MAY 2023

Well, here we are in May and we certainly know that the weather can change at the drop of a hat!! 

The word of the Month is LAYERS: Outer layer to inner layer goes Rain Coat, Sweatshirt, t-shirt, tank top! I always have a small umbrella tucked into my lunch kit so I never get caught in the rain on my walk to and from work! I've lived in North Van. for almost all my 56 years and I have learned a few tricks over the years!     

IT'S WET CLOTHES SEASON!

WE ARE LOOKING FOR PLASTIC BAGS! 

IF YOU HAVE ANY SPARE PLASTIC BAGS PLEASE THINK ABOUT DONATING!

DATES TO REMEMBER 

MAY 5 - Pro-D Day: PRESCHOOL CLOSED

MAY 22 - Victoria Day: PRESCHOOL CLOSED

JUN 16 - Graduation Day (All 4s)

JUN 16 - Last Day of Preschool

JUN 21 - Picnics (All classes)

SAVE THE DATE!!

GRADUATION for the FOURS will be held on FRIDAY, JUNE 16TH. 

Both the Treehouse MWF class and the Treehouse TU/TH class will have their Grad Ceremonies together on FRIDAY, JUNE 16TH. 

Sunflower Room will have a separate ceremony on this day as well. More specific class information to follow.

JEANS WEEK FUNDRAISER for the BC CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL

THANK YOU SO MUCH to all of you who wore your denim and threw your coins into the umbrellas at pick up and drop off last week! We collected $410.00! That is amazing!! Thanks again for all your support!

HEY!! DID YOU HEAR WHAT HAPPENED?? Please check out what went on in our Classrooms. We are at the end of the year and the teachers have been amping up their programs. We have the finish line in our sights!

RAINBOW ROOM - Danielle (T/Th), Susan (M/W), Vibha (M,T, W, Th)

Hello two’s families,

We have spent another enjoyable month within the Rainbow Room.  A few of the highlights have been celebrating Easter, getting up close and personal with bugs and fundraising for an important charity.

Within the month of April the Preschool takes on an important role in fundraising for the BC Children's Hospital. The fundraiser is called Jeans Week and we encourage our families to come to school in denim to show their support. Money raised will go to the hospital to help children in BC who need medical care. We feel fortunate to have such generous support from all the families within the preschool, thanks again.

Easter celebrations were a pleasure to facilitate this year and the children were very engaged with the idea of it all. We decorated cookies, went on a hunt for the Easter Bunny and created some lovely Easter art. We hope that each of you enjoyed some family time.

Now that the nice weather is upon us, we are hoping to spend lots of time in our playground. The playground provides the children with the opportunity to climb, jump and use large body movements. The teachers love to spend time outside as well, so we are all looking forward to it!

As usual, please send your children with weather appropriate footwear and clothing, this helps them enjoy their time at preschool even more. 

A couple reminders for the next month ahead: The preschool is closed on Friday, May 5^th for a Professional Development Day, as well as May 22^nd  which is Victoria day.

Thank you for taking the time to read the Classroom Blog. It is always nice to have the parents learn more about what their children are doing within the school. 

TREEHOUSE ROOM - Karen (M-F)), Gabi (M-F), Carol (T/Th). Rose (T/Th)

Hello Treehouse Parents

We started off April with getting ready for Easter. Each child made an Easter basket in preparation for our surprise visit from the Easter Bunny. We had practised finding eggs hidden in the classroom and outside in the playground. The children used watercolour paints to create some colourful works of art from eggs, bunnies, flowers, chicks and so much more. 

Other art consisted of a paper bunny hiding in the grass, decorating bunny shaped cookies and making bunny crowns. We celebrated Easter with a party, a short video about Easter, face painting, freeze dance and musical chairs. A slide show was emailed to all parents through Smilebox,  and we hope you all had a chance to see it. A big thank you to the families who brought sent in food to be shared.

Spring is here, or is it? We took a neighbourhood walk and saw all the sights of Spring from birds, insects, smells, sounds, the air temperature, weather and the flowers, oh the flowers. For art the children made painted daffodils, watercolour flowers, purple crocus, forsythia and paper mache bird nests.

During Circle Time we have been talking about planting seeds and what they need to grow and how earthworms are a sign of good soil and the roll they play in nature. The clothing we wear in Spring can be very difficult to choose because it starts off cold in the morning and then it's much warmer in the afternoon. 

For Jeans Week every April Marion cuts out small shaped jeans for the children to decorate. We talk about why we are raising money for the BC Children's Hospital and all the things it does for families. So many children have stories about going to the hospital for earaches, body injuries, injections and much more.

A special day is coming up and the children have been preparing a special surprise for MOM! 

We will be starting Community Helpers at the end of April leading into May. Then we will talk about popular children’s authors, Sea Life and then it will be summer break!

 

Thanks for reading.

