As always, this time of year is an eventful time for us at Pre-school. With the onset of the really frosty weather, we have donned our wellies and winter woollies and have harvested all that we can from our organic allotment to enjoy in our freshly prepared, hot school lunches.

We are ever so pleased to say that we entered some of our vegetables into the Woodcote festival where we were awarded the Young Gardener’s Award. We also won some prizes for our gorgeous paintings of sunflowers and our decorated biscuits, home made cupcakes, apple pie and sandwiches.

The coffee shop was, as always, a lovely social occasion with many families making use of the last few warm days to enjoy a cuppa and some cake in the community centre garden. We would like to thank everybody who came along to support us, gave up their time to help and those who provided the scrumptious baked goods and delicious homemade chutney on offer at the coffee shop. We raised a much-needed £126.45.

The Harvest festival at St Leonard's church with the Cabin pre-school was a noisy, cheerful celebration. We learnt about giving and receiving, listened to a story and sang songs about autumn leaves, and tractors. The children also made a lovely plaited loaf which they were very proud to offer at the alter.  A note of gratitude to all the families for the generous food donations that have been shared out in the community.

The Flower Festival at St Leonard’s was a stunning reminder of the beauty and bounty of autumn. We had a sticky, messy time decorating a large wooden gingerbread man (he was as tall as some of our youngest children) who we covered in chestnuts, seeds, leaves, acorns and painted paper handprint cut outs in all the wonderful autumn colours. We hope that many of you had the chance to view him for yourselves as he stood proudly amongst the fallen leaves in the church.

We started our new term celebrating Halloween and bonfire night with lots of rocket making, scary pictures and glitter. The Halloween Fancy Dress Parade was a fun affair with all the children dressed in their scariest (and cutest) outfits. Family and friends were treated to a performance of songs about weather, autumn, rockets, fireworks and Halloween followed by some nibbles and the pre-school annual AGM, while the children had a special Halloween lunch.

Our Outer Space theme has been a hit with the children and they have been enjoying learning about space and being astronauts, making their own space ships, designing their own interesting aliens, making planets and thinking about what it would be like to live in space.  We have been finding out about astrologers, making telescopes, binoculars, magnifying glasses and spectacles, all for looking at the twinkling stars. We have read Harry and the Robots and have enjoyed using old boxes to make our own futuristic robots with some great original designs.

If you are interested in starting your child at Woodcote Pre-school or for more information, please contact Liz on 01491682300 or email . You can also find us at www.woodcotepreschool.co.uk.