Three Little Ships International Preschool
January 2015
Newsletter
To all our parents and friends,
Sincerely yours,
All Three Little Ships and Lighthouse staff,
Carla Loozen
School Holidays
Thursday 5th of February: study day for teachers No school for children
Friday 20th of February: half school day. School ends at 12:30
Monday 23rd – Friday 27th of February: Krokus holiday (Spring holiday)
School photographer
On Thursday 12th February the school photographer will visit the Lighthouse and Three Little
Ships. Both individual and class photographs will be taken.
It is advisable to dress your child/children in bright colours. Yellow, green and red will look the
best. Black, dark blue or brown will not look as good on the picture. If it is rainy that day it is
important your child comes to school with dry hair.
Further details about the photographs:
The packet contains:
 One sheet with two pictures (9 x 13)

One sheet, portrait (13 x 18)

One sheet with 8 passport photographs (10 x 15)

One sheet, class picture (13 x 18)

Key chain for free when you buy the whole packet
The price of the whole packet is 10.50 euro’s.
Fire drill
We will have a fire drill for the whole school on Tuesday January 20th.
We will prepare the children, because we do not want them to get scared if they do not
understand exactly what is happening. The teachers have started practising with the children
how to act in case of an alarm. It would be helpful if parents of Three Little Ships could make
their children aware of the basic rules for the fire drill and fire safety in their native language;
especially for the children who never did a fire drill before. When the bell goes we line up at
the door to go outside (coats, shoes, toys etc. stay inside) then we get the safety walk cord
and the children hold on to a ring and we walk out and across to the school next door. This
has to be done as quickly and orderly as possible. Once we are all accounted for we walk
back to our class.
If it is a cold day, please let your child wear a warm sweater, because one of the rules is that
coats have to stay inside.
Next month a company will provide and install a professional fire alarm system. We will do a
second fire drill later this school year to try out this installation.
Group sessions Occupational Therapy
This year we will start providing movement lessons where we work on sensory motor skills
and social emotional goals in-group lessons for class 1, 2, and A
The children will practice and learn various movements and yoga poses while laughing,
dancing, playing and singing!
We will include gym/movement exercises and yoga since it is a great way for kids to increase
awareness of themselves, others, and the world, while having fun!
Yoga is a wonderful way for children to stay (or become) confident, strong, balanced, and
healthy.It engages a child's natural, boundless energy, and conveys valuable lessons in
positive thinking, body and mind awareness. We believe that kids learn best when they’re
having fun!
Each class is alive with magical journeys where we meet with animals, fly an airplane or drive
a car, grow into a tree, or imitate the ocean waves, all in the form of dynamic yoga poses. We
use music and song, lots of silly props, games, stories, relaxation and visualization.
The kinesthetic, visual, intra- and interpersonal aspects of each class help keep kids involved
and focused while having fun.
With the training our aim is to add spice to the classrooms by working on gross and fine
movements, body awareness, postures, yoga stretches, breathing exercises, interactive yoga
games and kid friendly relaxation techniques.
We will concentrate on creative ways to teach kids how to focus, relax, stretch, energize
and prepare their mind and body for school with or without chairs and tables.
We look forward starting with the sessions!
Jaana Syrja - occupational therapist/ kids yoga teacher
Jantien Knoester - occupational therapist/ psychologist and kids yoga teacher
News from class 1
We hope you had a nice holiday and that you all enjoyed your family time together. First of all
we would like to welcome Kristina into Class 1. She settled in very well and we are very happy
to have her in our class.
December was very busy with the concert, where the children made an amazing performance.
They were very pleased to see their parents and other family members. The topics for
January are Winter and Homes. The children will learn all about winter, like clothing, sports
and animals in the winter. We even had the chance to make some ice in our freezer. In our
topic "Homes", we will discuss about several types of houses, rooms in the houses and
furniture. We all look forward to exploring new themes, related to our surroundings.
Our play corner has changed! It used to be a fully equipped Supermarket. Not it has been
changed into a Vet's corner. The children learn how to take care of animals, how to use the
plasters, thermometers and bandages. They are all so caring and professional! :)
News from class 2
December was a very exciting month for class 2! There was Sinterklaas, the winter
celebration concert, baking cookies and Santa even came to visit. Santa brought us some
new toys, we received two scooters for outside and a Peppa Pig game for the classroom.
Coming back from Christmas break the children were very excited to tell us all about their
holidays and what they got for Christmas!
Our very helpful Mr George helped us put up a swing in the classroom last week. The children
really enjoy the swing and they are very good at showing the teachers that they can take
turns!
We are starting two new topics this month. Winter and "homes" hopefully we will have some
real snow and we can build our own snow fort 
News from class R
We ended 2014 with a lovely winter breakfast together with class A and it was a real feast: we
had so many delicious things to eat and drink, thanks to all the parents: wonderful! Everyone
could make choices and share food, we had conversations while eating and we learned why
people bring lights inside around this time of year. Photos are on the website 
Class R started 2015 with a new IPC topic called ‘Chocolate’. We’ll be learning where it is
from, what it is made of, how is it best kept fresh and about the consequences of eating it. We
started our topic with a blind tasting of various items – challenging enough! We found that
when you eat something sweet after savoury, it does taste sweet. If you eat a raisin after a
piece of chocolate, it tastes salty… you can trick your own buds!
PRT training for staff
All staff will be PRT trained for two days. The study day on Thursday February 5th will be used
for that purpose as well. After these two study days there will be four staff members who will
follow a course to get a certification on this treatment for autism. It will extend the competence
of staff and be in benefit of several Lighthouse children.
The training will be directed by Ms. Dorrit Ontrop, Ms. Hetty Joustra and M.s Sabien van
Lommel, all staff members of the center of Autism in Voorburg.
What is PRT? (Pivotal Response Treatment)
Pivotal Response Treatment is one of the best studied and validated behavioural treatments
for autism. Derived from Applied Behavioural Analysis (ABA), it is play based and child
initiated. Its goals include the development of communication, language and positive social
behaviours and relief from disruptive self-stimulatory behaviours.
Rather than target individual behaviours, the PRT therapist targets “pivotal” areas of a child's
development. These include motivation, response to multiple cues, self-management and the
initiation of social interactions. The philosophy is that, by targeting these critical areas, PRT
will produce broad improvements across other areas of sociability, communication, behaviour
and academic skill building.
LINKX project
Recently you received an e-mail with information about a new project/research we want to
start in cooperation with Ms. Helma van Rijn, who developed a new tool for I-pads and
smartphones, called: LINKX.
The Lighthouse team sees potential for many children at our school and is curious too about
how LINKX can help expanding their vocabulary and / or improve English for non-native
speakers. Therefore we would like to try the game at Lighthouse. But off course, only with
permission of you as a parent. Could you please fill in the reply form? We are looking forward
to get feedback from you as parents.
For more detailed information: www.linkx-app.com
Happy birthday!!!
January 21: Ms. Alison
February 13: Ms Ching