky is clear.

We're still in school,

But the end is near!

We love to play,

'Cause Summer's fun!

We jump in our pools,

And lay in the sun!

This is our last month at school! Our last days of classes are THURSDAY, JUNE 17TH & FRIDAY, JUNE 18TH.

There will be in-class celebrations for the children only on these days. 

The fours will have their graduations on these days as well. As we are not allowing adults into the building, there will be separate instructions emailed to the 4's families outlining what will happen for each class. 

The staff at St. Catherine's Childcare Society just want to say THANK YOU for an amazing year! We had a few challenges this year but everyone rose to the occasion and we sailed through the year without any major hiccups! 

THANK YOU to the Parent Members of our Board for all your help throughout the year with meetings and voting and voicing parent issues and just for all your great ideas to help support St. Catherine's. We hope to see some of you again next year! Thank you to Chris Bowra, Sameena Tisdall, Gemma Turner, Andrea Libman and Lyndsay Wilson! 

Please remember to visit our Fundraising Partners over the Summer to keep supporting the school! You can look back over past Blogs to see specifically how to do that at the following places: 

Scholastics Books, Lovable Labels, Return It Bottle return (Brooksbank), Boston Pizza (Esplanade) and Cobs Bakery (Edgemont).

 

The Teachers have something to tell you about what happened in the class in May....

RAINBOW ROOM - DANIELLE, MARJAN, VIBHA

It is hard to believe that our time with the children has almost come to an end.  As we look back over the year, it really is exciting to see how much the children have grown physically, emotionally, socially and intellectually.  

Two weeks into May we talked about Summer fruit such as strawberries, blueberries and pineapples.

For art we decorated strawberries with black paint using our fingers.  We explored with blue paint to create blueberries for our basket.  Later, we made prickly pineapples and decorated them with gold glitter.  Our children had a lot of fun creating delicious fruit salad with strawberries, pineapple, blueberries and grapes.  We quickly discovered that pineapple juice was not a huge hit with our kids.  

For circle, we read a tape story about “The Little Mouse and the Red Ripe Strawberry and the Big Hungry Bear”, we sang the "Five Strawberries at the Grocery" song.  We also played a memory game with Summer fruit and tried to guess which fruit was missing.

Over the last few weeks we have been very busy expanding our world by talking about “Under the Sea”, and all the wonderful sea creatures associated with this.  We painted jellyfish with orange and pink paint and made colourful fish with water colours.  Our children had a great time experimenting with marble painting to make seahorses.  Our Tues/Thurs class enjoyed decorating seahorses with pink tissue paper.  We made paper plate clumsy crabs where the children had a great time gluing legs and claws. 

For Circle we sang Slippery Fish, One Little Fish Swimming in the Water, Bubble, Bubble, Bubble Pop and the children’s favourite, Baby Beluga.   We read The Clumsy Crab tape story and Snappy Little Fishes.  We also played a colour recognition game in which the children had to guess what colour jellyfish was missing.  

Our Home Corner was transformed into an Under The Sea theme, where our children pretended to be sea creatures by using hand puppets.  

We’ll be very busy the first week of June crafting something very special for our Dad’s for Father’s Day.

Since this is our final newsletter, we want to express our gratitude to all of our parents and children.  It has been such a joy 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.  To the families who are leaving us this year, we would like to say Goodbye, and wish you all the best and stay safe. And to those families who are returning in September, have a wonderful, safe Summer and we will see you in the Fall! 

TREEHOUSE ROOM - ARSI, BRITA, CAROL, KAREN, MARJAN, ROSE

June already! It is hard to believe that this year is almost over.  It has been a year full of learning and exploration and the children have all grown so much, not just physically, but more so socially and emotionally, and they have become quite independent in almost everything they do in a day at preschool. 

