Little Grange Preschool

Sticks, pine cones, leaves — and absolutely no limits. 🍂

When the art table is stocked with things collected straight from the farm, something different happens. There’s no wrong way to paint a pine cone. No instructions to follow. Just colour, texture, and total creative freedom.

Process art like this is where imagination runs the show — and the results are always, without fail, magnificent. 🌿

Forest Friends were hiding all over Pete’s garden. 🦊

First we painted our binoculars on Wednesday — obviously essential equipment. Then we headed out to track down every Forest Friend we could find, collected their disc, and matched them back to our scavenger hunt sheet.

Sneaky fun that’s also doing a lot of work — visual perception and matching, focus and attention as they search, fine motor control when handling and sticking, and the deeply satisfying feeling of finding exactly what you were looking for.

The fox by the tree roots was a particularly good hiding spot. 🌿

Tiny plants, big responsibility. 🌱

Planting our autumn seeds in egg cartons, so as they grow we can plant them straight into the soil!

Something quietly powerful happens when a child plants something and knows it’s theirs to look after. They check on it. They remember to water it. They notice when a new leaf appears. That’s patience, responsibility, and wonder all growing in the same small container.

Watch this space. 🌿

Autumn has arrived and there are leaves to collect. Obviously. 🍂

The wheelbarrows came out, the raking began, and absolutely nobody needed to be asked twice.

There’s something deeply satisfying about a job with a visible result — and filling a wheelbarrow to the brim is exactly that kind of work. Little farmers in training. 🌿

Tuck Shop Friday just entered its autumn era. 🍂

Leaf cookies, little mandarin pumpkins, popcorn balls, hedgehog bananas and autumn leaf biscuits — all made with actual intention and an alarming amount of charm.

We can’t take full credit. Autumn did most of the creative direction. 🍁

Happy Friday, Little Grange! 🌿

And up the Faraway Tree we go. 🧚

Barefoot, stick in hand, off to explore and survey the land.

This is what outdoor play does — it turns an ordinary tree into an adventure, a stick into a magic wand, and a morning into something worth remembering. Nature hands children the best raw material for imagination, and they do absolutely everything with it.

Adventure awaits! 🌿

Digging for treasure. Finding vegetables. Losing track of time entirely. 🌱

There’s a lot happening in a sensory bin that looks like pure chaos from the outside — scooping, raking, burying, discovering.

Little hands are building fine motor strength and coordination with every dig and pour, processing tactile input that their developing nervous systems genuinely need, practising early science concepts like cause and effect, and entering that deep, focused state of play that no screen can replicate.

Messy hands. Full minds. Best kind of day. 🌿

Straight from the chickens. 🐓🥚

There is something genuinely wonderful about a child who knows where eggs come from — not the cartoon version, but the real one. Collected this morning, counted carefully, handled gently.

This kind of real-world learning builds early numeracy through counting and sorting, develops fine motor control and spatial awareness as little hands navigate fragile things, teaches responsibility and care, and connects children to the simple, satisfying rhythm of farm life.

No worksheets can compare. 🌿