December Newsletter

‘Tis the season – December newsletter

Winter is finally upon us! I would like to take this opportunity to share a few happenings around our centres and to express thanks and appreciation to our staff, board and families.

Annual General Meeting
Treasure Box Wish List for Sick Kids Hospital
News about Staff
St. Clement News
St. Gregory News
St. Gabriel News
St. Margaret Mary News

Annual General Meeting

This October we had our Annual General Meeting. I would like to thank all the parents that were represented at this important meeting through their attendance or through their proxy. Representation of a minimum of ten percent of our families is required to conduct any business at this meeting and we were well above that this year. Thank you to all for supporting your non profit organization in maintaining its mandate. This year we also had an unprecedented six new members volunteer to sit on the Board of Directors and represent the parent body. I am happy to welcome Stefania, Kathy, Angela, Josie, Dina and Mohammed to our team.

At our first meeting in November roles were decided and Mauro Grande commenced as Chair, Tania Lamanna as Vice Chair, Flora remained as Treasurer and she is joined by Mohammed Iqbad and Stefania Nae on the finance committee. Josie Martiniello took on our HR Chair role and Kathy Bui became our Secretary. Dina Stevens will be heading our Marketing Fundraising committee and Tony Perfetto will Chair our new Parent Engagement Committee.

Treasure Box Wish List for Sick Kids Hospital

Christmas is such a wonderful time of the year for our little ones. It warms my heart to see how they have taken to the centres in support of an ill boy who was celebrating Christmas in November this year and the support of our drive for Sick Kids Hospital Treasure Box Wish List.
Jacob was a 9 year old boy who was going to celebrate Christmas early this year and he asked for Christmas cards from around the world. The cards our children made were so heart felt and caring. All these letters were sent to Jacob in November in time for his celebration. Thank you to all the incredible children who took the time to share the spirit of Christmas with Jacob.

Families at every site contributed to our “Treasure Box Wish List” in support of Sick Kids Hospital. Treasure boxes have a special role to play in the treatment and care of children. After undergoing a scary or uncomfortable procedure children are allowed to select a special item from a treasure box that they can keep forever. A visit to the treasure box serves as reward for their courage. The response from our staff and families has been overwhelming. The truckload of donations will be brought to Sick Kids this week.
Thank you to all that contributed to this very special cause and to all the children that wrote Christmas cards to Jacob!

News about Staff

Did you Know Marley Davila…
On the staffing front we have some news, Marley Davila who has been with us since 2014 and most recently joined our Toddler room will be going off to Big School for January 4, 2018. On behalf of the staff, children and families we would like to thank Marley for all her care and efforts in serving our families, and our team here at St. Gabriel Child Care Centres. We wish her well in her new venture.

Have you met Gabriela? Did you Know…
Gabriela Escobar joined our team in November as our Admin Assistant so please drop by and say hello. She has shared a little bit about herself below.

I have been living and working in Toronto for most of my life. I love to travel, my most memorable experiences being (1) snowboarding through clouds in Lake Placid (2) Hiking into the Grand Canyon, witnessing a lunar eclipse and (3) Three day North American Train trip from Ontario to British Columbia. My mom was a teacher, so I grew up in a learning environment which is where my passion for learning and assisting (teaching) others comes from – whether it’s culture, music, computers, physics, health or sustainability. In college, I completed a program in Visual Arts, New Media Design and Animation. Before I began my career in Animation and Design, I gained years of experience in Customer Service while working as a Photographer, Barista and Front Desk. My most recent job was as an IT Facilitator at a non profit organization in Toronto. My career path led me to St. Gabriel’s, after I decided to take some time off work and reassess my skills. I enrolled in an Office Administration with Desktop Publishing Diploma Program that I have recently completed in order to further gain professional experience in an Office environment. During my spare time, I learn and create. I am learning JavaScript in order to complete a kid’s app that I am working on. I also have a food, health and sustainability blog that I created and hope to create a recipe book from. I am the owner of a shop on Etsy where I sell stickers, teacher materials, paper and stationary and other goodies that I am working on.

We would also like to welcome Kiranjot to the St. Clements Before and After school program. She will be in the School age room (Room 17) to replace Ms Michele. Ms Michele will be returning to the Kindergarten room in January.

St. Clement News

December has come upon us and we have many things going on in our classrooms. We will be hosting a special Christmas Breakfast for our families on Thursday December 21st. So please stop by between 7:00am -8:15 am for some breakfast and Christmas cheer.

In the month of November the children in our kindergarten room created many Remembrance Day crafts such as coffee filter poppies, crosses, fingerprint peace doves and more. During this month, children grew a great interest in making cat’s eye crafts which include wrapping yarn around Popsicle sticks. We also have incorporated a lot of music in our program by playing freeze dance, guess that song and singing along to music. In December the children are participating in various activities such as making a wish list for Santa, decorating a special take home ornament to put on their Christmas tree and making Christmas cards.

