OCTOBER 2021

OCTOBER is here and we are ready to jump into Autumn with both feet! 

Another preschool year is in full swing here at St. Catherine's and the first month has flown by really quick with gradual entry, meeting friends old and new, and getting to know teachers, classrooms and routines. For some of you this will be your first preschool experience and for others not so much! No matter what, we hope to make your time here at St. Catherine's special, rewarding and memorable.

As I walk through the hallways it's wonderful to hear the happy hum of chatter, songs and laughter coming from the classrooms and if I'm lucky I might just get a little visitor or two to my office throughout the day!

If you have any questions or concerns please talk with your teachers, Marion or myself (Tina). We are really lucky here at St. Catherine's to have so many people available to help with any issues that arise. Communication is so important and helps us to all be on the same page with regards to your child's preschool experience.

IMPORTANT DATES AND EVENTS COMING UP

OCT. 17 - Last Day to Order SAMOSAS

OCT. 27 - Pick Up SAMOSAS at school

OCT. 27 - ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING - 6:30 pm (Zoom/Hybrid)

                 You must PRE-REGISTER with the office to attend the meeting.

OCT. 27/28/29 - Children's Halloween Parties

NOV. 2/3 - Photo Days (Children's Portraits)

NOV. 11 - REMEMBRANCE DAY - PRESCHOOL CLOSED

NOV. 16 - Last Day to Order PURDYS CHOCOLATES

DEC. 1 - Pick up PURDYS CHOCOLATES

DEC. 15/16/17 - Children's Christmas Parties

DEC. 17 - LAST DAY BEFORE CHRISTMAS BREAK

JAN. 4 - FIRST DAY BACK TO PRESCHOOL

Scholastic Books : October Digi-Flyers!

DID YOU EVER WONDER WHAT IS HAPPENING IN THE CLASSROOMS?? Find out here:

RAINBOW ROOM - Cecilia, Danielle, Marjan, Vibha, Rose

A big welcome to our returning new families!  Thank you parents for all your support and patience during gradual entry.  It’s being a great success.

Our youngest members of St. Catherine’s Preschool are beginning to settle in nicely to the program.  Most are happy to stretch their boundaries. A few still need a little more time to feel secure with mom and Dad leaving.  Such is the nature of our two year olds.  Often this is their first experience away from family. 

Two year olds love to explore their surroundings, but need to stay close to their primary base of support and trust.

Separation anxiety is quite strong at this stage, but often it is only the “good-bye” that is difficult.

We setup the rooms in a way that facilitates exploration and discovery through play.  A great deal of time is spent exploring, pulling, filling, dumping and touching. Two year olds love painting, splashing in the water table, housekeeping, singing and dancing at circle time, although play tends to be more solitary.  Over the next few weeks, we’ll be talking about Thanksgiving, Fall and Halloween.  

We are still waiting for a few more family photos.  Children love to look at these photos especially if they are missing you. 

We sing grace before snack and our Goodbye song at the end of the day.  As per requested here are the lyrics to these tunes.

    

GRACE

God is great

God is good

And we thank him for our food

We’re going to thank him in the morning, noon and night 

 We’re going to thank him coz he’s out of sight.  Amen

GOODBYE SONG

Goodbye my friends, goodbye! Goodbye my friends, goodbye!

Goodbye my friends, goodbye my friends, goodbye my friends goodbye!!

We look forward to an exciting year - a year of tremendous growth in confidence and abilities.  We hope that this first group experience will be an enjoyable and memorable one both for you and your child.  

Please let us know if your child is going to be absent from class and if they are sick, what the symptoms are. And please feel free to contact us if you have any questions or concerns.

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

Hi families of the Treehouse Room! Welcome to our first blog for this year!

We are excited to be back and happy to see so many familiar faces. We also welcome our new families and look forward to getting to know you better.

