February 2018

It's a brand new month and a brand new year 

and we are up to the SAME OLD FUN! 😁

It is hard to believe that we have already made it through January! We got through the holidays and now we are right back into the swing of things!! We have many things planned for the rest of the school year so don't forget to keep your eyes on the school calendar and the bulletin boards for special events coming up! 

Important Dates Coming Up:

JAN. 31- Priority Registration for Current Families CLOSES

FEB. 1 - Registration for Community Families (6pm-7pm-Rainbow Room)

FEB. 1 - SCHOLASTIC ORDERS DUE

FEB. 12- Family Day PRESCHOOL CLOSED

FEB. 13- Church Pancake Supper

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

MAR. 16 - 4's Skating Party

MAR. 19-23 - Spring Break PRESCHOOL CLOSED

MAR. 30 - Good Friday PRESCHOOL CLOSED

APR. 2 - Easter Monday PRESCHOOL CLOSED

APR. 10/11 - Easter Services & Tea (3s & 4s)

HEY! Don't forget about our Fundraisers!! 

SCHOLASTIC BOOKS - Thank you for ordering books and other learning materials through Scholastic Canada because we get FREE BOOKS and other learning resources when you do!! A great and inexpensive way to pick up children's birthday/Christmas gifts! 

COBS BREADS - When you are purchasing treats from Cobs in Edgemont Village, don't forget to mention you support St. Catherine's Preschool when they ring you up! We will get 5% of your sales donated to our school!! Last year we made $85!! That's a lot of dough!!

LOVABLE LABELS - Parents need labels for lunch kits, containers, jackets, shoes, boots and almost everything else our children own! Order from Lovable Labels and St. Catherine's Preschool gets 20% of the profits!! They have stickers, iron-on labels and more durable metal ones. We have some examples in the office.  Have a look at their website and don't forget to use our special ordering link:  www.StCatherines.lovablelabels.ca

SEPTEMBER 2018 REGISTRATION - We are taking registrations now for next September. Make sure you have your sheet in to the preschool office before Feb. 1st so you will get priority placement. We are excited to offer ALL DAY PRESCHOOL CLASSES for threes and fours. Please tell your friends about our preschool. Also, if you can, take some of our postcards to post around your communities to help us advertise! Thanks in advance!

YOU'LL NEVER GUESS WHAT HAPPENED IN CLASS...!

DISCOVERY TWOS - Arsi, Brita, Marion, Susan, Vibha (& Danielle!)

We can’t believe it is February already. 

In January, we were busy learning about Winter.  We discovered Penguins and Polar bears live where it is very cold.  We learned what clothes we would need to dress ourselves in for the cold weather.  Some winter art activities that the children enjoyed were:  decorating hats and mittens, Popsicle stick snowflakes, ice-cube painting, winter collage and making snowmen.

 

At circle time we talked about winter animals, Five Little Snowmen felt rhyme, snowflake body movement,  mitten colour recognition and a hot chocolate game.  Some of the children's favourite books were Snowflake Baby and Under My Hood I Have a Hat.

A big welcome to our four new friends Beckett, Holly, Stefan and Zachary in 201 class.

As always, please feel free to come and talk to us if you have any concerns.

CLASS 301-Estelle & Susan

Hi Everyone!

A new year has begun and we are so excited for what’s ahead! The last month has been filled with winter activities of every kind. At the art table we have focused our crafts on using white paint to create snow, glitter to symbolize ice and even shaving cream to give a real snow effect. At circle, many felt stories and action songs were played out. A few being “Snowflakes, Snowflakes Falling Down”, the classic winter story “The Mitten” and a Robert Munch favourite, “Tomas’s Snowsuit”. 

Towards the end of January we introduced shapes and colours. We are focusing on mixing colours and recognizing each colour shades. This exploration will continue into February. We look forward to the month of “love”!

CLASS 302-Karen, Brita, Aleysha (& Sousan!)

Welcome back children and parents of 302.

We hope you all had a restful Winter break. We have been back at school now for 4 weeks and the children transitioned nicely back into their preschool setting.

