DECEMBER 2021

 Let Every Day Be Christmas

Christmas is forever, not for just one day,
for loving, sharing, giving, are not to put away
like bells and lights and tinsel, in some box upon a shelf.
The good you do for others is good you do yourself.
– Norman Wesley Brooks

It's DECEMBER! And it's the most wonderful time of the year!! Christmas! And sparkles! And presents! And sparkles! And snow! And sparkles! And candy canes! And sparkles! (It's just not Christmas at Preschool without SPARKLES!!)

It's a short month with our last day being Friday, December 17th. We have packed a lot into those two and a half weeks just to get it all done before the New Year!

TRAVEL AND COVID PROTOCOL

Please remember if you are travelling out of Canada this holiday season, your unvaccinated children must stay home from school for 2 weeks before they are able to return. Please refer to the Government website for current and up to date information.

If you plan on taking extra time off for your holidays, don't forget to let the teachers know so they can plan the classroom activities accordingly. It is always good to know in advance who will be away.

Thank you to all those in the Treehouse & Sunflower Rooms who sent in requests to extend their child's day starting January! It is going to be a fun time for all! If you have not contacted us but are thinking of extending hours, let us know asap as spots are filling up with new families registering.

CALENDAR OF EVENTS

DEC. 7/8          - Children's Christmas Service 

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

DEC. 17           - Last Day before Christmas Break

JAN. 4              - First Day back to Preschool

JAN. 4-31         - 2022 Registration for Current Families

FEB. 1              - 2022 Registration for Community Families

FEB. 10/14      - Children's Valentine's Day Parties

FEB 21            - Family Day PRESCHOOL CLOSED

MAR 14-18    - Spring Break PRESCHOOL CLOSED

THANK YOU to everyone who donated to our Photo Days pictures we sent to you. We still plan on taking photos of those who missed the day. If you have not already done so, please let the office know you would like a photo taken of your child. We will try to do another group shot near the end of the year, when more children are in attendance.

CHRISTMAS DONATION TO NORTH SHORE FAMILY SERVICES

Thank you to everyone who has donated a gift card for our collection with the Church for the North Shore Family Services. They will distribute the cards to families who are in need this holiday season.

The last day to donate is Friday, Dec. 3rd.

THANK YOU to everyone who helped us fundraise over the last couple of months. We raised over $600 from our Samosa Fundraiser and we raised over $1000 from our Purdys' Fundraiser! We raised $180 from our Photo Days fundraiser. Your support is very much appreciated! Don't forget about Scholastic Books, Lovable Labels, Cobbs; Edgemont, Return-It Bottle Return; Brooksbank, and Boston Pizza Esplanade! These are all great ways to support our school! And coming soon...Little Kitchen Academy; Edgemont.

Let's see what is happening inside the classrooms: 

RAINBOW ROOM - CECILIA, DANIELLE, MARJAN, ROSE, VIBHA

We go by car.

We go by plane.

We go by boat.

We go by train.

We go by land 

and sea and air.

We go, go, go,

From here to there!

~ Poem by Richard Scarry,

What a fun and exciting month of November we had learning about different modes of transportation.

For art:  we made yellow school buses with dabbers, decorated paper plate sailboats and cars with colourful tissue paper,  fire truck printing, transportation cookie cutter collage, we decorated rocket ship with foil and used dabbers to make our own train carriage.

During circle time, we read a fun- filled sing along tape story “We all go traveling by.”

"Blue train, Blue train what do you see?" and 

"Soft road, bumpy road" song.

Felt rhymes are always a big hit with our two’s. Such as Five Little Buses, Twinkle, Twinkle Motor Car, Zoom , Zoom, Zoom, We’re Going to the Moon,  Space Ship, Space Ship, What Do You See?   And everyone’s favourite “The Wheels On The Bus.”

We also transformed our housekeeping corner into a train station. 

As always, please come and speak to us if you have any concerns or questions.  

And thank you all for your continued support

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

Hello Treehouse families,

It has been a busy fun filled month and the children are settling in well to the routines.


For the month of November, we learned all about community helpers and why they are so important to us. We focused on animal vets, dentists, construction workers, police officers, firefighters, and chefs.

The children played Guess the Community Helper, sang songs, and read books at circle time.

Our home corner was transformed into a veterinarian office where the children pretended to help animals get well.

The block corner was a fire station for the children to pretend to rush to a fire.

The train table became a coffee shop where the children could serve coffee and bake delicious treats to serve to their friends! 

Karen made banana pancakes with the children when we were learning about chefs as community helpers! They were so delicious!
We watched a Little People video on Community Helpers that the children really enjoyed!

The afternoon program went for a walk to Edgemont Village to see all the different community helpers hard at work.

For Remembrance Day , the children made poppies for art and they learned why it was such an important day.


The last week of the month was spent exploring the world of Hibernation. We discovered what animals, insects, and reptiles hibernate in the winter and where they make their homes such as in a cave, den, or tree. We looked at why they hibernate and for how long. The home corner became a hibernation center for bears, snakes, raccoons, and squirrels.

We finished up the month with the children writing letters to Santa and making their special Christmas gifts!

Please remember that the Christmas Services are being filmed on Tuesday, December 7th and Wednesday, December 8th. The children have been practicing their songs and they are looking forward to singing them for you on video!

Our Christmas parties are on December 16th and 17th and the children can dress in their favourite pajamas!

Thank you for all your support and understanding about masks, social distancing, and keeping your child home if they are not well. The phone calls and emails are truly appreciated about this.

Please remember to pack runners for your child so they can participate in the fun activities in the gym.

If you plan to travel outside the country, please check the BC Government website about Covid information and return to school information.

