25/09/2026
🦉🌟 Barn Owls & Preschool – Bringing Our ‘All About Me’ Topic to a Close! 🌟🦉
What a fantastic end to our ‘All About Me’ topic! 💕 Over the past few weeks, the children have been learning all about themselves, their bodies, their interests and the world around them — and we’ve loved following their curiosity and turning their ideas into meaningful learning experiences.
👩⚕️🩺 Little Doctors!
The children have been exploring different occupations and enjoyed pretending to be doctors, nurses and patients as they worked together to make everyone feel better! Through this role play, the children have been developing their communication and language skills, learning new vocabulary and using their imagination to recreate experiences they may have encountered themselves. Role play also encourages children to develop empathy, take on different perspectives and build confidence when interacting with their friends.
🔢🧩 Patterns, counting & problem solving
We’ve been developing our understanding of numbers, counting and patterns through hands-on activities. Rather than simply recognising numbers, the children have been learning to notice similarities and differences, predict what might come next, count objects accurately and begin to understand quantity. These playful experiences help build the foundations for early mathematical thinking and problem-solving.
🔺🟦 Shape detectives!
We’ve also been on a shape hunt, searching through shredded paper to find different shapes and talking about their names and features. We then used lollypop sticks to create our own shapes, experimenting with how the sticks could be positioned and moved to make different forms. This hands-on approach helps children develop their spatial awareness, visual discrimination and mathematical vocabulary, while encouraging them to recognise and describe shapes in different contexts. Using the lollypop sticks also strengthened their fine motor control, hand-eye coordination and problem-solving skills as they worked out how to construct each shape. 👐🧠✨
✏️🤲 Building those fine motor skills
Our activities have also provided lots of opportunities to strengthen the small muscles in our hands and fingers. Through manipulating resources, creating, mark making and exploring different materials, the children are developing the hand strength, coordination and control they need for future skills such as writing, using scissors, fastening clothes and becoming increasingly independent.
👐🎨 Playdough, sensory exploration & getting messy!
Of course, no week would be complete without getting a little messy! 😂 We’ve explored playdough in lots of different ways — squeezing, rolling, stretching, pressing, cutting and creating.
These experiences are so much more than just ‘messy play’. Sensory exploration allows children to investigate through touch, sight and movement, helping them understand how materials feel and behave. Manipulating playdough strengthens hand and finger muscles, while creating their own ideas encourages creativity, imagination and problem-solving.
🌱💭 Learning through play
Across all of our experiences, the children have been encouraged to explore, make choices, ask questions, try things out and learn from their own discoveries. This supports their confidence, independence and ability to think creatively, while also developing important social skills as they share ideas, cooperate and learn alongside their friends.
We’re so proud of how much our Barn Owls and Preschool children have grown in confidence, independence and curiosity throughout our ‘All About Me’ topic. 🥰
Now we’re ready to take all those new skills, interests and questions into our next learning adventure! 🍂🦉✨