December has come and gone but we wanted to reflect on some of the things we did. We started practicing in November for our annual Christmas Service. Our amazing music teacher Rachel puts together a wonderful compilation of songs for the children to share with their families at this magical time of year. The children also worked on their Christmas gifts and cards that they took home before the winter break; this is something they can treasure for years to come. Thank you to the parent’s for their contributions to our Christmas party. This is such a nice time for the children to share the same food, try something new and explore the social aspects of a meal.

For the month of January we used different materials for our art to make all things winter. We started off by decorating winter mittens, painting a picture with coloured ice, using coloured glue and Epsom salts to make a winter scene, using pipette’s with water colour on diffusing paper shaped like snowflakes. Last but not least we made melted snowmen. We hope you noticed all the great art on our boards.

We have also been talking about colours and shapes. How colours changed when mixed together turn into another colour using paint, water colour and shaving cream. We have been playing shape matching games and reading stories at circle.

In February we will be talking about what it means to be a friend and Valentines Day.

We will also be starting our card project….

February 8th will be Aleysha’s last day with us at St. Catherine's and we wish her the best of luck in her new adventures and thank her for her support with our program.

Some of you may have noticed that Sousan has not been present since the beginning of the new year. At this time she is home managing some health issues but we hope to have her back soon. We wish her a speedy recovery.

CLASS 401-Karen & Rosie

Wow, it’s already February! Rosie and I hope you enjoyed your Christmas break. The children were all very excited to start school again as I am sure the parents felt the same way😊.

Christmas seems so long ago but that is where we will start. December was filled with all things Christmas. We started off with our rehearsing for the Christmas service. The end result was seeing the children being confident and happy to share the experience with their families. Each year we go to Edgemont Village to sing Christmas carols to a few of our favourite local merchants. A big thank you to Trims for giving each of the children a sleigh ornament for their tree to share with their family.

On to January…We have introduced our Orca whale Echo. If you have not heard about him yet, he goes home every Friday and the children (with some help from parents) draw pictures to tell us what they did with Echo over the weekend. The children love hearing all his new adventures on Monday morning.

Every Wednesday we will be working on journals. This dedicated time gives the children focus to draw or write a detailed story. Also we have our Show and Share on Wednesdays. All the children are very excited to present their item in front of their friends.

We encourage you to pack a cup with your child’s snack as we are now providing a jug of water and the children can pour their own.

Throughout the year we are going to be encouraging the children to use self regulation and to take other peoples feelings into account. It’s important for them to realize that not everyone enjoys participating in every game and activity and that’s ok. Sometimes getting excited about a game is only great, if everyone has a choice and it’s ok for them to say no to something they don’t enjoy. As adults we don’t always want to participate in certain activities and just enjoy being in the moment, its the same for our children.

Kindergarten readiness is something we will be working on until the end of the year. We will be happy to show you what this entails.

February brings Valentines Day, talking about friendship and what it means to be kind.

CLASS 402-Arsi, Rosie, Permjit (& Danielle!!)

January was an out of this world month for our boys! We quickly jumped into the swing

of things after our Christmas break! We dove right into Space and it was very fun and

interesting!

We first looked at how our solar system was in the Milky Way and began to learn

the name of our planets. We learned that we live on Earth and that the sun’s gravity

keeps all the planets orbiting around it. We learned that the sun is a star and that the

moon has many craters on its surface. The boys made a paper mache Earth by using

newspaper and glue to cover a balloon. Once dry, we painted the Earth in blue and

green. We also made a collage of the planets in order from the Sun. It was fun watching

“Rachel and the Treeschoolers” dvd because she showed us all about the solar system,

gravity, and the phases of the moon.

After learning about the solar system, we needed to know how people get to

space. Our next topic was spaceships! Spaceships are very big and need a big team of

people to make sure everything is working. We learned that spaceships need a huge

fuel tank to power them when up in space. Moreover, they have two rocket launchers

attached to them at liftoff. We also learned that a crawler is the machine that takes a

spaceship to it’s launch pad. This takes 5 long hours because the crawler moves super

slow. The boys had a lot of fun painting their own big “spaceship” and decorating it with

buttons and pipe cleaners. They even enjoyed sitting in it and blasting off! We were

lucky enough to have Liam. S bring his tall spaceship to share with his friends at play

time! They all had a turn going in it too! As a fun way of learning the letters of their

names, the boys made a rocket ship made of their name! It was a little tricky, but they

all tried really hard! ZOOM blast off!