As September began we introduced our #1 rule, NO ONE GETS HURT. We made a poster that included all of the children’s handprints and talked about what NO ONE GETS HURT actually means. We talked about sharing, calm hands, kind words, walking feet and much more.

 

We have talked about the importance of hand washing, sneezing and coughing into their arm, using tissues and not to put fingers into mouths. 

Lets move on to the fun stuff. 

Roughly every 2-4 weeks we have a planned theme and this year we started off  with WHERE WE LIVE: BC, our community. Due to travel restrictions many of you may of had your summer holidays locally. We really do have so much to see in BC. We talked about places the children may have been to such as the Vancouver Aquarium, Science World, Stanley Park, Capilano Suspension Bridge, Lonsdale Quay, Grouse Mountain, Maplewood Farm and Whistler, I could go on but I think you get the picture. The children were all very happy share their experiences with so many of these familiar places. There was also lots of bike riding, hiking, beach and park time and camping.

In the classroom we have carpeted areas and we have made one into a camping area with a tent, campfire, trees and animals and another with a life-size boat fitted with small oars, lifejackets, fishing rods and other sea-life. We also had a Farmers Market with baskets, play food and money. Last but not least a Bear cave under the Treehouse, CAUTION, BEAR IN AREA.

We explored our local animals from our ocean to our forests. There was a lot of talk about seeing bears in backyards and parks. Which brought up another conversation about why we are seeing so many more and what we can do to be BEAR AWARE.

By now you should have received an email of a slide show that introduces all of the children in our classes. If not please let us know. 

Just a few reminders:

-Please say your goodbye promptly when your child is being dropped off so the teachers can take them down to start their day.

-If your child is going to be late, away or is sick, please call or email the office and let them know the reason for the absence and if they are sick what the symptoms are.

-Pack extra clothing in your child’s backpack.

-The weather is changing and many children are wearing rain boots to school, please send along inside shoes. Also a jacket, its best to have one that not. Who knows what the weather will do throughout the day.

As always we are always happy to discuss any issues you may have. This is best done through a phone call or email. Drop off and pick up can be a busy time and the children’s safety is a priority during these times. 

We are looking forward to a fun and exciting year, thanks for joining us!

PS Check out our Bio’s from September's blog so you can see us without our masks

SUNFLOWER ROOM - Cecilia, Danielle

Welcome back! We are very excited to meet our new friends in the Sunflower Classroom.

We are looking forward to the next 10 months of learning, playing and discovering new things. We are making new friends, exploring art, and learning to listen at circle time.

For the first week of school, we were learning about our number one rule: No-one Gets Hurt. We read, “What Does It Mean To Be Kind?” “You Hold Me Up,” ”Swimmy,” and listened to the felt story, ‘Leo the Lion.’ We also introduced the game, ‘Stop & Go,’ where we used pictures of things that are a stop or a go…We also used a thumbs up or thumbs down signal as we don’t always have our stop signs on us. We listened to the felt rhymes, ‘5 Green Frogs,’ ‘Little Red Bug,’ & ‘3 Jelly Fish.’ We played the game ‘match the coloured puzzle pieces’ & ‘Sleeping Children.’ For art we used our hands to decorate our Sunflower poster. We decorated ourselves with our ‘hands up’ and made our own fish to be part of ‘the big fish’ as we all work together as a team.

We moved on to exploring Ourselves and our Families. For circle we read, “We Are All Alike, We Are All Different,” “Scribble Spot,” “Here Are My Hands,” and “Whoever You Are.’ We sang Willaby Wallaby Woo, The Hokey Pokey, and played the game ‘Who’s Under the Blanket?’ We listened to the felt rhyme, ‘Our 5 Senses’ & used our bodies for yoga poses. We danced with colorful scarves and played sleeping bunnies.  For art we used a mirror to work out what color eyes & hair we have, where our nose & lips go to make a self-portrait. We used a salad spinner to decorate our body and used tissue paper to also decorate ourselves. We used rectangles and triangles to make our own houses – some were small, some wide and some were tall. We also used people stencils that we could trace and color house shapes with felts and stickers. In the water table we had small houses and people to play with. We had babies and doctors’ kits in the home corner

