Planting Party! 5th May

Well, the really exciting part is happening now - we get to dig, dig DIG!  The saplings we carefully took out and potted up need re-planting now, and we need your help!  If you are available on THURSDAY 5th MAY from 9am, please come and help us!  Bring a spade or fork and some gardening gloves and be prepared to use muscles you may not have used for a while!  I will bring a plentiful supply of brownies and cups of tea to keep us going!  It should be fun!

In the meantime, although we all love this sunny weather, pray for a bit of rain to soften the ground and help our little trees settle in nicely!

Introducing...our next project!

THE KALEIDOSCOPE NATURE GARDEN!

The mound of earth at the back of the building is already gone and work has begun on our very own Nature garden!  

It was always part of the plan to have a Nature Garden as part of the play and learning opportunities at Kaleidoscope and now that we are settled in, the time has come to get on with the task of creating it!  We want the garden to be as accessable as possible and to this end, we have had to remove a HUGE pile of earth to level the garden with the building.  Simon has skilfully left us the bare bones of the garden shape, which is going to include a water feature for pond dipping and frog spawn,

a digging pit, for discovering lots of lovely worms in, 

lots of bug hotels of various designs, a group seating area for story telling or group show and tell and an orchard of native fruits.

The first part of the garden will be a vegetable plot with child sized raised beds, strawberry planters and maybe even our own compost maker...A miniature 5 bar gate will lead the children through  a "secret" tunnel of living willow and then out into the naturte trail section of the garden beyond.

This is such an exciting project and will bring so much fun and dicovery to the Pre-school.  Children will be able to learn about the changing seasons, how food grows, how to look after plants, what bugs lurk beneath the soil and in the water, what birds visit our gardens and so many other things. 


We are looking for fundraising support for the items in the garden and will also be needing your practical gardening help as the project continues.  Also, if you have any NATIVE plants that you could donate, they would find a very happy home and be most welcome on our very empty (so far) plot!  They do need to be native however, and probably prefering woodland  conditions as we are trying to create an English woodland feel to the garden.


Please watch this space for news about how you can help and how the project is going.  This project is something so special for our children and they will enjoy it for many years to come, so it's worth the hard work we put in now. Thanks!

We're In!

It has been two whole terms since we moved into our lovely new building and things are going really well.  Lady Egremont cut the ribbon back last August and we have gone from strength to strength and recently gained a "Good" Ofsted report, confirming how well the staff team and children have settled into the new space.

We had a brilliant opening celebration and we'd like to thank everyone who came and supported us.  It was a truly special day, attended by so many families, new and old and people from the community, all bringing cakes and treats to help us enjoy the day.

Since that day our numbers have grown steadilly and our new session on a Thursday from 12 - 1.30pm during which the children can enjoy their packed lunch followed by Little Movers is proving increasingly popular. The children love the music, movement and play involved in this time.

I'll leave you with some more photos of our opening day....