QUARTERLY NEWSLETTER JUNE
LESSARD DAYCARE & OUT OF SCHOOL CARE
QUARTERLY NEWSLETTER
June – August 2019
CENTRE NEWS
Toddler Room
Happy beginning of Summer to all our toddler families! Here in the toddler room, we have been working hard on planning all our summertime field trips and activities and are very excited for the next few months of sunshine and fun together!
Through spring, we have explored many themes, like Easter, fresh food and where some of it comes from, community helpers (construction workers, paramedics, firefighters, doctors and nurses, and store front helpers). We talked about bugs and dirt, flowers and trees and animals in the springtime. Together, we painted and hunted for eggs, went on scavenger hunts, played with bubbles, danced like animals, enjoyed a couple of movie days, made play dough, cookies, celebrated Mothers Day with families, and had a masquerade parade!
We are currently transitioning into a progressive, newer way of teaching -emergent curriculum, where we base our planning on the emerging interests of our children. With this comes some fun new room changes. We would like to ask the parents for photos for our room! We are looking for family photos, vacation photos, and any photos or cultural regalia to put up in our room. We are excited for the children to see reflections of all aspects of their lives when they look around our walls at daycare!
Thank you in advance,
Gabby and Blaise
Preschool Room
The Months of March, April and May for our preschoolers were full of excitement, as we worked through a full program of stimulating learning activities. We had been very busy engaging in several meaningful learning activities covering all our developmental domains. Our program took us from winter time carpet sledding to Prince and Princesses Day, Jersey Day, Sub Sandwich Day, Indoor Picnic Lunch, Stuffed pet day, our special PJ and Movie Day, Easter Party and egg hunting as we celebrated Easter and an awesome St. Patrick's Day Celebration, where we had a Parade inside the centre with children dressed up in shamrocks costumes, dancing to some Irish traditional music.
March found us busy and engaged in many different activities as we explore and learnt more about family, family activities, family transportation, family food, family pets, family celebrations and more. We also had a visit from our local fire department and Community Paramedics. Four firemen came to visit us and explain what a fireman does and taught us about the importance of fire safety. We got to venture outside to have a closer look at the fire truck and ambulance. The children got the chance to sit in the truck and ambulance, look at all the gadgets and the Paramedics also taught us when to call 911 and what to do if there is an emergency
April has been a fun month at Preschool, and it felt as though it has gone by so quickly. The highlights of April were our tour to West Edmonton Mall, where children rode the ETS bus to WEM and back to our centre. They had a tour inside the Mall and got to see different Easter decorations and enjoyed playing inside the bunny little houses. We had fun an Easter party where the children colored Easter eggs with markers. They made their own Easter basket, decorated it and put some plastic colored grass, chocolates and candies. Children had a blast with our egg hunting at our playground and ended up with a fun photo booth.
The month of May was an awesome experience for our children to enjoy cooking, baking, enjoying fieldtrip, exploring our community through nature walks, collecting items from nature and best of all celebrating our Mothers with a special Mother's Day tea party and gift sharing. This month we are implementing an Emergent Curriculum for our program planning. Emergent curriculum is a philosophy of teaching and way of planning curriculum that focuses on being responsive to children's interests to create meaningful learning experiences. This philosophy prioritizes active participation, relationship building, flexible and adaptable methods, inquiry, and play-based learning. Our program planning requires observation, documentation, creative brainstorming, flexibility and patience. Before we implemented this curriculum, we did lots of workshop from ARCQE. It is a licensed agency dedicated to providing technical assistance to the Early Learning and Care Service sector.
We invite you to take a walk to through our classroom and view our activity documentation board. Without your support we couldn't do it. Kindly accept our sincere thanks and gratitude for your patience, and your kind words of encouragement, we certainly appreciate you. If you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to discuss them with us anytime.
We are happy to inform you that there are lots of fun and exciting summer activities are planned for summer as we welcomed the warmer weather.
Thank you so much
Eunice & Janice
Kinder Room
Over the last few months, we have been busy in the kinder room. The month of March 2019 was great to our kinder kids. We had a tattoo and face painting; all our kiddos love it. We had a jersey day; our children were excited to wear their favorite jersey. We've watched a movie and they enjoyed watching it. Also, we visited West Edmonton Mall and children were happy watching the Sea Lion Show.
