Last (Daycare) Day Before Christmas!

Today we had a pretty quiet day!

We watched "The Secret Life of Pets" and had popcorn and candy canes.

Later we had a surprise visit from Ellie's dad who helped us make balloon animals, crowns, hearts, and swords! Thanks Mr. Steve!

We hope you all enjoy your holidays and have a happy new year!

Annual Pancake Breakfast- Celebrating National Child Day

This morning we held our annual Pancake Breakfast to celebrate National Child Day. It was  a lot of fun to spend a few minutes with our families this morning, and of course enjoy pancakes while celebrating the children. 




Thanks to all that attended! Thanks to our Chefs- Kym and Khadija for preparing and cooking all the pancakes for us.

For those that were unable to attend we served pancakes for our after school snack. 

Recap of September 

The children have been interested in various activities in and around the daycare. For the most part the children have been exploring the new surroundings and familiarize themselves with the daily routines. 

We have prepared a few stations on the large steps to encourage exploration and learning through play.  We have counting, colour sorting, finger looms and an alphabet station. It provides a learning experience of basic math skills, fine motor skills, recognition and literacy. We have also introduced a fall sensory bin. 

Our snack menu consists of healthy and nutritious snacks, we have a copy posted on the bulletin board in the theatre if you are interested in checking it out. Snack and lunch times are a great opportunity for the children to communicate with each other, share information about themselves, and ask each other questions. 

At Cairn's Children's Centre we emphasize the importance of physical play, as well as outside time. We have purposely schedule outdoor time each day for the children. Not only do the children have the opportunity to run and play, but also learn new gross motor skills and understanding their own strength, not to mention mastering new tasks such as the monkey bars! 

Hearing Challenge

Exploring the sense of sound

So here we are with the hearing challenge. We gave the children a hearing test using the following three activites.  

1- Egg shaking game

We filled each egg with different materials. The children shook the eggs to identify the contents in them. They gave interesting answers and were curious to know the correct answers. They were quiet and concentrated while they listened. The children from the other group were interested and joined in the activity. We let them open all the eggs at the end. The most surprising one for them was raisins because no one guessed it right.

2- Water Xylophone

We made a water xylophone for the children to explore sound variation. We took 3 vases and added coloured water in them. The level of the water was different in each vase to make various sounds. Kait said, "The pitch is high in this one."  Ellie said, "This one has a hollow sound."  They both referred to the vase which had the least water.  

3- Blindfolded hearing challenge

In this activity we blindfolded the children and made different noises around them. We asked them to guess what we were doing. Ex: opening and closing zipper, ripping paper, sweeping floor etc. It was a good exercise for their hearing sense. Most of them got it right. 

We have explored the senses of touch, taste , smell and hearing. Our goal is to explore and enhance the experience of all 5 senses which means we still have one to go.  The sense of sight is still to come.

Tinkertown

As the summer comes to an end we wrapped up our field trips with everyone's favorite, Tinkertown!  As usual the children had a blast spinning in apples, crashing into each other in bumper cars, racing down giant slides and soaring high in an enormous boat.  

           

                           

Our time at Tinkertown never seems quite long enough but we definitely make the most of the time that we have.  

Pottery.🍶

🍶 POTTERY. 🍶










You may have seen our display table full of creative art work. We have done pottery to experience the senses of touch and texture. The clay has inviting soft and responsive sensory qualities that children are always attracted to. They started their masterpieces by feeling, molding, squeezing and pressing it.

They took their time to design and prepare their sculptures. It was impressive to see some of the clay work was done so precisely.

Well, I sure have some young potters in my group. 👍🏻

INVITATION 🎭

Families and friends are cordially invited to our Folklorama day on Wednesday August 31, 2016.    We encourage parents to support and participate to embrace Cairns' values of acceptance and collaboration.

Event Details: 

Mini Folklorama and Talent Show.

Prepared by Resource Room's Group.

Time: 11:00 AM- 1:00 PM.

Special Folklorama performers.

Special visitors.

Time: 1:00 PM- 3:00 PM.

Please join us to celebrate and acknowledge our multicultural communities.

Mini Gym

We noticed that the Mini Gym children were interested in movement and gross motor activities. Here are some of the fun activities that we have done!

PLASTIC CUPS SLING SHOT

Practising our hand-eye coordination

The children were interested in aiming and shooting so we provided the materials to make paper cups sling shot. We had a contest to see who could launch their pom pom the farthest.  

           





              POOL NOODLE FIGHT

The children transformed into knights as they fought with pool noodles to defend their kingdom. They cooperated together as they worked towards their common goal of defeating their enemy.  

POM POM RACE

  We created a race track on the floor using tape.  Using straws, the children raced to blow a pom pom from one end of the gym to the other.  Our children have some strong lungs!

Our brothers faced off against each other to win the title!

SOCCER BASE BALL GAME

We took the children to Blue Lake Park for a game of soccer baseball.  We practised kicking, throwing, running and teamwork.

                             Safe!

BALLOON TOSS RELAY RACE

A water balloon relay race is the perfect game on a hot day! We very carefully tried to catch the water balloon without popping or dropping it as we raced to the finish line.


POPCORN GAME

 The goal of this game was for one team to work together to get the dodge balls out of the "popcorn machine" while the other group worked to throw them back in.





POOL NOODLES OLYMPICS

We hosted the Pool Noodle Olympics in the back field.  Two teams, Team Turtle and Team Shark battled each other all afternoon in games of zigzag races, obstacle courses, jump rope challenges and spinning contests.

Fun at the Park