DECEMBER 2022

DECEMBER 2022

Wow! I am always surprised by how fast each month goes by! And December is just a short month for us and we only have another week and a half before the Christmas break!

We will try to get everything done!

PURDYS 

Hey! We had a goal of $5000 and we passed it!! We raised a total of $5008.50!! That gives our school a profit of $1314.73! Thanks so much to all of our supporters!

PIZZA NIGHT & CAKE WALK

Well, it was a great night! Such a fun time! It was a very busy night with a lot going on! The teachers made some delicious salads and our Board Members made some delicious desserts! And we can't forget about our neighbourhood FRESH SLICE PIZZA who delivered us some nice hot pizza!

The Mary Pellatt Room was busy with the Cake Walk! The music plays and the children go around the chairs and whoever stops at the right chair gets to pick a cake off the table!! 

Thanks so much to all the parents, board members and staff who donated cakes!

Once the games were done, at the end of the night, we auctioned off six more cakes! And then the very last cake was given to the winner of the cake raffle.

It was a great event and even though we don't like to call this a Fundraiser (It's more of a social get-together), we made a profit of $1029!! How awesome is that?! That will be added to our other fundraiser event funds to help to maintain and beautify our play yard! Thanks to everyone who supports us!

IMPORTANT DATES & SCHOOL CLOSURES

DEC. 7 - Christmas Service 6pm

DEC. 14/15/16 - Children's Christmas Parties

DEC. 16 - Last Day of Preschool before Christmas Break

JAN 3 - First Day back after Christmas Break

JAN 31 - REGISTRATION for Sept.2023 - Current Families

FEB 1 - Registration for Sept. 2023 - Community Families

FEB 13/14 - Children's Valentine's Day Parties

FEB. 20 - FAMILY DAY - PRESCHOOL CLOSED

FEB. 21 - Church Pancake Supper

MAR 13-17 - SPRING BREAK - PRESCHOOL CLOSED 1 WEEK

We Sent Something Home To Every Family! Did you get it?

Lindsay Wilson, one of our Parent Members on our Board has been working very hard at putting together a little something for all the families. Please look for a little RETURN IT package that includes a couple of plastic bags, a couple of stickers and an info sheet! 

We all know that we do a lot of socializing during the Christmas and New Year seasons so this is a good time to send home this fundraiser!

Please save all your cans, bottles, milk jugs, and other returnables in the bags provided and drop them off at the RETURN IT Depot at the Brooksbank location: 310 Brooksbank Avenue.

All of the proceeds we collect will go towards the maintenance and improvements to our Play yard!

Thanks for your support!!

WHAT HAPPENED IN THE CLASSROOMS?

One special thing that happened is we have a new member of our TREEHOUSE Teaching Team! Please WELCOME KAMAL to the Treehouse MWF class! We are happy to have her join our little family!

Check out what else happened here: 

RAINBOW ROOM - Danielle, Susan, Vibha

November was a such a great and eventful month. There were two new themes presented: Construction and Pete the Cat.

For construction week we talked about many kinds of tools, their purposes and tool safety.

(Sing to the tune “Mulberry Bush”)

This is the way we saw our wood

Saw our wood, saw our wood 

This is the way we saw our wood 

So early in the morning.

Other verses: pound our nails, drill a hole and use a screwdriver.

For art, we made our own tool belts, dump trucks and trucks in the mud painting was a big hit with our two’s. 

At circle we talked about construction bear with felt pieces, five big dump trucks, how many trucks do you see, goodnight, goodnight construction site book and played memory game about which tool is missing from the pile.

During the final two weeks we learned about Pete the Cat, who would say:  "Don’t be sad, don’t be blue, there is something everyone can do."

For art, we made shoe prints with blue, red and brown paint, glued tissue paper on Pete’s shoes, marble painted Pete the cat and explored with groovy buttons.

At Circle time, we listened to two popular CD stories:

Pete the Cat and his groovy buttons

Pete the Cat and his white shoes.

Five black cats felt rhyme and what colour shoe is missing.

We also practised a yoga cat pose:

My hands and knees on the floor 

I become a cat

Stretching on leg to form a tail

I say meow just like that.

In December we will be focusing on Christmas. We have many more exciting things to do around this special time of the year.

Please continue to send extra clothing as there some very enthusiastic painters and children who enjoy the water play.

As always, if you have any questions please feel free to speak to any of us.

TREEHOUSE ROOM - Gabi, Karen, Rose, Carol, Kamal

Hello Treehouse Families. Please welcome the newest member to our teaching team: KAMAL! We are glad to have you with us!

We had another fun, busy month with all your lovely children. The unusually dry weather allowed us to spend more time playing outside and gave us the opportunity to take a few lucky children to explore the neighbourhood on some sunny, quiet afternoons. 

We practiced some real life skills along the way, like finding lost boots, fixing hats to be able to see, or holding onto our partners hands, just to name a few. By the 4th trip, the little troopers forgot to complain “Are we there yet?” and walked happily, chatting about traffic, things that they spotted in windows or on the road. It’s amazing how simple things in life make us feel content!

