What a fantastic end to summer August was! We celebrated Discovery Child Care’s 20th Anniversary with a fun fair, and even though we needed to reschedule for the rain, our kids got to enjoy the biggest rainfall this month and we saw so many friendly faces.
Thank you to everyone who came out and celebrated with us, it’s always a pleasure to see parents and alumni.
We would also like to mention two other great events that happened this month, the first being we won the award for Barrie’s Top Three Best Preschools. Hooray!
We’re always very appreciative whenever we are awarded, and will continue to deliver the best preschool experience we can. The second awesome event is that we started a crowd fund for getting an AED (Defibrillator) for our facilities! If you would like to donate, every amount helps save a life, you can do so here.
Now without further adieu, check out our August Highlights!
Planting a “veggie pop” in the Kinder Room
Before our holidays at the end of July, our friend E.C. brought in something special to share with the class – a cherry tomato veggie pop!! We were all very curious because none of us had ever seen one before. E.C. walked around showing her friends what it was. We heard a lot of “What is that?”, with E telling the children it was going to be cherry tomatoes.
After reading the instructions, we decided we would wait to plant it after the break so we could make sure it had sunlight and water. The Kinders remembered as soon as we got back from holidays that we needed to plant the veggie pop. As a class, we decided we wanted to plant it in a pot and keep it inside so we could watch it grow.
We gathered some soil, a scoop, a pot and some water. We read the super easy directions on the back. E and some of her friends took turns putting soil in the pot. When it was all the way to the top, we stuck the veggie pop upside down into the soil and added some water. We then placed it on our gardening shelf and turned on the light. The children were so excited, they dragged some chairs over to the shelf to watch it. The teachers explained that it may take some time for the tomatoes to sprout just like the vegetables we planted in our garden. We can’t wait to see what happens next!
Enjoying the rain and mud (preschool Harvie)
This summer has been so much fun out in our Nature Classrooms, we have enjoyed riding bicycles, digging in the sandbox, and looking for all the insects. However, the Preschoolers have been missing something extra special; the rain!
With all the nice weather, it hasn’t been raining which means that there haven’t been any puddles to jump in. Today, the Preschoolers were so excited to see the mud kitchen was covered in mud and water. “It’s raining today!” S.P. said. “Can I take my boots off?” asked B.F. Even though all of the children were wearing rain boots, they immediately took off their boots, so they could jump in the puddles with bare feet. “This is so fun!” yelled C.M. “I love the mud on my toes!” said E.J.
The children took turns running into the big puddle to see how far the splash zone went. J.C. and D.D. collected shovels and ladles to scoop up the water. M.F. got a toy boat to float on the “lake”. Even though the children love rainy days, the teachers are hoping for a little more sunshine to finish off the summer.
Painting in the Infant Program
This week the infants have enjoyed using their creative art skills outside! We provided the infants with Q-tips and paint. We also took a walk to the Mud Kitchen and borrowed some kitchen utensils to use! G.C and N.E dipped their Q-tips in the container of paint but instead of pressing it on the paper, they began creating little dots all over their arms and legs!
Afterwards, once N.E put it onto the paper, she looked at her leg and the paper, recognizing they looked the same. R.S took a potato masher in one hand and a container of paint in the other. She looked down inside the paint container and we worked together to pour some of it out for the masher to dip into. R.K grabbed onto a whisk and walked around with it for a while. Some of the Preschoolers and Kinders came up to the gate to see what the infants were up to and R.K walked over to them, showing them what cool thing he had to hold onto! We really enjoyed seeing what all of these tools and utensils could provide us with, physically and creatively!
Games Week in Summer Camp
The campers (and teachers) had a blast during games week! Teamwork was key while we used our bodies, our brains, our creativity, and our dramatic play skills to gain points for our teams. We started out by coming up with a set of rules for games week, created by the children. The teachers divided the campers into two teams, and the children came up with some great team names.
The Rainbow Ponies, and The Windbreakers! We played some fun games in the yard, like Octopus, Dodgeball, Snakes in the Gutter, a hilarious game of Dress Up Relay, and many more! It was amazing to hear the campers encouraging their teammates. We heard a lot of: “You can do it!”, and “You’ve got this!”, and, “Great try!”. Love that team spirit!! We were so proud of how the teammates supported each other throughout the week.
It was a lot of fun collecting items together with our teams from around the yard, in our Scavenger Hunt Challenge! We put our collective brains to the test with a fun game of trivia, put our artistic skills to use in a great game of team Pictionary and tested our acting abilities in a hilarious game of charades. We ended the week with the campers getting awards for team spirit, helpfulness, sportsmanship, and more! What great fun we had.
Harvesting our Garden (Preschool Big Bay Point)
Just before we left for our week long vacation our friends started taking notice of the changes happening in our garden that we planted months back. CS was the first to notice one day that we had little green balls growing on one of the tall plants, “What are they” he curiously asked a teacher. He was very excited to learn that those small green balls would soon grow much larger and turn a nice red colour. We had our very first tomatoes starting to grow!
As our friends gathered around we noticed not only tomatoes starting to grow but watermelon and zucchini as well. By the time we returned from our vacation our garden had grown even more. “Kristi, Kristi look at the watermelon now” CS excitedly called out.
A week ago our watermelon was the size of a penny, now it nicely fit into CS hand as he described it as being as big as a baseball. His excitement drew a few other friends around and EH quickly noticed the size of our zucchini. “It’s this big” she claimed as she spread her arms as wide as they could go to show her friends. She wasn’t far off either, the one zucchini was so large we decided it was ready to harvest. “What are we going to do with it” SL asked as he observed his friends exploring the large zucchini. Quickly CS called out, “We could eat it maybe” and EH suggested “We can open it up”. Throughout the next few weeks we can’t wait to see what else grows and what else we can harvest and explore further.If you’re looking to have your child or children join our Discovery Child Care family, contact us at 705-733-2052 to book a tour or just ask a question! If you’d like to keep up with us and the children, follow our Facebook page, Discovery Child Care.