MARCH 2026
Welcome to March!
As the days grow longer and the air begins to warm, it’s the perfect time to encourage children to head outdoors and play. Outside play is more than just a way to burn off energy—it’s essential for healthy development. When children explore nature, climb, dig, build, and invent their own games, they strengthen their bodies, boost their mood, and develop confidence. Time outside naturally supports creativity, teamwork, resilience, and emotional well-being in ways that structured indoor activities often cannot.
It’s also important to remember that children actually need moments of boredom. Boredom is not something to “fix”—it’s often the starting point for imagination, problem-solving, and independent thinking. When children aren’t constantly entertained, their minds begin to create. Expensive toys and the latest screen devices may seem appealing, but they don’t make children smarter. Real learning happens through hands-on experiences, open-ended play, conversation, and discovery. A stick can become a magic wand, a pile of rocks can turn into a castle, and a patch of mud can inspire scientific investigation. This March, let’s give children the simple gift of time, space, and nature—and watch their creativity bloom right alongside the season.
Sunday School
Did you know that St. Catherine’s Church has Sunday School? Well, they do! Here is a link to St. Catherine’s Anglican Church’s webpage to get more information!
https://www.saint-catherines.org/events/sunday-school--589/2026-02-15
Teacher’s Pro-D Day
On Friday, May 13th our educators participated in a Teacher Pro-D (Professional Development) Day. While the classrooms may have been quieter, it was a busy and meaningful day for our team. Professional development days give our Early Childhood Educators the opportunity to reflect on their practices, learn new strategies, review current research, and collaborate with one another to strengthen our program.
Ongoing professional development is an important part of providing high-quality early learning experiences. The field of early childhood education is always evolving, with new insights about child development, inclusive practices, social-emotional learning, and play-based environments. Pro-D days allow our educators to deepen their knowledge, refresh safety and licensing standards, and ensure we are creating nurturing, engaging spaces where every child can thrive. Investing in our teachers ultimately means investing in your children.
SPRING BREAK is coming SOON!
PRESCHOOL WILL BE CLOSED for Spring Break for TWO WEEKS: No school from March 16th - March 27th.
Classes will resume on March 30th.
IF YOU ARE LEAVING ON A TRIP BEFORE MARCH 16TH OR STAYING AWAY PAST MARCH 27TH, PLEASE LET THE OFFICE KNOW. It helps us to know in advance, when children will be absent.
RAINBOW ROOM
Danielle, Karen, Vibha, Monica, Marjan
Rainbow Room Families,
Although February is the shortest month of the year, it certainly felt like one of the busiest in the Rainbow Room! Our days were filled with celebrations, creativity, learning, and so many special moments together.
Valentine’s Day Fun
We had a wonderful time celebrating Valentine’s Day through art, teamwork, and tasty treats. The children created an adorable caterpillar craft featuring their names — a fun way to celebrate both friendship and letter recognition. They also made beautiful beaded heart ornaments, carefully threading beads to strengthen fine motor skills, hand–eye coordination, and concentration.
Our Valentine’s Party was a highlight! Each child brought in fruit to contribute to our Friendship Fruit Salad. The children worked together to cut the fruit into pieces, practicing cooperation and building fine motor strength as they learned safe cutting skills. It was a wonderful example of teamwork — and the end result was delicious!
We also made Rice Krispy Treats together. The children helped measure, pour, stir, and press the mixture into shapes. Cooking activities provide so many learning opportunities — from early math skills and following directions to sensory exploration. Both the fruit salad and Rice Krispy Treats were enjoyed during our party celebration.
Lunar New Year Celebration
We were also excited to celebrate Lunar New Year in our classroom. Each child received a traditional red envelope from the teachers with a chocolate coin inside, symbolizing good luck and prosperity.
A special thank you to Jill (I’s mom) for coming in to share with the children what Lunar New Year is all about. Your presentation helped bring meaningful understanding to this important celebration.
Thank you as well to Leanne (M’s mom) for bringing in dumplings to share with the class — they were absolutely delicious! We appreciate you helping us create such authentic and memorable experiences for the children.
Family Day Weekend
We hope everyone enjoyed the Family Day long weekend. Whether you went for a family walk, enjoyed a bike ride, watched a movie, or spent time playing at the park, we hope it was filled with special moments together.
Spring Concert Preparation
Throughout February, we have also been practicing our songs for our upcoming Spring Concert on March 11th and 12th. The children are working hard and are very excited to perform for you! An email has been sent with additional details regarding this event.
Fairy Tales & Dress-Up Week
As we finish February and move into March, we have begun exploring Fairy Tales — both classic and modern versions. As part of our learning, we read Goldilocks and the Three Bears and even made porridge just like in the story! The children loved comparing whether it was too hot, too cold, or “just right.” Cooking together helped build sequencing skills, listening skills, and of course provided another wonderful hands-on learning experience.
To support participation, spark conversation, and create meaningful teaching moments, we encourage children to wear costumes during the week of March 2nd–6th. Costumes are completely optional but welcomed!
