ST. CATHERINE’S PRESCHOOL PRINTS April, 2010 From the Office The Easter Service and the Tea were just delightful! These are such a highlight for us at St. Catherine’s. The children are so very excited and happy to share their new songs, poems and chants with you, and the teachers so look forward to serving you Tea. This year was no exception. Cheryl put together a wonderful program that the children enjoyed presenting, especially with the new drums! Cheryl was asked about the titles of some of the songs and little poems, so they could be put in the program. Her response was, “Call them whatever you like, I just made them up myself!” So, not only did you have the pleasure of your children presenting you with a lively, funfilled program, but you got to see an original production, as well! Thank you, Cheryl. And thank you to the Teachers for all their hard work helping the children learn their new songs, and for serving a lovely Tea. We would like to thank Kay, Phyllis and Chris for helping in the kitchen and thank Christine for her wonderful story. The children were quite enthralled with it. A special thank you also goes to Dorothy Smith for her beautiful piano accompaniment for the children. And, last but certainly not least, a huge Thank You! to the parents for your cheerful support at the Easter Service and Tea. REMAINDER?! OF YEAR AT A GLANCE: Professional Development Day April 30 (no Preschool) Parent Ed Night: Sex Talk Thursday, May 20 NEW ITEM Victoria Day (no Preschool) 4’s Graduation Last Day Preschool Picnics Monday, May 24 Wednesday, Thursday, June 16 & 17 Friday, June 18 Monday, Tuesday, June 21, 22 SUMMER SCHOOL!! SUMMER SCHOOL!! SUMMER SCHOOL!! SUMMER SCHOOL!! SUMMER SCHOOL!! REGISTRATION ON NOW SPACES ARE FILLING UP QUICKLY Forms are at the top of the stairs by the Preschool door. Down On The Farm is this year’s theme. Questions? Marion Knows All – Tells All 604-980-1326 SUMMER SCHOOL!! SUMMER SCHOOL!! SUMMER SCHOOL!! SUMMER SCHOOL!! SUMMER SCHOOL!! Resource Office - Marion Do you know your child? Most children fit into one of three Temperament Styles: Adaptable Cautious Feisty It is important to remember that not all children fit into just one style, but may have traits from all three styles. Adaptable children approach new situations and people with ease. They seem to be more able to cope with changes in their routines. Cautious children approach new situations and people very thoughtfully, and sometimes, fearfully. They may have difficulty with quick changes with routines and often require extra support and time to feel safe in a new situation. You can prepare them for changes by talking about what may happen and helping them feel able to handle things that come up. Feisty children approach new situations with passion and intensity. They may have difficulty controlling their strong emotions and desires. They want action right away, and may need support to calmly and slowly enter new situations. If you talk about changes before they happen, it helps them control their emotions and react in a less intense way. So, the next time you take your child to a new situation, take a minute to predict which temperament style he or she may have, and you’ll be able to help make the transition a little less stressful for you both! Housekeeping Notes REGISTRATION Registration is now complete for the Fall of 2010. There are a few places available in the afternoon 2’s program, three day 3’s afternoon class and the three day 4’s afternoon class. If you happen to know friends or new neighbours who have moved to the area and need a place for their children, please tell them about us. Just have them call Tina in the office. And we would like to Thank you for your patience while we sorted out the changes in our programs. We are happy to offer a 4 day afternoon 4’s program this year. If you do have any questions do not hesitate to give us a call. Deposit cheques will be processed mid-May. CLASSROOM CLEANUP TIME There is a short turn around time between classes when the Teachers have to clean up from the morning class, set up for the afternoon class, and have a bit of lunch. But they can only do this once the classroom has been vacated. Therefore, please be considerate of the classroom and Teachers when collecting your children. ATTENTION: PARENT ED NIGHT Our Parent Board member Gina Bromley, has very kindly booked: Dr. Brandy Wiebe to speak about Sex Talk, Thursday, May 20th, at 7 PM Music Notes - Cheryl After I came back from Australia, we had some classes where we learned about the didgeridoo. We watched a video of a didgeridoo player and listened to the music. The children were amazed! We talked about all the different animals in Australia. Then it was on to the Easter Services. At practices and rehearsals in the church, the children sang out loudly and so happily. Then, when the church filled, they seemed to be preoccupied with the people there. With the children saying Hi Mommy, somehow, the rest of the songs aren’t quite as loud! Nevertheless, we certainly enjoyed sharing our new songs, poems and chants with you! Did you notice our lovely new drums? The children were quite intrigued with them, and loved to play them. They were a big help in our Easter Service. Thank you to all the teachers for helping the children to learn the words to their new Easter songs. We hope you enjoyed it as much as we enjoyed sharing it with you. Music Open House will be held in come to Preschool later in the Thanks, Cheryl May. You will receive notice about what date and time to month. Notes from the Discovery 2’s - Vibha, Danielle, Joanna and Stephanie Dictated by Gavin Edited by Lucien Written by Danielle What a busy month we have had since the Olympics finished! The children are now starting to play alongside their friends and even engage each other in small conversations. We are still working with the children and encouraging them to use gentle hands. This has lead to the children doing more group focused art where they take turns using paint, learn about personal space when painting, and sharing ideas about what they have created. We have also talked about the Easter Bunny and chocolate eggs. We had an Easter egg hunt for Easter and the children took their eggs home in bags they had decorated themselves. We also had fun decorating and eating our own egg shaped cookies. Now we are looking at farm animals. We are singing Old Macdonald, Farmer in the Dell, and chanting all the nursery rhymes we like about farm animals. Isn’t it amazing how all these old rhymes come back to mind so quickly from our childhood? They work as excellent pre-reading skills as they reinforce memory and the chanting encourages rhythm. For art, we decorated ducks, and made fluffy sheep with glue and shaving cream. We stamped horse shapes in paint and then onto paper. Here is what we heard when we asked the children to tell us their favourite farm animal: Ducks, cows, just any animal, my animal name is Daniel, pigs, whales, panda bears, horses and dogs. So, you can see we have our work cut out for us!! DID YOU KNOW……… Can you decipher these codes? 