From the President
Welcome Spring! I’m so pleased to see the flowers blossoming, the sun shining, and smiles all around. Once again I get to start off this month with some “sunshine and roses”. First and foremost, a very warm welcome to Teacher Lynda (read a little further on for more about her!). We are so pleased to have Lynda join the 3s and look forward to getting to know her more over the coming months. And welcome to all our new and returning families joining in September! We’ll see you soon at the Coffee Party in April.
A few thank you’s as well – firstly to Artisan Landscaping for donating sand for our outdoor sandbox and to all the parents who arrived in the rain to move the sand! Next to Kelly, from the 3-year old afternoon class, for offering to take over as Class Rep for the remainder of the year. We will sorely miss Tasha and her family as they begin their new adventure elsewhere.
Contacting your Executive Members
As part of our goal of improving communications, we have created generic email addresses for our executive members. This will allow an easier transition from year to year, as the same email address will be used and old emails can be saved and reviewed by the next person in the position. This also reduces the need for people to use their personal email addresses when contacting businesses outside the preschool. The addresses all follow the same format, such as qpps.orientation@gmail.com. Full list of addresses will be circulated in the coming weeks.
Your Feedback Please!
Also in the coming weeks, members will be requested to provide feedback about their preschool experiences this year. The preschool does two surveys annually – a general survey focused on preschool operations (enrolment, orientation, etc) and a classroom survey focused on in class experience. Last year we designed new surveys that can be used each year in order to provide data that can be tracked and compared over time. When you see these surveys in your inbox – please take a few moments to provide us with your thoughts.
BC Gaming Grant
We are thrilled to announce the preschool has once again received a BC Gaming Grant! This grant money must go towards preschool operations (unlike the New Westminster Gaming Grant that must be used for a capital project), as is often used for additional classroom supplies, and other purchases directly relating to our kids’ classroom experience. A BIG thank you to Kimberly Grant for doing a second year as our grant writing, and to everyone else who help compile the necessary reports.
50th Celebration
The organizing committee for the 50th Anniversary Celebration is thrilled to say that the planning in going excellent! Get ready to be entertained the Juno Nominated artist Gina Lina, jump to your heart’s content in the bouncy castle and on the trampoline, meet a princess or two, and play carnival games for kiddos of all ages . Check out her fabulous Youtube video in this newsletter for a little taste of what’s to come. Please keep getting the word out to all your friends and family who may have been at the preschool – we are looking forward to celebrating 50 Years of Play together!
A New Job for Next Year?
Fancy a change? We’ll be electing new executive members at the May general meeting, and have a number of vacancies that we hope you will give some consideration too. Most of the executive positions follow the school year, like President, Vice President, Class Representative, Fund Raising Coordinator and Special Events Coordinator. A few of the executive positions follow the calendar year, like Treasurer and Enrollment Coordinator. If you have interest in helping lead the operation of the preschool, we hope you consider seeking election for any one of the vacancies we have. If you’d like to learn more, please contact Jeff Arason at jeff.arason@gmail.com.
Welcome Lynda!
Want to learn a little about our new teacher? Here is her bio:
Lynda Joshi is a fully licensed Early Childhood Educator with certification as an Infant Toddler Educator as well as a Special Needs Educator. She is currently pursuing a degree in Early Childhood Care and Education at Capilano University.
Lynda has over 15 years of experience teaching and providing care and support to children and their families, most recently working for the Burnaby School District in a variety of programs including StrongStart. She has also been an active community volunteer with several child and family focused organizations such as Canuck Place Children’s Hospice and BC Children’s Hospital.
Lynda believes that all children are intelligent, creative, capable and unique in their own light. With this in mind, she strives to provide a classroom environment that sparks a love of learning, inspires imagination and provokes children’s thinking while building upon their interests. She considers play an essential part of how young children learn and fully embraces a play based learning environment. She loves learning alongside children and finds it a great joy to witness their ongoing curiosity and innate sense of wonder. What she loves about engaging with children in her role as teacher is the endless possibilities in learning. She enjoys creating spaces for children to be themselves, discover their passions and foster meaningful relationships.
