Hello and Welcome to Little Ospreys Preschool where we offer a vibrant environment that aims to help children discover a sense of independence and a love for learning. Taking the "curiosity approach" designed to empower children to choose their learning and play using everyday objects where imagination is key, promoting curiosity, awe and wonder. We offer weekly PE and swimming sessions in our own pool run by a qualified swimming teacher and trained pool side rescuer. We are very lucky to have our own Forest School area in our surrounding woodland within the school grounds and visit this weekly with a love to explore the world around us.

There are three members of the Little Ospreys team who are highly experienced and skilled Early Years staff.

Curiosity Approach

The "Curiosity Approach" is a modern day approach that fits perfectly in current changing technological times. Bringing curiosity, awe and wonder into early childhood and creating the 'thinkers and doers' of the futures. We provide wondrous opportunities for our children.  

Term 6 Week 7

Well, we’ve made it to the end of a turbulent year. Despite the challenges COVID brought we have managed to maintain normality and the pandemic hasn’t affected us too much in Little Ospreys class. It’s been a very hot and sticky week in class but everyone enjoyed our fun swim on Tuesday where we all got into the pool together and had a great time splashing around.

The children also had a mini graduation, where we saw the children moving up to Reception class receive a certificate and a gift from their teachers. We had a special guest at the graduation, with Mrs Milner, the executive head teacher, joining us to see this wonderful event. We would like to wish you all a restful summer and hope the sunshine stays for a little longer. We look forward to seeing you all in September. Little Ospreys Team. 

Term 6 Week 6

We’ve had a fantastic adventurous week enjoying the story “We’re going on a Bear Hunt”, which sees a family go looking for a bear. They wade through the grass, splash through the river and squelch through the mud to a surprise awaiting them in the cave on the other side of the dark forest! The beginning of the week saw the children make their very own maps for our own bear hunt which took place on Thursday. We were also fortunate enough to experience the same adventure as the book in our forest school and the children were adamant they had seen the bear in the cave between the trees. The children enjoyed our yoga session based on the same story and all the children are getting so much better at the positions, flexibility and strength she teaches whilst story telling. 🐻

Term 5 Week 5

This week has seen all things trains, tracks and journeys. We started the week with making our very own crate train where the children enjoyed getting their tickets to come on board, with the boys driving us on our adventure. We also watched a lovely video about a family going on their first steam train journey which, showed them how steam trains work. I asked the children that if they had a magical ticket which could take them anywhere, where would they like to go. We had some fantastic places to go such as fairyland, beach, sonic world and the park. We also had a great PE session making a human train, holding onto each others shoulders and working together as a team. We went over, around and balanced on the beams going slow enough so everyone could stay together preventing our human train from breaking.

Term 6 Week 4

The story we’ve been enjoying this week is called Stuck. It’s all about a little boy whose kite gets stuck in a tree and he tries to get it down by throwing the most unusual things into the tree to knock it down. The children had a think about alternate endings and with some creative thinking and excitement they gave some great ideas. We have enjoyed making kites and flying them outside and in the hall during our PE session, seeing how fast we can run to make them go higher.
The most exciting day this week was Tuesday which was International Mud Day and boy did the children enjoy this. They made mud pies, mud cakes, mud stew, painted with mud, threw mud pats into a muddy tray and got to jump in muddy water as much as they liked and splashing each other.  Oh the fun we had!!
 

Term 6 Week 3

We’ve been reading The Great Balloon Hullaballoo book in class this week, it’s about Simon the squirrel who was sent to the shops by his mum but he decided to go to the moon in a hot air balloon in search of cheese. So because of the story we have been making our own hot air balloons and the children we able to choose wether they wanted to paint one or use paper card, weaved, to create their balloon shape. We learnt how hot air balloons work and that it is the hot air that makes them rise and fly. Mrs Gay has done a fantastic science balloon experiment, where it’s shows the children the force created to push the balloon along the string. We have also celebrated International Fairy Day and had a very magical time getting dressed up. The fairies had come in during the night and created our very own fairy land which caused great excitement and wonder. The children made fairy cakes and watched the CBeebies presenters Peter Pan theatre production and were all mesmerised and joining in with the theatrics. 