March 15, we celebrated St. Patrick's Day and our kinder kids were wearing green shirts. They learned that St. Patrick's is one of Ireland's patron saints. Children learned Shamrocks or clovers are used as St. Patrick’s Day decor to celebrate the day.
March 25, Alberta Health Services - EMS visited our center. They teach children how to cope in an emergency medical situation. What a child should do in an emergency. They should realize and remembers the importance of learning the "9-1-1" emergency telephone number. A child may have to take on an important role during an emergency and knowing the right way to act could save a life!
During our spring break, we visited the forest, walked to the river, a trip to the PET store and to the Dollarama store.
APRIL was so busy! Beginning to learn about bees, an exploration that has exploded after the break. We have already started working on some science provocations, bugs, and plants! We've spent a great deal of the months getting more in-depth into these topics through every area of play. When the weather finally warms up, we will finally be able to begin planting our room garden by using small pots.
In May, we discussed and learned about primary colors, red, yellow and blue. We also learned about shapes. Our focus is to continue establishing our center rotations and begin to start learning to trace shapes and write their names in their own crafts.
Our Mother's Day celebration was great! They've made special gifts to their moms. By tracing and decorating the heart shapes into different colors, and arranged it to make a bunch of flowers and used the pipe cleaners as a stem. It turned out into beautiful and unique.
Also, we visited the forest, the ground is comprised of moist soil, dead plants and small plants such as grasses and wildflowers.
In our reading, we read a book entitled Responsibility, Cooperation, and Friendship. Children learned several important skills, such as sharing, taking turns and following instructions. All of which help them get along with others in social situations.
Thank you for all your kind support for our program. Enjoy the warm weather ahead.
Raquel
OSC Room
As we are enjoying the beautiful weather, let us look back at what the OSC children were doing within the last three months. In March during a PD day we went to
McDonalds for lunch and once again it was a great opportunity for children to show how responsible they are in handling their money and how much they have grown in their social skills by taking their own food orders to making friends with other children at the restaurant.
During spring break children got busy with baking muffins and in helping organize the toys. Other activities such as talent show and Fashion show were two of the highlights of spring break. Children showcased their talents in dancing, singing, making poems and magic tricks. The girls looked amazing in the runway as they showcased their beautiful dresses. It was a fun month and of course our kids enjoyed it well.
April was a very calm month. We celebrated Easter by painting our own Easter eggs. Children showed how creative they were at making the eggs look fabulous. In May we pampered our Mothers by creating a spa center. Our OSC kids gave their lovely moms back, hand, head massages and manicure. It was a great sight to see children and their moms bonded and had a relaxing and warm time together. Thank you so much to all the MOM,s who were willing and able to spent a bit of time with the kids for making the Mother’s day celebration a success.
Hazel & Janice B.
PARENTS CORNER
WE ARE DELIGHTED TO INFORM THAT THERE IS NO INCREMENT FOR MONTHLY CHILDCARE FEES AND SUMMER FEES THOUGH, WE ALREADY PLANNED OUR SUMMER PROGRAM WITH A VARIETY OF NEW FIELD TRIPS . SINCE EACH SINGLE CHILD IS PRECIOUS FOR US AND BY VALUING THEIR SUGGESTIONS, THIS SUMMER, OUR KIDS WILL MAKE SMOOTHIES, PIZZA ETC… IN EACH ROOM WITH THE HELP OF ROOM STAFF & OF COUSRE THEY WILL ENJOY SOME OUTDOOR FOOD TOO. AGAIN, FROM TODDLER TO JUNIOR LEADER ROOM , IF ANY PARENTS WHO ARE WILLING AND ABLE TO DO VOLUNTEERING DURING FIELD TRIPS, THAT IS HIGLY APPRECIABLE.
We are very proud & pleased to say that we have been granted 3rd year the status of Accreditation – the Certificate of Excellence for Daycare & OSC. The staff worked very hard to ensure the program and the interactions with parents and children are at a high standard and will continue to do so. Again, our parents make a huge difference…… our group of fantastic parents, who were generous enough to understand & appreciate the management and the staff for our tireless at the same time dedicated work. Dear parents really you deserve our gratitude. We feel very fortunate that when you ask for your support, you are flexible enough to support all our efforts to deliver a high-quality program that is geared to the interests of your children.
Congratulations to all the staff and thank you to all our families for your support.