In our first school age room, Ms. Michele has continued with weekend news that the children actively participate in, with excitement every Monday. Children have the opportunity to share their events from the weekend with everyone in the room. We are designing and creating many new creatives such as paint chip Christmas trees, cut out snowflakes, paper ball reindeer, mystery stocking, paper plate Christmas trees and many more creatives. We have made a giant Christmas list that allowed each child to write down one thing that they want for Christmas. We are sharing what our favourite part of the Christmas season is with one another.
To view St. Clement’s event calendar click here.

St. Gregory News

Kindergarten:
For the month of November, the children participated in many different activities. For Remembrance Day, the children created water colour poppies. For this process, they had the opportunity to choose a colour that symbolized what Remembrance Day meant for them, and applied it through the work of art. Once students finished their coloured poppies, they created poppies with cupcake fritters, using fine motor skills, and different directions with scissors. The kindergartens participated in fall science experiments. During the experiments, they interacted with their peers through observation asking questions, and problem solving ideas, for example, “How do leaves change colour”?
A variety of coloured leaves were collected during our outdoor gross motor, and were tested through hot, and cold temperature water, oil, and freezing them. With our “How Does Learning Happen”, students showed their engagement, expression, and sense of belonging through their experiences in the activities.

School-age:
This month, students were introduced to new activity games, such as pattern building, laser tag, coding, and karaoke. A few other games that the students enjoyed required assembling, such as our soccer table, and pool table. During the assembling process, the school-agers had the opportunity to meet new classmates through team work, and co-operation. Students determined a way to problem solve an item that comes into pieces, and to achieve its goal by building it as quickly as they can so they can enjoy their time with it, which was dividing parts to each individual, and that person was responsible for that area.

For our karaoke time, students gave every power they had to be able to catch up on the lyrics that was displayed on the screen, and to put on a celebrity role, which required hitting some high notes, and some low. Throughout science experiments, our school-age class is a huge fan of goop. We all chipped in ideas of other ways to create goop, without the use of glue. As a group, we hit google chrome, and discovered corn starch is one way to bring into the mixing of our experiments.

For our Remembrance Day craft, students used safety pins to create a 3D poppy wheel. During this craft, measuring length, and the direction of folding the paper was used to be able to achieve the centre of the poppy to pass the pin through. As students participated through various experiences, they presented our four foundations of “How Does Learning Happen”, through belonging, expression, well-being, engagement.
To view St. Gregory’s event calendar click here.

St. Gabriel News

St. Gabriel Child Care and B & A Program
It has been exciting couple of months here at the Gabriel location. The Toddlers and Preschoolers had a fun filled day at Downey’s farm. The children, teachers and volunteers spent the day at the farm, we saw a few animals, went on a wagon ride and learned about pumpkins.

On Halloween day the Toddlers and Preschoolers went to visit the residents at Villa Leonardo Gambin for a Halloween sing a long and treat or trick fun. The children had a wonderful time walking around and were able to meet some of the residents who were so kind and interact with the staff.
Look at our wonderful display of talent!! (click here to view photos)

In all programs the children had been interested in construction, whether it’s creating with Lego, loose parts or constructing with their hands.

In the next few months the children will be working on Christmas and Winter crafts and getting ready for Santa to visit.
To view St. Gabriel’s event calendar click here.

St. Margaret Mary News

“We can’t all be heroes because somebody has to sit on the curb and clap as they go by” – Will Rogers

It’s hard to believe that 2017 is almost over. The last few months here at St. Margaret Mary Before & After School Program have been very busy and fun for us all. Children and teachers have enjoyed building relationships with each other through learning and playing.

Kindergartens & Grade 1s have enjoyed role playing in the Dramatic Centre where they get many opportunities share, converse and build positive relationships. One of their favourite area is the Block Centre. You will usually see groups of children gathered at the carpet building amazing structures.

School-agers have been exploring many new learning through play opportunities. If you come into their room you will see children challenging themselves and each other through various boards games such as; “Suspended” and “Blockus” Many of the children are also enjoying building complex structures using Legos and other building materials. Through this small group interactions children are learning valuable social skills such as; sharing, co-operation, compromising and making friends.

Here at St. Margaret Mary the month of December has been dedicated to the importance of Giving, Sharing and Helping Others. To show gratitude for all that we have and are thankful for, this year we the teachers are asking parents to help make the less fortunate in our communities have a Happy Christmas. Please bring in Gift Cards from Walmart, No Frills, Fortinos, Food Basic etc. to ensure that no child/family goes without food this Holiday Season. Please drop by your Gift Cards by December 21, 2017. The cards will be dropped off at the local Fire Hall to be distributed to those families in need.

As adults we often comment that time seems to be flying by as the years go by. However, we as teachers find ourselves reminding each other that our students are not so rushed as we are. They still enjoy experiencing the world around them and get excited about the little things in life. This Holiday Season let us learn from children and take time to relax and “smell the roses”.
To view St. Margaret Mary’s event calendar click here.

Please feel free to approach myself or any of the other teachers at any time if you have any questions, concerns or suggestions. We are always looking for parent volunteers to come and speak to the children or teach the children a special activity.

To view all our events, check out our Events Page here.