APRIL 2022

 

April Showers bring...well...umbrellas! Weather is crazy this time of year so make sure your child has lots of choices in their backpacks for appropriate clothing and footwear. And on rainy, wet days, please make sure you pack indoor shoes so we don't make a mess of the school floors as well as your child will have appropriate footwear for playing in the gym.

Missing Items: 

We have had a few children's items get misplaced or have gone  home with other children. Help us to minimize this by labeling all your child's items: lunch box, containers, water bottles, footwear and clothing. And please think about purchasing some labels from our Fundraiser: www.StCatherines.lovablelabels.ca

JEANS WEEK- April 25-29 

Jeans week is coming up! This is the week that we collect donations for The BC Children's Hospital. 

Please save up your Loonies and Toonies and throw them into the Umbrellas that we will have set up at pick up and drop off times. 

Last year we raised the most we ever had at $505! And don't forget to send your child in some denim!!

UPCOMING SCHOOL CLOSURES

APRIL 15 - GOOD FRIDAY 

APRIL 18 - EASTER MONDAY

MAY 13 - PRO-D DAY

MAY 23 - VICTORIA DAY

CLASSROOM ACTIVITIES

Plenty of things happened in the classrooms last month. The teachers would like you to check out what they have been working on!

RAINBOW ROOM - DANIELLE, VIBHA, SUSAN, ROSE

Welcome to Spring!

Now that new life is popping up from the ground and sprouting from trees, we are so excited that the weather is getting warmer and Spring is here. We began the month learning about farm animals. The children enjoyed listening to farm stories and taking part in farm themed art activities. Some of the fun farm stories we listened to at Circle were “Hello Farm” and “Cows In The Kitchen”. 

A great activity that always excites the children is a farm listening game that plays the many sounds on a farm. The children often get excited when they hear a duck, cow, or pig in our classroom! 

At the art table we explored with paint and coffee grinds to make muddy pigs. The texture of the paint gives the children a real-life idea of brown mud. A barn was created on one of our classrooms presentation boards. The children’s farm animals such as sheep made with cotton balls and cows made from paper plates were proudly displayed.

Our room started to bloom with beautiful Spring art after the break. Handprint tulips, cherry blossoms and even butterflies could be seen within the Rainbow room class. The bright pop of colour really gets the children and teachers in the Springtime spirit. 

At Circle we learned about flowers, gardening and even umbrellas. We enjoyed listening to two different CD stories at Circle Time, “The Apple Tree” and “Trees for all Seasons”. The 2s always enjoy listening to a story by hearing it through the CD player, and it gives variety to our Circles and creates an exciting mood with sound effects and entertaining voices. As teachers we love seeing the children become deeply engaged in a story.  

The children enjoyed listening to a felt rhyme about the 5 coloured umbrellas as well.  A story we read that highlights all the pretty spring bulbs is called “Planting A Rainbow”. This book is great for anyone who loves plants and gardening. 

Speaking of gardening, we had shovels, buckets, and watering cans in the house corner for the children to imagine and play with. Providing a creative environment for the students to imagine is something with strive for all over the classroom but we especially like to see imaginative play in the house corner.

As we say goodbye to March, we look forward to what April will bring! We are hopeful for more sunny days so we can spend time in our outdoor playground spotting new growth and even butterflies! 

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

Welcome to the month of March in the Treehouse room. 

We finished off our theme of Space the first week of March, but we could have continued longer as there was so much more we could have explored. 

Our next theme was based on Eric Carle. His first published book was The Hungry Caterpillar and there were so many others that followed. So many books….but we can’t read them all. We started off with Papa Please Take Me to the Moon, followed by Grouchy Ladybug, The Hungry Caterpillar, Today is Monday, The Greedy Python, The No Nonsense Show, Brown Bear, Brown Bear what do you see?  Little Cloud, The Very Busy Spider, The Very Lonely Firefly and The Very Quiet Cricket.

For art the children made a puffy paint moon, tissue paper ladybug, sponge painted caterpillar, egg carton caterpillars, paper spiral python, paper stars and handprint brown bears.

As part of our Kindergarten readiness we are including more cutting into our everyday activities from shapes, lines and any other kind of paper. We encourage you to continue your child's cutting skills at home. Practicing letter writing (child's name) is also a part of what we are working on. 

So many of the children are capable of managing themselves when it comes to taking off/putting on their coats and zipping or buttoning, taking off and putting on their own shoes for inside and out, and packing their own back packs and putting them on. Of course the teachers are always there to help if needed. Please encourage children to practice these activities on their own at home as well.

Our last day before our one week Spring Break, we had a “make your own pizza” for snack, watched a short DVD about the last days of Winter and ate popcorn.

This month we also had some preschool excursions. The one  sunny day we had in March we went for an impromptu walk in the afternoon to the Duck Pond by Murdo Frazer. Along the way we looked for signs of Spring. 

Our next excursion was to the Capilano Public Library. This worked well with our Eric Carle theme as he was part of a theme at the library. Along the way we looked for knitting around trees, benches and bike stands. Also some store windows were taking part in COME FIND Fairies and Beasts in Enchanted Edgemont Village.

Once we were at the library we put the children into small groups with a teacher and they had to go around the children’s department looking for food from The Hungry Caterpillar story. Each item had a letter and once they were all found it made a word…BUTTERFLY. Once each group was done everyone sat on the circle carpet and we read some Eric Carle books.

Our last excursion was an impromptu walk to Dudley Park playground in the afternoon. This is a fun, interactive, colourful, age appropriate space that all the children enjoy. Check it out if you haven’t already. 

