Another fun packed term comes to an end!

As always, we have packed so much in, starting the term learning about our oral health, the children love brushing the big teeth, we shared stories and experiences and who knew there were so many different styles and colours of toothbrushes?!

We always try to commemorate Remembrance Day and this year the Little Owls created a beautiful poppy picture display; you can see it on our social media pages. We shared a lovely song together, It’s Remembrance Day by Lisa Gillam, a simple representation for early years.

The Little Owls team didn’t disappoint with Nursery Rhyme week, lots of traditional nursery rhymes sung and incorporated into activities supporting so many areas of development. We constructed walls for Humpty Dumpty, we helped Miss Polly, we tried to save Incy Wincy from the rice rain and we caught a fish alive! Plus, so much more!

At the end of November we welcomed our parents into the setting. Lots of parents came to share preschool with their Little Owls and the Little Owls loved showing them around. It really is a lovely sharing experience. We run parent open weeks termly so please do look out for your email in the new year to book your place on our next one.

Forest school sessions returned, and the children really have embraced them, this time of year they have been a little damp, windy and chilly, but our Little Owls have been wrapped up enjoying the freedom of the forest, climbing, swinging, digging, sliding and taking a few risks. I’m sure they will all be keen to get back to it in the new year.

So, then December arrived and so did Christmas at Little Owls! The team’s favourite time of year, full of glitter and sparkle! Our Little Owls had the chance to decorate our Christmas trees adding baubles and tinsel, you may have noticed they needed decorating every day, just so everyone had the opportunity. Again, the Little Owls team got creative with activities, balancing baubles, pom poms and pine cones, card creating, card writing, gift wrapping, a chance to drive Santas sleigh and not forgetting lots of singing and dancing! (in preparation for our Christmas party).

We finished the term with a fun, fun, fun Christmas party for all of our Little Owls. We danced, lots of our Little Owls love dancing and have some very cool moves! We played games and we ate party food with all our friends! The best way to finish the term.

A big thank you must go out to our trustees for an amazing Christmas raffle, raising a whopping £566 for our lovely preschool. Another thank you goes to all our families that show us so much support and let us look after their wonderful Little Owls.

I would also like to say a big thank you to the Little Owls Team, I think we can all agree that they are fantastic at what they do and give our Little Owls the best opportunities and experiences.

Don’t forget if your Little Owl is due to start School in September 2025, you have until 15^th January 2025 to apply for your place.

This just leaves us to say we wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

We will see you when we return on Monday 6^th January 2025.

Although it was an 8 week half term it has flown by as quick as a flash and we are already at October half term!

This half term we have had lots of building – building trust, building relationships, building independence and of course building castles, houses and dens!  Our Little Owls old and new have been amazing. All children settle in differently and our wonderful team have adapted their practice and routines to support each and every one of them.

As you may have seen, Kerry has achieved her early years teacher status, a fantastic achievement, but you may not yet know that Louise and Kerry are now maths champions for the setting, supporting the team to develop maths skills and provide continuous provision helping our Little Owls to become maths confident.

We have had some wonderful new equipment added to our garden area thanks to the fantastic fundraising of our families. The new climbing frame and slide has provided our Little Owls with physical challenge and the new water pump has been a huge hit, giving the children the opportunity to work together and develop their critical thinking skills. We can’t thank our families and trustees enough; all fundraising is so vitally important to enhance our provision.

Autumn has been a big focus for us over the last few weeks and all the Little Owls and the team have been so creative and imaginative with conker and pumpkin activities, it amazes me every year what they come up with. Exploring, mixing, painting, transporting, weighing, counting, rolling, hammering, scooping, drawing and so much more. You can find lots of pictures of these wonderful activities on our Facebook and Instagram pages. @LITTLE_OWLS_PRESCHOOL @Little Owls Preschool – Boxted

Lots of our local schools have been having open mornings for prospective families with children due to start reception in September 2025 and we know some of our Little Owls have been enjoying their visits. If your child is due to start reception, then you can apply for their place between 4^th November 2024 – 15^th January 2025. If you have missed any of the school open mornings don’t worry, just give them a ring to arrange a visit.

