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.

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.