March 2016

A few THANK YOU’S to get us started this month

Enrolment Team
A HUGE thank you to our amazing enrolment team of Donald and Natalie!  Not only is the preschool full for next September, the process was smooth and easy for all involved.  Donald and Natalie have been making changes to the process and further streamlining the paperwork involved – with wonderful results.  If you see them in your classes, please be sure to say thanks.  Word of mouth is best advertisement, so thanks to everyone who raves about us to their friends and neighbours.

Document Review
An equally HUGE thank you goes out to Jeff, our VP, for tackling the document review.  This involved the always exciting job of reviewing the preschool’s constitution, bylaws, handbook, polices and procedures.  As you can imagine, upwards of 60 pages gave him many evenings of inspired reading!  This review is to be done every 2-3 years, and the preschool was several years behind, so we thank Jeff very much for bringing us back up to date.  And thank you to those other families who assisted with proof reading and providing feedback… it is very much appreciated.

Teachers
If you have not already had the opportunity, please welcome Teacher Maggie and Teacher Jennifer to your classes.  Along with Teachers Barb and Eleanor, they will be helping in the 3 year old classes while we continue searching for a permanent teacher partner for Donna.   Teacher Donna has very kindly taken on the role of Supervising Teacher for the 3’s on an interim basis and we are so thankful for all she is doing to help the preschool!

50th Anniversary Celebration
We are thrilled to announce that Juno-nominated entertainer Ginalina will be joining us for our 50th Anniversary Celebration!  Kids of all ages will love her engaging performance. If you haven’t already, please go through your family’s favourite meals and send in a recipe for our cookbook… we’d love to showcase as many family favourites as we can! Submissions and other inquiries can be sent to qpps.50th@gmail.com.

What You Need to Know about the Silent Auction

We hope you are ready for a great night out this Saturday, March, 5! This years auction is chalk-full of great items thanks to all of your wonderful donations and an extra shout-out to this years Silent Auction Team who have worked tirelessly to solicit donations from our local businesses and have spent their time organizing this huge event! The auction will start at 7pm and close at 11pm with our ‘Live-Auction’ segment from 9:15-9:45pm. You’ll want to stay for the entire evening as you can imagine how disappointed you would feel if you missed the winning bid on, say, a brand new 60” Smart TV or a brand new PlayStation with four new games (released only this week). Imagine a relaxed weekend get-away (with or without the kids) at SunPeaks or Whistler, an hour-long massage or a beautiful manicure/pedicure; the items are too numerous and amazing to keep listing here!

The evening will be Formal Dress (remember how great your partner looks all dressed up?) and we will have complimentary appetizers and desserts. Please bring cash for the bar and 50/50 tickets, and for your winning bids, cash or cheque. No Credit Cards! Remember to drink responsibly and to get home safe and sound to your little ones (they need you!!!).

We will be selling the final ‘First-Pick’ tickets at the GM this Tuesday and the winner will be able to pick any item they want (that is not part of the Live-Auction portion of the evening). The winner will be announced at the conclusion of the meeting and may arrive at 6:30pm on Saturday to pick out their prize. It’s a steal at only $20 a ticket!

We still need some Volunteers for set-up and take-down and a few other positions, sign-up sheets are on the table when you drop your kids off.

Have a great week folks and see you at the GM and Auction!

March 1
This month we are lucky to again welcome Allison Taylor-McBryde to speak about Early Literacy.  Allison is a retired Librarian and former QPPS grandma!  Some of you may recall her stirring rendition of the “Pout-Pout Fish” and her recommendations for many other family friendly stories.  She’s back to talk about engaging your preschooler in reading and developing their love of the written word.

April 5
Chris Burt, a well-known Family Counsellor, will be back for another engaging and enlightening talk, this time about the Family System.  Tickets will be available for $10 to the general public for this session.

