Well that’s it, another term has come to an end and another school year is over!

We started the term welcoming our tiny frogs and we found a new home for them at Boxted St Peters Primary school. Some of our Little Owls were lucky enough to go and release them and spend some time pond dipping, so we could see who they would be living with in their new habitat.

A visit from Essex Police started some lovely learning about people who help us, the children learnt that they don’t just catch bad guys, they keep us safe too! 999 is the number to call if you need them and we saw the children putting this into practice in the police station role play. Not to be outdone, the Fire service came to visit too. They were very impressed our Little Owls knew who to call in an emergency. We got to see Nicola dress up as a firefighter, which caused the children some amusement. We saw the long ladders, large cutting equipment, flashing lights, loud sirens and we got to squirt the hose! In addition, we have turned our role play area into a hospital, a school, a hairdressers, and a post office, enabling the children to explore different occupations and the people that help us. Marie, the community champion from Tesco, even came to visit with a donation of fresh fruit! Thank you Tesco!

 The park, school or café are all in our community and the children love to visit them all, we have been able to learn about directions and maps and found our way to the post box to post some special mail.  At the end of the last half term we were joined by The Boxted Runners, they helped and supported us to have a fantastic sponsored fun run and we raised a phenomenal amount for our wonderful preschool, thank you all very much.

We have continued to support all our Little Owls with their resilience and independence and over the last half term some of them have been getting ready for their transition into ‘BIG SCHOOL’. They have been out to visit their new schools and teachers have come to visit us. It’s an exciting time but also a little scary. Supporting them to understand these feelings has been important to us and we have included activities on feelings, looked at books, shared stories and pictures sent from schools, but most importantly we had lots of cuddles!

We ended the term with a little leavers ceremony and our Little Owls were presented with their certificates. The main event though was the goodbye song, the children had worked so hard practicing and they smashed it, not a dry eye in the house, proud parents and Little Owls ladies! We will miss every one of them, but we know they are ready for the next part of their journey.

Honestly I could write about our adventures for hours, I haven’t even mentioned our continuing forest school sessions or mini boot camps, we have so much fun and we have even spent some time getting to know our new Little Owls that will be joining us in September.

Have an amazing summer everyone and we will see you in September!