Childcare Services February Newsletter

INSIDE THIS ISSUE: Supervisor Update

1

Sunshine Room

2

Green Room

3

Rainbow Room

4

Gold Room

5

Kinder Room

6

ELCC Snack Menu

7

SAS

8

SAS Snack Menu

9

SAS Pics

10

Home Alone Parent/Child

11

2019 Fees and Charges

12

Child Care Services Supervisor

Jodie Vesso

780-929-1263 jodie.vesso@beaumont.ab.ca ELCC Room Cell Phones Sunshine 780-399-2156 Green 780-399-2475 Rainbow 780-862-9046 Gold 780-863-7386 Kinder room 780-862-3207 SAS Contact: Phone: 780-929-2190 Cell :780-862-7803 email: sas@beaumont.ab.ca

Upcoming Closure Dates February 17 April 10 & 13 May 18 July 1 August 3 September 7 October 12 November 11 December 24, 25, & 28

As we head into February, it seems like we finally have some closure regarding the Child Care Review. Council voted 4-3 to keep the program and for now we are status quo.

We would like to take this opportunity to thank all of you for attending the council meetings, setting up meetings with council members and advocating for the service we provide!

It’s been a stressful 18 months for parents and staff but I am confident in this program, our team and the families that support us and that we can continue to celebrate the amazing work our educators do.

ELCC had an announced licensing visit on January 22nd and everything was great!! Copies of the licensing report will be posted in each room. You can look up the status of any licensed child care program at: http://www.humanservices.alberta.ca/oldfusion/ChildCareLookup.cfm

We hope you have a great month and enjoy some quality “unplugged” family time for Family Day!!

Sunshine Room Early Learning Child Care

Tendai—Early Childhood Program Coordinator Lorena —Early Childhood Program Assistant

Welcome to February! With all the cold days in January, we kept busy and warm exploring inside. We discovered the fascinated world of ice experiences and we explored the snow we brought in mixing colors with a few drops of food coloring. This gave us an opportunity to talk about and identify colors.

We also were excited when the gate between Sunshine and Green Room was open as we welcomed our Green Room friends in our room while we went to their room and explored their activities. Sharing our space and our adventures with them was a precious experience for children because they developed and practiced their independence and self-confidence having the power of choosing where to go and explore as well as walking back to our room when they needed. Children also enjoyed discovering hats, necklaces, crowns, costumes, babies and lots of other choices to develop their culinary skills in the kitchen. We noticed children have been busy in collecting items around the room and looking for containers to fill with so we have been putting out lots of items in order to allow them to maximize their learning experiences in this new interest. They were fascinated filling and dumping the baskets, boxes, containers, bags, purses and trucks available and really loved exploring the pompoms in muffin trays while using tongs, catching balls floating in the water table while using nets and slotted containers being filled with sticks, plastic lids and cd’s. They have been practicing their fine motor skills and hand-eye coordination while having fun. We are always in need of plastic bags, if you have some extras to donate, it will be appreciated. Thank you.

Tendai and Lorena

Green Room Early Learning Child Care

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

It’s hard to believe that it’s already February! Last month we wrapped up our exploration of collections and moved into building! After seeing the way the children were interacting with the tools that we had put out in our block corner we quickly realized that building was our next concept to explore. Along with all the construction tools, construction trucks were a huge hit too. We opened our big sand box and added our collection of construction trucks to it. The children spent so much time moving the sand around the sandbox and making the noises of the construction trucks as they dug and backed them up. We can’t wait to further explore this concept and to see what kinds of creations we can make and build with so many different building materials.

We are so excited that Ciara has chosen our room for her practicum placement. Ciara is currently talking her Early Childhood Education online through Lethbridge College and will be doing her first placement with us! She will be spending some extra time in the mornings with us until the end of April. We are also welcoming a new friend to our room this February, Dean, will be joining us on Tuesdays and Thursday. Grayson is sadly leaving and we will miss him very much!