Now that we knew how to get to space we had to know who went to space!

Astronauts!! The boys listened to a story about Chris Hadfield who is a Canadian

astronaut. They really enjoyed hearing how Chris as a little boy always knew he wanted

to go to space. In the book, we learned that there is lots of studying to do before a

person becomes an astronaut. Once they do, they have an important job when they go

up in space. They bring back information for us to learn! We also learned that

astronauts must wear a spacesuit and a breathing helmet. They sometimes have to fix

satellite stations and catch their food since everything floats! “My Astronaut” was a fun

felt rhyme that we did during circle about an astronaut who can’t make up his mind

which color helmet to wear to space!

Some of the books we read this month:

“There was an old Martian who swallowed the moon”

“National Geographic: The book about planets”

“Peteriffic”

“Man on the moon”

“Interstellar Cinderella”

In the next month, we will be focusing on friendships, caring, and being a friend. We will

also do some fun activities for Valentine’s Day and learn about Chinese New Year.

If you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to speak to a teacher!

CLASS 304/403-Estelle, Karen & Sousan

February is here. But what happened in December and January?

Christmas was in full swing in the Treehouse room. We made Christmas gifts and cards for the children to bring home to their parents, rode the sleigh in the home corner, wrote a letter to Santa and got a response back, decorated cookies, told the story about the birth of Jesus and had our Christmas party. We also practiced our songs that were prepared by our amazing music teacher Rachel, to share with our parents at our annual Christmas Service. The children braved the cold winter elements with our Christmas caroling in Edgemont village. A big thank you to Trims for the wooden sleigh ornaments.

During the month of January we introduced our class whale named Echo. I am sure you have heard about him but just in case you haven’t, Echo goes home every Friday with 1 child. He returns on Monday and we find out all the exciting adventures he had on the weekend.

We also started our journals with the 4’s which we will be doing every Wednesday. The children seem to be putting a lot of effort into their drawings and are able to give a detailed description of what they have drawn.

We have be focusing on letters and numbers with a variety of games, art and stories at circle

In the next few weeks we will be starting our kindergarten readiness with our 4’s

We are asking that you pack a cup in your child’s snack bag. There will be a jug of water in the centre of the table for the children to pour themselves.

Some of you may have noticed that Sousan has not been present since the new year has started. She is managing some health issues at this time but we hope to have her back soon.

On to February…Valentines Day, friendship and Chinese New Year.

MUSIC - Rachel

Music class in January began by listening to the Winter movement from Vivaldi’s famous Four Seasons concerto and drawing winter inspired pictures. Then we had a special visitor, Baby Bear, who helped us learn to identify instruments by only listening to their different sounds. We have also learned the proper musical terminology for loud and quiet, and have listened to musical excerpts to hear the difference. We have been playing bells, drums, tambourines and shakers while continuing to practicing our rhythm and dynamics. 

THE RESOURCE OFFICE-Marion

 As it rains outside, the children are learning so much in the classrooms. 

 It is so nice to watch as the 2s are starting to move from solitary play into parallel  play and even some co-operative play with peers.  They are communicating their needs verbally and are expanding their attention span during circle time.  Giving simple directions and allowing them time to process and follow through with what you have asked them to do is helpful.  Allowing them to be independent in self dressing, putting their toys away are ways in which they build self confidence.  

The 3s are able to stay focused longer while engaging with peers during play.  They are following routines with very little adult support.  Encouraging children to ask questions and waiting for them to respond to your questions helps them learn about social interactions.  Sharing and taking turns are skills that will be helpful in the 4s.  

Since coming back from Christmas break the 4s have been working on their Kindergarten readiness skills.  The teachers are working with small groups of children to see where they may need some extra guidance in following directions, scissor cutting, recognizing letters and numbers.  Lots going on in the classrooms. 

Hard to believe it, but April 16th is Summer Program registration day.  Our theme will be "Down on The Farm".  Cheryl Hebb and I have offered this exciting, fun inclusive program for 20 years.  We run 4 days per week, 9-12 noon or 1-4 pm for 4 weeks in July.  More details to follow!