January 2019

Welcome back to preschool! Hoping everyone had a special time with their families over the holiday’s.

The structure of the Queens Park Preschool executive has shifted since we voted in the new bylaws in November. Please welcome the following members into their new roles:

Mike Daws – President
Nina Priddle- Vice President
Leanne Steel – Secretary
Monica Hoover – Treasurer
Yolanda Lavorata – Outreach Director (oversees Fundraising, Parent Education, Special Events, and Marketing)
Allie Sayles – Member Services Director (oversees Orientation, Enrollment, Class Reps)
Tina Jhingan – Staffing Director (oversees Teachers, Jobs Coordinator, Personnel)

You may be hearing from the director or executive member assigned to oversee your job in the preschool this year as we work on completing handbooks and policies for the preschool as well as expanding all job descriptions.

A friendly reminder that attendance at the General Meetings is mandatory for one family member, as per Queen’s Park Preschool’s policies. Attendance will continue to be taken and absences followed up on. We have incredible speakers lined up for 2019 and we look forward to seeing you all there!

SAVE THE DATE!

The Queen’s Park Preschool Silent Auction is scheduled for April 6th at The Hive on Front Street. We will have the exciting details at the General Meeting.

Tax Receipts will be available at the end of February. Happy 2019!

Nina Priddle
Vice President
Queens Park Preschool

Don’t Forget Tax Time!

Tax receipts for tuition and donations will be emailed to parents by February 28th 2019.

Receipts will include all tuition and donation amounts received by QPPS in the calendar year (January 2018 – December 2018).

Tuition Receipts will be issued for all current students (2018-2019 school year) and past students (2017-2018 school year). Donation receipts will be issued for gifts of cash and or items over $100.

Physio for Preschoolers

Sijia Lun from Kids Physio Group will be presenting in Fostering Physical Development in Preschoolers Kids Physio Group is a group of physiotherapy clinics that specializes in treatment of children, ages birth -18 years.

Using the main mission of “making it fun!”, they provide effective rehabilitation of various paediatric, neurological or musculoskeletal conditions. In preschool ages, treatment often focuses on improving gross motor skills, strength, balance, coordination, and independence with mobility. Kids Physio Group currently has three locations (Vancouver, Surrey, North Vancouver), and is continuing to expand further in the Lower Mainland and Vancouver Island.

For this presentation we will be joined by Sijia Lun. She is a Registered Physiotherapist from the Surrey clinic of Kids Physio. Sijia graduated from UBC’s Masters of Physical Therapy program in 2014, and has many years of experience working with children of all ages. She has also taken additional training and courses in rehabilitation treatment of babies and toddlers.
Topics we will discuss:

Important and expected developmental and gross motor skills in preschool ages
How should gross motor skills be fostered
When should families seek a physiotherapist for concerns of their children’s gross motor skills
How a paediatric physiotherapist will assess and treat toddlers

Fundraising Update

Nothing new for January – just bring your cash for the monthly raffle at the meeting – 1 for $2, 3 for $5, 10 for $10. And bring your Big Brother’s Donations – make room for any new Christmas clothes!

3-Year Old Classroom Information

What a beautiful month the month of December was!

The three year old classes spent time creating sparkling snowflakes and painting a forest of trees, all unique and all enchanting. During December we continued to explore sparkle, glitter and reflective materials. Our playdough table became a modelling clay table where we discovered the different feel, texture, composition and even the different smell of plasticine compared to our usual manipulative playdough. December was spent exploring a variety of different building blocks. We created things with our rainbow blocks, mirrored blocks, log cabin blocks and wood cookies. The winter woodland table continued to evolve each week into a magical place, the animals, trees, bridges, stepping stones, snow all helped us expand our imaginative, parallel and cooperative play.

Some time was spent working on our May art exhibit project and of course our holiday gifts that we made for our families. In the month ahead, we will continue to explore light and dark, we will continue with our investigation of woodland creatures ,particularly bears and owls. We will expand on the children’s interest in outer space and planets.

Important upcoming dates to note are:

Thursday, January 17 – Art Gallery visit
Thursday, January 31 – Nature walk.

Thank you again for being on this journey with us!
Wishing you all a Happy New Year!

Warmly,
Ms. Donna and Ms. Lyn

4-Year Old Classroom Information

Brrrrrrr. The change in weather brought new explorations for the 4s. They were all very curious and excited about the ice formations in the play yard. This prompted us to create our very own icescape in the sensory table indoors for everyone to explore further; including polars bears (and
an arctic rabbit). This tied in nicely to our bear inquiry with discussions about which bears live in which type of habitat.

Many of the children have noticed the frost that has arrived and also have had some deeper questions about where does rain come from? Why has our rain barrel been empty on colder /dryer days? These inquiries have led us to examine further.

December we focused on giving and much of our art explorations were centred around making special gifts to share with family. We decided to use light/dark and metallics for these projects to offer continuity from our previous art invitations. Each one turned out as unique as each child!

We hope you loved them! We also spent time painting some trees. One child said his is “for the bears to live in.” A few children requested different colours than we had put out at first – yellow for a star at the top, red for the tree trunk! – which of course we provided! Everyone’s individual ideas never cease to amaze us!

Our loose parts projects continue to be in full swing! The open ended nature of the materials sustain the children’s interest for a long time. We have also noticed a lot of great collaborative work in this area.

We have started to offer yoga breaks during free play with many of the children gravitating to this. We have started to create and name our own poses too! We have been expanding our repertoire of breathing exercises and have introduced our breathing buddies. They not only breathe with us but have also made their way into a host of socio-dramatic play scenarios.

One of the highlights of December was the arrival of our new class pets – our guinea pigs lovingly named Wind and Windy, who no doubt found the right spot to be as there is almost always a child talking with them, reading them a story or singing them a song.

In the new year we will continue to learn more about them and how to care for them. We will also be exploring owls and other wild birds in preparation for our special visit from OWL – Orphaned Wildlife Rehabilitation Society. We are looking forward to a month of investigation, fun and learning through play!

Dates to Note: