Beaumont Child Care Services Newsletter

Beaumont Child Care Services Newsletter INSIDE THIS ISSUE: Supervisors Update

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Sunshine & Green Room

2

Rainbow & Gold Room

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Kinder Room

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ELCC Pictures

5

Community Involvement

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ELCC Snack Menu

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SAS Update & Pictures

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SAS Snack Menu

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Letter to Parents

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Fee Schedule

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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 SAS Cell Phone: 780-862-7803

Upcoming Closure Dates February 19 March 30 April 2 May 21 June 13 July 1 August 6

Early Learning Child Care Supervisor Update We hope you all had a restful and joyous holiday season. I would like to take the opportunity on behalf of all the staff to thank you for your generous gifts, tasty snacks and heartfelt cards.

We really appreciated all the kind gestures!

Reminder – Please remove your shoes before entering any of the playrooms.

This helps keep our floors clean for your children.

If you have not done so already, please bring in an 8GB flash drive so we can work on creating your child’s digital portfolio.

We have been busy working on the Accreditation paperwork and getting ready for our upcoming site visit. We will keep you posted!

Have a great month :) Jodie

School Age Site Supervisor Update We have our tentative 2 week window for our re-accreditation visit. February 5th -19th 2018 we can expect the validator(s) from the AELCS (www.aelcs.ca) to visit our program and conduct interviews with some of staff, children, and parents/guardians. If you checked off that you would be available for a short interview with the validator(s), stay tuned for more details. These interviews would not be overly exhausted and would most likely occur when you came to pick up your child(ren).

A big thank you to everyone who completed the surveys and provided the program with feedback in areas for improvement. I am anticipating a great 2018 and look forward to enhancing the program and improving on those areas that I know we as a program we need to focus on. The successfulness of this program relies on a partnership between the staff and families and I have appreciated those partnerships and relationships.

Here is to a great 2018!

Chris Kruk

Sunshine Room Early Learning Child Care

Tendai—Early Childhood Program Coordinator Stephanie—Early Childhood Program Assistant

Time really flies when you are having fun. The children moved from the risky play of challenging their gross motor skills to the complete opposite. They have been using their fine motor skills quite a lot lately, unscrewing knobs and twisting lids on and off jars. After observing their little figures exploring we decided to expand their exploration by planning on Testing Our Physical Fine Motor Skills. This has given us the opportunity to continue building on self-help skills. Dressing babies, opening Velcro, zippers, putting on and taking off gloves or mittens, opening and closing lunch kits. They are enjoying all the new fine motor skills that have been made available to them. We thought we were challenging them by giving them jars filled with loose parts for them to try and open. They had them open in no time and with zero help from us, l guess the challenge was now on us to see what other challenging opportunities we could give to them. We have brought and set out tongs with ping pong ball and ice, key and locks, hammering Ts into boxes. I would have to say unscrewing and screwing knobs, nuts and bolts has been the most exiting but also challenging for us because now they have figured out how to unscrew the knobs on all the cupboards in the room.

As the holidays are approaching we are listening to lots of different sounds that we hear during this time of the year. We have been making crafts using the colors for this exciting time of the year. Our favorite thing that we have made so far is the playdough that smells like nutmeg and cinnamon.

We hope you all enjoy a safe and happy holiday.

Tendai and Stephanie

Green Room Early Learning Child Care

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

It’s been a very busy month in the Green Room, we spent lots of time learning about our Giving Tree! The children were so excited to put on the mitts and toques that we bought from our National Child Day proceeds and thank you to everyone who brought in some extra mitts and toques to add to our Giving Tree. Our tree was so full, we filled a large grocery bag to the top! As we filled the bag up with all our mitts and toques we talked about who was going to get them and everyone talked about how warm the children’s heads and hands would be this winter season, it was very heartwarming to hear the children talk about how we were going to help other children and families in need.

We said good bye to Shanley, our Grant MacEwan student, this past month. We will miss her very much. She was such a great addition to our room. We are expecting to get another Grant MacEwan student in the spring!

We have noticed that the children’s interest is still very much revolving around collections, but is starting to move towards the movement of our collections and how we move our bodies. We can’t wait to start exploring this interest and see where it leads us. This month we are welcoming a new friend to our room, Taylor! We are excited to have her join our room! Welcome, Taylor!

Rainbow Room Early Learning Child Care Centre

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

December was a busy month of building in the Rainbow room. The children created racetracks, bunk beds, spaceships and many towers of different heights. Frequently heard questions in the room were - How big can I build this building? What do I need to stack the boxes higher? Can I stand on these blocks? How can we make it safe? Is it as tall as me, let’s measure? We added hammers and ice in the water table and the children loved exploring with the tools. In January, we will be adding more tools to the room. Also, Beth’s Dad, Big Jim will be coming in to visit and show the children some power tools and all his safety equipment.