S

Rainbow Room Early Learning Child Care

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

We survived the two weeks of freezing cold in January! We had a lot of dance parties, created jumping games and numerous obstacle courses in the room. Our new focus for this year has been on “Space”. The children noticed that the moon and the sun were out at the same time and wondered why? This conversation led into a discussion about what the moon and the sun do, how do people get to space and what would they wear? After some investigation, the children discovered that there were more in space than just the sun and the moon, which led into learning about the planets. We have been learning about the planets through books, songs and games. We purchased two new solar system puzzles for the room and built a rocket ship out of the water table. The children have been using their imaginations to create their visions of space, rocket ships and astronauts. We will continue this interest into February as we continue to explore the galaxy.

Thank you, Tammy, Simran and Beth

Gold Room Early Learning Child Care

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

In January, cold temperatures kept us indoors, but playing and exploring kept us busy with many new avenues to learn. Recently, our Gold Room family welcomed Avaya, and we are hoping that she will enjoy our room.

We noticed a tremendous interest towards animals and science experiments, which we expanded by observing frozen bubbles, the "shark" bottle buoyancy experiment, discovered why polar bears can swim in such cold water and how squid swim. Our children enriched their vocabulary with many descriptive words like "blubber", “cartilage", "temperature", "density", and many more. Please take the time to talk to your child about their learning experiences and observations on this matter.

From our own observations, we have concluded that our children enjoy food preparation and hosting, so our house corner was transformed into a restaurant. Our menu includes "spaghetti", "brownies" and a few homemade specialties. Real life abilities are most important for the young children, as they learn communication skills, critical thinking, taking on challenges, focus and self-control.

The recent Kindergarten registration may bring some questions regarding school readiness, so here are some tips on how to help your child get ready for their big step: Always encourage pretend play.  Talk about what being a good friend looks like.  Be clear about what you expect as it will set your child up for success.  Play board games to practice taking turns.

Day to remember: 

Skating day: February 11th at 10:30am to 11:30am.

As always, we are very thankful for parent volunteers!

We are sad to say goodbye to Maggie, as her family relocated to BC. We will miss her!

Jodi —Early Childhood Program Coordinator Sarah—Early Childhood Program Assistant

January was once again another busy month in the kinder room, the children’s interest seems to have shifted to exploring and collecting different materials. We have spent most of the month, sorting fruit, food, cars, blocks, etc by colour, shape and size. Using tweezers in the water table, to making bead bracelets in the sensory bin, they are always busy with their hands in the kinder room. We also started a new ongoing project called beautiful stuff.

Each child got to take a bag home and fill it with beautiful stuff from home that some might think is junk but others might think is amazing for art, etc. After everyone brought their bags back, we sat down as a group and shared our bags. We then sorted the items out together and made a beautiful stuff shelf. With the beautiful stuff, we decided that we would make self portraits using the recycled materials. The children in our room showed such creativity with the materials. It is amazing to share how beautiful, objects can be even tho they are just recycled materials.

Games have still been a huge interest and January was “bring your own board game” month. It was a bug success and everyday, children were excited to try out the new game coming in.

There was a request to now have a show and tell month, so for the month of February, the Kinder Room will begin having show and tell days, where someone can bring in a special item to show and tell at circle time.

January was a very cold month, so we hope to spend more time outside this month and plan more outdoor activities.

Reminders: Skating Day- Thursday Feb 6th Jersey Day- Friday Feb 7th Happy Birthday!!! Adithya (February 5th), And Sarah (February 18)

ELCC SNACK MENU—FEBRUARY 2020 Monday

Tuesday

Wednesday

3

4

Thursday

Friday

5

6

Oatmeal with raisins & brown sugar

Cheerio’s with bananas

Canned fruit with animal crackers

Raisin toast with cheese

Pretzels & cheese cubes

Fruit kabobs with Teddy Grahams

Tuna buns

Melon with arrowroot cookies

10 11 Frozen fruit and Rice Cakes with jam, rice krispies apple slices Tortilla chips with salsa & sour cream

Ham & cheese with Ritz crackers

17

18

Toast and jam

12 Bagels with cream cheese Granola bars with grapes 19 Yogurt & bananas

Pita, cucumber with hummus

Trail Mix 24 Canned fruit with graham crackers

25 Eggs and toast

Ham & cheese wraps

Peppers, peas and hummus

26 Yogurt & bran buds

Cereal Bars & melon

7 LEFT OVER FRIDAY

13 Eggo’s with syrup

14 LEFT OVER FRIDAY

Veggies & dip

20 Applesauce with arrowroot cookies

21

LEFT OVER FRIDAY

Triscuit Pizza

Cinnamon toast with seasonal fresh fruit

Meat, cheese, pickles & crackers

27

28 LEFT OVER FRIDAY

*Birthday Snack PM

*All snacks and lunch are serve with milk and water

SCHOOL AGE SITE

Program Coordinator, Shirley Webster Program Assistant, Jasmine Henkel Program Assistant, Ariunaa Tsend Program Assistant, Ingrid Holtz

Well January was a cold and miserable month. Thank you everyone for your understanding and patience. I know there were some trying moments but we all survived.

