Well after a fantastic year, we have sadly come to the end when we say goodbye to all the children in Pre-school room 1, who are off on their new adventure into Reception Class or Pre-school Room 2.

We wish each and every child the best of luck and enjoy your new class.

You are all superstars,

High Five!

Woop woop!

Give yourself a marshmallow clap.

SUMMER TERM

What a busy term.......just how we like it!

We visited Wigan Fire Station to learn about the role of the fire people and how they help us. The children had a fantastic time sitting in the fire engine, looking around the fire station, squirting the hose and listening to the siren.

Unfortunately, sports day has been cancelled due to the wet weather  but all the children still received their winners medal as they all did so well during practice. High five!

Did you hear about our 6 chicken eggs we have been looking after in the incubator?.....................they hatched!!

We have been participating in lots of fun activities both outdoors and in our classroom, two trips, the active living team have been visiting us, baking foods from around the world and

the children have been planning what they would like to learn about next term!

Phew! What a very busy few weeks in Pre-school!

We asked the children what would they like to learn about after half term?

What wonderful thinkers the children are!

 We are going to be extra busy after half term with all these fantastic ideas.

On the last week of term, we had two trips.

With the Thursday children, we visited Haigh Hall along with the other schools in our cluster area.

We played on the park, went on a number and shape hunt in the woods, had a picnic, walked down to look at the hall and made a canvas using leaf printing.

With the Wednesday children, we visited Underwater Street Discovery Centre in Liverpool.

We had a fabulous time.

As part of our enrichment weeks at the end of term, we took part in activities to enhance our mathematical skills of recognising numbers and shapes. We went on a shape walk around school to look for different shapes in our environment, some of us used the camera to take our own photographs of the shapes.

The Active Living team have been visiting us on a Thursday morning, teaching us about the importance of exercising our bodies, eating healthy foods and dental care.

We used different ingredients to make a healthy wrap.

Mmmmmmmmmmm delicious!!

As some of us are getting ready to move up to Reception class,

we have been busy practising holding a pencil/pen with the correct grasp and starting to form the recognisable letters of our first name.

We are magic mark makers!

We have been reading the story of 'The six little chicks'.

The children have really enjoyed listening to how the chicks scared away the big, bad fox!!

As a small group, the girls talked about what they think a bad fox looks like, drawing a picture to demonstrate their ideas. Then to extend on their thinking, we discussed how a small, good fox would look different.

The girls then made a large model of their small, food fox to watch over our chicken eggs. Fabulous girls!!

W/B 20.04.2015

Welcome back after the Easter Holidays, the children have been telling us what an egg-citing time they have had!

As we are continuing with our theme of Spring and new life, we have Something exciting happening in Pre-school!!

We have 7 chicken eggs, keeping nice and warm in the incubator.

The children have been learning all about how many days until they hatch and what the chicks look like

each day inside the egg. So far, the chicks have legs, feet, arms and their wings have started to grow.

They have no feathers yet though.

We are so excited for when they hatch!

Before the Easter holidays, we were all really happy with the beautiful butterflies which hatched from the chrysalis'. This week, we have been using salt dough and lots of different media, to make our own butterflies.

The children made some beautiful models and very carefully chose what media they wanted to add to the wings of their butterflies.

For the next 5 weeks, if your child attends on a Thursday, they will be taking part in a physical session with the Active Living Team. This will include, exercising, make healthy wraps, learning about brushing teeth, making fruit smoothies and gaining an understanding of why we need to look after our bodies.

This week (week 1), Sam came to Pre-school to talk to us about exercising.

We played games, danced and exercised to different songs. We finished the session with some parachute games. It was lots of fun and we can't wait for next week.

We now have a new member to the Pre-school Room1 team.

Welcome Steph, who will be working Tuesday to Friday.

W/B 30.03.2015

WHAT AN EGG - CITING WEEK IN PRE-SCHOOL!

Our end of term trip was to Smithill's Open Farm.

We had a fantastic day.