SUNFLOWER ROOM - Danielle, Carol, Rose

Spring is here, hurray! Thankfully, we’re able to spend even more time outside and the sandbox has dried out enough to be put to good use again.

Our April programming started with Easter. We had a great time in the Sunflower Room making Easter eggs, bunny rabbits, bunny masks and baskets to collect chocolate eggs in. On the Wednesday before Easter, the Easter Bunny mysteriously visited St. Catherine's (leaving big pink footprints on the floor) and hid chocolate eggs for the children to find and collect in their baskets. To help keep things fair and to practice their counting skills, the children were shown a diagram of how many and which types of eggs they were to find. A great game that was lots of fun and good practice.

Echo

We have finished with the project of sending Echo, our orca, home with each child, but we have kept the book (binder) containing the pictures and captions of each visit. It sits on our bookshelf and the children are really enjoying looking through it. They don’t just want to look for their own entries and pictures. We’re hearing them ask their friends about their section: “What’s happening here?” “Tell me about it.” It’s lovely to see these friendships maturing. Thank you, parents, for participating in our Echo unit, it really means a lot to the children.

Jeans Week

We started Jeans Week with the now traditional art of glitzing and glamming up a small pair of denim jeans. Sequins and glitter are always a popular addition to the art table.

We’d like to thank everyone who supported our fundraiser for B.C. Children’s Hospital. Our children enjoyed putting donations into the upturned umbrella, and in the classroom we talked about what that money might be used for. We linked this with discussions about caring for others, sharing and being helpful; this also flowed into early plans for Mother’s Day and the special gift the children have been working on. (Which of course is still a secret.)

The children have developed great friendships in the Sunflower Room. Each day, we see examples of genuine empathy for each other. When a child recently misplaced something important to them, the rest of the class stopped what they were doing and hunted all over the room to find it. This was spontaneous, and “child-lead” ( the teachers didn’t ask them to help). They are becoming more and more helpful towards each other, sharing and taking turns is becoming easier and more common place.

Alphabet

We have wrapped up our theme of looking at each letter of the alphabet. The children really enjoyed bringing in the Alphabet Box when it was their turn, and showing the class the objects they’d found at home starting with “their letter”. It’s a very worthwhile exercise and we thank the parents for their help with this.

Theming our art and science tables with the alphabet lead to some fun and “experiential” projects and experiments; the experience being as or more important than the outcome. For instance, V for volcano, meant a multi- day art project making a clay volcano and then painting it and adding smoke! We were so pleased at the fun the children had making them as well as how unique and individual each one was. Of course, we also created a “real” volcano for the science table with foaming lava making a wonderful mess. The children helped measure out the ingredients and we were all very excited by the awesome results.

For the letter X, we had a few xylophones on the science table and also used xylophones in our music class that week.

Eric Carle

We ended April looking at the books and artwork of Eric Carle. We combined this with a theme on bugs. The books we featured included:

The Very Hungry Caterpillar

The Very Busy Spider

The Lonely Firefly

The Grouchy Ladybug

The Mixed up Chameleon

For art we used a lot of tissue paper, glue and water colours to make abstract pictures as well as a butterfly and a chameleon, all in the style of Eric Carle.

Included in our bug study was a bug walk outside, searching around our building, around the gardens, as well as finding the odd tiny spider inside!

What a great month we’ve had. We look forward to going “ Around The World” in May, and learning about each other’s cultural and familial heritage. It will be another  opportunity for each child to share something of themselves with the class and to practice speaking to the group.

Thanks again for your ongoing support for our classroom

RESOURCE ROOM - Marion

May is a very special month with our Butterfly Kits arriving on May 10th and Mother's Day on May, 14th. The caterpillars will start off in the office to give them a chance to eat and grow.  Once all the caterpillars have formed their chrysalises, they will reside in an aquarium in the Treehouse Room (2 weeks).  All the classes take turns visiting and anxiously waiting for the Painted Lady Butterflies to emerge (10 days). They are kept in the classroom and then are released into the Memorial Garden.

I have been visiting the classrooms and observing the children as they practice all the new skills that they have learned throughout the year. 

As the 4s move on to Kindergarten they are working on their readiness skills.

  

Parents can help with this transition by:

* Talking with their child about some of the impending changes.  Do not overwhelm with too much information.  A good time to talk to them would be after their school visit.

* Helping your child acquire new self help skills (putting on their own shoes and jackets)

* Encouraging your child to ask for help when needed

* Allowing your child to practice working independently

* Teaching your child to follow directions

* Teaching your child about rules and how important they are

* Encouraging your child to print their own name. (use the dot to dot method if needed)

Graduation Ceremonies will be held on Friday, June 16th, 2023. Individual invitations will be sent out at a later date with more details.

Staffing Change:

Kamal, who has been a Program Assistant in the Treehouse Room, Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, will be returning to school to complete her Early Childhood Education at Vancouver Career College.

 GOOD LUCK KAMAL!