Pre-school News October 2025

🌿 A Very Busy Half Term 🌿

In the blink of an eye, we’ve reached the end of a very busy — and wonderfully fun — half term here at Woodland Corner Preschool!

We kicked things off with our fantastic Inflatable Day, which was full of laughter and excitement. A huge thank you to all our families who joined us — it was such a joy to see everyone having so much fun together!

This half term, we’ve welcomed lots of new families to our Woodland Corner community, and we’re so pleased to see how brilliantly the children have settled in. To our returning families — it’s been wonderful reconnecting with you all again!

We’ve also been enjoying our beautiful new extension, which has brightened up our preschool no end. Our home corner is now bigger and better than ever, and we’re thrilled to have a proper nappy changing area and even our very own staff room!

🌼 All About Me

The first couple of weeks were all about getting to know each other, settling in, and learning our routines. Our theme, All About Me, gave us the perfect opportunity to talk about our feelings, our families, and what makes each of us special.

We loved reading stories about emotions — especially Owl Babies, which helped reassure us that our grown-ups always come back. The children created wonderful pictures of their homes and families and enjoyed lots of activities around teamwork, sharing, and kindness.

We practised my turn, your turn games, used a timer in the garden to make playtime fair, and talked about how to be kind to one another. We also made some lovely self-portraits, exploring what makes each of us unique and special.

We’ve also re-vamped our much-loved doll’s house, giving it a new lease of life with lots of lovely new furniture and dolls. It’s been a huge hit with the children, sparking imaginative play and wonderful storytelling!

🎶 Dancing and Singing

Music and movement have filled our days this half term! We’ve been practising lots of traditional nursery rhymes, and the children have had so much fun joining in with party dancing.

One of the biggest hits has definitely been “The Floor is Lava”, which always gets everyone up and moving! We’ve also been learning the Three Bears Rap, which has been a big favourite during group time.

A special highlight was a child-led ballet session, where one of our children shared their love of ballet with everyone — the children were so engaged and graceful as they followed along!

And, of course, our dancing adventures continued with some wonderful Bollywood dancing as part of our Diwali celebrations. The children loved learning new moves and dancing to vibrant Indian music — we all had so much fun!

🏃‍♀️ Multi-Sports and Forest School Adventures

Our children are also lucky enough to enjoy Multi-Sports every Friday, where they have the opportunity to try out lots of different moves and exercises. These sessions keep everyone active and are a great way for the children to build coordination, confidence, and a love of being active. There’s always plenty of giggles and teamwork as they learn new skills!

We’re also thrilled that Forest School has returned! We have the absolute pleasure of Laura the Lion leading our sessions, which take place every other Monday. The children spend the whole morning outdoors, engaging with nature, exploring, and learning through hands-on experiences. From discovering bugs to building dens and exploring the changing seasons, Forest School continues to be one of the most magical parts of our week.

🍎 Healthy Eating and Looking After Our Teeth

Next, we explored healthy eating and looking after our teeth. We were very lucky to have a dental surgeon visit us, who showed us how to brush our teeth properly and taught us which foods are good (and not so good!) for our teeth.

We’ve been promoting healthy eating during snack time and encouraging children to make healthy choices for their lunchboxes. Snack time has been full of tasty and nutritious treats — from wholemeal pitta breads and rice cakes to carrots, pineapple, and a variety of fruits.

The children have also been practising their self-help skills, such as buttering their own crackers and pouring their own drinks — they’ve been so proud of their independence!

We had lots of fun with vegetable printing and our weekly fruit and vegetable exploration bags. The children loved touching, smelling, and cutting up different fruits and veggies — and were especially fascinated by the coconut! We cracked it open together to see what was inside and even tasted the coconut water.

To top it off, we created our own toothbrush crafts, where children cut out and decorated toothbrushes to learn about bristles and brushing.

🍂 Autumn Adventures

As autumn arrived, we took full advantage of our beautiful woodland surroundings to explore the changing seasons. Our mud kitchen became a pumpkin patch kitchen, which quickly became a favourite spot for imaginative play.

There was lots of measuring, pouring, mixing, and “maths talk” as children made pumpkin pies, cupcakes, and soups — and even used real pumpkins!

The children also made their own autumnal playdough, using natural treasures like conkers, pinecones, and leaves to create their masterpieces. On our light table, they explored autumn leaves, studied their beautiful colours, and made stunning seasonal creations.

We had fun with leaf printing, apple stamping, and so many other hands-on autumn crafts!

🪔 Celebrating Diwali and Halloween Fun

We finished the half term by learning about and celebrating Diwali, the Festival of Light. We watched the story of Rama and Sita, and another about a family celebrating Diwali. We talked about fireworks, colours, and light — and then tried out Bollywood dancing together!

The children loved moving to the music and learning new dance steps — it was such a vibrant, joyful experience.

As Halloween approached, we had a fantastic time making “scary soup” — spooky concoctions filled with worms, spiders, and colourful potions. The children’s imaginations ran wild!

We ended our half term with our very popular Halloween Sweet Cone Sale, which the children helped make over the past few weeks. They were so proud to help sell them — and we raised lots of money for new resources for our preschool.

🍁 Looking Ahead

We also sent home autumn activity bags for families to enjoy during the break. We can’t wait to see what treasures the children collect and share with us after half term — and hopefully raise a little more money for our lovely setting through the sponsorships.

It truly has been a half term full of laughter, learning, and togetherness. Thank you to all our families for your continued support — we’re so proud of everything the children have achieved already, and we can’t wait to see what the next half term brings!