Child Care February 2017 Newsletter

TOWN OF BEAUMONT EARLY LEARNING CHILD CARE SCHOOL AGE SITE NEWS INSIDE THIS ISSUE: Supervisors Update

1

Sunshine & Green

2

Rainbow & Gold Room

3

Kinder Room

4

Pictures

5

ELCC Snack Menu

6

SAS Update

7

SAS Snack Menu

8

Family Day Unplugged

9

Family Day Challenge

10

Workshop—Dr. Neufeld

11

Fee Schedule

12

Supervisor, ELCC Jodie Vesso 780-929-1263 jodie.vesso@ beaumont.ab.ca Sunshine, Green & Rainbow Rooms phone: 780-929-5913 Gold & Kinder room phone: 780-929-5914 Supervisor, School Age Site Christopher Kruk 780-929-2173 chris.kruk@ beaumont.ab.ca SAS Room Phone: 780-929-2190

2017 Closure Dates: February 20 April 14 and 17 May 22 July 3 August 7 September 4 October 9 November 13 December 25,26,27

ELCC Supervisor Update Another month has flown by!

We had an unannounced licensing visit on January 18th. Our licensing officer, Krista, was here for about three hours observing staff and ensuring that we are maintaining files, records and meeting all licensing standards and requirements. Everything went great and we received no noncompliances. Licensing reports are posted in each room. You can also check the status of a center by using the look up tool on the Government of Alberta website. http:// humanservices.alberta.ca/oldfusion/ChildCareLookup.cfm *Please remove wet or dirty footwear prior to entering the playrooms. We pride ourselves on maintaining a clean space for children to play and appreciate your cooperation. *Hours of Care: We have noticed an increase in the number of families are changing their hours of care without notification. Staff shifts are scheduled according to the hours of care agreement forms and it is important that families are following the hours mutually agreed upon consistently so that staff to child ratios are always being met. Should you occasionally need to drop your child off earlier or have them stay later than the times outlined on your form, please let myself or room staff know ahead of time so we can ensure accommodations are made. Room staff will be sending a copy home or texting you a picture of your child’s form as a reminder. *Sick policy: just a reminder that we do not accept any non-prescription medications at the center, including Advil, Tylenol and homeopathic remedies. If your child is sent home with a fever, vomiting, diarrhea etc. they must be symptom free for 24 hours prior to returning to the center, this is a licensing requirement. If this happens at home the evening or morning prior to daycare, please keep your child home. We recognize that this isn’t always easy but it is to protect all children in care and prevent the spread of illness which can happen quickly in a child care setting. *Thank you to those families that have brought in a flash drive/USB. If you have not done so, please bring one in this month so we can continue working on your child’s portfolio.

Hope you have a great month and enjoy some unplugged family time on Family Day!! Jodie

SAS Supervisor Update Since 2012 the program has been accredited and every 3 years, the program needs to undergo the process of re-accreditation. This year we will be seeking to receive re-accreditation status for 2018.

This big undertaking ensures that the program continues the benefits of receiving provincial grant funding and providing quality child care that exceeds provincial regulations. This table highlights the differences between being licensed and being accredited.

LICENSING

ACCREDITATION

Mandatory under regulation

Voluntary (by application)

Sets the regulated minimum standards

Sets standards of high quality

Purpose is to meet health, safety and developmental needs of children

Purpose is to achieve standards of excellence

Compliance required

Commitment required

Government regulated and monitored

Sector developed and supported

Recognizes compliance

Recognizes achievement

Just a reminder we will be closed on Family Day February 20 th 2017. Not too sure what to do on Family Day? Check out the new CCBCC! Treats, games, crafts outdoor and activities! (located by Bellevue School) Our program cell phone number is (780) 862-7803.

Our program room phone number is (780) 929-2190.

Thank, have a great month! Chris Kruk

Sunshine Room

Tendai—Early Childhood Program Coordinator Michelle—Early Childhood Program Assistant

This month in the sunshine room we have been focusing on how to take care of ourselves and others.

The children have become very aware of each other and have been helping each other do things like finding their shoes in the bucket after nap, rubbing a shoulder or back when someone is sad, bringing each other a toy to play, and helping to clean up a mess on the floor another friend may have made.

Earlier this month we spent some time pushing the baby dolls in strollers, giving them baths, brushing their teeth and washing their faces with cloths. We have been working really hard at trying to put shoes on and take them off ourselves as well. For a little while we had the beauty salon set up and the children practiced using brushes and combs on the mannequin’s hair. We have also been going grocery shopping and making meals for each other in the kitchen. Soon, we will introduce some items that would be familiar to them when they go to the doctor’s or dentist’s office as well as some other community helpers.