From May 2019 we have been implementing EMERGENT CURRICULUM in our daycare & OSC rooms, it is a philosophy of planning curriculum and teaching, where kids are the key & it focuses on kids’ interest. It requires active interaction, observation, documentation above all, patience. All the staff and the management attended workshops and PD conference from ARCQUE & INSPIRED MINDS, the Licensed Agencies and have gained professional development for this transition though, it is a process of learning.
FATHER’S DAY CELEBRATION
FLUFFY PANCAKES AND JUICE ON JUNE 14TH, FRIDAY MORNING
TO CELBRATE OUR DAD’S DAY
PLEASE JOIN WITH YOUR CHILD IN THE MORNING FOR A QUICK BREAKFAST BEFORE STARTING YOUR DAY & HAVE A FRUITFUL DAY.
REMINDERS FOR JUNE
FATHER’S DAY CLEBRATION – JUNE 14TH, FRIDAY 2019
PLEASE HAND IN ALL ALMOND CHOCOLATE MONEY BY JUNE 28TH,
[ FRIDAY ]
FIELDTRIP INFORMATION & PERMISSION FORMS PROVIDED TO PARENTS – WEEK OF JUNE 17TH….
FIELDTRIP PERMISSION FORMS AND FIELDTRIP FEES TO BE HANDED ON OR BEFORE 28TH JUNE , PLEASE….
DAILY PLANNING WILL BE POSTED IN ROOMS THROUGOUT JULY & AUGUST – [This is additional to the fieldtrips & special activity calendar
INFORMATION ABOUT LESSARD’S SUMMER FUN, JULY & AUGUST
The fieldtrip fees for the full summer July & August – including all activities, Entrance fees, Transportation listed on the summer calendars are
TODDLER ROOM CHILD FEE -$100
PRESCHOOL ROOM CHILD FEE -$125
KINDER ROOM CHILD FEE -$125
OSC/JR LEADER ROOM CHILD FEE -$150
We already prepared a very busy & exciting Summer fun program for the children. Please expect to find the fieldtrip “package” out to you by third week of June. It includes a check list for you to review, the “permission form that requires parent’s / guardian’s signature beside each outing and July & August Calendar that is to be kept at home.
The Calendar will have specific information as to where the children will be going & the time the children will be leaving/returning to the centre. Also, what they may require bringing with them such as a swimsuit & towel for their outing etc. The time that will be noted in the calendar will be the time prepare for the fieldtrip. As our preparation is a very important process of our outings, the staff review with the children where they are going, what they can expect and most importantly the safety instructions about the trip if required, the children will apply sunscreen prior to leaving.
If your child is not at the centre at the time noted in the Calendar [we prefer prior to the time], the staff & the group of children may be rushed and /or not fully prepared for the trip, which can cause safety issues due to the children not fully understanding the expectations prior to leaving Centre. So, our preparation , organization and completing our fieldtrip check lists are very important to ensure we are protective in our safety planning.
We appreciate your understanding in this matter, and if for any reason, you cannot have your child at the Centre for the specified time or earlier, the parents can contact the Centre, and you may deliver your child to the fieldtrip/outing location once the Centre has contacted the staff, who are on the fieldtrip, and receive the confirmation that they will be bale to meet with you to receive your child, and the time that this can happen. However, we cannot always meet with parents at the fieldtrip location due to our groups size keeping them within our Teacher/Child ratio. If staff are unable to meet you at the location, the parent would then have to find the group to drop the child off. We would require the child to have the listed items in the calendar & if required apply sunscreen prior to join with the group.
Unfortunately, if the child arrives at the Centre on a fieldtrip day & the group has already left, we will not have staff availability for your child to stay at the Centre. We always send as many staff as possible for safety & supervision reasons.
Lunch must be sent daily, unless stated in the Calendar ‘no lunch needed’. On fieldtrips & outings that we are away, please do not send heat ups. If you need any lunch tips, please speak with the room staff, so that we can accommodate your child – we will do all we can to keep your child safe from the sun.
FIELDTRIP PERMISSION FORMS WILL BE SENT OUT TO ALL THE FAMILIES THE LAST OF JUNE
FIELDTRIP FEES – PLEASE HAND IN BY JUNE 30TH.
CENTRE CLOSURE DAYS –
JULY 1st, 2019 CANADA DAY
AUGUST 5TH, 2019 HERITAGE DAY
WISHING ALL OUR FAMILIES
A WONDERFUL SUMMER 2019
FROM ALL THE STAFF AND THE MANAGEMENT AT THE LESSARD DAYCARE & OSC.