The children enjoyed walking to the Pet Valu store to drop off our portion of the National Child Day fundraising money. They were excited that the money would go towards taking care of rescue animals. We all enjoyed meeting the store cat, Miley and the store Tortoise, Turbo. The children ask many questions throughout the day, sometimes about what they see outside, have read in a book or experienced at home, so we have introduced a new practice to our room that is called “Question period”. We have learned what coyotes look like, how sharks swim, what octopuses eat, how a flying squirrel flies, how penguins get in and out of the water and how the milk comes out of a cow! Just a reminder that children can bring books to share with the group anytime, and that Toy Day is on Friday.

Thank you, Tammy, Lorena and Beth

Gold Room

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

January 2018 In the spirit of the New Year, we would like to take this opportunity to wish all our Gold Room families a healthy and prosperous 2018!

During the month of December, we had plenty of opportunities to play inside, to develop Lego creation skills, to play "Hide and Seek" in the Teen Center and in the classroom, to try new art techniques with Rebecca, our practicum student, and finally to help assemble and decorate our own Christmas tree. Despite the cold weather, we had lots of fun sliding down the hill or during our visits to the Library. We learned many new skills during the first winter month: how to be safe on a slippery sidewalk, how to slide down the hill without crossing paths with friends who are going up, and how to safely use the park equipment.

Our skating was a wonderful opportunity to show off our abilities and to play hockey using sticks and pucks. Thanks again to Austin's mom who helped us with the preparations: tying skates, putting helmets on, or simply giving us some extra help and encouragement after a fall.

Our next skating day will be on January 18th from 10:30am to 11:30am. Everyone is welcome! Focusing on individual interests now, the majority of our attention was placed on winter themes such as elves, Christmas trees and, of course, Santa as well as creating, assembling and discovering how small household appliances are made. This last interest resulted in our group project, which was creating our classroom robot. The children sang Christmas carols and informed us daily of the Elf's hiding places at home. As the room filled with holiday excitement, we decorated our Christmas tree using all kinds of recycled materials in an open-ended process and even spent time creating some Christmas tree decorations with Jaxon's mom. Thank you for this special time. We listened to Christmas carols from different parts of the world and, thanks to Mackenzie's mom, we learned how people celebrate our most favorite Santa Clause in the Netherlands. Being involved in these activities provides the children with many opportunities to develop their creativity, small motor skills, problem solving, sharing, cooperating, and independence. Learning about traditions from around the world gives us knowledge about cultural diversity and teaches us inclusivity and respect.

We hope everyone had a safe and fun holiday season!

Happy Birthday to Morgan!

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Kinder Room

Amy —Early Childhood Program Coordinator Michelle—Early Childhood Program Assistant Lyndsey—Early Childhood Program Assistant

Our month started off with a continuation of change and transformation. We made a volcano from scratch; plastered, painted, and then did it all again until it was strong enough for an eruption. Some of the children have brought in experiments from home and asked us to do them with the big group. It has been a lot of fun and a continuous interest.

Even though we continue to do experiments we have also seen a lot of the children stepping out of their comfort zones and taking some risk in their movements. Because of this we decided to help them explore their movement abilities and their flexibility. We have an elliptical set up in the room as well as some yoga mats and poses available to try out. We had a balance beam set up and recently added a floor mat and ladder to our quiet cube.

Outside the children have been sledding down the small hill in our park and since we have seen little snow recently the challenge has been walking up the icy hill to sled again. We have also taught them a couple variations of tag, for example “grounders”, and in the teen centre we set up a big obstacle course to challenge them.

The kinder kids really enjoy the creative area. On many days our art table spans across 2 tables because so many want to participate. We have offered a variety of items each day such as popsicle sticks, feathers, stickers, glue, glitter, and different coloured paper. As it has gotten closer to the holidays the children have created Christmas decorations for the tree they painted, decorations for around the room, and cards for each other. We have started to add a few extra materials to help them with this interest, glitter tape, snowflakes, and holiday themed stickers. Our sensory bins have been winter search and find items hidden in shredded snow and Styrofoam snow.

Another highlight for the kinder kids this month was going on a field trip to the dollar store and shopping for children who might not get other gifts this year. They did a great job of choosing a variety of toys, from puzzles to glitter and my little ponies to cars and dinosaurs.

Community Involvement Thank you to all the staff, children and families that helped support our November hot lunch fundraiser and contributed to each rooms project!

