Littles - October Blog

We had such a fun and busy October!  The Littles were in charge of making snack for everyone at the Centre earlier in the month.  We decided to make Apple Crisp and each child had the opportunity to help by using a plastic butter nap and chop the apples slices into chunks.  They all enjoyed this a did a great job helping out!   After seeing them use the knives to well, we decided to further this experience and allow them to cut play dough with them too!

Skye (from Paw Patrol) came to visit. She read some stories to the children, she taught them some dances with movements to follow along, and then afterwards we had a disco light dance party! Most of the children were really into it, while some others were content with just standing back and watching.

We ended the last week of October with lots of spooky activities and dress up days.  We had a huge Halloween party with all of preschool.  We had stations set up around that included:
- Pin the spider on the web

- Mystery Box (two different boxes/ stations)

- Witch hat toss

- Sticker table

- Pumpkin spiced play dough table

- Memory game

 Afterwards, we began our costume parade around the centre starting with the infants and ending with the school agers! Shortly after the parade, the children had lunch and then free play/ marble painting! We had a nap and got right back into the Halloween festivities! We had so many wonderful and healthy treats that were brought in for afternoon snack that was divided up and devoured by the children! J

 

Toddle Bots - October Update

This month flew by!! I’d like to start off by saying thank you to all of the families who brought in a family photo! We already have noticed the children looking up at them and showing each other their family! It’s definitely something special to see happening with the amount of pride they are exhibiting! J Next, we can’t wait to start putting pictures of YOUR children in the room! If anyone has any picture frames laying around not being used and would like to donate to us, we would love to take them off your hands!

 

The Toddle Bots and Littles were SO excited to see Sky (from Paw Patrol) when she came to visit. She read some stories to the children, she taught them some dances with movements to follow along, and then afterwards we had a disco light dance party! Most of the children were really into it, while some others were content with just standing back and watching.

 

The Toddle Bots have been interested in watching the birds in our yard lately. Almost every day, they ask where the birds are and if we have bird seed in the feeder they are swarming around!

 

De has been coming up with amazing songs for us and has been putting their names into the songs that she sings, and it lights up their faces every time they hear her sing their name. We are loving music with De!!

 

Halloween! This year Halloween was a big hit! I absolutely loved seeing the children get dressed up into their costumes! There were so many good ones!! The day started out with everyone getting dropped off into their rooms as usual and having free play. The children ate snack and then shortly after we played a game prepared by Jordyn. It was called Pumpkin patch. The children had to poke their fingers/ hands threw the orange tissue paper cover cup to reveal their surprise! This year we stuck stickers inside their surprise cups since we knew that they would be getting a lot of treats from Trick- Or- Treating! After that, ALL of preschool combined and we opened the doors to both rooms and we had the following stations set up;

 

·       Pin the spider on the web

·       Mystery Box (two different boxes/ stations)

·       Witch hat toss

·       Sticker table

·       Pumpkin spiced play dough table

·       Memory game

 

At 10:45, we began our costume parade around the centre starting with the infants and ending with the school agers! Shortly after the parade, the children had lunch and then free play/ marble painting! We had a nap and got right back into the Halloween festivities! We had so many wonderful and healthy treats that were brought in for afternoon snack that was divided up and devoured by the children! J

Older Floor - October Update

October was a busy month!  We went on lots of nature walks and talked about all the Halloween decorations that were up at everyone's houses.

We did lots of  Halloween activities!  We painted, carved and washed pumpkins, plus we even roasted pumpkin seeds (which we tasted and they were yummy!)

One day outside, we found "magic" rocks and we each brought one inside.  We listened to the story 'Stone Soup' and then we made our own "stone soup" with potatoes, carrots, onions, beans and corn.  Once it was made, we all ate our soup together and painted our "magic" rocks.

We had a busy spirit week from dressing up in our jammies to costumes and to sports day!  Our Halloween party turned out so well!  There was all kinds of games like, toss the rings on the witches hats, pin the spider on the web, a mystery box that had "eyeballs, brains, teeth and hair" for the kids to feel, and so much more!  After the party, we had a Halloween parade and each group went around to each room to show off their costumes.  De lead the groups, playing her ukulele and singing 'Monster Mash'!

We're looking forward to a fun November!

Infant Room - October Update

October has come and gone!  We have done a lot of nature play this month.  Outside has  been cool, but we dress warm to enjoy the outdoors.  We have been playing in the leaves; the children especially like jumping and laying in the big piles of leaves, throwing the leaves in the air and watching them fall to the ground.  We often hear the children laughing and saying "more, more!"  We even brought some leaves inside and made a tree out of them.

We have also brought in our herbs that we grew in our garden.  The children had a chance to feel, smell and taste them!  

School Age & Kinders - October Update

October was a busy month as we entered the holiday season. It was so much fun to see all of the children in their costumes and excited for Halloween this week!

You probably noticed our very spooky Jack-O-Lantern window, carefully designed and painted by Jordan and Addison along with the help of several other children. We also have lots of beautifully decorated pumpkins lining our window sills!

The kindergartens have done several Halloween crafts and activities, and had a blast joining preschool for a super fun party Halloween morning. They loved De’s new Halloween songs and dancing and howling to the “Monster Mash”. They were also proud to be the very first group to read two new Halloween books, Miss Fiona’s Pumpkin Pies and the very silly Room on the Broom. They even helped with sound effects the next day when I read it to the Kinderstart group!

Leading up to Halloween, we had the very entertaining Captain Jack Sparrow pop into the center. The children helped him find the Lost Treasure of the LaSalle River, supposedly plagued by invisible monsters. But don’t worry, he made sure each child was armed with a balloon sword to keep them safe. He was so grateful that they helped him find the treasure that the all got a gold coin and candy as a reward!

