Waltham Pre-School

01/10/2026

🍂🍁 The Leaf Thief! 🍁🍂

This week in Room 1, we have been enjoying the wonderful story ‘The Leaf Thief’! 🐿️📖

We joined Squirrel as she discovered that the leaves on her favourite tree were mysteriously disappearing! 👀🍂 This gave us lots of opportunities to talk about autumn, changes in nature and what happens to the trees as the seasons change.

The children have been busy exploring autumn through lots of exciting activities, including:
🍁 Exploring and sorting different coloured leaves
🍂 Using leaves, sticks and conkers in our play
🎨 Getting creative with autumn colours and textures
👀 Going on our own autumn hunts in our garden to see what we could discover!

We have also loved making our scarecrow for the harvest festival display at the front of preschool, we scrunched up newspaper and made the faces ourselves!

In Room 1 we have new flower garden where we have planted some wild flowers this is great for the children’s understanding of the world to see the lifecycle of a flower, the children will be learning how to keep flowers growing by helping watering them.

29/09/2026

🌾 Harvest Festival Donations – Parent Reminder 🌾
Dear Parents and Carers,
Just a friendly reminder that we are collecting non-perishable food donations for our Harvest Festival.
We would be very grateful for donations of tinned foods, dried goods, pasta, rice and other non-perishable items to help support those in need in our local community.
📅 Donations can be brought into school until Friday 9th October.
Thank you so much for your kindness and continued support. Every donation, no matter how small, makes a difference! 💛
Thank you

28/09/2026

🍂☀️ Making the most of the autumn sunshine! ☀️🍂

Our Toddler Room enjoyed a lovely walk around the village on Friday, stopping at Grove Park for a picnic snack before exploring the park for signs of autumn. 🍁

The children enjoyed collecting conkers, crunchy leaves and sticks to bring back to preschool and investigate further. They also spotted a beautiful dragonfly, ladybird and busy bumblebees! 🐝🐞

A wonderful morning of fresh air, exploration and discovering the changing world around us supporting the children’s Understanding the World, communication, physical development and curiosity. 🌳🍂💛

24/09/2026

✨Room 2 ✨
🏠 Theme of the week: This Is Our House 🏠

🏠 Thank you to all the parents who sent in photographs from home to share, the children have loved recreating their own houses using different materials. We have recycled materials to construct junk models of different buildings, discussing 2D & 3D shapes whilst building. Role-play has been transformed into a cosy home from home, the children have enjoyed playing happy families, working together to complete household chores and caring for the babies 👶🏼

🧚‍♂️ The craft room has been preparing for fairy season, the children have decorated their own fairy doors using lots of glitter and sparkle! The fairies will love using the magical portals that the children have made and designed all by themselves ✨

24/09/2026

🦉✨ Wow! Said the Owl! ✨🦉

This week in Room 1, we have been enjoying the wonderful story ‘Wow! Said the Owl’! 📖💫

We have been exploring the different colours and sights the little owl discovers as she stays awake during the day. 🌈🌅🌙

The children have loved:
🎨 Exploring and naming colours
🌈 Mixing and matching different colours
👀 Talking about what we can see around us
🌳 Exploring nature and the changing colours of autumn
🎵 Joining in with songs and rhymes linked to our story

The children have enjoyed exploring different textures and getting messy! They have loved the sensory bags, spaghetti and shaving foam this week to further develop their colour recognition.

To slowly dip into autumn some children have brought in conkers that they have found in the woodlands and we used different coloured paints to do some conker roller painting. If you see any autumn leaves, conkers or pine cones please bring into preschool so we can use these in the children play!

24/09/2026

🧚‍♀️✨ Welcome to Room 1’s NEW Fairy Garden! ✨🧚‍♀️

Miss Baxter in room 1 has been busy creating a magical new space for our Room 1 children to explore, imagine and discover! 🌿🍂

Our fairy garden is filled with lots of natural treasures, including leaves, conkers, sticks, stones and other autumnal finds. 🍁🌰🪵 The children have loved exploring the new area, talking about what they can see and using their imaginations to create their own magical fairy stories.

We wonder who might come to visit our fairy garden… 👀🧚‍♀️ Perhaps some fairies, woodland animals or even a cheeky squirrel looking for some autumn treasures! 🐿️🍂

We can’t wait to watch our fairy garden develop and see where the children’s imaginations take us! 💕✨

18/09/2026

We are incredibly proud to announce that we have achieved a 5-Star Food Hygiene Rating! 👏

18/09/2026

17/09/2026

🦉🌙 The Silent Owl 🌙🦉

This week in Room 1, we have been enjoying the beautiful story The Silent Owl! 📖✨

The children have been using their senses of hearing and listening this week to listen to what sounds we hear when we play musical instrument, and also the concept of loud and quiet sounds. In the story the animals were trying to figure out why the owl was being silent, and at the end of the story the owl played beautiful instruments to play to the animals. 🥁

We have enjoyed making our own owl creations, exploring different textures and materials, and using our imaginations as we joined in with the story. 🎨🦉

As a home learning challenge some of the children made their own instruments and shakers at home to show to their friends. Great creations everyone!

17/09/2026

🏠 Room 2 🏠
Theme of the week: A House Down Every Street

🏠 We’ve had another busy, fun-filled week happening in Room 2. The children have enjoyed sharing home experiences, talking about who lives in their family. They have constructed their own houses and buildings using a wide range of resources. The children have produced such lovely artwork, lots of mark making in literacy and craft - which we have proudly displayed upon our learning wall.

🍋 We’ve explored the children’s interests - there has been a lot of entrepreneurial experiences in role-play, the children have loved creating their own lemonade stand. They worked their fine motor skills by chopping up the lemons and limes, exploring their senses.

🥣 We collected natural materials in the mud kitchen, creating a recipe for ‘conker soup’, experimented with different ingredients, working as a team of chefs to measure and pour different ‘flavours and spices’. Overall, we’ve had another exciting week with a variety of activities for each and every child 😊