Thursday 11 February 2016

February Newsletter



FEBRUARY NEWSLETTER 2016

Dear Parents,
I hope you all enjoyed the unusual “heat wave” that we experienced last month. The weather has taken us on another roller coaster ride.
Thank you to all children and parents for contributing to our “Children from around the World” unit last month! The highlight was our “International Snack Day” and it felt like going to a multicultural restaurant. Thank you for bringing all the different food samples from around the world. We had so many interesting Show and Tells and we traveled around the globe with toy cars, airplanes and ships. It truly helped the children to develop a basic understanding of how we have to use different forms of transportation to get to other places.
Our students had a blast, celebrating “Fasching” and scaring away winter. It used to be my favourite holiday when I was a child. When else do you get to dress up, dance on the sidewalks and catch candies that people from the floats toss in the crowd? J

FEBRUARY THEME
This week, we have celebrated love and friendship. You might have seen the various Valentine activities on our center table. We also read books about how important it is to “fill our buckets” by being gentle and kind to each other. February is a fairly short month, as the break starts next week.

TRANSPORTATION
As we had already touched the topic of “Going to Places” last month we will take a closer look at different ways of transportation. Part of this unit will be sorting, categorizing vehicles, flying paper airplanes and exploring “sink and float”. Pretty soon your child will teach you how to say car, boat, train and airplane in German.
If you know someone who drives a truck, flies an airplane or is a captain, pirate (may be not) etc., please let us know!!! We had a student’s dad visiting us this Wednesday. Thank you to Don Atchison, who is a pilot and dad of one of our students. He told our MWF a.m. class about his profession and how airplanes work.
We always encourage and welcome parents, family members and friends to join us and share their stories and knowledge with our children!


DATES to REMEMBER
Monday, February 15   Family Day, Holiday, no school
February 16-19           February Break, no school
March 4                    PD Day, no school
March 25                   Good Friday Holiday
March 28 – April 3     Inclusive Spring Vacation

Openings for the 2016-17 School Year
Our classes for the Fall are starting to fill up. Many of our current families have already pre-registered their child or younger siblings.  If you haven’t done so yet or   know people who have children that are eligible for preschool, please contact us at 306-281-4428 or coordinator.Hanselandgretel@gmail.com.

Have a wonderful February Break! For those of you heading off to destinations, please drive or fly safely and enjoy your holidays.  For those of you staying here, let’s keep our fingers crossed for continued great weather! J

Kind Regards,

Uli Hecker, Ruth Skinner
Susanne Pachal, Samina Roohi

Monday 1 February 2016

Celebrating Fasching!

Dear Parents,
We will have two "special event" days this week!
On Monday, we will wrap up our “Children from around the world” unit with  our international snack day!
On Wednesday this week,  we will be celebrating FASCHING!
Parents and care givers are invited to join us for the last 20 minutes of class time on both days!

FASCHING Party: February 3rd
We will be celebrating Fasching this month. Fasching is a traditional German holiday season, often associated with festivals of the Christian church (letting loose before Lent and fasting begins). However, it goes back to pagan times, and was a way of driving out the spirits of winter and encouraging the coming of spring and good crops. In Germany, at this time of the year, many people in different areas of the country dress up in costumes and join floats Fasching/Karneval parades that are happening all over the country.
The most exciting part is the candy toss throughout the parade. In many cities of Germany you  will see hundreds of people on the sidewalks, shouting “Helau” or “Alarf” and trying to catch Fasching candies.
There will be a poster hanging in the hallway of our preschool, with more information on Fasching.
Faschings Party:
We will have a Fasching Party in our classroom. Children are invited to wear a costume that day. Parents are welcome to join us for the last 20 minutes and be part of the candy toss parade. 
I will order traditional German “Krapfen” (doughnuts) for our Fasching Party and children will not need a snack that day!
Please remember that there is no class this Friday!
Have a great week!
Uli Hecker