FEBRUARY 2025
February is a month of love, kindness, and growth, and we’re excited to continue our journey together at St. Catherine’s!
As Winter begins to give way to Spring, it’s the perfect time to encourage your little ones to embrace the outdoors. Fresh air, movement, and unstructured play can do wonders for their development—so bundle up, step outside, and explore together!
This month, let’s all focus on fostering healthy habits, both at preschool and at home. Put away the screens, take a walk, or find a new park to enjoy—these moments create lasting memories and build a strong foundation for lifelong well-being.
In this blog, we’ll share updates, classroom activities and highlights of what’s ahead for our community. Let’s make February a month of fresh starts and meaningful connections!
Preschool Closures
Friday, Feb. 14th, 2025: Pro D Day
Please note that the preschool will be closed on Friday, February 14, for a Professional Development (Pro D) Day. Our teachers will be attending an all-day workshop to enhance their skills and stay updated on the latest early childhood education practices.
This time for professional growth is essential to ensure we continue providing the best possible learning experiences for your children. Thank you for your understanding and support!
2. Monday, Feb. 17th, 2025: Family Day
The preschool will be closed on Monday, February 17, in observance of Family Day. This special day is an opportunity to spend quality time together, strengthen family bonds, and create lasting memories.
We encourage you to take this time to celebrate and cherish the importance of family. Thank you, and we look forward to seeing you back on Tuesday!
Registration for Sept. 2026 now COMPLETE!
Everyone who sent in a registration form has been given their First Choice of days and times! Now we will fill any empty spaces with Community registrations.
We still have plenty of openings and we encourage you all to let others know about our wonderful school! Ask your teacher for some postcards that you can put up to help us advertise!
RAINBOW ROOM
Danielle, Carol, Mary, Monica, Vibha
Hello Parents and families of the Rainbow Room,
We’re well into 2025 and our routine at preschool, and have started many new things in this Winter term.
We have had some new children in our classes and they are settling in well. We’ve also added some new routines to our days, specifically “Leader and Leader’s Friend” and “Echo”.
Each morning, at our first circle, after singing our welcome songs and setting up the calendar, we now choose a Leader and a Leader’s Friend. The names are drawn randomly, and each child will have more than one turn to be both the Leader and the Helper. They will be at the front of our lines when we move from the classroom to the gym or outside, etc. This is a great way to help all the children to understand the concept of staying in a line, ( for safety, on the stairs, and out of courtesy.) It’s also helpful for their self esteem.
We have also started sending our Classroom Orca, Echo, home for weekend visits. This is a wonderful opportunity for children to share a part of themselves with their classmates. They are so proud to show us all the pictures of what they did with Echo and their family, and to tell us about it and answer questions from their friends. This is a very easy and friendly way for young children to start to be able to speak to a group of their peers.
Our first theme this past month was “Winter”. We learned about what the weather’s like in Winter and all the fun things we can do, like making snowmen and snowballs. Since the local weather wasn’t snowy, we made sure our art was! We made adorable snowmen with carrot noses in snowstorms, glittery paintings that looked like icy snowflakes and polar bear paintings that looked furry by using a fork instead of a paintbrush. We talked about the kinds of clothes we wear in Winter and for Winter sports like skiing, skating, and sledding. We wore mittens during our music class and heard how muffled our clapping was!
Next we had a Sealife theme, in order to introduce Echo, and to learn about local Orcas and other sea creatures. We listened to the sounds that orcas make to communicate with each other, and read lots of books about the animals of the Salish Sea. We made pictures of orcas in seaweed, jellyfish to hang from the ceiling, used cookie cutters to stamp pictures of sea creatures, and made beautiful scaly fish collages. We had great fun playing in the inflated dinghy, pretending to go fishing (sometimes it became a police boat), wearing our life jackets and inviting our sealife stuffed animals to enjoy some sushi in the house corner!
During the second half of the month we learned about Shapes and Colours. We played many games of I Spy, and tried to find different shapes and colours around the classroom, the gym and outside. We have started to learn to cut with scissors, practicing it during many of our art projects. We cut out various shapes, and stamped shapes with paint, including stamping with Lego blocks. We further explored shapes by using our bodies to make triangles.
At the end of the month, it was time to celebrate the Lunar New Year, and the Year of the Snake. We tried our hands at painting some Chinese characters on banners, and heard about the animals of the Zodiac. We made striped snakes in the salad spinner, for this new year, the Year of the Snake.
We are all looking forward to more learning and new experiences in the Rainbow Room. In February we will be celebrating Valentines Day by learning about kindness in our families and friend groups. We are having Pajama Parties on Wednesday 12th and Thursday 13th of February, (so please wear PJ’s everyone: the teachers will feel very silly if the children don’t!) We will also have a theme on Transportation. Also, a heads up, that the Preschool will be closed on Friday February 14th for our Professional Development Day and on Monday 17th February for Family Day.
If you have any questions or concerns, don’t hesitate to talk to any of the teachers, or to arrange a time to talk at a convenient time.
TREEHOUSE ROOM
Gabi, Karen, Catriona, Mary
Hello Treehouse Families,
Happy New Year! We hope your 2025 is off to a wonderful start, filled with joy, good health, and plenty of exciting learning adventures. January was a fantastic month in our preschool classroom as we explored the wonders of winter!
We began the month by talking about Winter weather and how to dress warmly for the season. The children loved discussing cozy mittens, warm hats, and fluffy scarves. We also explored fun Winter sports and activities, sparking lots of excitement about ice skating, sledding, and building snowmen. Now we just need snow, but the forecast looks hopeful.
In addition to our seasonal theme, we continued practicing important skills through engaging activities. We played guessing games with words that start with different letters, helping us expand our vocabulary and letter recognition. Our stories and felt board activities focused on colours, allowing us to explore how colours are all around us. We also reviewed shapes and enjoyed hands-on activities that encouraged creativity and learning.
To wrap up January, we celebrated Lunar New Year with festive crafts and cultural exploration. The children made beautiful lanterns, colourful paper plate fireworks, and even friendly snakes! In making these crafts the children are using scissors and learning how to properly grip a paintbrush or marker. We also introduced the Chinese Zodiac animals, learning about their meanings and how each one represents different qualities. This year we celebrate the Year of the Snake. A fun fact that most of the children are in the Year of the Rat. A few are in the Year of the Ox.
As we step into February, we’re shifting our focus to Valentine’s Day - a time for love, kindness, and friendship. We’re excited to explore themes of caring, sharing, and expressing appreciation for those around us.
Thank you for your ongoing support. We love watching your little ones learn and grow each day!
RESOURCE ROOM - MARION
Welcome back everyone.
During the next months, the teachers will be focusing on Kindergarten Readiness with the 4s. One benefit of having multi-aged classrooms is that all the children are exposed to all the lessons plans within the classrooms. The families with children heading off to Kindergarten in September will receive an information letter.
Programming for the 3s will focus on learning through play. They play games with letters, numbers, colours and shapes. The children are developing their social skills when playing with their peers. Teachers will provide opportunities for the children to play co-operatively and support them in developing their self help skills. They can get their snack/lunch bags out and pack them away. Putting on their own coats and following directions to line up and go upstairs to outside or to the gym.
If you have any questions, please speak with the teachers or contact the office.