LESSARD DAYCARE & OUT OF SCHOOL CARE QUARTERLY PARENT NEWSLETTER MARCH 2019– MAY 2019 FIND US ON THE WEB AT-WWW.LESSARDDAYCARE.COM NEWS FROM THE ROOMS…

Toddler Room

Hello parents! We have had a busy, but fun past few months in the toddler room. In December we focused on winter holidays celebrated around the world. We learned new songs, fingerplays, read stories, did art projects, and had group talks about celebrations like Christmas, Kwanzaa, and Hanukkah. We brought in 2019 with New Years crafts, alphabet fun, numbers up to 10, construction, and farm animals. In February, our themes have been sea animals, land transportation, water transportation, and air transportation! We’ve had a lot of fun together talking and singing and crafting our way into some new knowledge on these subjects. In the past few months, the toddlers have had many exciting days with us. From seeing Santa at our Christmas party to our very successful Valentine’s child potluck and party, and all the fun days in between Like, ice cream day, our cookie and muffin baking days, tattoo and mail polish days, and movie, paijama and chip days.

We are so exciting for Spring to begin and all the fresh opportunities we will have to explore outside and our neighborhood. In March, we are focusing on our helpful community! We are looking forward to going over emergency and rescue vehicles, Doctors and nurses and their roles in the community, construction and carpenter workers in the community, and firefighters and other first responders.

We hope everyone had a wonderful holiday season and that this spring will be full of fun, new opportunities and good health for all!

Gabby and Blaise

Preschool Room

Over the last three months of December 2018 to February 2019, We have been very busy engaging in several meaningful learning activities covering all our developmental domains. In December, we tried several real cooking and baking activities that turned out quite delicious. We took ETS bus trips to different places as part of our Community Involvement experience and we enjoyed a special PJ and movie day. We finished the month of December with our Annual Family Seasonal celebrations which included a very special entertaining dance production, lots of good food and a meaningful engaging conversational time with our daycare families.

January and February 2019 found as just as busy and engaged in many different activities as we explored and learnt more about family, winter and sports, winter festivals, celebrations, animals, temperature and environmental changes. We experienced indoor swimming, picnicking in the winter. We made and enjoyed warm chocolate drink and Jamaican water crackers, Chinese noodle soup, fruit smoothie and homemade chocolate banana brownies. We also celebrated Chinese New Year with a parade and Valentine’s Day sharing chocolate and cards with our peers and family. We had a few indoor hockey and soccer games, we built soccer fields, hockey towers, trucks delivering hockey gears and roads leading to the games. We dressed up, we danced to different cultural music, watched a few hockey games, enjoyed a Taste of Edmonton Multicultural Pot Luck lunch.

Even though February has been so cold and kept us indoors most of the time. We still enjoyed our outdoor activities including carpet sledding, snow mountain climbing and other planned playground activities. Over all we really enjoyed our time spent in our playroom with caring staff, nice peers in a warm and safe environment. March promises to be an exciting month full of wonderful learning activities and we are looking forward to that with much anticipation. We truly thank you so much for all your kind invaluable support and input into our program. You are highly appreciated.

Enjoy a lovely spring when it gets here………

Janice & Eunice

Kinder Room

The month of December was a short month though our children were having lots of fun. They have been doing a great job with buttoning and zippering their coats when we had our sledding at Centennial hill. Also, we had our Seasonal Celebration where singing Christmas Songs, Christmas Carols and received Christmas gifts & hugs from Santa.

In January, inspired by the change in weather, our children were very excited to build a snowman so we decided to extend their learning, and create our own snowman in the class. We focused on simple prepositions such as under and beside when gluing on the snowman's parts. Fine motor work and visual motor work were also involved as we worked on our cutting and gluing skills. Each snowman turned out so unique. Also, we had the chance to visit Lois Hole public library where children had the time to play, used the computers and attending family story time where children participated in their action songs.

