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!