The children are still very excited about building and forts, and luckily the last fundraiser provided us with tons of cardboard to use! We saw muffin trays become lawn chairs, table hockey rinks, and bey-blade stadiums, and cookie boxes transformed into cars and houses!

There has also been a lot a beautiful and creative art made in the room, this is a very talented group of children! The art table fills up as soon as the children return from school and we try to add new and interesting materials as often as possible. They truly have a knack for using the materials in unique and unexpected ways! The biggest challenge is keeping enough paper in stock to meet their creative needs, so if anyone is looking to get rid of bland/scrap paper we will gladly accept it!

Caterpillar - September Update

Our month of September was full of fun!  We welcomed Meric, Alivia, Ivy, Lyla and Lily onto older floor and they sure have settled in quite well with all of us.  Our room has changed into a construction site for the kids to play in and they are loving it.  There are safety glasses, hard hats, reflective vests and gloves for the children to wear to keep them safe while at "work".  They are learning how to use measuring tapes and have been busy measuring the tables, walls and carpets.  The dump trucks and tractors are being pushed around the job site, filled with small blocks and hauled to the "gravel pits".  The children have also been found building towers and houses.  The children have been taking turns at the site managers desk and calling to each other using the 2 way radio.  The children are working so well together to get the "jobs" done and lots of fun is being had!  To expand on their interest, we also did some construction themed art projects like; gluing and cutting of cement trucks, creating HWY's with safety signs, and popsicle stick creations. 

We have been enjoying the fall weather and going for walks, jumping in the leaves and we even joined the school for their Terry Fox walk/run!
 
We are excited for October... especially Halloween!

 

Butterflies - September Update

It’s hard to believe that September has finished so quickly, where has the time gone?
We said Good bye to Mackenzie, Emily, Olivia, Abel, Owen, London and Aubrey who moved over to the school age room and each time we spend time with them they are enjoying “the BIG play structure” that is outside of the school! J

The Butterfly group has started their program with the kinders on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, in the school age room. We start around 9am with calendar time (do your children come home singing the “days of the week songs?” Haha) the children take turns putting on the number on the calendar.  After calendar time we offer snack or free play and get outside as soon as we can.  After lunch we have a few pre planned activities available for the children and we also have activities building off of the children’s interests. We are working on observing the children to see what interests them. This month they have been working hard at building different creations with the Lego, Gak/Slime has been a huge hit (they really enjoy when it is super stretchy!!) and practicing those fine motor movements with the fuse beads as well as the regular pony beads. The weather has been so great that we often take the children outside during this time as well. Outside some have been testing their strength and I have observed Rylan, Declan, Jacob and Jack pull themselves onto the monkey bars with huge smiles on their faces...”Hey Kerri, look, I can finally do it” a few of them said!! What a great accomplishment for them.
After lunch some of the children have been very interested in reading some of the longer chapter type books so we have found a few that are appropriate and a little longer and the children have been loving sitting on the big pillows and listening to them. 

Toward the end of September Austin and Austin started attending the “forest school” at the FortWhyte Centre and they have been excited to tell us some of their stories and the exciting things they do there.  This did provoke the children to start some conversations about being outside in nature. We decided to take a walk around the center we walked past the post office, down towards the monument, across to the rec center where we stopped to have discussions about what we saw, felt, and heard. As we walked I would document some of the conversations and things the children were noticing. They were very excited about some of the changes (falling leaves, swaying trees) and this took us into how things can change so quickly. We decided we were going to go for the same walk on Mondays and Fridays and see if there were changes and anything new. Before the end of September we found 2 buildings with pumpkins, the children kept trying to look for more. We will continue our nature walks and see what changes, note any new observations and if/when the children lose interest we will update you all. We cannot WAIT to see what changes will be noticed in October!!! J

We are all very excited about October, with Ashlea starting we cannot wait to show her all we have been busy with.

We have been writing on our white boards daily (on the accordion wall) so be sure to check it out. We will also be displaying art work on the wall. If you have any questions please let us know!  

 

Toddle Bot - September Update

This month was busy with everyone getting back into routine with school and our full-time children coming pretty regularly. The Toddle Bots have a “Weekly Focus” board up and we will be focusing on shapes, colors, letters and numbers on a weekly basis. We just started the last week of September and we started with Blue, Circle, A and 1. Every week they will change, and we will focus on a new set.

With Jordyn starting school, we are excited to see what kind of exciting ideas and activities that she will want to implement in the room (whether it be on the Littles or Toddle Bots side). She has already talked about how having pictures of their family to see on a daily basis is very important. It can give them a sense of belonging, promotes their self-image and confidence to see their family photos displayed. Not to mention we would like our room to feel like another home, not just a daycare. If you could bring us at least 1 photo of the family, it would be MUCH appreciated.

With the weather starting to get colder, we are asking parents to please send jackets, splash pants, mittens (x2 pairs), hats, boots AND shoes (when snow starts, winter jacket, snow pants, snow boots, mittens, hats). When we play outside in the morning, the playground area can be wet, even if it didn’t rain the night before and they always manage to find a toy that has a bit of water in it, therefore making their mittens soaking wet. We do not have the means to wash/ dry them all before heading out again in the afternoon so 2 pairs of mittens will be useful. Also, please label your children belongings. We try our best to memorize every child’s belongings but with 16+ children in the room it sometimes gets pretty overwhelming and you will be saving us time and stress by just adding their name to it. It will also help you in the long run so that if an item was left outside, and a staff see’s it’s labeled, it will go to that child’s locker rather than going to lost and found or getting lost.

