Newsletter
Banting & Best Childcare Centre
March /2012
Centre Update
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This Year started off very exciting and colourful with the Chinese New Year
Celebration. The staff had a lot of sharing and participation from parents. The
Celebrations continued with Valentines Day and Family Day.
Atiya, Ellen,Magda, Ruby, Jolentha and Ann-Shu will be attending an All
Day Conference on Saturday March 3/12. Thank You to all staff for taking
family time on a Saturday to attend this Conference. Atiya will also attend
ELECT workshop on March 28/12.
Can you believe we are already planning March Break Activities? Both the
Public School and Catholic School will be closed from March 12-16/12. The
Nursery Program will also be closed for March Break.
There are School-Age spaces available for March Break.
Welcome
Toni, Christopher, Michael & Kaden
Happy Birthday
Vicky, Ryan, Charston, Jissel, Avi, Alexia, Ellison, Victor
Good Bye
Sammi, Winnie, Kelvin, Sunny, Clerese & Fiona
SR R OOM: ( By Ellen)
In January we continued to explore different cultural celebrations. The children were
excited about the Chinese New Year celebrations. We visited the plaza and the supermarket
to explore the different decorations and treats that are used during Chinese New Year. The
children enjoyed visiting the plaza the most, on the day of Chinese New Year. They got to
see a live Lion Dance performance and experience the music and the God of Fortune handing
out Lai See (lucky red pockets). To end off the celebration we had a Chinese New Year
Party. The children got to try different treats that are available during Chinese New Year.
Another topic the children were interested in was the World of Snow. They explored
snow in different activities. We talked about how snow is made and where it comes from.
They really enjoyed making their own slushies. We did a fun experiment about how
temperature change can affect snow. The children enjoyed exploring the snow indoors and
outdoors. It was a lot of hard work making snowmen outside on our playground, but the
children enjoyed the process of rolling small snowballs and transforming it into a larger ball
and putting them all together to create our classroom snowman. They then got very curious
about the different animals that lived in snowy areas of the world. We looked at penguins,
polar bears, wolves, seals, and walrus. They researched about what each animal ate, which
animals ate them, where they can be found, and their characteristics, how they grow, and
how they survive in the cold weather.
The children continued their interest in animals and the topic was expanded into Zoo
Animals. We will be focusing on the different Zoo Animals and learning how they differ
from pets, where and how they live in the world, how they grow and what they eat.
I would like to thank all the parents that brought treats and those who joined us for
our Family Day Party on February 24th. The children really enjoyed the treats and meeting
and interacting with their parents and their friend’s family in their classroom. Thank you for
making another Family Day Party a success!
JUNIOR ROOM:
ROOM (by Atiya &Jolentha
&Jolentha)
Jolentha)
The month of January was party time for us,we celebrated quite a few birthdays in the
Junior room. The children learned about party and celebrations. This was also an opportunity
for the children to show interest towards music which lead to the Chinese New Year
Celebration. The cultural aspect of the Chinese culture was displayed through the fan dance,
lion dance and much more. These unique cultural experiences such as music, food, and
books were enjoyed very much by the children. For instance: we cooked noodles with the
children’s help and further explored using chopsticks. They also experienced and explored
incense, Chinese fans, Chinese ceramic and Laisee (red money envelope).
February started with Groundhog’s day crafts and celebrations. The children enjoyed
listening to Groundhog’s day stories with the Groundhog puppet. As Groundhog Day
brought us more snow and wet weather, we had the opportunity to enjoy these snowy days.
Children engaged in many winter activities such as tobogganing and building snowmen.
Apart from these winter activities children also made rainbows in the snow. For pretend tasty
treats snow cones were made in the snow of course!!
As February continued, our children got interested in Transportation. The children
enjoyed this topic and demonstrated this by making road maps, wheel paintings, sorting,
counting and grouping different cars together. In the upcoming weeks we will explore
different means of transportation and road safety rules. The Staff would like to thank all the
parents for their co-operation in providing adequate outdoor clothing which really helped
children to enjoy and participate in the outdoor program.
We have two community college students conducting their field placement here at
Banting and Best Child Care Centre. Margarita is from Seneca College (Wednesday) and
Laila is from Centennial College (Thursday/Friday).