The children are very interested in Gross Motor activities and welcome the opportunity to challenge their own abilities. We have offered a variety of tools to help them with this such as balance beams, trampoline, tires and ramps, scooters, and the horseshoe climber. The biggest challenge outside recently has been walking through the deep snow.

Sensory in the sunshine room seems to be a day to day decision. Some days they enjoy getting messy and touching different textures and other days they are not as interested. Some of the things we have offered recently are goop, paint, soapy water, ice, playdough and snow.

Green Room

Laura—Early Childhood Program Coordinator Kristi—Early Childhood Program Assistant

This month we have continued to explore collections, but have noticed the children have moved in a different direction then before. We observed them collecting different items in bags, trucks, baskets and so much more, but now they are more focused on moving their collections throughout the room. Along with moving their collections we have also observed their need to move their bodies in many different ways. They are really into jumping right now, they take the large foam blocks off of our block shelf and line them up against the wall. Once they are all lined up them climb on top and begin to jump off. We've set up lots of jumping and climbing experiences in the Teen Centre for the children to explore during gross motor time.

We are so excited that it's warmed up he last little bit, but with all this warm weather our park has become very icy. We are so happy that the Sunshine room has allowed us to share their park with them, they have some really fun stuff that we can explore and climb. They have a great wooden climber in their park that we've be able to use. The climber has been a little more challenging, but the children figured it out in no time and have been spending lots of time climbing up and over it.

If we aren't in our park at the end of the day we will be hanging out in the Sunshine room Park.

Rainbow Room

Beth—Early Childhood Program Coordinator Lorena—Early Childhood Program Assistant Tammy—Early Childhood Program Assistant

We are all happy to have warmer weather for February; the children really missed their daily adventures outside. We have a new teacher in our room, Lorena started with in the Rainbow Room in the middle of January. She returned from maternity leave in November and has a son Austin in the Sunshine room. We did a lot of exploration with ice in January, the children enjoyed melting it, chipping it, painting on and with it, creating icy treats and locating it outside.

For February our interest will be around building and construction. We recently expanded our block corner to provide to room to support their big plans and ideas. Lego has also become a new interest in our room and the children have been designing many interesting creations.

Just a reminder that toy days in the Rainbow room are Tuesdays and Fridays, we have noticed that toys are coming on non-toy days and this can create stress for the children if they have to keep it in their cubby. Please note stuffed animals for naptime and books to share at group time are welcomed daily.

Thanks, Lorena, Tammy and Beth

Gold Room

Joanna—Early Childhood Program Coordinator Melissa—Early Childhood Program Assistant Jodi—Early Childhood Program Assistant

The first month of the New Year passed so quickly in our room. The children learned all the digits that represent the number 2017 and are able to recognize them. They are also able to sing all twelve months of the year. Our Gold Room family welcomed Wyatt, our new friend, who comes twice per week.

During the month of January, our interests shifted towards sports, mini booklets, printing, science and movie making.

Our dramatic area looked like Universal Studios, complete with spotlights, curtains, film clapperboards and a camera.

Adding some musical instruments, microphones and costumes gave children the opportunity to take the Gold Room Film Studio to the next level. Many singing, dancing as well as Oscar winning performances were captured, so please have a look at our hallway bulletin board display.

We noticed a tremendous interest towards science experiments which we expanded by creating ice tunnels, cleaning pennies, observing a wind powered vehicle in action, testing Humpty Dumpty's resistance while falling off the wall surrounded by many different materials, finding magnetic and non-magnetic objects, and finally observing walking water. Our children enriched their vocabulary with many scientific words like "prediction", "hypothesis", "observation", "conclusion", "tension", "eruption", "pressure" and many more. Please take the time to talk to your child about their learning observations on this matter.

The recent Kindergarten registration brought some questions regarding school readiness, so here are some tips on how to help your child get ready for their big step. Here are some simple ways to get ready for Kindergarten:  Help your child practice social skills by setting up play dates with friends.  Talk about what being a good friend looks like.  Be clear about what you expect will set your child up for success.

Date to remember: Skating day Friday, February 24th - 10:30am to 11:30am.

As always we are very thankful for parent volunteers!

Happy Birthday to Avry, Leo and Kyron!

Kinder Room

Amy—Early Childhood Program Coordinator Stephanie—Early Childhood Program Assistant Lyndsey—Enhanced Ratio Support

January was sure a busy month in the Kinder Room! We began with weather that was too cold to go outside, to building snowmen in spring-like conditions!! This made for a lot of fun rolling the giant snowballs as big as we could, followed by finding different ways we could use our bodies to smash them apart! This interest followed us inside as we continued building things to crash our table top wrecking ball into! A lot of problem solving was involved here as we had to figure out how to build our structures in such a way that they would be big enough, yet built in a way they could get the wrecking ball to smash it apart in one try!

