Who can believe we are at the first half term holidays already?!

As always it has been a super busy but fun term. Our new Little Owls have settled in so well to preschool, it’s hard to believe they have only been with us a few weeks and our returning Little Owls, well its like they have never been away.

We spent the first few weeks really getting to know the new little owls and their families.  Embedding our routines, supporting and modelling this for the children. We shared pictures, stories and we played, we played lots, we really enjoyed finding out about favourite toys and activities and the things that would really engage them. Playdough and painting usually come out on top and this year was no different, both have so many developmental benefits and are really good fun. Playdough – TLC Messy Play – TLC

Our older Little Owls were keen to show us how much they had grown and all the new things they could do, they shared summer adventures with us, new things they had learnt and what their new favourite toy or activity might be. They do grow up so quickly in the summer holidays!

The conker drop of 2025 did not disappoint; such a great resource and the team must get more creative every year to find a new way to use it. This year using the conkers to form letters was a hit, making conker families was fun, conker painting was messy, we even managed some conker subitising, and everyone loved a conker hunt to see who could collect the most!

A few of the Little Owls were mesmerized during space week, we created planets (having some glitter sparked the interest of a few), inviting tuff trays with rockets and the opportunity to make play dough aliens made it so much fun. The team enjoyed finding themed stories, “Aliens love underpants” and ” Whatever next” were at the top of our list, What would be your number one Space story?

Pumpkins! Who doesn’t love some pumpkin play and again the team have to get more and more creative! The winner by far is always when we get out the tools, there is always a queue for hammering the golf tees, absolutely fantastic for development too. This year the Little Owls were also curious to use the knives to cut up the pumpkin, we used the pieces in the mud kitchen for soup and pies! At snack time we tried some roasted pumpkin seeds, some came back for more so that was a positive!

We ended the half term with a celebration of Diwali, diva lamps, colours, fireworks, rangoli patterns, mehndi designs, dancing and the story of Rama & Sita. We hope everyone celebrating had a wonderful time.

As you are all aware back in September we had our OFSTED inspection, it was really no different to any other day at Little Owls and the children just enjoyed having a visitor in setting!  We would again like to say thank you to those that spoke to the inspector on the day, wrote letters or emailed, you gave us such wonderful feedback and it really is a great boost for the team. We will share our report with you as soon as we can, hopefully not much longer!

Have a wonderful half term everyone and we will see you all on Tuesday 4^th November. Dare I say it we will be starting the Christmas countdown!!!

The summer holidays have arrived! And yet again we have fitted so much into this half term, busy, busy, busy!

We literally hit the ground running at the beginning of the half term with our fun run. A great event supported by all our families and the fantastic Boxted Runners. The Little Owls were incredible and it was mentioned a few times how fast they were! They enjoyed the warm up and cool down but the excitement of the race, the cheering and support was what really spurred them on! Thank you to all of their sponsors, they raised an incredible amount to enhance our provision.

 We had a wonderful visit from Essex Therapy Dogs. It was such a wonderful experience, Maisy and Geoff really showed the Little Owls the benefits of therapy dogs, they laughed at their tricks, smiled at their cheekiness with treats and relaxed with them to create a really calm environment. We also had a visit from tiddles the tortoise, the Little Owls enjoyed watching him move around slowly and munch on his lettuce, they were all very calm and gentle, so they didn’t scare him.

We saw some warmer weather this half term and the garden was a hive of activity. We kept the plants hydrated so the flowers blossomed, and we watched our tomatoes ripen, they were delicious for snack. The Little Owls also enjoyed staying hydrated with lots and lots of water play, splash pads, fishing, tipping, pouring, floating, sinking, splashing and squirting are just some of the ways they enjoyed the water. The garden also saw the Little Owls getting creative and taking risks, they have really enjoyed building their own obstacle courses, challenging themselves and their friends, sometimes the courses trailed all around the garden, a real collaborative effort.

This half term was also about getting some of our Little Owls ready for their transition into their reception classes. We had lots of activities about feelings and emotions, playdough faces, puzzles, self-portraits and stories. We included some book bags and uniforms in our dressing up, always promoting and encouraging their independence. We had lots of visits from new teachers and the Little Owls team also visited some schools with the children to offer a smooth transition. It is always quite a sad time for us, but we are also incredibly proud of them all. We had a wonderful leavers celebration, that we shared with our 2025 leavers and their families. The Little Owls sang their leavers song beautifully and I’m not sure there was a dry eye in the house. We also said goodbye to some of the Little Owls team, Lisa, Sarah and Caroline, they are leaving us to spend some more quality time with their own families, we will miss them and hope they come back to visit.  We are lucky enough to be welcoming 2 new members to the Little Owls team, Sue and Seren come to us with lots of experience and they have been coming into preschool over the last few weeks to get to know our Little Owls and their families and they are both excited to start their new roles in September.

