Enriched Activities

The celebrity of the week is an experience that is in all classrooms from academy 2-6. Each week a child is nominated to be the celebrity of that week. This role fosters in our children leadership and decision making. On that week we ask the parents to have their child come to the daycare with their favorite story book. It is their story that will be read that week at story time. It is that celebrity that will have the privilege to be first in line all week.

During the morning circle time it is that child that will assist the educator. During that special week for that child, leadership roles will be given to them and a special thank you at the end of the week for a great job.

Each week from September to June we nominate a special celebrity for each of our classrooms. The announcements are posted at the entrance of our daycare for all parents to see.

We know how challenging it is to get our children out of diapers. Therefore, we created at Académie Bois Franc our competition. We generally approach our parents first once we see the child is walking, talking and shows a fair amount of autonomy. With the parents’ permission, each month we choose a child per educator to train to use the toilet.

With positive reinforcement and support and cooperation with home and daycare we begin our process of training the child to sit on the toilet. At the end of each month, we recognize which children have now independently learned how to use the toilet.

We celebrate their success in each classroom for those children with a laminated certificate award congratulating them for successfully transitioned to toilet use. We also give them a trophy with their name and a toy gift.

A photo of that special moment is sent to the parent via email. This process is then restarted in the following month. If there is a child who has not yet succeeded, we simply renominate him and continue the encouragement and support.

We all want our children to feel confident. We know that confidence in oneself is an important attribute to have and we naturally all want that for our children. With that in mind, we created our public speaking program. We want our children to feel comfortable speaking and sharing ideas in front of their peers. At Académie Bois Franc this tradition begins from the start of our journey. In Académie 1, our educators every Friday create a sensorial bag. In that bag they put no more than 3 objects.

Each week they take the time to coax the children to pull out an object from the bag and the educator repeats the name of that object. By the time we get to Académie 2 and 3 we invite the children to stand in front their r peers and have each child choose an object from the sensorial bag or box and describe it to the friends in our show and tell tradition. In Académie 4 and 5, we invite the children each week to bring an object from home, and on Friday each child is invited to present what they brough to the daycare. Sometimes rather than an object we ask them to talk about a concept such as “what is your favorite color”. These baby steps help to take away the stigma of being afraid of speaking in front of others.

By the time we get to Académie 6 our children have gotten accustomed over the years with the Friday tradition. In academie 6 however the educators choose 5 children a week to prepare a short presentation on of monthly theme subject (for example dinosaur month). A schedule is given to parents of academy 6 for them to prepare with their child a short presentation using a poster or pictures for their special Friday. This monthly presentation has become a favorite tradition at the Académie.

We have two workbooks at Académie Bois Franc. We have one for children ages 3-4 and we have a second workbook for children ages 4-5. These workbooks are included as part of our enriched activities. They incorporate concepts that are age appropriate for each group.

They are colorful, interactive, and fun to do. In small groups each week, one of our educators sit at the table with our children with pencils and erasers and do a page together with the guidance of the educator.

The educator reads the instruction and observes the children as they accomplish the workbook task. This gives our educators an opportunity to understand each child’s ability to take instructions and finish a task. The children learn and appreciate the feeling of success with being able to listen to instruction, do that task, receive a sticker on the work page and put it away to go back and play with their friends.

The workbook includes concepts such as numbers, letters, patterns, parts of the body, and emotions. We are confident that this activity helps children mainstream successfully to kindergarten once they leave our daycare.

We have a science element to our monthly curriculum that you will see in our lesson plans. We do experiments and discuss the wonders of nature. In the month of April of every year we plant our seeds. Traditionally we would begin a few weeks away from Mother’s Day. The children play with the soil, fill their pots, and plant their seeds.

Over the coming weeks the educators guide the children on how to water the plants and explore the concept of growing seeds, spring flowers, leaves and trees. Once our plants sprout and begin to grow our educators send them home with our students to share the rest of the growing process with their families.

Every year we organize field trips to enjoy with our daycare community. These trips are organized for children aged 3-5. We send letters home to parents describing the trips’ objective and ask if there are parent volunteers to help chaperone the event.

We go to places such as Bio Dome to see the Penguins, The Eco Museum to visit our provincial animals, a local farm to understand our local agriculture and farm animals to name a few. We usually bring our lunch with us and finish our outing with a picnic.

Every winter season at Académie Bois Franc is welcomed with our holiday play that is hosted by the educators and children of Academy 6 which is our pre-kindergarten class group. Our play is always a classic fairy tale story. We begin rehearsal in September. Our play theater production is then presented to our families in December as part of our Holiday celebration of the winter season. All our children participate.

Our Pre-kindergarten classroom is transformed into a winter wonderland, and we create a mini stage, with lights and sound. Songs are song by our students in between each scene to give our educators time to bring on the next scene of our story.

The stories we have presented in the past were Little Red Riding Hood and The Three Little Pigs. Our children, parents and educators look forward to this yearly tradition.

Movement to music is fun for all ages. At Académie Bois Franc we enjoy a weekly movement with music activity for all our age groups from Académie 2 to Académie 6 (18 months – 5 years).

Our children get an opportunity to explore their motor movements and develop their appreciation to music and rhythm. Our educators participate along with our dance animator.

Music and songs are great tools for children to develop their annunciation and word and sound segmentation. It is part of our daily program to introduce each week in our lesson plan a new song to our children in all our classrooms.

This year we will be incorporating a music animator to come to our daycare regularly to visit our classrooms to introduce the different instruments to our children. Our children will have an opportunity to try the items along with the support of the educator and animator’s guidance.