De has been coming to sing to the younger floor children and they are LOVING it!! We have noticed the children knowing the words to songs and they are singing along with her. They help make up songs about themselves and they get really excited when they hear their name. The last week of September the children got to go into groups of 4 and tried the ukulele with a staff’s supervision. The children were instructed to hold the ukulele facing away from their face and they all did very well.

Infant Room - August Update

Summer has come and gone so fast but we had a blast!  We welcomed a few new faces into our room as well, Lexi and Olivia.

This month we transformed our back room into an amazing play area for the children and they absolutely loved it!  It is set up to help the children develop more of their gross motor skills.  We have large foam blocks set up for them to climb on and recently we added a ball pit, that they love to jump in and out of and throw the balls everywhere!

The weather has been so nice this month that the children have been able to spend a lot of time outside, which they have absolutely loved.  The children can often be found playing in the sandbox, digging with shovels, climbing up the slides and running around the play yard, push each other around on the toys and exploring the music wall! 

We enjoyed a visit from Prairie Wildlife this month and we got to see lots of cool reptiles!   

Toddle Bots - August Update

This last month of summer has sure been eventful! The children surprised us with the amount of braveness and curiosity when we had the Prairie Exotic Visitor come to visit. They showed us bearded dragons, geckos, snakes, a tarantula, some frogs and a turtle. Most of the animals the children were able to touch (other than the tarantula and the frogs), and they even had the snakes wrapped around the children’s legs and laid out across their legs to touch and feel them. We got some pretty amazing pictures that I will share with you (keep an eye out in the room or for an email containing pictures of random things we did this summer).

We also did an outdoor challenge (only half the day as there was a bit of smoke) and the children seemed to really enjoy it. Everyone kept busy and some even napped outside.

 

The next day, we set up the gym with a huge cozy corner, a massive block building area, a table top area with a toy that promotes practicing counting/ numbers, colors, sorting/ matching and we had a doll house with cars and people. We had the parachute and the children made up some fun games and we had a face painting table/ art table. All of preschool enjoyed that space and it was something new and different since the smoke was so bad and we couldn’t do it outside.

We had an amazing time at Boonstra farm on the 23^rd of August. There were a variety of animals that the children got to see up close and even pet. The kitty cats were a huge hit!! Some of the children were nervous around the big birds like the turkey’s and the goose. The goose was just walking around where ever and it was pretty much the same height as some of our little Toddle Bots so I can see why it would have been scary. There was a tire swing which was in the shape of a tractor! The Toddle Bots loved that and they each got a turn to sit on it. We went on a hay ride which brought us to Bessy the cow. The toddle bots didn’t pet the cow as much as the other preschool children but they got to see her and we talked about how Bessy had a baby in her tummy and that she makes the milk that we drink.

Finally, we had a water day to end the month off with a splash! This water day experience was different than the rest because the carrots were being picked from the garden and the children were bringing them to get washed by the hose water and then they ate them! There was a slip and slide section on the hill, and a water table area to play in.

 
The children also had this amazingly delicious treat that older floor made for the preschoolers. It was crushed white oreo’s with a thick layer of pudding and topped with some gummy fish on the top. The Toddle Bots were shaking with excitement!

The Little's - August Update

It has been an amazing summer! The kids had so much fun on the field trips and getting to learn new and exciting things. We also loved hearing from each child the special things that they did when they had time off from daycare J This August, the children had a lot of visitors and they really enjoyed all the special people that came.

 

On August 9, we got a visit from the Wild Life Rehab. They came in and we got to meet 2 very special owls that they are caring for at their facility! The children loved looking at the owls and they asked lots of questions – a questions that was asked often was, “Can we pet them?”  We also had another visitor come from Prairie Exotic! They came and showed us snakes, geckos, spiders, frogs, and even a bearded dragon! The children were so excited to see all the animals and lots of them were brave enough to pet some of them!

 

On August 10th, we did a ‘Pay It Forward’ challenge! The children had a lot of fun coloring pictures for people around town. We made a special picture for different people and we asked the kids what they liked most about those people and wrote the answers on their pictures. The kids loved handing out their beautiful pictures and seeing people smile!

 

To finish off our summer we did a final field trip to Boonstra Farms in Stonewall. We had tons of fun just getting to the farm because the children were all excited to be on a bus and seeing all the construction workers who waved at us. Once we got to the farm, we went straight to the petting zoo where we got to play with the goats, see giant turkeys and waddle like ducks in a line. There was also some sheep, kittens and bunnies but they did not really did not want any of our love. After the petting zoo, we got to go on a hay ride to see all the big animals. In the big barn we met Bessie, she is a dairy cow. Everyone got a chance to either pet her or try milking her. After we said bye to Bessie we went outside to see the two horses, a donkey and a fluffy llama. Everyone got a turn to feed to horse’s oats from their hands. Once the horses had had enough to eat it was our turn for a hot dog lunch. Once everyone was finished eating the big kids went off to the corn maze while the little ones went back to our favorite part of the trip, the petting zoo.  What a fun day!

Older Floor - August Update

Well August has come to an end. School is starting, we’ve said “see you soon” to our friends moving up to kindergarten and “welcome” to our new friends joining Older Floor.  We have had such a fun filled month in August.  We hope your children have enjoyed all our activities as much as we have. 

The first week in August we did a pay it forward community challenge.  We brainstormed with the kids on what we should do for our community.  They came up with so many amazing ideas, from baking cookies for the fire hall, to leaving notes/pictures at people’s homes, to what we finally settled on which was painting rocks and hiding them around town.  It was so much fun to see what the children created.  Once our rocks dried we went on a walk around town and each child hid their rock in a different area of town.  If you’re ever out for a walk around Sanford see if you can find out beautiful rocks! 

