Wednesday, 11 January 2017

January 2017 Orca Room - Space

Moon Dough
Star Stencil

Puffy Galaxy Paint

Space Black Bean Sensory Bin
Space Command Centre
Moon Rock Sensory Bin
Dramatic Play Area
Upside Down/Anti-Gravity Drawing
Working Hard at Building Name Rockets



Alien and Moon Rock Counting

Rocket Tangrams

Space Ship Play












Tuesday, 10 January 2017

Letter E

Extraordinary Eggs!

Eggplant Easel

Envelope Shape Match

Tangram Letter Building

Earth Art

Elf Visual Discrimination
Earth Art with Marbles

Alien EYES

Egyptian Pyramid Building

Eiffel Tower area



Egg Cooking Station

January 2017- Unicorn Arctic

Sparkling Snow and Ice Paint


Penguin Sensory Bin

Penguin Balancing









Colour Mixing on Snow!











Penguin Cup Painting

Igloo Dramatic Play Area


Snowy Day Clothes
Ice Fishing
Hand eye coordination skills being put to the test

Penguin felt board

Teamwork Building a Block Home for the Orca Whales
Penguin Shape Recognition

Arctic Seriation
Big, Medium, Small

Penguin Rookery
Matching Colours
Penguin Maze
Fine motor and problem solving





Wednesday, 4 January 2017

January Newsletter

Welcome back and Happy New Year, Douglas Park families!

We hope that everyone enjoyed the break and is feeling rested and ready to meet the new year ahead!

We'd like to thank everyone for attending and supporting our students for our Winter Celebration last month.  They worked so hard and we had such a wonderful time preparing for their show.  All of the teachers were extremely proud of their efforts and the final performance!

As we move forward into January, we have been met by very un-Vancouver like ice cold weather.  Just a friendly reminder that we will be going out each class (shorter than usual on unusually icy days) so children will need to come with warm winter gear.  Boots, snow pants, hats and gloves/mittens, please!

**Also, please remember that we do wait for the first 10 minutes or so for students to arrive; however, after that time we do close the door and begin our class for those children who are waiting.  Should you arrive and the classroom door is closed please wait until the end of our circle time, at which point we will open the door again and welcome your child to join us.**

Important Dates

Monday, January 30th- Professional Development Day- No classes in session


January Charity Drive

January 9th- 27th, 2017.

Throughout the month of January, we will be holding a charity drive within our classrooms to support a local organization called, Street Saviours.  This is a group that visits the downtown eastside of Vancouver and provides outreach services for those in need.  Among the items they bring with them is warm clothing, mostly in the form of smaller items such as socks, gloves, and toques, but also some larger items like hoodies or jackets.

In our classrooms we will have large bins to collect such new or lightly used items to donate to this group.  We will talk to the children in an age appropriate fashion about how we are helping people stay warm in the cold, with the overall goal of fostering a sense of giving and community.  As items begin to arrive, we will also be using them within the classroom for math activities such as categorizing and graphing help to track our progress!  If you or your family can contribute in any way, your help would be invaluable.  Not just to the Street Saviours program, but also as a learning experience for the students!


Friday, 2 December 2016

Camosun Bog Field Trip

It was a wet and wonderful trip out to Camosun Bog this week with all of our four-year-old classes!  We explored and discussed the flora of the area and used our imagination to move like fauna... and even practiced some bird calls.

Here are a few moments that we captured....

Arriving at the bog and discussing what we might see.

We learned that the bog "supports rare and specialized plants,
filters water and air,
feeds and shelters wildlife,
buffers noise of the city,
is an outdoor classroom for schools, 
is part of Musqueam Nation's traditional territory,
and is a rare remnant of a once larger system
of bogs and wetlands that were located in
Vancouver prior ro the early 1900's."

The bog is surrounded by a raised boardwalk to
facilitate sel guided nature walks.




Out of the bog area and into the forest area.

Our Tree Song.
"My roots go down, down, down
to the ground, ground, ground."

Discussing the items on our scavenger hunt list!

Shelter Building 

Teamwork to lift and carry long branch



Running through the woods as little deers,
then crawling through the woods when we pretended to hear a bear.

One of the many information signs along the boardwalk.

Collecting water to bring back to the class for more observation.



Paper Explorations

Paper Construction Day 1:
Painting

Paper Airplane Folding

Paper Cutting

Watercolours and Salt on paper



Techniques for Working With Paper