1. ECNALG 2. + + 3. GIRL FELLOW FELLOW 4. L KYOUO O 5. FAR HOME (Answers on last page) Notes from the 3s RAINBOW ROOM 3’S –301 MORNINGS - Permjit, Jenn and Barbara It's been a lovely month here at Preschool. The children have been thoroughly enjoying the warm weather outside exploring the playground, running and climbing. We began the month by reading books about the life cycle of butterflies. We read about how they begin as caterpillars before their incredible transformation into beautiful butterflies. We paid particular attention to the wonderful story by Eric Carle, The Very Hungry Caterpillar. We saw in action how important and enjoyable repetition is for the children as we told the story over and over. We used many different forms such as felt board, different sized books, as well as a stuffy caterpillar. The children never got tired of hearing the story, guessing what would come next, and letting us know if we said something different while relaying the story to them! As Easter approached, we talked about how we had the opportunity to see new life all around us during this time of year. The children really had fun looking at real bird’s nests and eggs, as well as pictures depicting the life cycle of a chicken, on the science table. The whole time we discussed the age old question, "What came first, the chicken or the egg?!" We have no definitive answers yet, but we all agreed that fluffy yellow chicks are adorable! We also spent time developing our fine motor skills using different types of tongs to pick up plastic Easter eggs and placing them into egg cartons. This required dexterity, hand and eye co-ordination and fine motor control, but of course the children just had fun doing it! We made Easter baskets and had an egg hunt in the classroom, which was lots of fun! The children worked very hard on their songs for our Easter Service and they were very excited to have their families and friends come to see them in the church. Seeing their little faces while they practiced is wonderful for the teachers and we couldn’t wait to share all their hard work with you! This is such a lovely class, and the children are forming strong friendships with one another. This is really what Preschool is all about; fun, play, and friends. TREEHOUSE 3’S – 302 CLASS - Brita, Jackie and Permjit Spring is here at last and let’s hope we have more sun than rain this month. We have been talking a lot about spring and how things grow. Without rain, nothing would grow, but after a bit, we would like it to stop! Some of us thought it would be nice to play outside in the lovely sun and enjoy the fresh air! We planted Cats’ Grass Seed and watched it grow. We discussed how plants need sun, water, and nutrients. We pretended to be little seeds planted in the ground. We added water, sun and food and began to grow ourselves. It was a lot of fun watering our grass, and we will bring it home soon. The children were so surprised to see the grass growing and that they had been a part of it. We talked about all the buds that are coming out and how we see them on the way to school. Blossom trees seemed to be the biggest hit with the children because every one of us loves them. We talked about how they are all different colours. We enjoyed many stories about new life at this time of year and we all loved the Baa the Lamb story. At the art table, we made flowers and enjoyed making a large collage of all different flowers with all our friends. We liked using tissue paper and paint. We used lots of Spring colors and practiced our cutting skills while making pictures. We made some beautiful butterflies by using water colours and pipettes. We made Easter baskets to collect all the eggs the Easter Bunny left. We really enjoyed our Easter egg hunt. The children talked about how much fun they had over the Easter weekend and it seemed that the Bunny was very busy since there were lots of Easter eggs eaten. The teachers did suggest that if the children had any difficulty eating their eggs we would love to help them. But apparently no help was needed! Dads, more so than Mums, seemed to get the blame for helping to eat all the eggs. We are seeing more sharing and cooperative play recently. And the children all seem to have grown up so much. They really are using their words. The children rehearsed for our Easter Service. They sang their hearts out and it was a fantastic service. We so looked forward to sharing it with you. We learned so many new songs, poems and chants. We are changing the housekeeping corner into a grocery store. Please save empty boxes and food packets and send them in to help stock up our shelves! Thank you so much. RAINBOW ROOM 3’S – 303 AFTERNOONS - Jenn, Jackie & Brita It's incredible to think that we are already in April and now that the weather is warming up, we are able to enjoy our time outside. We opened up the sand box recently and the children were so excited to get digging, or excavating as we were informed by one of our boys! Watching the children as they run around outside allows us to see their interactions in a totally new way as they are more relaxed, and their imaginations really seem to take off. It's so much fun to listen to the ideas for new games and see the amount of discussion it takes for each child to figure out their role. Sometimes it takes most of outdoor time to figure out who is going to be the mom and who is going to be the dog and then the game has to be put on hold until the next time we are outside!! We are definitely