SCHOOL-AGE
SCHOOL AGE PROGRAM (By Milly
Milly & Manouri)
Manouri)
During the month of January the School age program celebrated Chinese New Year
by making variety of crafts and exploring lots of Chinese traditional food, clothes and
decorations. We also had show and tell activities, parents were invited to participate in our
Chinese New Year Party. At the end of the January, children engaged in learning about pets.
We started off with dogs, as pets. We made floppy dog ears and used Styrofoam balls to
make a model of dogs. We turned the house centre into a pet store selling pet foods. The
children also talked about animal shelters and vets who help animals in their everyday life.
We moved onto the topic of turtles. The children were interested in turtles when a
group of children brought in stuffed animals for show and tell. We decorated the room /board
to reflect a wet land. The children made turtles out of paper plates added different animals
that also live in the wet lands such as tadpoles, frogs, and birds.
The children asked questions about the fish in our portable. What kind of fish is
he/she? Is it a boy or a girl? How do you know? Our classroom fish was a beta that was blue
and it was a boy. We knew it was a boy because only male beta fish has the fancy fins. We
made rainbow fish and hung it onto our wetland marsh. The children further engaged with
clay, we started sculpting clay fish bowls, fishes, and fish bones.
Valentine was on that special day of February 14th. We decorated the room with
flowers and hearts, we strung heart shaped banners on the walls, made valentine cards and
sent them to friends and family. We had a Valentine’s Party, the children made fruit salad
and brought in some special treats to celebrate the occasion. Valentine day was also
kindness day, we shared good deeds with everyone.
At the beginning of March, the children got interested in Winter Sports, so that is the
Topic we will be exploring and researching. We will also do research on Easter, according to
the children’s interest.
NURSERY PROGRAM (By Milly and ANNANN-Shu)
In January & February, we celebrated the Chinese New Year by experiencing the
different skills. Although winter has arrived in Canada, we did not get much snow as we
usually do. That did not stop the children from experiencing snow in an indoors environment.
The nursery children cut out snowflakes and decorated the room with a wintery presence.
What is winter without snow, the children saw the miracle of snow appear indoors with our
special powder, “instant snow”. They got to explore Science with the fluffy white substance
and create a sensory of snow. The children were curious about why there were no animals
out in winter. That sparked the topic of winter animals. They found there are lots of animals
that live in the winter cold air up in the arctic and north/ South Pole. We made Penguins from
paper bags, tissue paper snow rabbits, Cottoned polar bears, walrus, and orca. The children
got excited and related more when we studied penguins, the movie Happy Feet 2 was out.
We also got to read the book Happy Feet 2.
Based on the children’s curiosity, we will focus on the Zoo Animals in the upcoming
weeks.
SATELLITE PROGRAM (By Ruby and Magda)
Late in December 2011 we had an ‘Appreciation Day of Mom
and Dad’ for the parents at P.O.P. The children served hot
chocolate, tea and lemon tea with special cookies made from
scratch for this occasion.
In January 2012 we celebrated the Chinese New Year.
We decorated the room with dragons and signs of Kung Hay
Fat Choy and Chinese lanterns. We made sushi which the
children enjoyed both making and eating with chopsticks.
We also went to the library to see the Dragon Dance with the
Banting and Best SA Group, it was a lot of fun. We started a Knitting Club which the
children had asked about and was joined later by more children. We invited a guest speaker,
Mrs. Xinofer Li, a parent of one of our children. She told us a story about Chinese culture
and tradition. The children listened with interest and at the end they asked questions. Two
weeks later Mrs. Li visited us again to show us how to cook ‘Sweet Sticky Rice’. Most of the
children loved that treat. Thank you, Mrs. Li for being a part of our Chinese New Year
Celebration.
January 27 was a PA Day for our two SA groups at P.O.P. and B & B. We went
tobogganing. It was a beautiful sunny day with SNOW!!! And the children had fun. On that
day the children also worked on a craft project. They made a toy box from cardboard
material which some painted and others decorated creatively. The box is useful for storing
toys and according the children is a good place to hide ‘secret things!’ We managed to
complete the day by making various origami patterns.
In February we celebrated Valentine Day. We made beaded heart-shaped basket with
two different colors. We also made carnation flower and a vase using a can and colorful
yarns. We baked heart shaped cookies to put in the basket. We listened to each other hearts
with our stethoscope.
We wish all our children and parents a safe and fun-filled March Break.