Term 6 Week 2

This week we have been enjoying a beautiful story called The Rainbow Fish. The book is about sharing and how the fish ends up sharing his shiny scales with others and that makes him happier than he’s ever been. We stared the week by creating a “Fin-Tastic” card ready for Fathers Day and practiced writing their names in them. Some children used clay and sequins for the scales to make their own Rainbow Fish. Mrs Gay and the children then made a gigantic rainbow fish using painted paper plates and tin foil for the scales, which is suspended from our ceiling creating our own under the sea reef. We’ve also been learning the fantastic song “A Hole in the Bottom Sea”, please do find it to share with your child they are thoroughly enjoying it in class. 🐠🐟🐡🐬🐳🐋🦈 🌊 

Term 6 Week 1

A very warm welcome back to you all and I’m so pleased the hot weather we saw over half term has stayed with us for most of the week so we’ve been able to be outside most of the time even enjoying our snack out there too. Our topic this term is ‘Up and Under and All Around’ with us starting the first two weeks off with under the sea. Our weekly story was “Sharing a Shell” and its a charming underwater tale about friendships and sharing. With that in mind, the children have been creating their very own handprint crabs which you will find on display at the door when dropping your children off. We’ve also had a sensory beach tuff tray with lots of different sea creatures and rock pools for the crabs to hide. We had a very challenging PE session where the children were learning how to throw beanbags and tennis balls into hoops, throwing under arm and controlled. We have enjoyed spending time in our woodland area, playing on the new swing and ladders that are hanging from the trees and we had a little game of hide and seek as some children have been asking to do this again seeing as we had so much fun last time. 

Term 5 Week 6

Our story this week is Norman the slug with the silly shell, and Norman is a slug who longs to be a snail if only he could find the right shell. He tries a tennis ball, an apple and even an alarm clock and none feel quite right until one day he stumbles across a doughnut. The children have loved this story and were keen to find out that they were going to be making their own Norman. Firstly they made the snail out of clay, manipulating the clay to create their snail, then they used discs for the doughnut. They covered the disc in sprinkles and glitter and used pipe cleaners for the feelers. We’ve also had a great PE session this week whereby the children were learning about the effect exercise has on their bodies and the food needed to then fill our bodies with energy again. We were also very lucky to have enjoyed some tasty doughnuts brought in by Mrs Jones as treat for us all. We hope you all have a fantastic half term and we look forward to welcoming you back on the 7th June.
 

Term 5 Week 5

This weeks main topic is the book “Superworm” and all our activities have been based around it. The children have been measuring worms by seeing how many cubes tall they are and tried to match different sized worms in the water tray to see if they could find a matching pair. They have also been making Modroc worms with Mrs Gay, dipping the Modroc into water, then creating a worm shape and waiting till they dry ready to be painted. The Superworm book has been a popular story with the children and they really enjoyed getting to know the rhymes and filling in the missing gaps. 
 

Term 5 Week 4

Our topic this week is all about Ladybirds, so we have read the stories “What the Ladybird Heard”, “What the Ladybird Heard Next” and “The Bad Tempered Ladybird”. The children were awesome at retelling the stories back to us and remembering the main characters and the plot of the story.

The children have been making ladybird sun catchers, which are on display in our main windows of the classroom and hopefully, when the weather’s a little better we will hopefully see beautiful rays of colour. The children loved making biscuits with Mrs Jones and decorating them to look like ladybirds, enjoying one at snack time and being able to take one home too.

Term 5 Week 3

This week has been all things buzzy! We've enjoyed a brilliant, funny rhyming book called Willbee the Bumblebee, where he looses his stripy jumper and gets a cold bum which the children found really funny. The children had the opportunity to listen to the rhyme when I was reading the story and then guess the missing word that matches the rhyming sentence. We have been making bees out of paper bowls and learning how to create stripes using black paint. The children watched a great video on where honey comes from and even got to try some that Mrs Jones brought in with some toast. The children thoroughly enjoyed it and wanted seconds. What another fantastic week in Little Ospreys class.
 

Term 5 Week 2

Well this week we have welcomed some exciting new guests to Little Ospreys. The children have had a great time making a wormery that we got, then the stick insects arrived so Mrs Gay along with the children made their tank all pretty and cosy. We are still keeping a close eye on our caterpillars who are fattening up before creating their cocoon ready to transfer into their habitat net. It has become a daily enjoyable task for the children to count how many of the stick insects they can find. Hopefully, when they grow a bit more this will become a little easier for us all. The children have been learning about symmetry and how both sides need to be the same and have been decorating butterflies. We have also enjoyed putting up our bee homes and finding lots of bugs, using our magnifying pots to have a closer look.
 

Term 5 Week 1

What a fantastic first week back Little Ospreys! Our theme this term is ‘ It’s a Bugs Life ‘ which the children were super excited about and enjoyed. We are learning about mini beasts and looking carefully at a different one each week. We have turned stones into our chosen ‘ bug ‘ and have living caterpillars, monitoring their lifecycle. In our weekly PE session we were pretending to move around like mini beasts using different ways of movement, sliding, slithering and flying around the hall. We also did some great shape work, trying to create shapes using our new nail boards thinking about sides and corners to copy them.

