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A New School Year at Wise Little Owls: Learning, Growing & Building CommunityThe 2026–27
The first few weeks of any school year are a time of transition. Children are getting to know their teachers, classmates, classrooms, and daily routines, while our team is learning more about each child and how we can best support them. Now that our students are becoming more comfortable in their new environment, we are excited to share a little about what has been happening at Wise Little Owls Spanish Immersion Before & Aftercare. Spanish Through Play, Conversation & Everyday ExperiencesSpanish immersion continues to be at the heart of our program.
Rather than treating Spanish as a separate lesson, we incorporate the language into children's everyday experiences—during play, conversations, routines, activities, and interactions with their teachers and friends. Our younger students have begun exploring vocabulary connected to feelings and emotions, practicing words through conversation, movement, and acting. Our older students have been practicing Spanish vocabulary and expressions related to things they like and dislike, giving them opportunities to talk about themselves and learn more about their friends. As the year progresses, we will continue introducing themes that combine Spanish language development with social-emotional learning, creativity, movement, and play.
What Does an Afternoon at WLO Look Like? Our youngest students—PK3, PK4, and Kindergarten—begin their afternoon with a snack and time to transition from the school day. Children participate in activities such as circle time, Spanish vocabulary practice, outdoor play, and classroom centers. Weather and school conditions permitting, outdoor play is an important part of our afternoon. Our younger children generally have approximately 30 minutes of playground time, followed by centers and other classroom activities.
Our older students also have time for snack, movement and outdoor play, along with opportunities for homework, calm activities, and enrichment. Special activities are incorporated throughout the week and may include arts and crafts, cooking, music, physical activities, soccer, LEGO challenges, yoga, karaoke, and other hands-on experiences, depending on the age group and weekly schedule. Our goal is to give children a balance between structure and choice. They have already spent many hours in school by the time they arrive at Aftercare, so we want their afternoon to be engaging without simply extending the academic school day.
Snacks Are Provided
WLO provides children with a small afternoon snack.Snacks generally consist of a dry snack along with an item such as fruit, yogurt, string cheese, or a vegetable. Families are always encouraged to communicate with us regarding allergies or specific dietary needs.
Before Care: A Calm and Flexible Start to the DayOur Before Care program provides children with a flexible environment before the school day begins.Children can choose from centers available at the tables and spend time playing, creating, talking with friends, or participating in physical activities in the cafeteria.The emphasis is on providing a welcoming and comfortable beginning to the morning before children transition into their school classrooms.
Adjusting to Our Swing-Space YearThis school year has also brought something new for all of us: operating Aftercare from the DCPS swing space while Shirley Chisholm undergoes its transition.The first weeks required patience and flexibility from families, school staff, transportation staff, and our WLO team as new systems were established and adjusted.We are incredibly grateful to our families for working with us through those early transitions.
More Than Aftercare: Learning Through Play, Culture & Connection at Wise Little Owls
At Wise Little Owls, we believe some of the most meaningful learning happens when children are having so much fun that they don’t even realize how much they are learning.
A paintbrush can strengthen the muscles needed for writing. A cooking activity can become a Spanish lesson. A spinning top can turn into a math experiment. And a simple conversation about how we feel can help a child develop the emotional vocabulary they will use for years to come.
That is the idea behind our WLO curriculum: Play. Learn. Grow. — in Spanish!
🌎 Spanish That Children Can See, Touch—and Taste!
Spanish immersion at WLO is about much more than memorizing vocabulary.
We want children to experience the language naturally throughout their afternoon. During our activities, teachers introduce simple words, questions, and phrases that children can hear repeatedly and connect to something they are actually doing.
When we're painting, we talk about los colores. 🎨
When we're cooking, we mezclamos, contamos y probamos. 👩🍳
On the playground, we corremos, saltamos y jugamos. ⚽
And when we're creating, children hear phrases such as “¿Qué color quieres?”, “¿Cuántos tienes?” and “¡Muy bien!”
Even our English-speaking staff participate. Our bilingual activity guides include simple Spanish vocabulary and visual prompts so that everyone can learn alongside the children.
Because at WLO, Spanish isn't just something we teach—it is something we experience together.