The cold didn’t seem to affect the children at all. They kept themselves busy building and doing lots of crafts.

In the block area they designed and made a stage so that they could perform a musical show. On another day they made a fort with cardboard and the blocks to keep themselves cozy and warm.

We added food to the area and they decided to create their own restaurant making comfort foods to keep us warm. They also enjoyed making their own food with clay and recycle materials.

Animals were added to another area and we turned the WII room into a Magic, Myth and Make Believe area after Connor was asking for the “Heroscapes” so that he could build a castle and play with the knights and dragons. There has been lots of discussion about princesses and whether dragons were real or not. We have also been making jewelry and crowns with craft beads.

We did an experiment dissolving three different candies with vinegar. We compared MM’s, candy canes and hard candies. The children watched and took turns guessing how long it would take to dissolve each one.

Now that the weather has warmed up we hopefully will be able to go outside on a regular basis.

Please make sure that you child has the appropriate clothing. That is snowpants, jackets, boots.

Mitts and a toque.

Please talk to any staff if you have any questions or concerns.

SAS

Birthday wishes go out to: Avry February 18 Drew February 22 Hannah February 24 Leo February 27 We all wish you a Very Happy Birthday!!

School Age Site February Snack Menu Monday

Tuesday

Wednesday

3

4

Thursday

5

6

Cereal

Toast & Jam

Eggos

Oranges & Graham Crackers

Soup

Fruit

Triscuit Pizza

Pigs in a Blanket

10

11

12

Apples & cheese

Nutri grain Bars

Bagels & Cream Cheese

Veggies & Dip

Muffins

Nachos & Cheese

Pudding

18 Muffins

Toast & Jam

Meat Cheese & Pickles

Pita with fixings

Eggos & Syrup

25 Applesauce

26 Bagels

14 LEFT OVER FRIDAY

20

Yogurt & Oranges

24 Cereal

19

7 LEFT OVER FRIDAY

13

Cereal

17

Friday

21 LEFT OVER FRIDAY

27

28

Toast & Jam LEFT OVER FRIDAY

Ham & cheese wrap

Fruit & Teddy Grahams

Taco Salad

Vegies & Dip

All Snacks served with Milk & Water

SCHEDULE VII CHILDCARE FEES Effective February 1, 2019 2019

Item

Local Fees

%

Non-Local Fees

SCHOOL AGE SITE (Monthly Fees) Before & After School Care: September – June Before & After School Care Summer Care: July & August Child Care Services Bus Fee/Child

$

555.00

3.93%

$

694.00

$

772.00

3.76%

$

965.00

$95.00 $65.00

Community Rider Bus Fee/Child

EARLY LEARNING CHILD CARE CENTRE (Monthly Fees) 12 months 13 – 18 months 19 months – 3 years 3 – 4.5 years 4.5 years and up/Kindergarten Care: Year round Bus Transportation User Fee/child

$ $ $ $

1,094.00 1,066.00 1,015.00 976.00

1.96% 6.71% 4.64% 7.37%

$ $ $ $

1,368.00 1,333.00 1,269.00 1,220.00

$

875.00

7.23%

$

1,094.00

2 Days/Week: Tuesday/Thursday 3 Days/Week: Monday/Wednesday/Friday

$ $

485.00 605.00

$95.00 0.00% 0.00%

$ $

606.00 756.00

DROP-IN FEES: ALL PROGRAMS Half Day – up to 5 hours of care/day Full Day – between 5-8 hours of care /day

$35.00 $53.00

OTHER FEES Late Pick-Up

Waitlist Registration Fee (Will be either refunded or applied to the first month’s child care fees if the child is accepted into the program, but otherwise is non-refundable)

$1.00/minute/child

$50.00/child