seeing children forming new friendships and their language skills are improving as well as their abilities to interact using words, rather than, for example, grabbing a toy from someone else. We are hearing more of, Can I have a turn after you? Of course there is still some grabbing going on! But hey, we're only 3 and 4 right now! This month we looked at the life cycle of butterflies and how they begin their lives as an egg before hatching out as a caterpillar. We spent lots of time reading the The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle and the children never got tired of hearing the story through different ways, such as different sized books, felt board stories and with a stuffy caterpillar. The children also spent time making their own caterpillar and all the food from the story. Many times we would look up to see a child standing at the board, telling the story to themselves quietly, while pointing at the different food items. These are language arts and pre-reading skills, which are so important. In celebration of Easter, we made Easter baskets, had an Easter egg hunt, sang songs about rabbits and chickens, and talked about the new life we are seeing all around us in nature. We used our fine motor skills, as well as hand and eye co-ordination, to transfer plastic Easter eggs from one egg carton to another. This can be quite difficult for children as these muscles don't get used as frequently as larger muscles do. We encourage the children to use these smaller muscles, as well as controlling their movements, by creating opportunities for cutting (paper, card, playdough etc) and using tongs, rather than fingers, to pick up various items. This learning is, of course, disguised as a fun activity! We spent some time planting our own grass in small containers and discussing that plants need water and light in order to grow. We are really hoping to see the grass beginning to grow over the next little while! As well as all this, the children worked very hard on learning their songs and instruments for our Easter Service. The children amazed us with how well they knew their songs. They were really excited to have their family and friends come to the church to hear them sing! We always welcome any questions, comments, or input you may have, so please come and talk to us. Notes From the 4’s TREEHOUSE 4’S – 401 AND 403 - Stephanie, Shelley, Brita, and Barb What a great time to start off Spring by talking about Nowruz, Iranian New Year, that occurs on the first day of Spring. It is a celebration of new beginnings and a time to visit family and friends. We talked about some of the traditions that are done before and during this holiday. With Easter on its way, we talked a bit about the history of Easter and traditions celebrated all around the world. We traced and cut out and decorated our very own bunnies. The end result of this activity was amazing to see because each bunny was unique and so special. We decorated Easter baskets, which came in handy, for a special visitor that came to the Preschool. The children were quite excited while they listened to the letter from the Easter Bunny about Easter eggs hidden everywhere in our classroom for them to find. Once Easter was over we started talking about Spring. We transformed our home corner into a flower shop. It was interesting to learn how many children had gardens at home and were familiar with tools used for plants and flowers. We worked together to sponge paint a blue background where we put up our fluorescent paper plate flowers and butterflies. It made a wonderful Spring board. We talked about different stages that occur before a caterpillar changes into a butterfly, then we splatter painted butterflies. The children helped create some of the centre pieces that we used on the table for our Easter Tea. One class made Popsicle stick flowers and the other class made egg carton flowers. We have been working on our journals each week. It has been very interesting listening to their stories and having that time to really connect with each child on a one to one basis. We are looking forward to listening to many more stories they are going to tell! We would like to give a big Thank You to all of the parents who came to spend the day with us. It was a pleasure having you in the classroom. We would just like to remind you that we have an open door policy. So if you didn’t get a chance to come spend the day with us, feel free to let us know a date that would better fit your schedule and we would be more than happy to have you. DOWNUNDER 4’S – 402 AND 404 - Libby, Joanna and Gaby Mid March, our classroom became the home of little green men and lots of shamrocks and Begorra's!! We found out about Ireland's St Patrick and the legends surrounding his very exciting life and times. Traps were set for the wee green men called Leprechauns. They love milk and honey but you have to be quick to catch them. We felt them tickle our necks but we never did catch them or see them. If you catch a Leprechaun and sprinkle salt on his bottom he has to tell you where his gold is buried at the end of the rainbow. Our classroom was decorated with shamrocks and beautiful rainbows. Our good friend, Ken Brookfield, came for a visit with his "mystery object " in a very large bag .The children were quite intrigued and captivated by a book which, when opened, made the most incredible shapes. We saw triangles, circles, squares, and stars, all intricately cut out, then folded back into the book when closed. We hope everyone enjoyed a little relaxing time over the Easter Weekend. The Easter Bunny paid a visit and left some eggs for everyone to enjoy. We celebrated Spring and new life, making eggs and bunnies. Spring blossoms adorned the walls and we watched as a seemingly lifeless branch started to produce buds and then leaves. More signs of spring appeared in the shape of flowers and butterflies. We practiced very hard for our Easter Service, and the children were ready, and delighted to sing and play for everyone. We were so looking forward to our Easter Tea. As always, if you have any concerns or comments please come and talk to us. Libby , Joanna and Gaby Answers to the Codes 1. Backward Glance 2. Double Cross 3. 2 Fellows After the Same Girl 4. Look Around You 5. Far Away From Home