May 2016

From the President

We’re less than 1 month away from our 50th anniversary celebration!  We’re so excited to welcome our current and past families for an afternoon of family fun.  Join us May 14, from 12:00 noon – 3:00pm for music, games, princesses, and more!

We’re looking for volunteers for the day.  If you know of older kids, teens, grandparents… anyone who might like to help out for the afternoon – we’d love to hear about it!  Help is needed between 11:00am – 5:00pm on May 14th. Duties include: help with setting up, assisting with games and the BBQ.  For older kids who need volunteer hours for school, we can provide a letter to document their volunteer hours.

Also, if you haven’t yet noticed the big, white box on the counter… the chicks are coming! During the first week of May there will be baby chicks hatching at the preschool! So exciting. The chicks will be with us until May 10.

Preschool Art Show

In celebration of Queen’s Park Parent Participation Preschool’s 50th Anniversary, the current students at Queen’s Park Preschool have joined together to create colourful works of art to share with the New Westminster community. Inspired by recent explorations of colour mixing, all of these young artists, who are between the ages of 3 and 5, were invited to paint whatever they wished with their chosen palette. The result is a truly unique creative rainbow of colour!

May is Childcare Month
Bricks & Mortar Sixth Street Pop-Up + Gallery
42 Sixth Street, New Westminster

For Current Preschool Families & Children
Opening Night Open House
Friday, May 13
6:30pm to 8:30pm

Public Open House:
Saturday & Sunday, May 14 & 15
11am to 5pm

Congratulations!

Ahhh new baby bliss! Congratulations to Angela, Arju and Ishaan on the birth of baby Milan. We know that Ishaan is a proud big brother!

 

 

 

Parent Education

This month: May 3rd

This 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.

Next month: June 7th 

Next month we are lucky enough the welcome back Hilary Feldman to present, Backyard Naturalist, just in time for you to learn a few tips and tricks to encourage all our budding scientists to get outside and discover the wonders of the outdoors!  Tickets will be available to the general public for $10.

Reminder:

It’s that time again, please go through your drawers, or in my case on of my daughters many purses, and find any books, articles, DVD’s or CD’s you have may borrowed throughout the year from the Parent Education Library.  We need  them back to complete inventory.

QPPS Family Social Activity

Celebrate spring and the great relationships you have developed with the QPPS families all year with a trip to the Burnaby Central Railway!

Location: Burnaby Central Railway
Confederation Park
120 North Willingdon Avenue
Burnaby
Date: Saturday, May 21st
Time: 11am – 1pm

We have rented a table so we ask everyone who attends to please bring a snack to share with everyone. You will have to purchase tokens to ride the train and it costs $3.50 per person. Families can also purchase 10 tokens for $30.

Enrollment News

Tuition payments are due at the May 3 General Meeting for all current students and new parents who will be attending this September.

Tuition for next year 2016/2017 will be due at the May General meeting.

For the 3 year old class:
One cheque for $140 for first month tuition – Dated May 2016
One cheque for $140 for last month tuition – Dated September 2016
Eight cheques for $140 – Dated Monthly > October 2016 to May 2017

For the 4 year old class:
One cheque for $170 for first month tuition – Dated May 2016
One cheque for $170 for last month tuition – Dated September 2016
Eight cheques for $170 – Dated Monthly > October 2016 to May 2017

 

For current student parents who have not submitted two updated photos for next year please don’t forget to bring them together with a job selection form if also not submitted yet. Even if you want to repeat the same job next year, please let us know.

Fundraising Update

Congratulations to the final winners of the 2015/2016 QPPS hockey pool. It was another successful year and we thank everyone very much for participating in the pool this year. We will be sure to email everyone next year when the pool comes out and hope to see everyone signed up again.

1st place Gary starlight-Gary
2nd place Rock em sock em-Tony Coelho
3rd place Chicken hawk -Nathan Goodwin
4th place Allan Dawe
5th place Apex Dental-Michael Chan
Last place Just a guess – Dan Arseneault

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.