At the end of term, we welcomed all our new Little Owls and their families into preschool for an “All About Me” morning. The team met their new key children and got to know all about them, and everyone had the chance to play and see the wonderful activities preschool has to offer. It was a lovely relaxed morning and left everyone really excited for September!

I could write so much more but I will leave it with just the highlights!

We hope everyone has a fantastic summer, don’t forget to add your adventures to tapestry, we love to share them with the Little Owls when we return.

We return on Monday 8th September 2025, see you then!

Well, that was a short but sweet half term!

We continued this half term emerged in our life cycles topic, the Little Owls continued to be amazed by the metamorphosis of our tiny tadpoles. They watched them grow their front legs, absorb their tails and turn into tiny frogs that they loved to watch jump off their rock! Some of our Little Owls also got to help them move into their big new pond at Boxted St Peters Primary School, we hope they will be very happy and thank the school for having them.

We have had lots of updates on our not so little ducklings, they are now all grown up and loving their new life at Gladwins Farm. Nicola couldn’t resist a little visit to see how they were getting on.

We celebrated VE Day and the children created a wonderful window display. They concentrated on red, white and blue colours after seeing the union jack bunting, some made poppies to remember and they also decorated their very own medal, such a variety of resources and materials used. We were very proud of all their hard work.

As many of you are aware we have been taking part in the NDNA (National Day Nurseries Association) Maths Champion development programme and we are so proud to say that we are now a Dedicated Maths Champion Provider! Louise led the team and the team really embraced the programme, developing their own knowledge and skills and that of our Little Owls. To stand back and observe it is lovely to see how it is embedded into our everyday practice. We have also been involved in the Making It Real programme, to raise early achievement in Literacy. This programme helps The Little Owls Team support our families to build confidence and knowledge within the home learning environment. The team have some great simple home learning ideas that I know they like to share; you will be amazed how an everyday activity can become a learning opportunity. We do have a home learning library, including activities and stories to share, please help yourself or just chat to the team they are always happy to help. Please do share your family experiences with us through Tapestry, we love to share them with our Little Owls.

We transitioned into our new topic towards the end of the half term, people that help us. The Little Owls were keen to become vets so the team quickly set up a veterinary surgery, making appointments, administering medicine, bandaging and caring, some days the set up turned into a doctor’s surgery too! We spent some time learning about dentists and opticians as well. The highlight though must be the visit from Colchester Fire and Rescue service. The children loved the interactive experience; they received a shout-out on the fire engines radio from the control center and got to use the hoses!

Over the next half term we will continue to learn about people and animals that help us and our community. The transitions into primary schools will also start to take place for some of our Little Owls, it is exciting but can be a little scary, the team are prepared to support our Little Owls and their families, if you have any worries please speak to one of the team, we are always available.

Fundraising is so important to us, and we have been enjoying the new resources from the money that has been raised, it has been invaluable for enhancing our resources and experiences for our Little Owls. We are looking forward to the sponsored fun run and thank you in advance for supporting our lovely preschool. Please don’t forget you can also sign up for easy fundraising and support us whilst you are shopping!

Enjoy the half term break everyone and we will see you all when we return on Monday 2^nd of June.

There is just one word that sums up our last half term EXCITING!!!!!

Spring has arrived, the days are starting to get a little warmer and we are starting to see new growth around us. New growth and life cycles have been a hot topic for us, starting just after the half term break with the exciting arrival of our frogspawn. The Little Owls have been closely monitoring their changes and there is always someone observing the tank or looking at the books and visuals. We are growing our own beanstalk and have watched excitedly as the bean burst open and sprout roots and leaves, we didn’t sell a cow but maybe just maybe we will be able to climb to the giant’s castle! But by far the most exciting life cycle we have observed has been our ducklings. From the moment the eggs arrived the children were captivated by the changes they could see happening before their eyes, (not just the children, the adults too) The ducklings’ arrival created a buzz within the local community, and they had lots of excited visitors, our Little Owls loved showing them off to friends and family. They have gone off to their new home Gladwin’s farm just up the road and we are excited to hear about their progress.

Science week is always fun and exciting. The team love becoming super scientists, highlighting chemical reactions, magnetic fields and captivating our Little Owls interest, encouraging them to be curious, experimental and develop those critical thinking skills.