The month of May was jam packed with activities. Children were so excited to make a gift for their Moms. A highlight for all of us in the preschool is the Mother's Day questionnaires that are answered by the children.  They even enjoyed describing their Mothers and felt proud of their answers. We hope the Mothers enjoyed these special gifts made by each of their children with pride and love.

We sang songs like Mommy Bingo and I Love You Mommy and read What Moms Do Best, Fancy Nancy's Marvelous, Mother's day Brunch, Mama's Work Shoes, Guess How Much I Love You and a Mommy Felt Board story about Moms during circle time. 

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.

For art, children made fish, crabs, sea anemones, octopi, whales, clams ,ocean paintings ,seahorses, sea life stamping to make an ocean scenes, decorated fish shapes with shiny foil, streamers, mini square shapes to look like scales, puffy paint starfish with bright colours, painting seashells with water colours, sponge painting sea turtles, canary ribbons ,cutting along the lines to make an octopus puzzle, and also planted beans in plastic cups to see how the roots grow.

For Circle Time, we read Rainbow Fish, Pout Pout Fish story, 5 Fish , Jelly Fish Jelly Fish What Do You See felt rhyme, The Very Silly Shark Pop Out, There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Shell, Things We See at the Ocean Yoga, A Day At The Beach and we introduced seashells and starfish, Sea Animals, National Geographic Kids, Sea Turtles, 5 Jelly Fish, Which Jelly Fish is Missing, Old Macdonald had an Ocean felt story, 5 Little Crabs rhyme, The Clumsy Crab, 5 Little Fish Swimming in the Water, Bubble Pop, Slippery Fish, and Mister Seahorse.

We played a game at the circle carpet called Hide a Sea Life Mammal. The creatures were under a blue blanket and children had to guess which one we took away. We also took the afternoon Tues/Thursday children to Mackey creek. We took paper and markers and drew what we saw. Also the children closed their eyes and listened to what surrounded us and we also shared a snack.

In the water table, we had lots of sea animals like crabs, fish, sharks, and the children really enjoyed playing with them.

Another highlight in the classroom was the butterfly display.  It is amazing to witness caterpillars growing double in size in just a few days and then they move into their cocoons, and begin the final stage be butterflies.

Thank you for sharing your wonderful children with us. We will cherish all the wonderful memories from this past school year.  We will see some of you in September, and for the families we won't, we wish you all the best in your new adventures!  Enjoy these precious years with your little ones. 

With love, we wish you all a safe and healthy Summer!

SUNFLOWER ROOM - ARSI, DANIELLE, CAROL

It is hard to believe that I am writing our last newsletter for the Sunflower Room as this has been a crazy year.  There are only a few weeks left where some of the children will be moving onto Kindergarten and others onto new adventures. Oh, how much they have all developed and grown in the last 10 months.

The Month of May is a special one as we talk about our Mothers and how important they are to us and what we love about our Moms. We read ‘Just for You’ and ‘Mommy is a Soft Warm Kiss’. We sang the rhymes “Mommy” (tune of Bingo) , ‘I Love Mommy’, ’5 Little Mommies’ and we listened to the rhyme ‘5 Flower Baskets’, where each of the children got to take a basket away.  For Music we drew pictures about our Mommies while listening to classical music. For Art we made a Mother’s Day card by filling in a heart shape with tissue paper. We traced our hands & cut them out to make an  “I Love You this Much” sign.

Tied into Mother’s Day week, we also continued exploring the Alphabet.  We started with the Letter P and we read “Ping Pong Pig”, acted out animal movements that started with the letter P and tossed bean bags into a letter P on the floor. For the letter Q we made Quails out of the letter Q, adding feet, head and feathers. We also acted out actions starting with the letter Q. For the letter R we read ‘Little Red Riding Hood’ & listened to a CD story ‘I know a Rhino’. We acted out the actions of animals that start with the letter R and we went on a matching alphabet hunt around the classroom with a friend.