Growing Independence
As the year continues, we are seeing so much growth in the children’s self-help skills. We are encouraging independence with:
Putting on and zipping coats
Managing shoes and boots
Washing hands independently
Opening lunch containers
Cleaning up after activities
Taking responsibility for personal belongings
We are also intentionally incorporating more fine motor and gross motor activities into our daily program — from beading and cutting to obstacle courses and movement games. The best part is that it’s all done through play, which remains at the heart of our philosophy: Learning Through Play.
We hope you are enjoying our monthly slideshow, which captures many of these special classroom moments. Pictures truly speak a thousand words, and we love being able to share glimpses of your children learning, growing, and having fun each day.
Spring Break Reminder
If your family will be away for any additional days over Spring Break that will affect your child’s attendance, please email the office with the dates. Thank you for your cooperation.
February may have been short, but it was packed with joyful learning, cultural celebrations, friendship, and growth. We are so proud of our Rainbow Room children and look forward to all the excitement March will bring!
Warmly,
Vibha, Danielle and Karen
TREEHOUSE ROOM
Gabi, Mary, Catriona, Monica, Marjan
Hello Treehouse Room Families,
February was a wonderful and busy month in our classroom! Since February is the month of love and caring, our themes were kindness, feelings, caring, friendship, and Valentine’s Day. It was also a special coincidence that we celebrated Chinese New Year during this time.
We decorated our classroom for Valentine’s Day and later combined the decorations with Chinese New Year. This helped children connect visually and emotionally to our themes. We began by reading stories about friendship, kindness, and feelings to help children understand the meaning of Valentine’s Day.
During circle time, we discussed friendship, sharing, caring, and kindness. We talked about how we can show our feelings to others and explored different emotions such as happiness, anger, excitement, and sadness. We emphasized that all feelings are important and normal. The children especially enjoyed our storybooks and felt-board stories.
In this month, we noticed that many children were very interested in listening to the Elephant and Piggie series by Mo Willems. We read several books from this series, and the children really enjoyed the stories. We also extended their interest through Elephant and Piggie art activities.
At the beginning of February, each child decorated their own Valentine envelope to collect Valentine cards and small gifts from their friends and teachers. This is a tradition we practice in the Treehouse Room to help prepare them for kindergarten, where they will continue this activity.
In the corner of the House-Keeping Corner, we set up a grocery shop with boxes, containers, play food, shopping carts, and cash registers. The children were highly engaged in dramatic play and enjoyed pretending to shop and work in the store.
On February 11th, we had our Valentine’s Party. Thank you so much to all the parents for providing and sharing food. The children were very happy and excited! We played music, and the children enjoyed dancing and movement activities.
On February 17th and 18th, we celebrated Chinese New Year. We read many interesting stories and felt-board stories and explained the concept of Chinese New Year in an age-appropriate way. In art, the children made dragons and lanterns, and we played Chinese music in the classroom.
Our Valentine-themed art activities included making hearts using different colours and materials, including shaving cream, which was a favourite! The children also created collages using cut newspapers and practiced more challenging cutting skills with teacher supervision.
On Friday the 13th, the school was closed for a Professional Development Day for teachers. Monday was Family Day, so the children enjoyed a long weekend.
On February 25, 2026, we recognized Pink Shirt Day. Teachers and some children wore pink shirts. We talked about kindness and anti-bullying in a simple and meaningful way. The children made and painted small pink shirts as an art activity.
This month, we also started sending home Echo the Whale on weekends. The children are very excited to take Echo home, then bring him back and share their stories with their friends.
In addition, we have started rehearsing songs for the Easter Services, which will be held during the day on March 11th and 12th.
Throughout the month, we continued practicing essential kindergarten readiness skills, including fine and gross motor skills, pre-writing and pre-reading skills, tracing, numbers, measurement, patterns, and more.
We can’t believe March is almost here! Next month, we will explore flowers, birds, spring, and Persian New Year for two weeks before Spring Break.
As always, if you have any questions, please feel free to speak with the teachers.
RESOURCE ROOM
Marion
Self-Esteem in Preschoolers!
Self-esteem develops in young children slowly and over time through unconditional love, consistent routines, and encouragement of independence, which help children feel safe, capable, and valued. Children who feel good about themselves have the confidence to try new things. Self-esteem helps children cope with mistakes. It helps them want to try something again, even if they were not successful the first time. If a child has low self-esteem, they may have a hard time standing up for themselves and may give up easily or not try at all. Children with low self-esteem find it hard to cope when they make a mistake. Help children understand that errors are a normal part of learning and solving problems. As children grow, their self-esteem grows too. Every time a child tries something new, it can be a chance for self-esteem to grow. This can happen when children are kind, help others, and receive praise for appropriate behaviors.
Focus on the process, such as saying, "You worked hard on that tower." rather than just "Good job." Give preschoolers small, manageable chores or choices to make them feel capable, such as picking out clothes or helping to set the table. Listen actively by taking their thoughts and feelings seriously and showing them that their opinions matter, which builds a sense of self-worth. Every child is unique, and self-esteem may come more easily to some children than others. Self-esteem helps children do better at home, at school, and with their friends. Celebrate your child's unique talents and avoid making comparisons to peers or siblings.