Welcome to the Autumn Term 2023 at Little Cakes!
We had a lovely August with our children and sadly some of them have now moved onto primary school. We wish them all the very best on the next part of their educational journey. During their last few weeks at Little Cakes we focused on self care, independence in dressing ourselves, listening to instructions and mastered toilet training.
It has been a lovely quiet start in the preschool with the teachers getting to know the new children and helping the baby room children transition across to the preschool. We spend a lot of time 'getting to know' the child. The teachers also spend time with the current group of children that may have not been as confident last term. We see many changes in these children as the smaller class size helps them with their confidence and allows them to build up their self-esteem in their own time.
This term the children have started to get to know each other, learning about interests, siblings, family life and life outside Little Cakes. We have been focusing on our Montessori materials, exploring our sandpaper numbers and letters, perfecting our washing up, table wiping and face wiping skills!
We have created our faces/bodies using a range of materials from crackers to sticks and leaves! The children have also enjoyed our home corner with an introduction to ironing, hanging up clothes and dressing up.
Our new babies have been settling in. We will be continuing this process with more joining each month. The staff have carefully selected resources for new children to allow them to settle in. They have also spent time singing and engaging in circle time to get to know each other
Autumn is one of our favourite months at Little Cakes. We get to see so many changes right outside our door step. We watch the conkers fall, leaves change colour and our woods strip themselves of leaves to bare branches. These opportunities allow us to build, hunt, climb and explore. It is also a lovely baking season for us, we'll be making blackberry or apple crumble and apple/carrot muffins. We also try our hand at pumpkin carving activities!
Thinking of moving up early to Nursery School?
There are many reasons to move your child from their current nursery onto school settings such as siblings, closer to home and friendships. However, have you thought about the benefits of keeping your child at nursery until Reception?
Leaving Little Cakes can be a daunting process, from having smaller class sizes, more child to teacher ratios and more one to one time with us to larger class sizes and less freedom to explore.
Confidence
We have many children that are very nervous, lack confidence and suffer from separation anxiety. The team at Little Cakes are nurturing, caring, and confident in making your child feel safe and secure.
Space Once your child starts in our pre-school there is much more space for them to learn and play. We have a large area compared to most nursery schools, freedom to work using floor mats and to respect each other's work space.
Montessori Curriculum
We follow the Montessori approach. Our children have a prepared environment and are able to learn at their own pace. Each one of our materials will indirectly teach a child something new. From using knobbed cylinders to practice their pincer grip to dressing frames to help them get ready on their own.
Practical Life Skills
We learn to clean, tidy using a dustpan/brush, wipe our faces, wash up after ourselves, roll up our work mats and polish our resources to name a few!
Forest School
Have you seen our photos on Instagram? We are fortunate enough to have such beautiful surroundings to explore.. As well as walking over a mile towards the river Chess, visiting the horses at North Hill farm, exploring the Chorleywood estate grounds we also engage in lots of forest school activities. We build dens, forage for conkers, blackberries and acorns. We go on bug hunts and climb trees. The children dig, prepare fairy porridge and create mud cakes!