ELCC SNACK MENU—JANUARY 2018 Monday

Tuesday

Wednesday

1

2 Fruit cocktail with mini caramel rice cakes Ham and cheese wraps

CLOSED 8 Rice krispies with orange slices

Tortilla chips with salsa and sour cream

Cheerios with banana slices

Cherry tomatoes, mozza cheese & crackers

Pasta with butter & cheese or tomato sauce

Cheese quesadilla with salsa

17 Yogurt with frozen berries

18 Apple sauce with teddy grahams

16

Meat, cheese, pickles and crackers

Fruit cocktail & animal crackers

Cheerio’s with banana slices Tuna melts on crackers

23 Eggos with syrup

Melon with arrowroot cookies

10

Egg Salad Sandwiches

12 LEFT OVER FRIDAY

19 LEFT OVER FRIDAY

Trail mix (cheerios, pretzels, shreddies, craisins, mini marshmallows)

24 25 26 Yogurt with banana Oatmeal and LEFT OVER slices and graham raisins with brown FRIDAY wafers sugar Taco salad– lettuce, tomato, shredded *Birthday snack— cheese, ranch dress- Cucumbers, cheese PM ing, tortilla chips and crackers

30 31 Scrambled eggs with Canned peaches with tomatoes graham crackers Soup with fish crackers

5 LEFT OVER FRIDAY

11 Fruit cocktail with rice cakes

Raisin toast with cheese

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4 Bagels & cream cheese

9 Cinnamon toast with apple slices

15

Pea butter and jam sandwiches

3 Yogurt with bran buds

Friday

Pita with hummus & Veggies, crackers & cucumber dip

Shreddies with apple slices

22 Mini rice cakes with apples and cinnamon

Thursday

Pretzels & cheese cubes

*All snacks and lunch are serve 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

Happy New Year. We hope that everyone had a wonderful Christmas and are all rested up for the New Year. Thank you everyone for the treats that were given to us. We really appreciated and enjoyed all the goodies.

Our book club winners for the month of December are Padraig, Landyn, Sebastian and Taylor Congratulations and keep reading.

The children had a busy December getting ready for Christmas. The decorated the Christmas tree, made tree ornaments, wreaths and gingerbread houses. They even managed to get in some play time in.

Now that January is here we will be busy preparing for accreditation which will be coming up early in February. We will keep you updated on the progress.

Although we try to answer the phone and reply to texts please remember that we are busy with the children and cannot always hear or answer right away.

Have a great month.

SAS

January birthday wishes go out to:

Paul on January 3 and Madeliene on January 23.

Happy Birthday to both and we hope that you have a fantastic birthday.

School Age Site January Snack Menu with suggestions by Ben Monday

Tuesday

Wednesday

Thursday

Friday

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2

3

4

5

Cereal & Oranges

Oatmeal & Frozen Fruit

Scramble Eggs & Bananas

Left Over Friday

Soup & Crackers & Apples No School 9

Veggies & Dip Graham Crackers No School 10

Smoothies & Granola Bars No School 11

No School 12

Eggos with Frozen Fruit

Toast & Jam

Bagels with cream Cheese

Left Over Friday

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8 Cereal & Oranges Pea Butter, Apples & Raisins

Meat, Cheese, Crackers & Pickles

Salad with Croutons & Dressing Early Out

15

16

17

Cheese Quesadilla with Salsa & Sour Cream 18

Scrambled Eggs & Apples

Oatmeal & Raisins

Cereal & Banana Slices

Toast with Cheese Slices Veggies, Dip & Arrowroot crackers 25

26

Fruit Cocktail with Rice Cakes

Birthday Snack

Nacho’s, Cheese & Salsa

Bagels, Cream Cheese & Oranges

22

23

Apple Cookies (Apple, pea butter & raisins) 24

Cinnamon Toast with apple slices

Cereal with craisins

Blueberry Muffins

Apple Doughnuts

Ham/Cheese Cucumber Sandwiches

Pancakes with Frozen Fruit 29

30

31

Eggosl & Frozen Fruit

Toast with Jam

Oatmeal & Orange

Melon & Arrowroot Crackers

Apple, Cucumber, Cheese sandwiches

English Muffins with Cheese and Oranges No school

Left Over Friday

Meat, cheese Pickles & Crackers MILK AND WATER IS PROVIDED WITH ALL SNACKS

December 20, 2017 Dear Parents and Guardians: Subject: Results of lead assessment at Early Learning & Childcare Center In an effort to assess the quality of drinking water provided at Early Learning & Childcare Center, Alberta Health Services has tested the level of lead in the drinking water in this facility and completed a risk assessment questionnaire, as part of a pilot project for day care centers across the province.

The results of testing at this center, which was completed by Alberta Health Services using laboratory services provided by the Alberta Centre for Toxicology, showed that all samples fall within current health guidelines recommended by Health Canada, and no other risk factors were identified at this time.

Alberta Health Services always recommends that all Albertans take the following actions to limit any exposure to potential lead sources, at any location: 1. Use only cold water for drinking, cooking and making baby formula; 2. Flush all cooking and drinking outlets after long periods of non-use; 3. Clean debris from faucet outlet screens or aerators on a regular basis.

If you are interested in more information on lead in water, you can visit: https:// myhealth.alberta.ca/Alberta/Pages/Common-questions-about-lead-and-drinking-water.aspx.

If you have additional questions or concerns about this drinking water testing project, please contact Alberta Health Services, Public Health Inspector at (780) 735 - 1800.

Sincerely, Jodie Vesso Early Learning & Childcare Center Supervisor