The children have also begun to show a big interest in collaborative projects, this began with our string art mural on the wall. Everyone has been very excited to add their contribution, and we can't wait to see how it looks once it is all complete!! We also began building a 500 piece puzzle, which has been quite a challenge. They are working on it in small groups at a time, and are eager to see the finished product!

Just a reminder to please bring in a USB drive so we can work on and complete your child's portfolio!

ELCC SNACK MENU— February 2017 Monday

Tuesday

Wednesday

Thursday

Friday

1

6

Eggo waffles with syrup & orange slices

Apple slices with yogurt

Cucumber slices with cheese and crackers

Pea butter & jam sandwiches

8

7

Fruit cocktail & mini caramel rice cakes

Banana bites with pea butter & jam

Tuna melts on ritz crackers

Trail Mix

Yogurt & granola

20

3 LEFT OVER FRIDAY

9 Mandarin oranges with bagels & jam

10 LEFT OVER FRIDAY

Red peppers with melted cheese & salsa, crackers

13 14 15 Mini rice cakes Yogurt with frozen Peaches with Teddy with apple slices berries grahams & cinnamon Fresh fruit salad & fig newtons

2

Hard boiled eggs & Triscuits with cream toast cheese and sliced tomato 21 Rice Krispies with berries Pasta with Alfredo sauce & Parmesan cheese

27 Scrambled eggs & tomatoes

Cheerios with banana slices

Cucumber salad with Italian dressing & crackers

English muffin mini pizza with ham & cheese

Rice with vegetables & soy sauce 16 Shreddies with strawberries LEFT OVER FRIDAY Pita with hummus & peppers

22 23 Yogurt with bran Pea butter, tortilla buds & banana wraps Nacho chips with hummus & tomatoes

17

Cereal bars with sliced pears

24 LEFT OVER FRIDAY Birthday snack— PM

28 *All snacks and lunch are served with milk and water

SCHOOL AGE SITE

Supervisor, Chris Kruk Program Coordinator, Shirley Webster Program Assistant, Karissa George Program Assistant, Jamie Scott Program Assistant, Ingrid Holtz Program Support, Karen Hanchurak & Ariunaa Tsend

We have seen a mixture of weather this January. It has been, cold, really cold and then warm and foggy. It is hard to dress for this weather but we ask that the children have snow pants, mitts, toques and boots here. When we go outside even if it is warm the children enjoy going sledding or playing in the snow. It may be warm outside, but it is also wet and we don’t want them to get cold from being wet and then being stuck in wet clothing once we come inside.

Sledding on our crazy carpets has become a huge amount of fun. Once the snow arrived they can really zip down the hill. They have designed a couple of bumps that they really fly over.

On our PD day in January we went to Allstar Indoor Playground. That kept us all very busy going through tunnels, slides and the zip line. If you haven’t already had a chance please check out the TV to see the pictures of the smiling faces.

The children have been eagerly awaiting the opening of our space room. Jamie and Karissa were very creative in designing it. It is really like being in outer space. Next time you are in to pick up your child take a look.

The book club winners for the month were Jade and Jessica. Congratulations girls. Everyone great job and keep up the good work.

We do have PD days on February 9th and 10th. We will be sending out an email shortly with the plans that we have for those days. Also remember that we are closed on February 20th for Family Day. Have a great month and if you have any questions or concerns please talk to any of the staff.

SAS Staff

Happy Birthday to Karissa on February 14th!!!

We hope that you have a great day.

We also have to say good-bye to Karissa on February 10th who will be leaving us for a while to spend time with her baby that is arriving very soon! We would like to wish both Karissa and Galen all the best with “Baby George” but we also know that she will be visiting us lots over the year.

School Age Site February Snack Menu Monday

Tuesday

Wednesday Early Dismissal

Thursday

Friday

1

2

3

Toast & Apples

Oatmeal

Left Over Friday

Crockpot Meal

Salad

6

7

8

PD DAY

9

PD DAY

10

Cereal

Eggos with Frozen Fruit

Apple Sauce & Arrow Root

Bagels with Cream Cheese and Jam

Rice, Vegetables & Soy Sauce

Muffins

Smoothies and Granola Bars

13

14

15

16

17

Toast & Jam

Hardboiled Eggs

Apples and Cheese

Cereal

Left Over Friday

Nacho’s & Cheese

Fruit and Dip

Pancakes

Soup and Crackers

20

21

22

23

24

CLOSED

Cereal

Muffins

English Muffins and Oranges

Birthday Snack

Veggies and Dip

Mac & Cheese

Left Over Friday

Yogurt Bark

27

28

Oatmeal

Scrambled Eggs

English Muffins with Cheese

Fruit Salad