Our next week was a short one but full of fun! We had pyjama day, thank you so much for all who participated!  The Prairie Wildlife Rehabilitation Centre came to visit. Simone talked to us all about different types of animals found in the prairies and she also brought two owls for us to see.  One owl was born in captivity so they wouldn’t be able to release him into the wild and the other seriously injured her wing and wouldn’t be able to be returned to the wild.  The kids were so excited! They had so many great questions, when Simone said the Burrowing Owl was going extinct, one of the kiddos asked her “what is making them go extinct?”  Simone explained that it was very hard for the Burrowing Owl to find old animal burrows in the ground.  Simone explained owls don’t really chew their food they just swallow it.  To which one of the children asked “if they don’t chew their food what happens to the food.”  Simone explained that owls have two stomachs, and the food parts go into one stomach and the not food parts (bones and fur) go into the other stomach and come out as pellets.  It was so cool when Simone showed us some of the pellets they had bones and one was even big enough we could see a mouse skull.  This week we also learnt about different careers, we went around the circle and asked each child what their parents do for work.  It was fun to hear what the kids said their parents do, our kids parents jobs range from, “farmers, to insurance people, to carpet or car sellers and personal trainers”.  They were all so knowledgeable on their parent’s jobs.   

Wow, only half way through the month! This week was about outdoor safety.  We talked about all the different signs we see outside and what they mean and how they help keep us safe.  One of our friends said “stop signs tell us to stop, so we don’t get hurt.”  We even talked about signs that something isn’t safe without having a sign telling us it’s not safe.  One student said “if a tree has no leaves in the summer it probably isn’t safe to climb, because it might be rotten and break.”  Prairie exotic came to visit, that was so cool! We got to see frogs, snakes, turtles, fat tailed lizards, bearded dragons, and more!  We have talked in the past about dragons in stories or the one on Paw Patrol, but those are just pretend. Our friends thought it was so cool to see a real life dragon, because “they aren’t as big as I thought they’d be or as scary.”  We went for a walk to the Rec Centre, on the way we did silly follow the leader walking we took turns hopping, skipping, model walking and creating our own silly walks.  Car Town came for a visit, we learnt about road safety and we all got our licenses!  We planned on staying out all day on Thursday and Friday this week, but it was too smoky on Thursday so we came in half way through the day and on Friday instead of having our outdoor challenge we had our in the gym challenge.  We  set up quiet areas in the gym, art areas, large motor areas, block areas and doll house area.  We played games, like parachute and races.  What a fun day, but sadly we said good bye to teacher Andrea this week.  We will miss her, but will see her again.

Welcome back Amy, we missed you so much!  On Thursday we went to Boonstra Farms.  That was so much fun!  We split up into two groups, group A started at the play structure, petting zoo and train. While group b went on a tractor ride, milked a cow and fed some horses and a donkey.  It was really great to see the older kids in group a helping the kids from younger floor with field trip rules.  Plus great to see how well our friends in group B fit in with the school agers they were going to be joining soon.  We switched awhile later; Group B went to the petting zoo, play structure and train.  While group A took a tractor ride to the barn to milk the cow and feed the horses and donkey.  The kids thought the goats in the petting zoo were so funny! They were head butting each other and jumping high onto things.  Some of us were scared by a charging goose.  After that we went to the tent and had hot dogs, chips, juice boxes, apple sauce pouches and carrots for lunch.  Yummy!  It was so hot this day we had the choice of going through the corn maze but were worried it would be too hot for our youngest friends, so we re-sunscreened and then played on the play structure or went back into the petting zoo area.  We checked out their zero gravity room.  It was SO NEAT! It was a completely dark room, with black lights and something that spins around us while we walked straight through.  It felt like we were floating.  After we all had a turn there it was time to load the bus.  It was a nice cool bus ride back with all the windows open.  Lots of our friends fell asleep. 

In the last week we were transitioning children to new programs.  We had some of our older floor friends move over to the school age room and some of our younger floor friends move our older floor.  Wow, so much fun!  On Friday our teachers made a fun water day.  We had an obstacle course, fly swatter painting and water table fun.  The kids were timed and would switch areas when the timer was up. 

We hope you’ve heard many wonderful stories about all the fun stuff we do here every day!  We have so much fun planning theses activities for your children.  Thank you to all the parents who volunteered for the field trips over the summer and have donated craft supplies or books.  We appreciate it all so much!  Happy September! 

School-Age Room - August Update

Our second half of summer was very busy! We continued our Around The World project, "visiting" Egypt, Scotland, Australia, and India. The children were especially excited to have Jasvinder come to the room to tell them about India! She brought in traditional clothing and jewelry, talked about the languages and holidays, and did henna tattoos!
Jordy organized a really fun day of challenges inspired by the show Survivor, and despite it being a little chilly out the children were excited to complete challenges like scavenger hunts, balancing on one foot, and making tribal necklaces. We finished the day with a delicious snack of "worms and dirt"!
Another highlight was our field trip to Boonstra Farms where we got to milk a cow, feed horses, and navigate our way through a corn maze! The bus ride back was a good opportunity to rest after all the fun.
Back at the Centre we have been enjoying as much sunshine and fresh air as possible before cooler weather sets in. We have been lucky to have several frogs, grass hoppers, and butterflies make their home in the school field and the children have learned a lot about these creatures and how to respect them by watching and catching/releasing.
We were sad to say goodbye to Steph, Jordy, and some of our peers after such a wonderful summer, but we are excited to welcome the new kindergarten group to the room.