February is such a short month though, Valentine's Day and Family Day Celebrations kept us so busy and excited. It's a good time to celebrate with family and to think about those you love and care. At Valentine's day, children talked about all the people they loved. They made a list of people and they sent Valentine's card. They decorated paper bags with full of hearts and filled it with candies. Also, we celebrated the Lunar Chinese New Year. We had an indoor parade. Kinder staff made a dragon head and one child was assigned to be the dragon head and the rest of the kinder kiddos were the dragon body using red long wide plastic and covered it to their bodies. They had so much fun. Then, we had our potluck where all of our children brought different kinds of yummy dishes. Thank you so much to all the parents for your generosity for sending eatables.

If you have any question/ concern regarding your child, please feel free to contact me.

Raquel

OSC & Jr Leader Room

December was a great month as our OSC got busy spreading Christmas love and cheers by doing a humanitarian project. Children brought in food bank donations for the Christmas hampers as well as new mitts/gloves, toques and scarves to decorate our Christmas tree which were donated to struggling families in the community. They also did extra effort in preparing the Christmas presentations which turned out to be a success. Big thanks to all our children and parents who were very supportive of all our events and activities.

We beat the cold in this new year as we went sledding in January at Centennial Hill. Children spent an hour of fun and laughter at the hill. In February we enjoyed the potluck for Valentines Party. Children brought good varieties of food and enjoyed a great meal. Isaac and Maddie brought and shared valentines’ goodies to their friends. We hosted family week appreciation by offering coffee and muffin on Friday morning to be shared by the parents and their children. We are glad for those who made it to the event and we are always grateful to all our parents and children for their nonstop support to our daycare.

Just recently we visited EATON INDUSTRIES Edmonton Power Center and met lots of electrical engineers and learned about their nature of work. In there, children were given a group challenge to create a structure that can hold a book using only 10 gummies and 10 toothpicks. OSC CHILDREN did a great job at delivering the task and was able to enjoy the gummies as their reward. They had a chance to see some of the designs in the computers that some engineers were working on and go to the warehouse to see what kind of electrical products the company makes and were most excited to try out pulling the giant breakers. It was an awesome trip and a great learning opportunity for OSC kids, big thanks to ROHINI VINEETH (one of our Toddler moms) who arranged our visit to her workplace.

Hazel& Janice B.

CENTRE INFO – UP TO DATE AT A GLANCE

CENTRE CLOSURE- GOOD FRIDAY, APRIL 19TH, & EASTER MONDAY, APRIL 22nd

MOTHERS DAY TEA PARTY – FRIDAY, MAY 10TH(3:30 TO 5:30)

CENTRE CLOSURE- VICTORIA DAY, MONDAY, MAY 20TH.

Summer Fund Raising Information

We will offer parents the option of selling chocolate almonds to help subsidize summer fieldtrip fees… we will provide you with more information as we move closer into May.

KINDERGARTEN 2019 – 2020

The following schools will be on our schedule to transport kindergarten children as of September 2019.

Centennial School – Morning and Afternoon Kindergarten

Good Shepherd – Morning and Afternoon Kindergarten and 100 voice

Michael A Kostek – Morning and Afternoon Kindergarten

Our Lady of the Prairies – Morning and Afternoon Kindergarten and 100 voice

Calling wood – Morning and Afternoon Kindergarten and 100 voice

Lymburn – Morning and Afternoon Kindergarten

Summer 2019 / September Surveys

As usual, we will be sending out parent surveys that will ask families if their child (children) will attend through summer and continue into September. The surveys will be sent out beginning of May. We appreciate this information because it allows us to plan more efficiently for our summer program as well allow for staff vacation.

We hope that our families find our newsletter informative and helpful. If there is any information that you would like to see in our newsletter, or you have any questions about our program, please speak with the Management or your child’s room teacher.

Once again, we thank you for your support at Lessard Daycare & Afterschool care.