Spring has arrived and we are talking about the buds that are blooming, hearing and seeing more birds, seeing more insects and how the weather is changing. 

The children made paper daffodils for art and drew what Spring means to them in their journals.

At Circle the children leaned about the life cycle of a seed. To continue the process the children drew a seed and what might grow from it and we also planted real seeds in soil. Their options were corn, peas, beans and cucumber. These will be going home once they are established. 

By now everyone should have received The Card Project envelope. This is a great way to support your child's art displayed on a booklet, mug, cloth bag…..and partial proceeds come to the classroom for additional supplies. Thank in advance for your support in this wonderful fundraiser.

We have started practicing our songs for Spring so you may hear your child singing them. Our plan is to video record the children and email to you our little Easter celebration. 

For the beginning of April we will be focusing on Easter.

Thanks for reading.

SUNFLOWER ROOM - DANIELLE, CECILIA, CAROL

For our first week of March, we continued our journey around the world. We had just a few stops left via the Caribbean on our way to North America.  The children learned about the animals, food & culture of Trinidad from library books. They attempted the movement game - limbo (it originated in Trinidad) to the sounds of a steel drum band and marched with tambourines to the beat of the American national anthem. We listened to a story about a grandfather’s childhood encounter with his baseball hero. We learned about the things you find in USA: Bald Eagles, American Football and explored American animals through yoga poses.  For art, we traced a surfboard and made prints with a baseball, basketball, and a football.  We turned the home corner into a camp site. Complete with sleeping bags, picnic food & our own BBQ.

Our last stop was Canada. We made it home! We explored the map of Canada and found where we live. We discussed our favorite things about our home and what we love. We read “Why I love British Columbia” and “What House is the Polar Bear Hiding?”.  We played a memory game with Canadian Animals & Hockey in the gym. We made pancakes with lots of 100% Maple Syrup and decorated a Canada Goose with feathers and painted a beaver at the Easel.

We then moved onto Spring & Planting.  We converted the Home Corner into a flowering garden with shovels, buckets, watering cans and flowers. For circle we read “How a Seed Grows", "Mouse’s 1^st Spring", "Planting a Rainbow", "How to Grow a Friend" and "Good-bye Winter & Hello Spring”. We listened to the felt rhymes ‘5 Little Flowers', '5 Little Umbrellas' and '5 Spring Flowers’. We learnt Spring Yoga poses & how our bodies grow from a seed to a flower. We played the game ‘Match the Coloured Flowers’ and 'Sprinkle, Sprinkle'. For art we planted sunflower & cosmos seeds. We used celery hearts to make flower prints. We also decorated coffee filters we turned into flowers, used watercolors to paint ‘spring’ and decorated sunflowers with seeds.

In keeping with Spring, we moved onto explore BUGS! The home corner was turned into a Bug Garden complete with tunnels, bugs and magnifying glasses. We listened to the felts “The Very Hungry Caterpillar” and “Ladybugs”. We read the books “From Caterpillar to Butterfly", "Bees Like Flowers" and nature books on ladybugs & dragonflies. We sang ‘Insects All Around’, ‘Little Grasshopper’ and ‘Bumble Bee’. We played the games 'Counting Bugs Dominoes', 'Feeding the Ladybug' and "Meadow Ring Toss". For art we made butterfly prints, cut out Bee bodies and glued on yellow stripes, antennas & eyes. We cut out the ladybug shape & used a salad spinner to decorate the body and then glued on the wings.

For our last week we began our journey into the Alphabet. Each letter is introduced by a song that sounds out how the letter should ‘sound’. We then have an Alphabet Soup Can with examples of things that start with the letter we are learning. We listened to the CD Stories “Apple Countdown" and "Duck at Your Door”. We read “Chicka, Chicka, Boom Boom” and listened to the felt “The Cat Who Changed Colors”. We used our bodies to act out the actions of animals who start with the Letter A, C & D. We used Drums to sing songs and played the memory game of what things are missing, starting with the letter B? We listened to the felt rhymes '5 Apples', '5 Buses', 'Ben the Beaver' and '5 Cupcakes'. For art we followed different steps to make an Avocado using paper, pipe cleaners & glue and we used watercolors to paint a cookie. The Home Corner was turned into ‘the Circle carpet’ where each child had a turn to be the teacher and use the calendar & work out who was the leader/helper.

We will continue our learning of the Alphabet along with Easter for April. We are also continuing with the children practicing their self-help skills.  We encourage them to put on their own jackets, zip them up, change their shoes if they need to and take out their snacks.

If you have any questions, please feel free to contact us. Danielle, Cecilia & Carol.

 

RESOURCE ROOM - MARION

Happy Spring.  Jim and I had a lovely trip to Australia and most importantly finally met our 2 year old grandson, Freddy.  It was sad to leave but I'm glad to be home and back teaching. 

I hope everyone had a good Spring Break.  These next few months will be filled with so many learning opportunities.  The classrooms have all sprung into Spring.  

Our butterfly kits will be arriving May 5th.  It takes about three to four weeks for the caterpillars to complete their process of changing into butterflies.  The children will be able to visit them in the Treehouse Room throughout the month of May and then they will be released into the Memorial Garden in June.

The teachers have sent home the Kindergarten Readiness letters and are working with small groups of children on their individual journals.  They are playing games involving letters, shapes and numbers.

We are encouraging the children to be more independent.  The teachers are watching as the children put away their coats and back packs.  They encourage the children to ask for help when needed.  It does take a little more time, but just letting them put on their own coat is so rewarding for them and helps build self confidence.  

If you have any questions, please speak with the teachers.