From the President
And for more welcome news… perhaps the most anticipated purchase of the year has now arrived… our new vacuum! If you are reading this and wondering why on earth this matters so much, then most likely you have never used the 2 vacuums currently in use 🙂 The new vacuum is an industrial canister model, easy to use, and will vacuum up virtually anything (but please don’t put this to the test!). It is fairly user friendly, however if you’re unsure, please do not hesitate to ask for help if needed.Also new to the preschool is our amazing new sandbox lid. Again, it may seem like an everyday item, but just picture a folding wooden cover, on a pulley system, with a hand crank. Our kids (and many parents and grandparents) have been highly entertained! A very big thank you goes out to our outdoor parent for her hours of work and revisions on this project.Missed a General Meeting?
The Parent Education Make Up Form is now available on our website. To print off a copy, click on the Forms section, and download a copy to your computer. Please remember, your Class Rep still needs a printed copy of your completed form (an emailed copy is not sufficient for our licensing requirements).
As always, if you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact me.Cheers, Shelley
Revised Illness Policy
The preschool follows the guidelines set out by the Community Facilities Licensing Board in determining if a child is too sick to attend preschool. If your child exhibits any of the following symptoms, he or she should not come to school. Similarly, if any of these symptoms develop at school, the parent or caregiver will be contacted so that he or she may take the child home:
• pain (which is unexplained or undiagnosed)
• acute cold symptoms
• difficulty breathing (or wheezing or persistent cough)
• fever
• sore throat (difficulty swallowing)
• infected skin, eyes or undiagnosed rash
• headache and stiff neck
• diarrhea
• nausea and vomiting
• severe itching (body or scalp)
• communicable disease (known or suspected)
Please do not bring a child to preschool if they have had a fever in the past 24 hours.
Please do not bring a child to preschool if they have had diarrhea or vomiting in the past 48 hours.
Tax Reminder
Executive Search
Now is the time for all good parents to come to the aid of their preschool. The executive committee is looking for dedicated individuals to fill some important roles. Some parents have already expressed interest, but we need more. Contact Rusty Rhyne or another executive member for information on positions.
Rusty Rhyne, VP
rusty.rhyne@gmail.com
778-984-0525
What’s Next in Parent Education?
If you have been contemplating the sleep situation in your household after Dawnn Whittaker’s presentation last month, check out her blog (www.cheekychops.ca/blog). It is a great resource for all things parenting and the sleep page (www.cheekychops.ca/sleep) is also very informative in terms of sleep cycles and sleep deprivation. Anyone with any additional questions or who would like a copy of the sleep graph that she referred to during the presentation can send their question or request directly to Dawnn.Dawnn is also offering Queens Park Preschool families a 10% discount off any package valued at $250.00 or more. The code is queens park 2015 and is valid until August 31, 2014.
At the March 3 General Meeting, Dr. Errin Pfeiffer from Family Eyecare Centre at Royal City Centre will make a short presentation on children’s eye health.As a child, Dr. Pfeiffer visited optometry offices every 6 months after receiving her first pair of glasses in grade 3. Her high prescription led her to pursue LASIK surgery in 2008, which corrected her near-sightedness. This inspired her to find her true passion in eye care and she was accepted into the Doctor of Optometry program at the University of Waterloo, graduating with Excellence in 2014. Dr. Pfeiffer was class valedictorian and featured in Women in Optometry magazine as a “Top Grad” in North America. Providing thorough and sincere care to patients of all ages is Dr. Pfeiffer’s primary objective. She loves working with children and was honoured to receive the Good-Lite Pediatric Optometry Award in 2014.
Jessica Wollen from Shift Education (http://shift-education.com/) will be presenting a 1.5 hour presentation at our April 7 meeting called Askable Adult 101: Co-creating Healthy Communities with our Kids (Sexual Health Education). For this seminar, we have a limited number of tickets available to family, friends, alumni or community members who are not currently QPPS members. Tickets are $10/each and must be reserved ahead of time with Tasha.If you have any questions or comments about parent education, please don’t hesitate to get in touch with Tasha!
Up-coming Family Event
All Aboard! Join QPPS families for a potluck lunch at Burnaby Central Railway at Confederation Park on Sunday, April 12th. Train rides are $2.50. More information to come. For now, save the date!
Annual Spring Fling
Got a Food Allergy?
3-Year Old Class Information
During the wonderful month of February the three year old classes enjoyed music and movement and play time based upon the themes of Valentines Day and friendship, Chinese New Year and Lion Dancing as well as exploring colours including red. Our crafts included creating an awesome dragon dance constume and paper fans. Our colourful friendship fruit salad was super fun to make and share together.
One of the songs Jenny taught us during circle time called My Ship Sailed From China encouraged full body movement and pretending we were using a fan to cool ourselves.The words of the song are these:
My ship sailed from China with a cargo of tea,
All laden with presents for you and for me.
They brought me a fan : just imagine my bliss
When I found myself going like this (Like this, like this……)
(To be sung seated in a circle; on first “Like this,” start swaying one arm from side to side in time to the music fanning yourself with your imaginary fan; at each verse end, add the other arm, one leg, the other leg, the head and finally the whole body.)
Through out our class room we have also had the wonderful opportunity to explore drums and drumming. Our classes are discovering and practicing using our loud and soft voices experimenting with powerful shouts and gentle whispers and a favorite chant we have been sharing with the children goes like this:
Two Little Black Birds
Two little black birds sitting on a cloud
One named quiet, one named loud
Fly away quiet, fly away loud
Come back quiet, come back loud!
In March our themes and classroom activities will be broadly based upon castles and colour exploration as well as celebrating Girls Day (Japan)
We are also looking forward to taking the children on some nature walks and beginning our inside/outside days!
Teacher Jenny and Teacher Donna
4-Year Old Class Information
We have had a lovely month of February with various lands and cities being built! Hearts and other decorations were created in ”Heartland”, with many children leaving decorations at a castle and on pretend trees, and others choosing to take their creations home or giving them away to friends. We have also continued to work on our “Preschool Town Mural” as well as began building our own city out of cardboard and small wood pieces. It has been incredible to observe the children add to these areas each day, and working together to build their structures. We have also had several special events including a very yummy pancake day (while we wore PJ’S), celebrating Chinese New year with some fortune cookies and special red envelopes, and of course dancing and moving while Mr. Trevor taught us Creative Movement. We hope that the children have shared some of the excitement about the classes as well as the great instruments that were brought along by the accompanist, Mr. Duane.
During March we will continue working on our city, by painting it as well as adding child-created plastercine figures. As the children are really interested in the idea of lands and building, we will investigate castles and will explore the idea of building bridges. As Spring has come a bit early we will also begin having “Inside –Outside” days, where the children can explore activities inside and outside during our playtime. Mid-way through the month we will re-visit the “BIG PAINTING WALL” that we worked on last year, and create a new one!
We want to remind you that Spring Break is from March 9-13 and the preschool will be closed that week.
Have a wonderful month and welcome Spring!
Teacher Barb and Teacher Eleanor
Leave Your Reply