I haven’t yet mentioned the excitement of the Big Garden Birdwatch, the children loved birdwatching and creating twitchers huts to watch them from, designing birdfeeders to entice the birds into the garden, keeping a tally chart to count how many we saw, listening to the sounds they make and watching them fly high in the sky, we really did have some lovely outdoor learning.

World book day happened at the beginning of March and some children dressed up in amazing costumes and some children just wanted to bring in their favourite story, it was just wonderful to celebrate it all together. Just a little Shout Out to the Thursday team for really getting involved with some fantastic costumes!

Lots of learning happened around different cultures and countries too, we celebrated Lunar New Year, Shrove Tuesday, Ramadan and Eid. We often find simple stories, or videos to share with the children around these celebrations. We baked symbolic biscuits, tried new foods, created decorations and of course excitedly practiced our pancake making and flipping!

We also shared a wonderful week with our parents, it was lovely to see so many of you in setting and to see the excitement on our Little Owls faces as they showed you to their favourite activities. It really is such a valuable time for children and adults alike. It was a great opportunity for the team to talk about each child’s progress and how they can be supported at home and how we can support you all.

I’m not 100% sure if I have remembered everything as it has been very busy but so much fun! I cannot finish the blog without mentioning the amazing fundraising efforts that have been made recently, 2 of our trustees Emily and Amy, have put a lot of time and effort into fundraising for Little Owls and you all have supported them buy buying the raffle tickets so thank you to you all, we really do appreciate it and we are very excited to see what new resources we will be blessed with after the Easter holidays.

I’m sure next term is going to be just as exciting as we continue to monitor our tadpoles and our beanstalk but maybe it will be more exciting as our topic will be people who help us, and maybe we will have some special visitors.

We hope you all have an exciting and amazing Easter Holiday, and we will see you when we return on Tuesday 22^nd April.

Hello half term! Another fun filled 6 weeks we have had!

We have continued to secure our maths confidence across the setting and we have also continued to embrace our love for learning by joining the making it REAL campaign to support raising early achievement in literacy, lots of lovely ideas, information and support for us to implement in setting and lots of fun, simple ideas to support that all important home learning.

Our Little Owls really enjoyed The Big Garden Birdwatch at the beginning of the term.  We built twitchers huts, threaded birdfeeders, recorded our sightings, shared stories, made nests and watched through binoculars, some of which we made ourselves, complete with camouflage so we couldn’t be seen! The children love watching the birds and some little Robins are quite brave now coming into the garden.

We shared a variety of activities to celebrate Chinese New Year. Noodles and prawn crackers were a hit at snack time. Dragon dancing is always a favourite and we created our own dragon heads with some collaborative art at circle time. The Little Owls developed their fine motor skills with chopsticks, they are incredibly tricky to use but they all gave it a try and we had tweezers as an alternative. We learnt a little about how Chinese numbers look a little different to ours, but they still have the same meaning and some of the Little Owls even gave writing them a go.

This half term we also had National Story Telling Week, we don’t really need an excuse as we love sharing stories together. As always, the Little Owls Team made sure there was an abundance of activities for children to get involved with, making the 3 bears, an overflowing magic porridge pot, and Gruffalo crumble, the list goes on. They also love to create and tell their own stories, it’s great to hear their imaginations running wild.

As the half term draws to a close, we have spent some time learning about Internet safety, it is a huge part of our lives now and the lives of our Little Owls so it is so important that we talk about it from a young age. If you need any help or advice on internet safety or parental controls, please follow this link or speak to one of the Little Owls team, we are always happy to help.

Keeping children safe online | NSPCC

The children always love the big teeth coming out to be brushed and cleaned, they have enjoyed stories about going to the dentist, dentist puzzles and we even made some teeth and a toothbrush from play dough! All these activities are a great way to start conversations about looking after our teeth and gums.  Please follow the link below for some information about looking after your child’s oral health, I’ve also included a link if you are struggling to find an NHS dentist.

Children’s teeth – NHS

Find a dentist – NHS

We end our half term with our hearts full of love! The craft area has been a hive of activity, pink printing, feathers, pasta bracelets, colour mixing, junk modelling all for someone special! Our Valentines bake sale was a huge success, so many beautiful and yummy bakes and so many people to buy them! We can’t say thank you enough and we are all very excited for the total of money raised, I’m sure you will be seeing ducklings at Little Owls very soon!

As always, we have lots to look forward to in the coming weeks, pancake day, parent open week, science week, world book day, maybe some tadpoles and not forgetting the before mentioned ducklings as we start to look at lifecycles. Yes we are going to be busy, busy, busy.

We hope you are all enjoying the half term break and we will see you on Monday 24^th February.