🎨 Process Over Product
If 20 children participate in a WLO art activity, we don't expect to see 20 identical projects at the end.
In fact, we hope we don't!
Our philosophy is process over product.
Children are encouraged to choose colors, experiment with materials, make decisions, solve little problems, and create something that belongs to them.
While those little hands are peeling stickers, squeezing glue, holding markers, painting, rolling dough, or arranging pieces of paper, they are also developing fine-motor strength, hand-eye coordination, three-finger grasp, creativity, concentration, and independence.
The beautiful project they take home is only one part of what they created that day.
👩🍳 Our Classroom Becomes a Cocina
One of the additions we're especially excited about is our weekly Cooking Specials.
These aren't elaborate cooking classes. They're intentionally simple, hands-on experiences designed for young learners.
Children might count ingredients, mix something together, roll a mixture between their hands, sprinkle cinnamon, notice a new texture, or learn the Spanish name for an ingredient.
And suddenly...
Cooking becomes math. 🔢
Cooking becomes science. 🔬
Cooking becomes Spanish. 💬
Cooking becomes fine-motor practice. ✋
Cooking becomes culture. 🌎
Of course, food safety is always part of the lesson too. Our team reviews student allergy information and ingredient labels when planning cooking activities.
🌎 Celebrating Hispanic Heritage Through Experiences
Our Hispanic Heritage Month curriculum is a perfect example of how all of these pieces come together.
Rather than simply telling children about different countries, we're giving them opportunities to create, cook, move, play and explore.
Children are discovering foods and traditions with connections to different parts of Latin America. They're making bolitas de coco, exploring arepas, decorating maracas, painting hats, creating colorful rainforest animals and learning about the guacamaya.
One of our favorite activities combines culture, movement, Spanish and math with a traditional toy: el trompo.
Children decorate their own spinning tops and then experiment:
¿Cuánto tiempo gira?
How long does it spin?
¿Cuál giró por más tiempo?
Which one spun longer?
Uno, dos, tres... ⏱️
For our younger children, that may simply mean counting together. Older students can time their spins, compare results and challenge themselves to improve.
It's a traditional game transformed into a playful bilingual math lesson.
Bringing the Rainforest Into Aftercare
Our cultural exploration also takes us into the tropical environments found throughout parts of Latin America.
Children learn about colorful guacamayas, snakes and rainforest habitats while creating their own interpretations through art.
A guacamaya craft, for example, becomes an opportunity to practice:
🎨 Colors
🔢 Counting
🔁 Patterns
📐 Symmetry
💬 Spanish vocabulary
🌿 Science and geography
✋ Fine-motor skills
One activity. Many opportunities to learn.
⚽ Movement Matters, Too!
After sitting and concentrating during the school day, children need opportunities to move.
Our program incorporates playground time, movement activities and soccer alongside our classroom experiences.
Movement supports physical development, but it also gives children opportunities to practice taking turns, following directions, working as a team, handling disappointment, encouraging friends and trying again.
Those are important lessons, too.
❤️ Learning About Ourselves
Some of our favorite WLO projects are also the simplest.
During activities such as “Mi felicidad está en mis manos / My Happiness Is in My Hands,” children use art to think about the things that make them happy.
Other activities invite them to create faces representing how they see themselves or how they are feeling.
These experiences help us introduce social-emotional learning naturally through play and conversation.
We want our children to have words for colors and numbers in Spanish—but we also want them to develop words for feelings, friendship, kindness, identity and belonging.
🦉 The WLO Difference
Our goal isn't to fill every minute of aftercare with structured instruction.
Children have already spent a full day at school.
They need time to eat.
They need to run.
They need to laugh.
They need to create.
They need to talk to their friends.
Sometimes, they simply need a quiet place to decompress.
Our job is to thoughtfully create an environment where learning can happen inside all of those moments.
So when your child comes home proudly carrying a colorful guacamaya, talking about an arepa, showing you a spinning top, or suddenly counting in Spanish while playing...
there was probably a lot more learning happening than meets the eye.
At Wise Little Owls, we play with purpose, learn through experience, and grow together—one little owl at a time.