We then moved onto the letter S. We read ‘The Greedy Python’ & ‘The Biggest House in the World’. We acted out the song ‘Let’s All Do a Little Stomping’ and listened to the rhyme ‘Mr. Snake’.  For art we traced the swirl inside the snail shell and used the Salad Spinner to decorate it with Silver, Sapphire & Scarlet paint. In the House Corner we turned it into a school for the children with books, paper, a board with a calendar so they can all take turns being a ‘T’ for teacher as well.  For the letter T we read the story ‘I Don’t Want to Go to Bed’ & listened to the CD story ‘Franklin and the Thunderstorm’. We listened to the song ‘Deep in the Jungle’ & ‘I had a Little Turtle’. For music we played the parachute game.  For Art we cut out a turtle shell and glued it onto paper and added feet, head, eyes and tissue paper for the letter T on the shell.

We are now in the home stretch, U, V, W. For Circle we read ‘Thelma the Unicorn' & 'Blue Whale Blues’. We listened to the rhymes 5 Unicorns, 5 Green Vipers & 5 Blue Whales. We used our bodies to be a Unicorn, Snake and threw Bean Bags onto the letter V on the floor. For art we made a Unicorn out of the letter U and cut out the horn that they glued on and added hair.  We also made a vase with the letter V. Lastly, X,Y and Z.  We read ‘Chick a Chicka, Boom, Boom’ & ‘Greedy Zebra’. We sang ‘ABC’ & listened to the rhyme ‘5 Zebras’ & played the game - Find the Letter X Behind the Coloured Houses. We used different parts of our bodies to make the letter X. For Music we played with the xylophones and finished watching the Alphabet DVD. For Art we used the letter Z to make a Zebra. We cut out the black stripes and glued them on, along with eyes and hair.

When all the "serious" letter work had finished it was time to have some FUN…. We spent a few days learning about Pirates. We read the stories ‘There was an Old Pirate that Swallowed a Fish’, ‘Are You the Pirate Captain?’, ‘This Little Pirate’ & ‘Do Pirates Take Baths’.  We sang ‘If You’re a Pirate and You Know It’ and ‘Row, Row, Row your Boat’. We listened to the rhymes ‘5 Little Pirates’ &  the felt story ‘5 Pirates’. We played the games ‘Pirates Looking for Treasure’ in the music room and in the gym we played ‘What is the Time Pirate Captain?’ and the Memory Wall Game.  For Art we cut out the face for our pirate and glued on the hat, eye patch and drew on his eye, nose, mouth and stubble. On our last day we decorated pirate ships with glitter glue, sails & tissue paper. It was such a fun week…Ahoy Matey!

For the last few weeks, we will explore the Island of Hawaii and learn how to Hula Dance. We will also spend some time making something special for our Father’s including a lovely card.  We will finish our Journals and read stories about going to a new school.

We wish you all a Great Summer and the best of luck on your new Adventures. Please come back and visit us!!!

RESOURCE OFFICE - MARION

June is here and I feel that after 25 years, this year has been both challenging and at the same time rewarding.  I am thankful for the support of the Church and our Board of Directors who have guided us through this school year.  Thank you to the staff for being flexible with the changes that needed to be made to keep the children safe while learning through play and to all our supportive families. Our fundraising projects have been very successful due to your generosity. Thank you. 

This is our first year where we have had all our 3s & 4s learning in multi-age classrooms.  Younger children were able to enhance their language and behavior skills by watching and listening to the older children.  The older children were able to mentor the younger ones, while building on their sense of responsibility, self-esteem and empathy skills.  Instilling leadership qualities early on makes children more independent and children are able to do and learn things at their own pace. The teachers encourage children to focus on what they can do rather than what they can't do.  This motivates children as well as helps nourish their own strengths and abilities in a better way.

Looking forward to the next couple of weeks with the children and I want to wish all the 4s a happy transition into Kindergarten.  Have a great Summer everyone and hopefully it will involve travelling and seeing family and friends.  See you in the Village.