Our first half term of 2023 has come to an end and although it has been a short one it has been incredibly busy!

Our Little Owls have shown a keen interest in construction recently, so we decided to have a move around in the room to give them lots of floor space to build and create some wonderful tall towers and wide bridges using various resources. We also moved lots of loose parts play outside to reignite their interest and really develop their critical thinking skills. They have shown us how they can share resources and work together to reach their goal – great teamwork! We introduced a new deep tray into the room that we filled with sand or water, the children loved exploring capacity, tipping, pouring and scooping.

As Chinese New Year was celebrated, we learnt about some of their customs, traditions and the 12 animals of the Chinese zodiac. We developed our gross motor movements with Chinese dragon dancing and our fine motor skills using chopsticks and writing Chinese letters. This half term we also learnt a little about Scotland as they celebrated Burn’s night, reading some Robert Burns poetry, listening to bagpipes, dancing the highland fling and baking our own shortbread – YUM!

Reading together is so beneficial to our Little Owls and National story telling week is every week for us! We promoted this week with lots of activities linked to familiar stories, we made Gruffalo crumble, we painted underpants for an aliens love underpants display (a favourite story at the moment) and cuddled our owl babies until their mummy returned. We also gave the children the opportunities to tell their own stories, some chose to tell familiar stories and some became very imaginative and at forest school we were crossing rope bridges to escape from ferocious crocodiles!

We finished the half term filled with love! Our Little Owls created pictures and wrote cards for special people in their lives. They loved exploring pink gloopy potions and manipulating red sparkly playdough.

The Little Owls team have set up some lovely invitations to play for the children to enjoy, but the children still lead their own learning and we never know where our day will take us, race tracks to space and beyond!

When we return from our half term break its pancake day!! We love to cook and bake at Little Owls and pancakes for snack are always a hit. The 2^nd March is World Book Day, who doesn’t like dressing up? I wonder what the team will dress up as this year? British science week falls in March and is always filled with critical thinking and Awe and Wonder. As we head towards the end of March there may be a special day we have to prepare for but it will remain top secret!