Term 4 Week 6

What a fantastically busy last week of term four we have had. Firstly we enjoyed making decorative Easter eggs to line the path to school, learning how to create repeated patterns. The children were also enjoying lots of Easter things within class including eggs to practice their fine motor skills by threading string around them. They have also learnt the brilliant 'chick, chick, chick, chick chicken' and their singing voices were in fine tune. We were also very lucky to be invited up to our Forest school environment where we had hot chocolate or squash and were able to toast marshmallows on the firepit. 

We would like to wish you all a very happy holiday and enjoy your chocolate eggs. 

Mrs Jones, Mrs Gay & Mrs Davison

Term 4 Week 5

What a busy week our Little Osprey children have had! We have been enjoying the story Jack and the Beanstalk creating our own 3D spiral beanstalks from paper plates. In maths we have been measuring beanstalks using cubes to then count 1:1 to see how many cubes the beanstalks were. We have also been celebrating science week and carried out lots of experiments during class time. These included making an "Ice Garden" by using lots of interesting, natural objects to put into a tub then freeze. We also did the Skittle experiment where we arranged skittles on the edge of a plate making a pattern, then pour water over them. After a short while the colours move to the middle to create a whirlpool of colour. 

Term 4 Week 4

We have had a very lovely but busy second week back in our class and we've welcomed some new children to Little Ospreys. We started the week by looking at the unfurling of daffodils. We then got to look at them more closely through a magnifying glass, looking at the colours and the different parts of the flowers. To celebrate art week we were looking at the artist David Hockney and his beautiful tulip picture. We had a go at creating our own, thinking about the colours, lines, shapes textures and design. The end of the week saw us celebrate Red Nose Day where we got to come into preschool wearing something red and made red nose day buns which were yummy.

Term 4 Week 3

We have enjoyed a wonderful first week back with our Little Ospreys. You have all come back to Preschool with such enthusiasm and have all grown so much. A few were so pleased that they can now touch the bottom of the swimming pool, when standing and enjoyed walking around in the water by themselves. We had a very energetic PE session in the hall, learning about prepositions by going on top, under, by the side and behind the apparatus. We have been making lots of special treats for the mummy’s to celebrate Mother’s Day, by planting, baking and crafts. We have listened to a lovely story this week called The Dot, where the children made their own beautiful ‘dot’ paintings which we are very proud of and we have displayed them in our own Dot Art gallery in class. 

Merry Christmas!

We have had a wonderful Autumn term in Little Ospreys and have enjoyed a sparkly last few weeks celebrating the run up to Christmas. We hope you all have a safe and happy Christmas and wish you all the best for the New Year. See you in January!

Mrs Davison, Mrs Jones and Mrs Gay 

Term 2 Week 6

We had a very magical start to the week, as we ventured out for a Winter Woodland Walk in our forest school area. Frozen spider webs were the highlight of the walk and the children were very excited to find lots of these. They then noticed all the branches from the trees were frozen because of the cold wintery weather. There was lots of long strands of grass, also frozen, which we were able to pick up and snap with in our hands. This was a very exciting walk for us and winter had definitely showed it's face. In maths we have been doing Christmas activities by ordering different Christmas things by size, where the children had to cut them out, then place them in order by length and height. The children have also been making some beautiful table decorations to take home for Christmas with all the things we found on our winter walk. 

Term 2 Week 5

Little Ospreys have had a rather festive week making Christmas cards and some decorations. We made popcorn and then carefully threaded it together to use as tinsel on our Christmas Tree. We have talked about Advent and also the new season Winter, it’s weather and what we should wear. Our story this week is “ Stickman “ by Julia Donaldson which we are enjoying very much. In keeping with our natural Christmas decorations we have glued sticks we gathered to dry out a few weeks ago and made them into Stars, Trees and Reindeer, some of which are going on the large Christmas tree in the Hall.

Term 2 Week 4

At the start of week 4, we told the children what we were going to do for that week leading up to the story of "The Scarecrows Wedding". Myself and Mrs Jones showed the children our wedding albums and explained all about weddings including confetti, the cake and the ceremony itself. The story book was read to the children and repeated over the week, even watching the story on CBeebies. We also watched a child's view of a wedding and linked the events to the scarecrow's wedding in the book. During the week we have been making our own scarecrows out of lolly pop sticks, our own confetti from coloured paper and card using a shaped paper punch and lots of colouring in pictures of wedding cakes and decorated a biscuit into a Scarecrows face!

Term 2 Week 3

We have had a very colourful, vibrant and exciting week three, celebrating Diwali. We started the week off discussing everything about Diwali such as the clothing, the food and the meaning of the festival. We have been making Rangoli patterns using pens and coloured sand and the children made Diva lamps out of clay manipulating it into shape for the candle to fit in. We decorated these using coloured jewels. We have also made an elephant using a plastic milk bottle, cutting it in half to create the elephant shape, then using lots of colourful ribbon, stars and glitter to decorate the elephant ready for the celebrations. 