The Little's - July Update

What an amazing start to summer we had in the Littles group! Our days were packed full of fun and playing outdoors that the month just seemed to fly by. Here are a few things we liked best about or busy days.

On Friday July 20 we had an outdoor challenge in which we spent the whole day outside. It did not start off supper warm and dry but by the end of the day it was beautiful out. We did a lot of fun activities outside like making a mural, races, face paint and building forts. At nap time as a treat we all had a sleepover in the gym!

Another great morning was when Mr. Ken came to visit us and did a lot of really cool magic tricks. If you ask the kids what he showed us they would all just tell you about his bunny named Mr. Harry Hoppdeani that they all got to pet.

The busiest day of the month was definitely our trip to Assiniboine Nature Play ground and Park. We spent all day at the park exploring. In the morning we played on the play ground, the giant hill and the sand river were our favorites. After our picnic lunch we decided to explore the rest of the park. We found a duck pond with lots of baby ducks and watched as, what the children are convinced was a horse but really just a large dog, swam in the fountain. We then made our way to the English Garden to see all the beautiful flowers. As we were exploring that area we found a forest and took turns guessing what lived in the forest. Lots of guesses were bears or lions. We were very careful as we walked in and the first thing we saw was a giant statue of a bear! Then after all the excitement of finding bears in the forest we went back to the nature playground and had a popsicle while we waited for the bus to take us back to daycare and give us a much needed nap.

The last super exciting thing we got to do in July was walk over to the RM of MacDonald’s fire hall and see all the firefighters and their equipment. When we first got to the fire hall Roberta volunteered to dress up like a fire fighter to show us what gear they have to wear to protect them. They also showed us the big tools they use to open car doors and the giant scissors to cut big things. We also got to spray the big hose and sit in the front of the fire truck and pretend to drive the trucks.

Infant Room - July Update

July came and went in the blink of an eye!  We can't believe how quickly it flew but we can only think that it is because of all the fun we had!  We said goodbye to Hayden at the end of July and welcomed Paisley into our room.

We had so many special days this month and lots of fun activities!  We spent some of our picnic lunches at the Rec Center and the others in our play yard.  The kids enjoyed the extra time outdoors!

We did a variety of activities and experiences for the kids on our water days.  We had a sprinkler one day, pom pom ice cubes another day and then we also set up a little car wash another day where the kids were given water and sponges to wash their little toy cars!

We had a jello dig one day, where the kids used spoons to dig for little farm animals.  It was so messy but soooo much fun!

"Mr. Ken Magic" came and visited us and put on an awesome magic show.  I think the highlight for the infant room kids was petting the bunny at the end!

Lastly, we went on a field trip to the fire hall in Sanford.  We watched our teacher get all dressed up in the fire fighter gear and we followed her while she crawled around to find someone in a pretend fire.  We also sat in the big fire truck and got an opportunity to feel the hose and help spray it. 

We are looking forward to another month full of fun!

Toddle Bots - July Blog

Oh my goodness! The field trip was a big hit! The Toddle Bots could hardly contain their excitement to get on the bus and they all sat in the front and had their own seat belts on. It was pretty cute! We took a ton of photos and I had to pick and choose which ones to put on our documentation panel (which is located by the Toddle Bots lockers). Luckily this field trip was flexible enough that we could still fit in a quick rest time/ nap time for those who needed it (and some of them definitely needed it!) It will be interesting to see how the farm field trip will go in August (we can’t wait)! 

Every Tuesday since July has started, we have been having off-site picnic lunches! We normally walk to the Rec Center, play there for a bit then eat our lunch and make our way back. We also have been having some of our snacks on the picnic tables outside in the morning which we have noticed gives us WAY more time to play outside when it’s nice out and not really hot like the afternoon often is. Sometimes if it too hot, or on days we have been outside for the whole morning and lunch, we will take a break and head to the gym which the Toddle Bots always seem to enjoy going to.

Outside, we have been into making forts and lately making up random stories. One that they seem to enjoy is about a witch who needs to find children to put in the dinner menu and the element of surprise when I pick out someone’s name seems to excite them a lot! They are always asking for me to sing the Itsy Bitsy Spider song and yelling out “BOO” at random times during the song. It’s like they enjoy being startled! Also, they have been quite imaginative lately with talking about the witch and the dragon!

I cannot even contain my excitement about how our outdoor challenge went! We had an amazing day building forts outside, having an art wall mural area set up, and face painting of course! Also, who can forget that we had a nap in the gym! We set up 3 lamps in the really dark gym and they were all so excited to sleep in there! It was really cozy and exciting all at once! We can’t wait to do it again!!

The last week of July we also went to the Fire Hall and visited them there! The fire hall is always a big hit!!

 

Toddle Bots - June Update

Wow it’s been a busy start to the summer so far! We had a water day back in the beginning of June and stay tuned as I will be posting all of our water pictures in the room somewhere for you to look at once we have a few more water days under our belt! We may have to put them up back in the Toddle Bots area as there is more wall space there, so keep checking and feel free to go back there ever when the barrier is closed (we keep it closed so we don’t mix the toys between both areas so just make sure you close it back up when you’re done).

We had a show and share and it was really funny to watch the children each take a turn and say what they wanted to say about their toy. They seemed to enjoy sitting up on the chair as everyone else was on the carpet and they had the time without anyone else talking as well (some of them got a little shy).

 In June, Fit Kids, Healthy Kids ended their 8^th session with us. The Toddle Bots and Littles always got excited when it was their turn to go and they all did so good with listening to Larah! In case you missed the Fit Kids, Healthy Kids timeline documentation, I will be putting it in a binder and placing it in the room and that’s where ALL of our documentation panels will go once they come down from the walls...just in case you want to look back at them. It will kind of be like a documentation memory binder! J I will make a note on the white board by the door of where you can find it once I put it together (it may not be for a few weeks still).

