Registration Update
It’s almost summer time! Families will be frolicking at the beach, vacationing in the sunshine and building memories with their preschoolers. But wait – we still have some spaces available in the 3s and 4s classes that need filling. Work your magic QPPS parents – let’s get these spaces full before everyone disappears over the summer. Tweet it out, post it on Facebook, spread the word, chat with friends and family. Direct anyone you know that might be interested in attending to call the preschool (604-526-1153) or the enrollment coordinators at Enrollment@QPPS.CA.
Sapperton Days Festival
Queen’s Park Preschool will have a booth at the Sapperton Days Festival on June 9 to help promote our preschool. We will have face painters, bubbles and playdoh. There is a volunteer sheet circulating with a list of time slots where your family could help out.
Here are the details:
Location: 400 Block of E. Columbia St
Date: Sunday, June 9th
Time: 11 am – 5 pm
Set up: 9am
Take down: 5 pm
More about the festival:
The 2013 Sapperton Day Street Festival is a non-profit community event put together by the Sapperton Business Association with some help from both the McBride Sapperton Business Association and Wesgroup Properties. This will be the events 10th consecutive year, after returning from a short hiatus. Sapperton Days has been around since the early 1970’s.
All proceeds from the Festival day are donated to the Royal Columbian Hospital Foundation. This year’s event will raise funds for critically needed equipment, research and innovation at Royal Columbian Hospital to ensure the best medical standards for the future. Last year’s Festival donated $10,000 to support their Breast Health Center Campaign goal.
Come and celebrate the beginning of summer. There will be bouncy castles, clowns, jugglers, games, live performances, mini-donuts, a pancake breakfast, rock climbing wall, vendors and much more.
Brief Fundraising Update
Shopping Card Forms are due on Tuesday, June 4th. Cards will be delivered the week after classes finish, so please ensure Kathleen (misskcarlsen@netscape.net) has an email and phone number on the form to make arrangements for drop off / pick up of cards. Don’t forget, these are great for year end gifts and will be ready by June 17th.
Big Brothers – please bring all your bags to the next general meeting – June 4th . You can also be saving up your clothing during the summer months as this easy fundraiser will most likely be continuing next year.
3’s Class Information
Can you believe that it is June already? We started this past month with our Mother’s Day Tea Party. The children loved decorating the cookies for the event and germinating bean seeds and then planting them into pots. During this month the big excitement was the hatching of the chicks…Peter, Kevin, Mack and Daisy. We’ve had many Mama (and Papa) hens in the classroom, making sure that the chicks were well cared for and LOVED! The children also had a chance to build various type of boats and try them out at the “Big Boat Float.” Many floated and had some help sailing with some wind (blown through our mouths) and others sank…sometimes many times. We finished off the month with a great pizza day. Thank you to everyone that donated toppings!
During this last month we will finish up our focus on birds by having OWL Bird Refuge come to our preschool on Tuesday, June 4. They will talk about the birds that they rescue, as well as bring along two birds (one will probably be a small owl). To go along with this we will set up a “Bird Rescue Station” in the preschool. We will also do many fun activities around water, boats and oceans (extra changes of clothes are a good idea!). On June 6 there will be a surprise activity as well, and we will tell you about it at our June General Meeting.
Our last special event will be our “Fun in the Sun!” Last Day Party on June 13. All the children and their parents/grandparents and siblings are invited to attend. (Please note that there will not be a regular preschool class that day – just the party.) As there will be no duty parents we ask that each child come and stay with a parent/grandparent. There will be fun activities and we will have a sign up for bringing food at the general meeting.
The party times are:
3am class: 10am – 11am
3pm class: 1pm-2pm
We would like to thank you all for being a wonderful part of our preschool year. We appreciate all the time that you’ve spent on duty and doing other preschool jobs. We have loved getting to know you, your children and your families. Thank you for the kindness and support that you have shared with both of us and how you have cared for each other. We wish you a safe and fun summer!
From Teacher Barb and Teacher Eleanor
Things to Remember:
- Thursday, June 13 is the 3’s Fun In the Sun Last Day Party (3 am class from 10-11 am, and 3pm class from 1-2pm)
- Take Down Night – Tuesday, June 18 7pm…..at least one parent from each 3‘s family is asked to come and help us “take down” the preschool and do a final clean-up.
4’s Class Information
This month, for a change, our thinking turned to what was inside the box. Specifically, a small, white, styrofoam box with two small windows in a cozy corner of the preschool. Everyone was very patient and respectful of the twelve eggs laying quietly within. 21 (or so) days later, we all welcomed some small, feathery bundles to our learning space with wonderment and intrigue. Truly, it was pretty amazing to witness a chick born from a “simple” egg.
We continued our exploration around farming with respect to the other animals and plants you would find on a working farm. We read some funny books and sang funny songs about sheep, cows, and pigs. We held real ostrich eggs, the largest of any bird, and learned that one egg makes breakfast for 17 people! For art we wrapped some sheep’s wool around a cardboard tube to make our own sheep, used paint and rubber gloves for “udder painting”, and used circles to create pigs from a different perspective, the front. One book looked at vegetables and whether we eat the tops (like cabbage), bottoms (carrots), or middles (corn). The discussion continues around the snack tables about how the fruits and vegetables we eat grow and which part we eat. All the while, the chicks continued to grow themselves and by the end of May, they had grown quite a bit. Soon, it was time for them to be introduced to their new life on their own farm. Kevin, Mac, Daisy, Eggbert, and Peter, we’ll miss you!
Mother’s Day Tea at QPPS, along with other traditional events taking place around the city this month, was warmed by homemade scones (I believe the best we’ve ever tasted!) and families celebrating together important ladies in our lives. The children each served their loved ones first, before placing their own orders to the dads and teachers in the kitchen. We sang the songs we’d practiced, gave our handmade gifts and left with bellies full of tea, scones, strawberries, ice cream and whipped topping. It was a lovely day!
Our final month at preschool will include a walk to the Queen’s Park Petting Farm, a Fun Day at Hume Park and, of course, a Year End Celebration. We are all growing everyday, let’s celebrate together!
Moment of the Month:
On a nature walk, we discussed plants around our park that are and are not OK to eat (with an adult’s permission, of course). Salmon berries can be found at the bottom of our hill, and Jessica was pointing them out when a boy just needed her to clarify…
“So….these are Salmon Bellies!?!”
From Teacher Jessica and Teacher Jenny
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