Term 2 Week 2

Week two of Term two has absolutely flown by. We started the week being able to go back swimming which the children were very excited about. We celebrated Armistice Day where we dressed in red to remember our soldiers and the children tried their best to sit and do the two minute silence. We also made Poppies from red and black paper by ripping the paper and learning the technique to do this. To finish off our busy week, we've enjoyed dressing up in yellow or spotty clothes for Children In Need. We started the day taking part in Joe Wicks 24 hour PE challenge where we did lots of exercise getting very hot and sweaty and the children made spotty biscuits. We then finished the morning using the Children in Need's theme  "Together We Can" to create a castle outside, working as a team to build it. The children were busy using their imaginations acting out familiar stories and using characters such as The Big Bad Wolf to continue their play.

Term 2 Week 1

After half term we have returned full of enthusiasm and the children have been embracing all that there is on offer for them. This week we have enjoyed the story ‘ Spinderella ‘ making spiders, eating spider biscuits, learning our Bonfire Night song and painting fantastic firework pictures. Outside we have enjoyed using hammers safely when tapping wooden pegs into different shaped pumpkins. The classroom is looking a little bit different, after taking the Curiosity Approach and introducing retro items such as old fashioned typewriter and a rotary dial telephone. We have also introduced old fashioned furniture and every day items to capture the children's imagination and curiosity, with the sofa being a favourite.

Term 1 Week 7

What a busy final week in Term 1 Little Ospreys have had. The story this week is called Leaf Man.  The children have been discussing Autumn and collecting leaves looking at the different colours on them. They colour mixed paint and then took leaf prints and pressed them onto paper. Clay Hedgehogs have been manipulated with spaghetti for spines and we learned an Autumn song all about leaves falling on the ground. Happy half term 

Term 1 Week 6

This week has been about the story The Little Red Hen. We started the week off with a very curious tuff tray where there was Wheat, flour and a pestle and mortar to grind the seeds. I was explaining to the children where the wheat comes form and how you grind the wheat down to make flour, then use it to bake bread. We then enjoyed the full story of The Little Red Hen where it told the story of how the wheat started its journey as a seed, and all the way to the flour mill to make flour to turn into bread. The children made a paper plate Little Red Hens using paint and different materials to create the beak, crown, and the feet. The children then had the opportunity to see how we make bread in a bread maker using flour and water using measuring jug to do this. We were able to watch the bread rise and bake through the viewing window at the top. We all enjoyed the scrummy bread for snack and they could choose to have jam or honey on their bread. On Thursday we made bread ourselves, mixing the bread mix with warm water and making a dough. We let it rise and get bigger, then it was cut into 8 pieces so that each child could kneed the dough and shape it into a roll. They were cooked in the oven and on Friday we had rolls with butter and jam for our snack. Yummy!

Term 1 Week 5

On week 5 the children were very excited to be learning another traditional tale, The Three Billy Goats Gruff. They have made their very own Trolls by blotting paint, creating a mirror image by folding paper. The children made "listening ears" and used them for the listening walk on Thursday noting down all the sounds they heard. In maths they have  been learning about preposition where we made a bridge for the goats to go under, on top, behind and in front.

Term 1 Week 4

This week we have been listening to the story Goldilocks and the Three Bears. We have been learning about different sizes and singing the Goldilocks song. We had great fun during a sensory activity where we used shaving foam in their hands to see what it felt like and then made great marks using their fingers. The children have also enjoyed our ICT activity where they learnt how to take a "selfie" using the Ipad.

Term 1 Week 3

This week we have been enjoying the sunshine and took the opportunity to talk about shadows and how they are created. We all had great fun making one with our bodies and jumping on each others.

The children thoroughly enjoyed exploring our new piece of furniture within the classroom and they had a very fun PE and swimming session.

Term 1 Week 2

Week 2, we have had another busy week learning all about our bones, where we have made skeleton pictures and learnt the skeleton dance song. The children also had their first visit to the pool and had fun splashing Mrs Jones. During circle time, the children have been practising their listening skills and talking about what makes them happy and sad.

Term 1 Week 1

Our theme this term is 'All about me' and 'Once Upon a Time' where we have planned lots of exciting activities and hope to get to know all our families by using photographs, family trees, self portraits, and talking about friendships and feelings. The stories we will be looking at are The Three Little Pigs, Goldilocks and the Three Bears and The Little Red Hen. We will be incorporating Harvest Festival into that and hope to make delicious bread with the children.

Our first week back has been full of excitement and fun with all the children happy to be back with their friends. We have been making self portraits, enjoying our new den building area in the garden and the sand pit has been popular this week. The children seemed full of energy after their first PE session with Liam from Finding Fitness.