Toddle Bots and Littles had so much fun with our fruit salad day! Our group may not have cut the fruit, but we did go in depth of each fruit and how it tasted (sweet/ bitter), how it looked (shape and sizes) and some of the children even got to try new fruit! Once we got to eat our fruit salad for snack, it was all the children could talk about for a while! We even made SO much, that we used it in our fruit smoothies for the week following.

We had music with Sheryl and once again she captured their attention the entire time! She is amazing at what she does and they really enjoy her coming to the daycare!

Older Floor - July Update

August already! Wow I cannot believe our summer is half over!  This month has been super busy.  We got to know our new teacher Andrea better and welcomed De to our group!  They are wonderful additions and have really fit in so perfectly with our groups.  We also said “see you soon” to Haley, it was an emotional day for everyone.  We will miss Haley immensely she has been with the centre for almost 1 ½ years.  As I’m sure most of you know Haley loved working with the kids, they were always her first priority.  The kids said they will miss Haley’s jokes, snuggles and smile.  Good luck Haley with your future endeavours, we know you’ll do amazing.  We’ve had lots of fun events, PJ day, Canada Day activities, water days, field trips and so much more.

               For our field trip we went to Assiniboine Park.  We split in to two groups the Rainbow Tigers and the Cheetahs.  The Cheetahs started at the Nature Playground and had such a fun time.  They played on the slide, climbed the spider web and played in the sand area.  The Rainbow Tigers started at the duck pond and the Leo Mole Sculpture Garden.  It was amazing to see the deep thoughts the children had about the flowers and sculptures they saw.  We found a witches house, or so we thought, the Assiniboine Park keeper came and told us that it’s actually much less interesting.  The hut is where they store their garden and park tools.  We actually lost track of time in the gardens because we were enjoying ourselves so much.  After that we had to run back to the meeting area and meet up with the Cheetahs and other groups for lunch.  I could go on and on about all we did at the park, if you want to hear more about our field trip, check out our document logs on the wall outside the office.

               Mr. Ken the Magician came and wow was he ever funny!  We all got to be involved, Diana even got to join him at the front and help with a magic trick!  She even got to keep part of the trick after.  Our coordinator was visiting that day and Mr. Ken brought her up to participate too, the teachers all had a good laugh about that! 

               Thank you so much for all who participated in crazy hair day and it was crazy!  Our outdoor challenge day was a huge success!  For those of you who saw Andrea and Brittany at the end of the day I can bet you could all see just how much fun the children had getting to “face paint” the two of them.  We have had many water days. Last week we had a teacher verses kid crochet water balloon fight, the teachers like to believe they won but the kids definitely did.  One of our families brought their pup, Nala for a visit.  Nala was amazing with the kids; our kids had many great questions about Nala.  Thank you so much to Nala and her family for bringing her in.  Our garden outside has been growing so much we have tried a few of the vegetables that we have grown. 

               We visited the MacDonald Fire Hall this week.  It was SO COOL!!!!!  Mr. Siemens talked to us about all the gear the firefighters have to wear.  Thank you to Kaitlyn for volunteering to wear all the fire gear.  It looked very hot and heavy.  We got to crawl around the lunch room of the fire hall in the dark to practice what the firefighters do.  While we were there they got a real call they had to run off too.  Luckily it wasn’t far away and everything was all good!  When they came back and we got to watch Macaulay use the jaws of life to cut a 2 x 2 piece of wood.  Kerri even got to give it a try!  We got to spray the fire hose at a Santa statue and knock him over. 

               Such a busy fun filled month, we were so lucky to have such amazing weather.  Stay tuned for what is in store for August. 

School Age Room - July Update

Wow, it is hard to believe that it is already the end of July and summer is half over!

The first month of summer break has been a whirlwind of fun in the school age room. We are very lucky to have Stephanie and Jordy working in the room for the summer and they are full of fresh and exciting ideas! We have had so much fun making this a great summer for the children in the school age program.

We have been keeping the children busy with a variety of activities to support their learning and development and, most importantly, to make sure they have plenty opportunities to have fun! Some of the most loved activities have been our STEAM challenges that included loose part creations, building zip-lines, and chemistry experiments! Science seems to be an area of interest with this group. The children have also expressed their love for outdoor play and physical activity, so we have planned several activities supporting these interests including a super hero training boot camp, various team sports like kick-ball, and our field day that was held on July 20^th. There is now a poster with some documentation up in the room if you are interested in learning more about this event, which one of the children described as “literally the best day of (their) life!”

You may have noticed our large bulletin board filling up; this is due to our on-going Around the World project! Each child has made their own passport and once a week we “travel” to a new and exciting destination. The children have an opportunity to take part in activities involving food, art, or cultural customs of each destination before getting a stamp in their passport! So far we have explored Brazil, Japan, Mexico, and Italy! Please check out the board to find out what we have learned and made on our journey!

Some other fun events that have occurred was our field trip to Assiniboine Park (also documented in the room!) and a magic show by the ever-popular Mr. Ken, which many of the children and staff in our program had a chance to participate in as assistants!

Infant Room - June Update

This month we said goodbye to Keaton and we welcomed Henri to the Infant Program.  We had a visit from Cheryl who sangs songs and played musical instruments.  The children really enjoyed shaking the shakers to the beat of the music!