Lynda lives in New Westminster with her three children. Her interests include yoga, meditation, literature, fashion, film and fitness. She loves getting out into nature as well as enjoying great food.
Upcoming Fundraising Opportunities
There are only TWO opportunities left this year to help raise funds for QPPS (and score some sweet stuff for your family in the process 🙂
May 20 – orders due
Adams Meat pies
Order forms will go out in the second week of May – so watch your inbox.
Meat pies will be ready for pick up at the June meeting on June 7.
Welcome to Kindergarten!
For those of you with children that are entering Kindergarten in September 2016, please watch out for “Welcome to Kindergarten” dates at the school you have registered your child at. These usually happen in May or early June. This information will be emailed/mailed to you by your new school. We encourage you to attend with your child, as it is a great step to preparing them (and yourself!) for September.
Attending QPPS Next Year?
Welcome to Queen’s Park Preschool all new and returning duty parents! You and your child are about to enter a wonderful period of learning and growing together at Queen’s Park Parent Participation preschool.
All new duty parents, new duty parents that are being added to current families, and those who have not been duty parents since the 2010/2011 school year are required to fulfill 10 hours of orientation. These orientation hours are required for our licensing and are as follows:
- Coffee Party: Tuesday, April 12th, 2016 from 7-9pm, at the preschool (2 of the 10 hours of orientation)
- Observation Day: Takes place during April and May (or June if necessary) (3 of the 10 hours of orientation)
- General Meeting: Tuesday, May 3rd, 2016, 7:00pm, held at the preschool (2.5 of the 10 hours of orientation)
- Orientation Night: Wednesday, September 7th, 2016, 7:00pm, held at the preschool (2.5 of the 10 hours of orientation)
These orientation activities are great opportunities to meet the new and current families at the preschool as well as get to know the teachers and see what the parent participation preschool is all about.
If the last time you were a duty parent was the 2011/2012 school year or later, you are only required to attend the General Meeting in May and the Orientation Night in September. That being said, please feel free to attend the Coffee Party as well to meet some of the new parents and get re-acquainted with the teachers.
Please note that these orientation activities are for the duty parent(s) only – please make arrangements for someone to care for your children during these times.
If you have any questions about orientation, or if you are concerned about being able to make one of these meetings, please contact the Orientation Coordinator, Courtney Daws, at Orientation.QPPS@gmail.com.
Awesome Parent Ed this Month!
April 5
This month we are lucky to again welcome Chris Burt, a well-known Family Counsellor, will be back for another engaging and enlightening talk, this time about the Family System. Children are not the only ones in a family that go through developmental stages. Learn the typical ages and stages that both children and parents go through, and how they affect both the messages that parents give, and what their children hear. Chris Burt is educated and trained as Family Counsellor, and has been supporting individuals, families, organizations and community for over 20 years. He holds Masters of Arts in Counselling Psychology, and lives in North Vancouver, BC with his with and two teenage kids who further his education everyday.Tickets are available to the general public for $10 and can be arranged by emailing martilongstaff@gmail.com or by calling the preschool at 604 526 1153.
May 3
Next month we will host Colleen Blundell (Queen’s Park Preschool Alumni!) from Kids in the Back (www.kidsintheback.org) to speak about Car Seats. Colleen Blundell is a former teacher and a Certified Child Passenger Safety Educator who has worked with the BCAA Child Passenger Safety Program since 2003. Colleen has inspected thousands of seats and has taught many information sessions during her tenure and she is excited to be able to offer this service to families, caregivers and service providers. Colleen lives in the Lower Mainland with her husband Bruce and their children Annie and Jack. Tickets will be available for $10 to the general public for this session.
If you have any questions or comments about parent education, please don’t hesitate to contact Marti Longstaff (martilongstaff@gmail.com), the QPPS Parent Education Coordinator.