 We are never 100% sure where our learning will take us as we follow the children’s interests but next half term there might be some firework activities, we love nursery rhymes so I’m sure we will celebrate nursery rhyme week and of course the team’s favourite celebration CHRISTMAS!!!

We hope you all have a lovely half term break, don’t forget you can add your Little Owls adventures to Tapestry, it will be lovely to share them when we return on Monday 4th November.

And just like that another academic year is done!

 We have fitted in so much and it has been so much fun!

We returned after the half term holidays to discover that our tadpoles had legs and it wasn’t long before they lost their tails and we had some tiny frogs looking for a new home. Boxted St Peter’s primary school offered them a lovely new home in their pond, so we had a little trip out to release them, they hopped away happy! Our beanstalks have continued to grow, as have our marrow plants, so some of the Little Owls team are going to nurture them over the summer and hopefully we may have some vegetables to harvest.

Our Little Owls loved sharing preschool with their Mummy’s and Daddy’s at our parent open week. It is great to watch the children guide grown ups to their favourite activities and share them together. Thank you to everyone that came, not just into preschool but to our forest school sessions too, we really enjoy seeing you all.

Part of our topic over the last term has been People That Help Us, we looked at so many different occupations and had a variety of role play set ups – Vets and Hospital being the favourites, but by far the most exciting event was the visits from the Police and Fire service. The visits were so interactive, the children could try on uniform, use some of the equipment and they got to share their knowledge of who to call in an emergency. During this topic we also talked about the dentist and good oral health, something that is so very important. We practiced brushing teeth, shared our experiences of dentist visits and experimented the effect sugar has on our teeth.

Our forest school sessions continued this half term with a variety of activities and new skills learnt – hapa zome, clay creations, bark rubbing, bug hunting, digging, swinging, climbing, balancing and of course campfires. Some of our younger children enjoyed sessions this term too as our slightly older Owls were enjoying school transition days.

Yes, some of our Little Owls are about to fly the nest. During their time at Little Owls we have been preparing them for the next part of their adventure – reception class! These children leave us with a variety of skills, including being independent, curious, resilient learners! We have welcomed teachers, teaching assistants, we have visited schools and as a team we love telling them how far each individual child has come on their journey. It is a big change for them and there may be a few wobbles, but they are all ready. To celebrate our leavers, we had a lovely ceremony with their families, drinks, cakes, photo opportunities and of course the song that they have all been practising so hard (the team may also be singing it in their sleep!). We really do wish them all the best for their next adventures and we will miss every single one of them.

We have lots of new Little Owls coming to join us in September and we spent a morning getting to know them and their families, we look forward to them starting their journey with us.

We would like to say a big thank you to all our families for your support, appreciation, kind words, gifts and cards, it really does mean so much to us as a team. We hope everyone has a lovely summer whatever you have planned and we will see you in September!

The first half of the summer term is complete and we have packed lots into the last few weeks!

Life cycles were a big topic for us this half term as we welcomed 5 tiny caterpillars and a tank of tiny tadpoles.  The caterpillars have a slightly quicker metamorphosis and the children enjoyed checking on their changes daily, from caterpillar to cocoon and cocoon to beautiful butterfly!  Some of the Little Owls were sad to see them go, but we hope they have flown off and found some lovely flowers to land on!  Maybe in the moonlight they will lay an egg on a leaf Our tadpoles have definitely grown and their body shape has started to change, so hopefully after half term we might start to see their legs appear.

Outside in the garden, the Little Owls have enjoyed planting a variety of vegetables and we have even planted out our very own beanstalk, will it lead us to the giant’s castle?  And if it does will we be brave enough to go inside like Jack?

Many of our Little Owls love to get creative, so the team decided to introduce a creation station in the garden that mirrors our one indoors, everything is close to hand and they have really enjoyed it. It has also given those Little Owls that like to be outdoors more opportunity to get creative and learn new skills.

