RisingOaks Early Learning
10 Washburn Drive, unit 2 N2R 1S2 Kitchener, ON, Canada

Welcome back school-age children! Can't wait to see your beautiful faces. Despite wearing masks, there will be lots of smiles today. We've missed you.

And that’s a wrap! Today was our last day of Emergency Child Care (ECC) for school-age children. ECC brought together educators and families from across our region. A huge shout out to the ECC educators and supervisory team at RisingOaks Early Learning | John Sweeney and RisingOaks Early Learning | St. Luke. You supported the formation of new friendships and found ways to balance the many different school schedules with fun learning activities of your own. ECC Families, thank you for trusting us with your children and for all the work you do for our communities. Together, children, parents and educators made ECC a success!

RisingOaks Early Learning has made it a priority to create a sense of well-being and belonging for every child. Ontario’s Pedagogy for the Early Years, How Does Learning Happen, identifies four foundations that are central to children’s growth; well-being and belonging being two of them. In the Preschool 1 classroom at RisingOaks Early Learning | St. Brigid, every child has their picture on the cabinet doors and an educator checks in with them each morning. They are presente...d with the questions: "How are you feeling? and What zone is that feeling in? They are able to pick a paperclip that represents the zone they’ve chosen to attach their name to their photo. To encourage reflection, they are also asked what the reason is for their feeling. This allows the opportunity for conflict resolution, positive reinforcement, and strengthened bonds through empathy. As feelings change throughout the day, they are able to change their paperclip to match. Having this available at the eye level of the children brings awareness to the emotions of others and gives children the chance to demonstrate independence and ownership over their emotional regulation. As an added benefit, children are increasingly building letter and name recognition skills through association. This chart has been an incredible way to foster peer-peer and educator-child relationships while showing children that their feelings are significant and valued.

Groundhog Day was an excellent opportunity to enhance the children's interests in shadows that we demonstrated the previous week! It began as we watched a short clip of a groundhog in Nova Scotia stepping out of its home,only not to see its shadow. This prompted us to discuss our shadows. We wondered "Will we see our shadows when we go outside? Chloe yelled, "SHADOW! in excitement. Calvin began to look in circles for his shadow. Once we got outside, Calvin thought he saw h...is shadow in the window, only to discover it was his reflection instead. Isaac got excited and pointed to his shadow on the wall and said, "I see it there! Laura began to raise her arms in the air to demonstrate how the shadow moves along with us. This caused Layla to mimic her movements. Every single one of us worked hard to find our shadows outside in the sun. Does this mean we’ll have 6 more weeks of Winter?

We’re looking for an established, collaborative finance professional with experience delivering strategic and tactical financial leadership in not-for-profit or charitable sectors. Reporting to the Executive Director, the Accounting Manger will provide oversight and accountability for all financial and accounting practices at RisingOaks. Professional accounting designation is preferred (CPA, CMA, CGA, CA)... 3-5 years; experience in a non-profit, charitable environment Experience in a senior financial role responsible for financial strategy and overseeing and delivering the full range of financial and accounting practices, including but not limited, to budgeting, forecasting, reporting, financial analysis, cash flow management, AP/AR Management experience is an asset Experience with Canadian Emergency Wage Subsidy is an asset. *Please send cover letter and resume to [email protected] in order to be considered for this position.

Just announced...Waterloo Region schools will re-open for in-person learning on Monday, Feb. 8. RisingOaks' centres have, and continue to be, a safe haven for infant, toddler and preschool programs and have excelled at emergency school-age care during this closure period. We are proud to be an essential service for families. Our school-age educators look forward to seeing those in their before and after school programs next week!