We have had a great time playing outside and the weather has been really hot!  We have spent a lot of time playing in the sandbox making cookies, pies and soup.  We have a teepee that we like running in and out of, too and playing peek-a-boo with our friends.  We also have been playing with our loose parts area.  The children LOVE playing with the sticks because they can fit them threw the fence, the slates in the picnic table and water bottles! 

We are looking forward to summer and all the fun activities we will be doing!

Older Floor - June Update

Wow, June is over and summer break is here!  The children have had a wonderfully busy month.  Our Kinderstart friends have graduated Kinderstart and are excited to move to the school age room and kindergarten in the fall.  We said good bye to some friends who will be missed.  We had many dance parties, we did lots of yoga and meditation.  We are so grateful for the amazing weather we’ve been having.

In the beginning of June we talked a lot about emotions.  We did emotion BINGO, an emotion was called out and the children had to identify the emotion on their BINGO cards.  We drew faces about how we were feeling another day, lots of happy/excited faces that day!  At the end of that week we had show and share.  It was wonderful to see what they brought in and hear all about what made it special to them.  We had a special visitor come in. One of younger floors fathers is a police officer.  He came in to talk to us all about being a police officer.  The children had great questions, “do you ever get hurt?” “How many bad guys have you caught.”  After explaining that police, fire fighters and paramedics all work together.  One of the kiddo’s exclaimed “my daddy can do everything like that too!”

The next week was the week before Father’s Day.  We talked all about families.  We learnt that all families are different.  The children were so understanding, thoughtful and interested to learn about their classmates families.  We worked on our Father’s Day gifts.  It was so fun to hear all the children’s answers when we were making the cards.  One of the questions was about what makes your daddy happy.  They all had amazing answers, some were.  “I make my daddy happy.” “My mommy makes my daddy happy.”  We all hope you enjoyed your gifts, the children were so proud of all the hard work they put into making them!  We ended the week with hat day, we saw some really fun hats, a hat crab even came to visit!

Last week Sheryl came out and sang with us.  She really gets us up and moving with fun new action songs!  We had our last Fit Kid’s, Healthy Kid’s class.  We are sad it ended but we all learnt so many fun new games to continue to play together.  We went on a nature colour scavenger hunt.  The children each got a bag with a list of colours to find on the outside of the bag.  We walked all around town to find the colours we needed to finish the scavenger hunt.  When we started we made predictions about the colours that would be the hardest to find.  We guessed pink and purple would be the hardest to find.  As it turns out pink and purple were some of the easiest ones to find, orange, grey and blue were pretty hard to find.  One of the kids pointed out that they could see the blue sky, but they couldn’t fit it in their bag.  We saw a robin which had an orange chest but we couldn’t fit it into our bag because it flew away.  When we came back to our room, we emptied our bags and made a poster with all the colours we found.  The children had amazing observations about everything they learnt on our walk.  Like green was the easiest to find, it’s everywhere.  Another child shared that robin’s eggs are very small and blue.  One child pointed out that they saw lots of things that aren’t naturally occurring in the colours we needed but it was a nature walk not a people made walk.  They came up with an idea for another day to go on another walk and find stuff people made in the colours we looked for this day.  We ended this week by making a huge bowl of fruit salad.  Thank you so much for bringing in some of your children’s favourite fruits!  The children each got a smaller plastic knife and helped cut up some of the fruit for the salad. 

This week has been all about summer and Canada, we made hand print Canadian flags and fireworks. We talked about where we live.  We will be painting rocks and hiding them around town, keeps your eyes open for where we hide them. 

Just a reminder we go outside every day but with the heat and UV in the afternoons we may not be able to make it outside and if we do it will be for a shorter period of time.  Please don’t forget your children’s water bottles, sunscreen and bug spray (if you’re not using daycares), sun hats, indoor and outdoor shoes and now that we will be having water days, a towel and bathing suit.  We hope you’ve been enjoying seeing the children’s art works around the room and some of the room changes and toy changes we’ve been making.  Lets get July started!  Happy Canada Day!   

School Age - June Update

Our school age group has had a very creative month with fuse beads! They have moved past basic shapes and into beautiful patterns, animals and even game boards with game pieces (tic tac toe). Outside, the children have organized their own version of American Ninja Warrior style challenges. For example; going across the monkey bars and skipping every other bar and balancing as they walk along the border of the playground. They are competitive but also very supportive of each other and are often heard encouraging each other. Even though it’s an individual activity, they have really shown the spirit of team work.
We have also had the opportunity to observe some tadpoles this month (thanks Sheena!) We posted the life cycle of a Frog in the science area for the children to compare the tad poles to, and they were very excited when some of them began to grow legs. What a great month it has been, we are very excited to see what our summer programming will bring us!! J

Kinders - June Update

This kindergarten group really enjoys dramatic play! We were setting up an office themed play space for them but this quickly evolved into a hair salon/barber shop. They often will request the staff that come in the room to sit down and have their 'hair done; washed, cut and styled.' What great use of their imaginations!
Their creative building has also caught our attention, as it is so complex and creative; sometimes it is a fort with multiple rooms, a parkade with a ramp system, or a miniature model of the school. They take pride in their work and often save it and come back multiple times a day to add or make changes to their projects. They have been enjoying the community walks and have begun to notice things like bird sounds and changes in familiar gardens. Zoey shared with us that they planted a new tree in their front yard so as we walk by, the children always check and discuss it's growth.
At the end of June, the children went on a nature/collecting walk. They ventured out around the community and each found different nature items to bring them back to the center and as a group we discussed their findings.

FUNDrive Profits

We are happy to share that we made just over $350.00 on our FUNDrive Fundraiser with Value Village. We would like to send a HUGE thank you out to our volunteers: Roxanne, Vern, Lori, Scott, Larry, and Laurette!! We would also like to thank our families and the community for all the donations!