Silent Auction Continues at the GM

At the next GM there will be a “Silent Auction Mystery Box”, which contains several silent auction items which were not bid on at the auction. We will be raffling these off, selling tickets at the May 3 GM for $5 each.  Bring your $5 to the GM – tickets will be sold during the break and then right after the break the winning ticket will be selected.  There are 11 “things” in the box – consisting of gift certificates and items. Good luck!

 

Health Column: The Best Kept Gardening Secrets

Gardening season has begun! And during these beautiful late spring/early summer months the best part of the day is playing outside and getting dirty—especially after a stressful day at work. The whole process of planting seeds and consuming fresh fruits and vegetables from your garden has many benefits, some of which you are probably very familiar with and others which may surprise you…

1. Happy as a Pig in Dirt

A strain of bacterium in soil has been found to trigger the release of serotonin in the body. This chemical relays signals regarding mood, sleep and learning from one area of the brain to another. In short, contact with soil through gardening can elevate mood and decrease anxiety!

2. Think Mindfulness

The act of gardening can be very meditative. Meditation can give you a sense of calm, peace and balance, benefiting both emotional well-being and overall health. Meditation helps increase self-awareness, allowing you to focus on the present instead of the future. And these benefits don’t end when your meditation session ends. The effects carry you more calmly through your day, helping alleviate anxiety or sleep problems.

3. Little Picky Eaters

Getting your child to try something new can be frustrating. It can make mealtimes stressful for you, your child and the rest of the family. Try getting them involved in the food preparation by helping you garden – children are more likely to try different foods when they know where it came from. Even taking them to Farmers Markets and meeting the farmers goes a long way.

Happy Gardening!

Your Nutrition columnist, Jess Pirnak

3-Year Old Class Information

In the 3s classes we have been busy discovering worms, snails and creepy crawlies! We are waiting patiently for our chicks to hatch! In the meantime, we have been talking about growing, farm animals, babies and eggs. The snail habitat in the classroom has kept us captivated. Our garden is more plentiful with the flowers we have been planting. Throughout the past month we have been exploring color mixing, water-color painting on fragile tissue, acrylic painting on canvas and learning new music and movement songs with teacher Lynda!

Inside-outside days have been a welcome treat. We are all enjoying the gorgeous spring weather! And a reminder: Tuesday, May 17th is our family picnic day. Join us for the last hour of class on the hill for picnic and play time. Family members welcome to join us!

From Teacher Donna and Teacher Lynda

4-Year Old Class Information

Rainbows and colours have been everywhere in our classroom! Throughout this past month the children have explored colour mixing, using both tempera and water colour paints. The children have come up with so many colour “recipes”, and it was magical to see the colours change constantly and hear the children’s excitement about the new colours they were mixing. We have created our snail tank, watched snails crawl over and under rainbow arches, drawn snail mazes…..and cheered on snail races. Thank you also for contributing ingredients to our pizza day. We have wonderful chefs in our classroom that created delicious pizza.

During the first week of May we anticipate the arrival of the chicks… we are guessing that they may take over the classroom, but while they are with us we will continue to have fun with inside/outside days as well as do some planting. We will continue to explore colour mixing and painting mediums as we create canvases large and small for the upcoming art show. As some of our days are getting a bit warmer, please send along a sun hat with your child (you may also want to put sunscreen on your child before they come to preschool).

We have a few special events planned that we want to remind you about:

• “Preschool in the Park” days will be May 6 and May 20…..please note that on May 6 we will pick up and drop off at Preschool, not at the Bandshell.
• “We See, We Feel, We Create” Art Show on May 13
• We are looking forward to our Family “Picnic in the Park” on Wednesday May 18. We will meet at our regular class time at the Bandshell for planned activities for everyone, as well as a picnic. All children must come with a parent/nanny/guardian and siblings are more than welcome! Please bring along your picnic item along with serving utensils/trays and a picnic blanket (or chairs if you prefer). We will provide plates, napkins, and cutlery. There 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. The children must come with a parent/nanny/guardian and siblings are more than welcome.

Have a wonderful month!

From Teacher Barb and Teacher Eleanor