Monday, 20^th May was World Bee Day so Valarie and Sarah, 2 local bee keepers, came in to talk to the children about bee keeping and making honey.  They had lots of visuals and equipment for our Little Owls to see and feel and they told us a wonderful story.  The children asked lots of interesting questions and really enjoyed trying the honey, it was very sweet and sticky.

The Little Owls Fun Run 2024 took place this half term.  Thankfully the weather held out for us and we had a wonderful morning with the Boxted Runners. The children were amazing runners and seem to complete it with ease – Boxted Runners of the future! We will let everyone know how much money we raised after the half term and the team have already picked out a few things to enhance our provision.

We finished the half term with a trip out to watch the Ride London bike race pass through Boxted. We were lucky enough to have a safe area to watch from with a gazebo and blankets, thanks to Julia for the use of her garden!  The children had made flags and a banner with a little help from the team and were so excited to watch.  Not only did we see the bikes zoom through, we saw police motorbikes and police cars with their lights and sirens on.  We also saw the support cars with lots of bikes on their roofs, and the Little Owls thought this was very funny!  It was a great event that we all enjoyed.

As we come to the last half of our summer term, we start to get ready for some of our Little Owls to transition into primary school.  The Little Owls team are here to support the children and their families and if you have any questions please just ask.  We have already started to meet some of the local reception teachers and will be welcoming them into the setting.  Our dressing up box will start to have a few uniform pieces in and we will give the children lots of support and encouragement to talk about their feelings and learn about being part of a community.

With visits from the Police and Fire Service planned in the coming weeks we will also be thinking about the people that help us.. We love inviting people into the setting and if you feel that you would like to come in and talk to our Little Owls about your job or hobby please do get in touch.

We hope everyone has a lovely half term and we will see everyone on Monday 3^rd June.

Well that really was a short half term, but in true Little Owls style we have fitted so much in!

We had a fantastic week learning all about our senses, we had lots of different smells to identify and we discovered that deciding what food you are eating is really tricky when you can’t see it.  We also really enjoyed “What the ladybird heard”, listening to directions in the dark!

Of course we celebrated World Book Day, although we share stories with our Little Owls all the time, it seems so much more special when you are dressed up as one of the characters! The children and the team had an amazing day!

We also celebrated the special ladies in our Little Owls lives, the children were all so keen to plant their gifts for someone special and they made beautiful flower cards.  We are looking forward to seeing pictures of the sweet peas as they grow.

Then British Science week was upon us and we all became budding scientists!  We erupted volcanos, made potions, blew bubbles, printed foam pictures and sent rockets into space. This really sparked the imagination of the children, so the Little Owls team sprung into action and before we knew it, we had a space station/rocket built in the room and our Little Owls had become astronauts!  We learnt so much about planets, gravity and rocket launching, we really loved to countdown to blast off!

We have welcomed lots of visitors this term. Arwa came to speak to us about how her and her family observe Ramadan and the children made some great links about kindness and sharing.  We opened our doors for parent open week.  It was lovely to see so many of you in the setting and at Forest school.  The children were so pleased to show you around and to share their favourite toys and games with you.  The team really love having you in as well, it’s a great chance to catch up, so look out for the next one.  We have also shared our lovely preschool with lots of new Little Owls and their families that will joining us in September and we can’t wait.

We ended our term with some very eggciting (sorry couldn’t help myself!) Easter activities, developing our fine motor skills with a miniature Easter egg hunt, practising scissor skills with bunny ear hats, getting creative printing cards and baking Easter biscuits.  I’m pretty sure the Easter Bunny knew how busy we have been because this afternoon he came to visit and left us some special treats!  Another term full of awe and wonder!

Next term we will look closely at lots of lifecycles, hopefully being able to observe some closely.  This is a great opportunity to learn about the natural world and develop a deeper understanding of the world around us.

We hope you all have a lovely Easter break and good luck to all those that are finding out their primary school places over the holiday.

We will see you all when we return on Monday 15^th April.