Building on the 4’s teachers use of art to tell stories and our talk about how important stories are for building literacy and imagination, try using story prompts with your little ones to build your own tales.  There are a variety of options out there to build your own story including Rory’s Story Cubes, a set of dice with pictures you roll to build the theme and characters in a story, and eeboo’s “Tell me a story” series which has a number of picture cards within a theme, for example Fairy Tale Mix-Up, meant to guide a tale of your imagining.  Here is a link to a free DIY story board from Kiwi Crate and there are dozens more on Pinterest for you avid pinners. Building your own stories assists with comprehension, sequencing and creativity – it also is a lot of fun!

http://www.kiwicrate.com/projects/Printable-Story-Cards/597

If you have any questions or comments about parent education, please don’t hesitate to contact Marti Longstaff (martilongstaff@gmail.com).

In February, the 3s classes celebrated Happy Chinese New Year. Welcoming in the Year of the Monkey. Fun fact: Teacher Donna is an earth monkey and fittingly the earth monkey is teacher monkey. In February we also celebrated Valentines Day by creating a friendship fruit salad with the children and sharing it with our families.

In the month of March we will springboard off of both monkeys and fruit and celebrate colours (rainbows) with the help of Pete The Cat, The Very Hungry Caterpillar and more silly monkeying around with the classic and beloved tale Caps For Sale.

As well in the month of March, in our 3’s classes we will celebrate St. Patrick’s Day a little bit early by decorating shamrock shaped cookies, looking for treasure in our sand box (could that be the end of the rainbow?) and of course we will be wearing all shades of green. Something tells Teacher Donna it will be a jumpy month as we will most certainly learn a bit more about frogs (they are green after all) and then as we hop further into Spring we will be busy creating bunny ears and enjoying an Easter egg hunt!

These themes will segue seamlessly into Spring themes such as insects, lifecycles, growing, gardening and flowers.

Last month we created Dinosaur Eggs with our 3s classes. It was a fantastic activity that was tactile engaging and created a sense of wonder throughout our classes. Here is the recipe in case you wish to recreate the awesome messy play at home .

Dinosaur Eggs

Ingredients:

• 2 1/2 Cups flour
• 2 1/2 Cups used dry coffee grounds (more reason to drink that coffee)
• 1 1/2 Cups salt
• 1 Cup sand (another reason to go to the beach in Winter )
• 1 Cup (or more) or water
• glitter (optional)
• small plastic dinos and/or plastic bones

Method:

Mix all dry ingredients together add enough water to “hold” shape flatten in palm and add dino and then make ball shapeplace on tray and let dry completely for at least a week (longer if your eggs end up huge). Once dry break open eggs and be surprised at what is inside! Note: we used safety goggles and real hammers to get our dinosaur bones out.

Here is also a sweet finger play story that we did – feel free to continue the fun at home!

WHO WILL PLAY WITH LITTLE DINOSAUR
Little Dinosaur wanted to play.  He asked his mother to play.
She said, “No, I can not.”  “Why not?” asked Little Dinosaur.
“I am too busy,” said his mother.

Little Dinosaur decided he would find someone else to play with.
He walked to the edge of the big swamp.  He saw a fish in the water.
“Do you want to play stamp-in-the-Mud?” he asked.
The fish said, “No!”
“Why not?” asked Little Dinosaur.
“I can not” said the fish.  “I do not have any feet.”

Little Dinosaur walked along the shore.
He saw a bird.
“Do you want to play Dig-in-the-Sand?” he asked.
The bird said, “No.”
“Why not?” asked Little Dinosaur.
“I have to fly away with my mother,” said the bird.

Little Dinosaur walked back to where the green grasses grew.
He saw a plant waving its leaves at him.
“Do you want to play Push-the -stones? he asked.
The plant did not say anything at all.

Little Dinosaur felt very sad.  No one wanted to play with him.

He sat down on a big stone.
Suddenly the stone started to wiggle.
It started to jiggle.
It started to shake.
It was an egg.  It HATCHED!
A baby dinosaur stuck his head out of the shell.
“Do you want to play?” said the baby dinosaur.
“YES!” said Little Dinosaur.
They played all day.  The played Dig-in-the-Sand, and Push–the-stones, and Stamp-in-the-Mud.
They had fun.  Little Dinosaur had a new friend.