Please visit the blog next month to see the fun activities we got up to in December!

SUNFLOWER ROOM - CECILIA, DANIELLE

Wow, I cannot believe how busy we have been and what we have been learning about. There is soooo much, I am not sure I have will enough room.

We started November talking about Pete the Cat.  We read “Pete the cat: I love my White Shoes, His Four Groovy Buttons, Rocking in My School Shoes, Pete the Cat and The New Guy, Pete the Cat and His Magic Sunglasses & Pete the Cat and The Missing Cupcakes". We sang I've Got a Black Cat on My Knee, 1, 2, Buckle My Shoe and listened to the felt rhyme ‘5 Little Kittens Standing in a Row’. 

We danced to Boogie Pete and marched to the beat of the drum in ‘The Pete’s Go Marching. 

We played the games Shoe Relay, Button, button who's got the button? & Find the missing items from the Magic Sunglasses book. 

For Art we used shoes to make prints in red, blue & brown. We also glued Pete the Cat together with his 4 groovy buttons and we made our own Pete the Cat Mask with Sunglasses. 

We explored ‘shoe shopping’ in the house corner and buttons in the sand & water table.

We moved on to talk about how to be a good friend. We read “Fox makes Friends, “When you need a friend”, “My Friends” & Listened to the CD story “Very Special Friends”. We played Ring a Ring a Rosie, Row, Row your boat, What’s the time My Friend? and we searched for missing items in the classroom with a friend.  We also touched on Remembrance Day and how it is very important for everyone to use their words when talking to each other and to keep our hands to our own bodies. 

We read “The Soldiers Puppy & If The Kids Ruled the World”. We listened to the rhyme 5 Brave Soldiers & 5 Poppies. We guessed which colored Poppy was missing & we marched to the song “The Grand Old Duke of York’ with drums. For art we worked together to paint our den for our winter animals, made a stick friend and traced Poppy’s & decorated them with red tissue paper. In the water table we explored red magnets with black metal and had tea with babies in the home corner.

For the last 2 weeks of November, we talked about Hibernation and the animals in our forest…We started with animals that hibernate, Bears, Turtles & Hedgehogs. We read “Time to Sleep, Turtle's First Winter Now I Know: Turtle, We're Going on a Bear Hunt & Felt Story: Ouch” (hedgehog's dilemma). We sung Teddy Bear, Teddy Bear, Turn Around & Hibernation.

We played the games “Bear Bingo, Who woke the Sleeping Bear? & Which Animal Track is this?’. We moved like a bear and a turtle. We met “Freddy” the bear who will sleep in a box until spring. For Art we used marble painting to decorate paper plate bears, potato masher turtles and Hedgehogs with forks.  We created a bear cave in the home corner that we later turned into a forest with deer’s, racoons & a wolf cave. 

We then moved onto talk about animals in the forest that don’t hibernate. We talked about Foxes, Owls & Moose’s.  For circle we read “Winter Dance, A Fall Ball for All, Little Tails, When a Tree Grows, Night-Night Forest Friends & Who’s in the forest?”. We learnt the rhymes- Foxy Loxy, If you are a fox & you know it, 5 Little Owls, Moosey Loosey and we moved like forest animals. We sang the action rhyme ‘The animals in the Forest’ and when on a Animal Hunt in the classroom. We played the game What animal is missing? & ran around in the gym to the Animal Wall game. For art we explored Foxes by using glue, scissors & paper to make a fox face, paper plates for a snowy owl & we put the moose’s face together like a puzzle.

 

We have also been busy practicing our Christmas Songs for our Christmas Concert that we are having next week.  We will be sending you all a video of the children performing that a few days later.

 

For the last few weeks of the year, we will explore The Nativity & Christmas, as well as continuing to have fun learning and playing together.

Please remember to pack more food than less (one container for snack & one for lunch) as we are here for 4 hours a day, so the children get hungry.  We will also be going outside to play so pack appropriate footwear & jackets.

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

RESOURCE OFFICE - MARION

Children love toys and the best toys are often the simplest ones, like Lego or Duplo for the younger children.  These toys allow children to be creative and spontaneous.  Children enjoy toys that they can master and that are right for their stage of development.  

Preschoolers learn a lot about socialization through pretend play.  Finger puppets and hand puppets allow children to communicate through them while playing with peers or by themselves.  This play allows them to get a sense of the real world around them.  

Crayons, finger paints and Play-Doh help develop fine motors skills as well, allows children to be creative. Children also make huge gains in both fine and gross motor skills throughout this period, so puzzles, blocks and other construction toys are perfect for fine motor development and ball games and bikes are great for gross motor skills. It is important to buy toys that involve brain activity and hand or muscle movements.

Children bring a special gift to us all and especially at Christmas time.  The gift of imagination and curiosity. As we near Christmas break, I want to wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Very Happy New Year!

Please check out a new event happening at some of the stores in the Village: "An Artist's Advent Calendar 2021".  

St. Catherine's Childcare Society submitted "Hope" to BC Playthings and "Love" to Delish General Store. Please visit these stores, and others to see all the Artist Creations!

On Christmas Eve this year, St. Catherine's Church is  planning a Christmas Eve Nativity Pageant from 3 pm to 4 pm. Please feel free to come dressed up as a Shepherd, Angel or Wise "Person".  There will be some costumes and props available at 2:30 pm.  

Please visit: www.saint.catherine.org for more information.

THANK YOU FOR READING OUR BLOG. If you have made it this far, you are amazing! Please let the teachers know you have read their blog. Tell them what you think of all the amazing activities and pictures you have seen on the blog. Let them know what you would like to see more of!!