In the classroom we remembered the soldiers who lost their lives for

 us, and created a poppy

art with a poem printed on the back. Remembrance Day is a heavy topic for 3 and 4 year olds,

but they were interested to learn about the past. Please ask your children whenever you see an

interactive project in their backpacks, it might open up a conversation on a subject we covered

at school. Sometimes the children amaze us by remembering things we learned about months

ago!

In the first two weeks of November we shared books and felt board stories that we, the teachers

like to work with. Eric Carle’s book simplicity and stunning illustrations, Dr. Seuss’s complex and

clever, funny language, and Pete the Cat’s fun, interactive stories were all loved by both classes.

For the past few weeks we covered multiple topics including: shapes, colours and numbers.

The children learned to recognize and name shapes that were displayed to them on the felt

board. They were able to differentiate a square from a rectangle! We played memory games,

favoured by many, where they had to guess or choose the correct shape, colour or number. (“Red

Circle”, “Snails in a Pail,” “ Little Mouse”, “Crayons, Crayons”, were some of the favourites.)

Some of the art projects that were the most popular were a shape train paper collage, and

a finger painting “experiment“ where the children mixed primary colours to reveal secondary

colours. Seeing purple after mixing some blue and red always creates some amazing reactions!

Hearing “Wow, I really did make this beautiful purple!!” is priceless every time.

Equally exciting is to share the Nativity story with the children before we read any other

Christmas stories. Angels and a baby were amongst some well loved art projects. Some of the free play times were replaced by practices for the Christmas Service. We have

been practicing relentlessly, the children are very excited to showcase their talents. We hope

that you can all make it and celebrate with us, (unless you haven’t changed your mind about

that family trip to boring Hawaii, or other warm, boring places :)

Enjoy the time you will have with your little ones over the holidays. We wish you all a very

happy, peaceful and safe Christmas and a prosperous, healthy New Year!

SUNFLOWER ROOM - Carol, Danielle, Rose

It is hard to believe it will be Christmas next month but after the busy month we have had, we will be

ready for a holiday.

We started the month of November talking about Sealife, with an emphasis on Orca Whales. We

discovered that as a school we have ‘adopted’ an orca whale in the ocean, off Vancouver Island named

Echo. As a class, we each will get to take him home in his ‘aquarium’ and spend the weekend with him

and bring him back to show and share with our friends. We also explored crabs and jellyfish. 

We read “Looking for Crabs", "Swimmy" and "One Tiny Turtle”. We listened to the felt songs "Three  Jellyfish", "Baby Beluga", "Swimming in the Ocean" and "5 Whales". We matched different kinds of sea creatures and guessed what Sea Animal was missing. We used diffusing paper and watercolors to make jellyfish, paper plates to make crabs and used a salad spinner to decorate our orca whales.

We also spent a day talking about Remembrance Day. We learned that a long time ago adults stopped

talking to each other and started a war. We discussed how to be a good friend, keep our hands to our

own bodies and use our words when we are not happy. We read "Ava’s Poppy" and "The Soldiers Puppy" and listened to the felt rhymes -Five Brave Soldiers and Five Poppies. We marched to the song ‘The Grand old Duke of York’. For art we used red tissue paper and a black pompoms to make our own poppy.

For the last two weeks we decided to take a step back into our childhoods and talk about our favorite

fairytales. We started with "The Three Little Pigs", "The Three Billy Goats Gruff" and "Jack and the Beanstalk" and then "Goldilocks and The 3 Bears", "Little Red Riding Hood" and "The Gingerbread Man." 

We also managed to schedule a visit to the library where we listened to the story "Hansel and Gretel – Ninja Chicks". 

We have also heard a few stories that take the old fairy tales into a different direction. We read “The Three Little Wolves and The Big Bad Pig", "Jack and The Giant BBQ", "Suddenly, Snoring Beauty", "Tacky Locks", "Old Macdonald Had a Dragon" and "Goldi Rocks and the Three Bears”. 

For art we used popsicle sticks to make our own houses, glue and paper to make the face of a goat and tissue paper, cotton wool and real beans to make our own beanstalk in the sky. We also used oatmeal to make three bowls of porridge and made a forest with strips of paper and silhouettes of Red Riding Hood and the wolf plus we all enjoyed decorating our own gingerbread man to take home. We also have been very busy Elves making something special for our loved ones.

We have been very busy practicing our Christmas Songs for our Christmas Service that we are having

next week. We are looking forward to performing it in front of our families.

For the last few weeks of the year, we will explore The Nativity and Christmas, as well as continuing to

have fun learning and playing together.

Please remember to pack more food than less (one container for snack and one for lunch) as beginning in December we will be here for 4 ½ hours a day. 

We will also be going outside to play if it’s not raining, so pack appropriate footwear and 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

This is such a magical time of the year and I am so lucky to be able to experience the anticipation of the Holiday Season through the eyes of the children.  

The teachers have been rehearsing for the Christmas Service on Wednesday, December 7th at 6 pm.  Please drop off the children in the Rainbow Room by 5:30 pm.  We are so happy that we are able to celebrate this event in person. 

The Pizza Night was such a fun, successful evening. Thank you everyone for your support of the school.  The cake walk is always the highlight for me and once again I wasn't surprised by all the smiles and laughter.

I want to wish all our families a Very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!