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.

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.