FUNdrive

Do you have items sitting around at home that you have no use for and are willing to part with? Do you want to support a local not-for-profit organization? Well, do we have th fundraiser for you!! J.A. Cuddy Child Care Centre is doing a FUNdrive fundraiser with Value Village. We want what you don't! If you have the followinf items you'd like to donate, we'd gladly accept:

-clothing
-shoes
-bedding/towels...
-accessories
-CDs/DVDs
-Books
-Electrical Items
-Toys & games
-Kitchen items
-Knick-Knacks
-Sporting goods

Drop off at the centre at 5 Main Street in Sanford, MB from 7:00am-5:30 pm Monday-Friday, olr email jacuddy@mymts.net to arrange a drop off at a storage site in town. For more information, check out our FUNdrive website:

https://fundrive.savers.com/e/fundrivewewantwhatyoudont            

Drop off anytime from now until June 25th, 2018!                                                                                                                                                       

Infant Room - May blog

This month we were able to get outside a lot more because the weather has been so beautiful!  We have enjoyed a few picnic lunches - they were lots of fun!  There is so much to explore outside.  They love watching the tractors and big trucks pass by.  Last week, we watched a construction crew right out side our play yard.  They were digging out the new sidewalk so we were able to see a little tractor in action.  So cool! 

We did a few water activities with the children this month to keep them busy.  We filled bowls with a little bit of water and gave them a sponge to clean the table inside; they had so much fun cleaning the table together.  Such great teamwork!  Outside, Sherry built little water runs out of plastic bottles and cubes for them to play with.  They love putting the sticks through the hole in the middle of the picnic table and then picking them up off the ground and doing it over again and again! 

We have a jar filled with tadpoles in the room for the children to look at and they are all very intrigued by them.  We are hoping that they will eventually turn into frogs and we can let them for free, back into their natural environment. 

The kids seem to really enjoy running and climbing on things; such as the table and bookshelf so the kids love it when we bring the mat with big climbing blocks and tunnels  for them to climb all over and crawl through.  They also enjoy when we bring out the little tents and attach them with the tunnels.  They have so much fun following each other from one end to the other!  Recently we created a little ball pit in the big tent we have, and this was a total hit with all the kids.  Hopefully, we can construct our own permanent ball pit in the near future!

Toddle Bots - May blog

The month of May seemed to have flown by, starting the month off with the occupations theme. We seized every teachable moment to expand the children’s knowledge about different kinds of occupations. One day, we saw a helicopter flying in circles above the daycare and surrounding neighborhood. They were very interested in it and we talked about how the person who flies the helicopter was called a pilot. We talked about fire fighters when we had our fire drills and just recently, we had a parent volunteer his time (as well as his partner’s time) to show the children what their day consists of while being a police officer. The children really showed their excitement when the lights were flashing and they held their ears as the sirens went off but had many children smiling from ear to ear!!

 We can’t forget about how excited the children were to make their wonderful, beautiful mothers a present for Mother’s Day! They took such pride and each group learned several different learning outcomes, such as color mixing, the smell of ingredients coming together, what is for eating and what should not be ingested, how gentle we need to be with handling glass verses other materials and so much more J. We even spoke about how each family looks different with factors of having siblings or not, the age of the family and extended family. Each family is unique and different in their own way and are incredibly important.

 We touched a bit on construction/ invention as the children created whatever they desired using loose parts and several items without having a clear end product. Lastly, we had the gardening theme which for the Toddle Bots, we have yet to successfully grow anything. We attempted twice but can’t seem to get past the small little sprouts that end up shriveling up. Luckily, this past Friday, some of the children got to take part in planting the flowers, herbs, vegetables and fruit in our garden beds. The children will primarily maintain the plants as we observe and provide guidance! We can’t wait to share with you all of the pictures and documentation of how they did/ how they will care for these plants.

We have an exciting month coming up and will be spending plenty of time outside! We can’t wait to share with you how much fun the children will have for our water days, June 19th and 27th!

Reminder: We are still looking for donations of socks, also if anyone has any baking sheets, cooling racks, whisks, metal or plastic bowls, or basically anything that will make a sound if we bang it with a stick or spoon for our outdoor music wall, please let us know!

 

Kinder and School Age - May blog

In the mornings, the children have been quite interested in playing board games.  Monopoly, Memory, Guess Who, Yahtzee and Honey Bee, are often played by groups of children at one time.  It has been great watching the younger ones learn from the older ones.  It's such a great opportunity for all ages to come together and connect with one another. 

Hockey play offs have been a hot topic in the school age room with all ages. Thankfully Jana purchased some soft balls for the children to be using and they have been enjoying using them during outdoor play time. They have even been making fan signs and banners in the art center.  It sure was exciting for everyone with the Jets in the playoffs! 

Heather has noticed at the end of the day the children have been discussing the ever changing weather as the summer is approaching. The older children are eager to share their weather knowledge with their younger peers.  They have been talking about the clouds and explaining to each other what is happening when the clouds fill with water and it rains or snows.  It's so nice to observe these conversations and for children to share their knowledge and  "teach" a friend!    

The kinders were very excited about the sidewalk construction that happened in front of the center this month. They spent a lot of time watching and discussing the process and were particularly excited about the cement mixers! They filled a plastic jar with water and corn starch and took turns turning it, to keep the mixture from hardening - just like the cement trucks! They have also taken a lot of initiative helping with daily tasks like watering plants and even brining mail to the post office on our walks.  

One more month of school and then it's summer vacation!  We can't wait to have fun with all of the school agers over summer!!