Nutrition Column – Jess Pirnak
Would you like yam or sweet potato fries with that? Answer: sweet potato fries only because yam fries don’t exist! I know I know you had some last night with your burger but the restaurant tricked you since ‘yams’ are seldom seen in mainstream North American markets. That sugary, moist, orange tuber found in grocery stores is actually a sweet potato. So why the confusion? In the 1930’s a marketing campaign in the States started labeling sweet potatoes as yams – was this by accident or on purpose? I guess only those mad men will know!
There are over 400 varieties of sweet potato; however the different varieties can be divided into two groups, those with dry flesh and those with moist flesh. Fun fact – the sweet potato is not related to the potato??? Who names these vegetables???
Next time you make the classic meat and potatoes dish try substituting the potatoes for sweet potatoes, which are an excellent source of vitamin A. Helpful tip – the more coloured the sweet potato, the more vitamin A it contains.
Also, Health Canada recommends we eat at least one dark green and one orange vegetable each day. So, if you’re carroted out already, sweet potatoes are an excellent alternative.
3-Year Old Class Information
March was simply awesome! Together our three’s classes explored all the colours of the rainbow, through song, felt stories, literature and science and art! From tactile, scoopable, mixable, pourable, measurable “rainbow rice” rainbow rolling pin painting, colour mixing with food colouring, shave cream, water and droppers, ice painting and water colour painting we made discoveries of magical proportions!
Somehow life-like frogs and turtles visited our water table and we created a small, small pond with lily pads and ducklings and assorted lizards, rocks and greenery. Finding inspiration from Denise Fleming’s wonderful book In The Small Small Pond.
However nothing could be more exciting than a visit from two sweet furry creatures named Dora and Goldie. Two bunnies visited us a Queens Park Preschool just in time for Easter!
In April, we will be continuing to explore frogs, ducks, turtles, birds, nests and insects as well as doing some gardening and planting in our classroom and in our play yard. We will be talking about weather and especially rain, wind, sun and clouds. Don’t be surprised if you see us running on the hill with our home made kites and pinwheels this spring!
From Teacher Donna
4-Year Old Class Information
Welcome back to preschool! We hope that everyone had a great break.
Spring is all around us… even inside the preschool! We have painted using flowers as inspiration, created large planters of stick with “blossoms” on them, and enjoyed many egg hunts! We decided to set up a magical fountain area with oodles of spring creatures, nests, birds and plants surrounding it. It is a wonderful place to “care” for the pretend animals. We will also create a “snail tank” with the children (Hmm….We wonder what the children think will need to go into a snail tank?) We have had visits from “Golden” and “Dora”, some very cute bunnies owned by Reid’s family……and will be visited by “Owl Bird Refuge” on April 8. This will lead into the arrival of an egg incubator and eggs that will hatch into chicks!
Along with all the creatures visiting our preschool, we also noticed a real interest in colours. To expand on this we will explore colour mixing and rainbows through experiments, games, songs and of course various art mediums. As the days become more sunny, we will begin to have inside-outside days. On these day the double doors will be open and the children will be able to explore activities both inside and outside. We will let you know when this is the case, and ask the children to just keep their outside shoes on. As we will play with water both inside and outside, please make sure that your child has at least one change of clothing
We have a few special events planned that we want to let you know about:
“Preschool in the Park” days will be April 1 and April 22
- We will be making our own mini pizzas on April 15. We will have a sign up at the April GM for pizza toppings
- Please save the date for our Family “Picnic in the Park” on Wednesday May 18. On this day we will meet at our regular class time at the Bandshell for planned activities for everyone, as well as a picnic to share. All children must come with a parent/nanny/guardian and siblings are more than welcome! There will be more information and a picnic sign-up at our May GM.
- “Last Day of Preschool Party” on Friday June 17. 4’s morning class party will be from 10-11 and 4’s afternoon class party will be from 1-2. Again children must come with a parent/nanny/guardian and siblings are more than welcome.
Happy Spring!
From Teacher Barb and Teacher Eleanor
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