For the last week of September, we are exploring fall—the leaves, the colors and the weather. We read, “Summer Green to Autumn Gold,” “We Are Going On A Leaf Hunt,” “There Was An Old Lady Who Swallowed Some Leaves,” “Fall Leaves Fall,” & listened to the felt story, ‘Sammy the Squirrel.’ We danced with leaves, listened to music while we drew, and sang, ‘Dingle Dangle Scarecrow.’ We also listened to the felt rhymes, ‘5 Leaves,’ ‘Scarecrow, Scarecrow, What Do You see?’ ‘Fall Is In The Air,’ ‘5 Baby Owls’ & ‘Harvest Time.’ We played, ‘What Colour Leaf is Missing?’ ‘Sleeping Scarecrows,’ and sang the song, ‘Leaves’ (to the tune of “Wheels On the Bus”). For art we explored leaves galore…in the water table, the sand table and through art. We used leaves to make ‘a window,’ a salt dough print, and we watched watercolour spread on diffusing paper to make ‘fall colored leaves.’ There were also stamps with leaf prints, potato leaf prints at the easel and Lego pieces to decorate corn. We had a farm with pumpkins, corn, hay, wheelbarrows and scarecrows in the home corner...this was a busy spot.

In October we will be talking about Thanksgiving, Fire Safety and Halloween.

Please remember to pack more food than less (one container for snack & one for lunch) as we are here for 4 hours a day and the children tend to work up quite an appetite. We will also be going outside to play so kindly pack appropriate footwear & jackets. Thank you and we look forward to growing our connections this school year.

If you have any questions, please feel free to contact the office so we can arrange a meeting after school hours. 

RESOURCE OFFICE - MARION

Welcome.  

Due to continued Covid restrictions we are again using outdoor drop off/pick up areas around the Church.  Thank you to all our families for their continued support and understading as we start this new school year.  During gradual entry the teachers are able to make connections with all the children, first with smaller groups and then all together. The children have settled into their classrooms and are learning all about our daily routines, reconnecting with friends and making new ones.  I have been spending time in each of the classrooms and am enjoying getting to know your children.  

The Discovery 2s need to be reassured that you will be back to pick them up and that they are in experienced, loving and caring hands.  Once your child feels comfortable with the teachers, it is much easier to say a quick good-bye.  Right now they are in the stage of solitary play and are moving into parallel play with their peers.

Children in the Treehouse and Sunflower Rooms will be learning independence throughout the school year.  Walking up and down the stairs holding the railings, hanging up their jackets and back packs.  Getting their snacks/lunches out and putting them away when they are done.  The 4s will be registering for Kindergarten soon and the teachers will be monitoring developmental stages and self-help skills.

We believe in our philosophy of "Children Learn Best Through Play". They learn language skills and develop literacy, social and emotional skills.  Play fosters creativity and imagination.  It is through play that children at a very early age engage and interact in the world around them.  Children learn to make decisions, problem solve, negotiate and manage stress.

We have an open door policy and we encourage you to speak with your teachers if you have any questions or concerns.  As the Developmental Resource Educator I am here to support our preschool programs, the teachers and all the children.  If you have any topics that you would like to have discussed in the blog or in a parent forum, please let me know.  Looking forward to another year full of learning and laughter

WE HOPE TO "SEE" EVERYONE AT OUR AGM ON OCT. 27TH! 

You must PRE-REGISTER with the office to attend the online ZOOM meeting.

Let us know if you are interested in being a board member. All meetings are done online and we get together the second Tuesday of the month. We often will skip months so there will only be 6 or 7 meetings all year. Get involved and help us to make this the best school in North Vancouver!!

Thanks for reading our blog and as usual, if you have any questions, comments or concerns, please do not hesitate to contact us in the office.