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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 […]
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From the President Welcome Spring! I’m so pleased to see the flowers blossoming, the sun shining, and smiles all around. Once again I get to start off this month with some “sunshine and roses”. First and foremost, a very warm welcome to Teacher Lynda (read a little further on for more about her!). We are so pleased to have Lynda join the 3s and look forward to getting to know her more over the coming months. And welcome to all our new and returning families joining in September! We’ll see you soon at the Coffee Party in April. A few thank you’s as well – firstly to Artisan Landscaping for donating sand for our outdoor sandbox and to all the parents who arrived in the rain to move the sand! Next to Kelly, from the 3-year old afternoon class, for offering to take over as Class Rep for the remainder of the year. We will sorely miss Tasha and her family as they begin their new adventure elsewhere. Contacting your Executive Members As part of our goal of improving communications, we have created generic email addresses for our executive members. This will allow an easier transition from year to year, as the […]
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From Our President Farewell Teacher Jenny As most families will have read already, it is with great sadness we announce the resignation of Teacher Jenny. Jenny has accepted a position as a Strong Start Facilitator with Stride Elementary. Working with the Strong Start program has been a long term goal of Jenny’s for some time and while we are devastated she is leaving the preschool, we are very happy for her as well. We will keep everyone informed of our recruitment process, and if you do have any questions or concerns, please feel free to directly contact any member of the executive committee. We appreciate your understanding and patience during this transitional period. Support Workers: 3PM and 4AM We are so pleased to welcome Teacher Jennifer to our 3 year old afternoon class and Teacher Donna to our 4 year old morning class! The role of a Support Worker is to assist the Teachers in supporting all the children in a class. Please take a moment to welcome them both to your classes. If you have any questions about the role of a Support Worker, please feel free to ask your teachers. Teacher Carli Goes on Practicum – Good Luck! […]
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From the President Here are a few quick tidbits to start off your December 🙂 Queen’s Park Preschool Turns 50 The planning is well on the way and we need your help! As part of the carnival, we’d like to have a music stage showcasing some of the preschool’s talent. Dance, music, singing… you name it, we want to hear about it. If you know someone – kids or adults – who might like to join our music stage, please let us know. We’re also searching for preschool memorabilia… class photos, artwork, report cards (yes, there used to be report cards!)… all those things parents save, we would love to see. As part of the celebration, we’re planning a visual timeline showcasing the preschool over the decades. We would love to see memorabilia from any decade, but we have a special interest in the 1960’s and 1970’s. New Westminster Family Place Once again this year, Queen’s Park Preschool will be collecting books and other items for New Westminster Family Place. New Westminster Family Place is a non-profit family resource program for families with children from newborns to five years of age. For the last several years our preschool has offered […]
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From the President This month (and possibly still reeling from Halloween candy overload) I will keep this short and sweet (see how I snuck that pun in there 😉 Mark your calendars… Queens Park Preschool turns 50 this year and we’re planning the celebration for May 14, 2016. We are working on a community carnival – lots of fun for the whole family. Stay tuned for more information. Have you checked out the newly refurbished teachers’ chair? Thanks in part to our City of New Westminster grant last year, the comfy chair and ottoman at the circle carpet has been fixed up and is ready for lots more stories and snuggles in the coming years. Thanks to Teacher Jenny for making this happen! Ahem, have you missed a General Meeting…? Please submit your parent education make up assignment within 1 week of the missed meeting. Parent Education is part of the benefit of a parent participation preschool, and it’s also part of our responsibility as membership. If homework is more than 2 weeks late, we are violating our licensing. Please, make life easier on your class rep… it’s never nice having to “nag” another parent about homework! Just a […]
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From the President Welcome back! The exciting news to start off with is… we turn 50 this year! Who knew we’d look so good! As you may have heard, the preschool is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year and we’re planning a community celebration. We recruited some volunteers at the September GM, however if you’d like to help out – we’d love the help. We’ll keep you posted as we plan this exciting event. As you may have noticed, over the summer the preschool had some “sprucing up”. Thank you to Ron and the Queen’s Park Facilities staff for painting the interior walls, doors and support beams, installing new and brighter lights outside, and giving the whole exterior a thorough cleaning. Thank you to Ram, with Two Lions Painting, for painting the indoor playhouse and climber. Still to come are some new ceiling tiles, an art sink sprayer, and a parent education bookshelf. Also in the planning stages is an expansion of the outdoor play space. We are so excited to announce that we are very close to having approval to expand our outdoor fenced play space to include some of the “natural” space on the side of the […]
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From the President Tell us what you think! Please take a couple of minutes to complete our General Preschool Survey: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/VSPBX2J. Over the past few months, the preschool has been redesigning our feedback processes. Our goal is to have surveys that be used annually with minimal changes needed, results that can be tracked over time, and higher response rates from members. We are trying to amalgamate the current survey questions into two categories: information about the preschool’s operations (such as enrollment, orientation, jobs, administration, etc.) and classroom programming (such as communication with teachers, classroom activities, etc.). Moving forward, hopefully we will have two surveys annually which will provide a baseline of information for the preschool’s executive to base decisions on. Thank to Tara for all her help is reworking our surveys. Let’s not make her efforts be in vain – please click the link above and tell us your thoughts! Our preschool was very privileged to host a delegation from the Parent Cooperative Preschool’s International (PCPI) conference, which took place in Vancouver this year. They toured the preschool, shared ideas and conducted a business meeting while onsite. PCPI is a North American organization A big thank you to Teacher Jenny […]
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From the President I am so happy to be the bearer of exciting news… our 3 and 4 year old classes beginning next September are now full! I’ve already thanked so many people… and I’d like to echo that again here. There have been so many people involved with this amazing success – please know that we are so thankful for your efforts! 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 […]
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From the President Happy New Year! I hope everyone had a safe & happy holidays… and as healthy as could be! To start with, a few thank you’s to pass along – always a nice way to start things off. First, thank you to everyone who brought things in for New West Family Place. Barb and Natalie (our enrollment coordinator) brought the donations down, and were very warmly welcomed. Second, thank you to Ron Booth, with the City of New Westminster, for the holiday swim and skate passes he donated to the preschool. Third, a BIG thank you to Jennifer Rhyne (*blushing*) for reprising her role as Newsletter Editor (for the 3rd time!). Pamela, our former editor, has moved to a role with the GM set up committee, so please stop by to say hi at our January GM. Finally, thank you so much for the gifts and treats you gave me. It was so generous and so thoughtful! For our New Years resolution, we will be trying very hard to consolidate our email communication in attempt to reduce the number of emails families receive. There are three main emails that are sent each month… our newsletter, the GM agenda […]
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Executive Positions Available We are fast approaching our Executive Elections, taking place at the General Meeting on May 6. We are pleased to report that there are families who have expressed an interest in just about all the positions, however there are a few that no one has indicated an interest in: Secretary – takes minutes at the executive and general meetings. This is a great position for someone new to the school – you get to be a part of the decision making process at the school, but in a position that requires little additional time outside of the two meetings. Class Representative 3PM and 4PM – organizes and distributes duty schedules for her/his respective class; acts as a liaison between her/his class and the executive. It is a great way to meet all the families in your class, and help everyone feel connected. Orientation Coordinator – oversees the orientation of new parents to the preschool and the New Parents’ Coffee Party. As this position runs from January to December, it is the perfect position for someone coming into the 3 year old class, or who will be returning again the following year with another child. The bulk of […]