We bottle fed baby goats, stroked lamb's, a baby donkey, piglets: held chicks and bunnies, went on a tractor ride, hand fed llamas, sheep and goats, went on a donkey ride and watched cows be milked.

  Pheeeeew what a fun filled day!  

To celebrate Easter, we have been taking part in lots of fun activities! We have been on an egg hunt, Easter bonnet parade, baking egg nest and eaten hot cross buns for snack.

Do you remember last week, the caterpillars had grown bigger and bigger and turned into a chrysalis??............

Well we now have beautiful butterflies!! The children were amazed to see the final part of the life cycle.

We gave the butterflies some water and flowers and once they were ready we released them onto

the plants in the mud kitchen.

OUR PARENT/CARER PLANNING DISPLAY HAS NOW MOVED INTO THE CLOAKROOM!!

PLEASE, PLEASE CONTINUE TO WRITE ON YOUR CHILD'S SPEECH BUBBLE TO HELP US PLAN TO MEET THEIR NEEDS AND INTERESTS!

W/B 16.03.2015 and W/B 23.03.2015

We have started a theme of Spring and new life!

The children have enjoyed listening to the story of 'The very hungry Caterpillar.'

We have been watching our own caterpillars follow their life cycle of turning into a butterfly.

We have been closely watching them eating all their food, getting bigger and bigger and fatter and fatter,

just like in the story.

We are so excited as the caterpillars have now formed a chrysalis!!

How exciting, they will soon be Butterflies! We have seven altogether.

We have carefully placed them in the butterfly house were they will soon hatch.

Laura came into Pre-school with Ella to talk to us about what babies need to grow.

Laura told us that babies don't eat snack or drink from a cup like we do........they drink milk from a bottle!

We watched Laura feed Ella her bottle and when she had finished, Laura patted her back and Ella did a little burp!!

We all showed Ella what big boys and girls we can be and how we can drink carefully from a cup!

Laura showed us the cotton wool she uses to wash Ella's face, it felt really soft.

Ella loves a bath at bedtime, just like us.

Do you know?......... when babies are born they have no teeth, we have lots!!

W/B 09.03.2015

This week the children have been making some lovely things for their

Mum, Grandma, Auntie or a special lady in their life.

We asked the children, why is your mum nice?

Here is a selection of what the children said.........

Ciella - " My mummy gets me sweets and toys. She's got eyelashes and 2 buns in her hair."

Kacey - "Cos' she gives me biscuits."

Jayden B - " I lover her that much cos' she's happy."

Kaitlyn - "She cuddles me, she kisses me too. She helps me put a dress on."

Tyler Mc - "She makes me happy cos' I go on Ipad."

Flynn - "She puts Scooby Doo on."

Millie - "My mummy tickles me."

Paddy - "My mum lets me play with toys and that makes me dead happy!"

Maisie - "My mummy sings twinkle, twinkle."

What lucky ladies you are to have such thoughtful children.

Happy Mother's Day.

xxxxxxxxxxx

W/B 02.03.2015

This week we have been continuing our celebration for Chinese New Year.

Do you remember last week when we started to make our own Chinese Dragon?..........It's finished!!!!!

We have been using the Dragon to dance around the playground.

Also, we have been learning about how, in China, children are given a red envelope containing a lucky coin.

We decorated an envelope and placed a lucky (chocolate) coin inside.

We looked at English and Chinese writing and talked about how they look different.

We used a pencil to write a word in Chinese. It was very tricky! You can see our work displayed in the classroom.

This week in P.E, we had a special guest!

Mrs Houghton came to the hall to teach us a workout. We exercised to lots of music and we all really enjoyed exercising to the 'car wash'. Mrs Houghton told us to really stretch our muscles to clean the tyres and stretch up high to wash the roof! It was hard work but lots of fun.

On Thursday, we celebrated Wold Book Day.

Well done to everyone, you all made a fantastic effort and looked amazing in your costumes!

W/B 23.02.2015

What a busy, busy first week back after half term!

This week we have been celebrating Chinese New Year. The children have started to make a Chinese Dragon.

They thought of their own ideas as to what they wanted the dragon to look like.

The children then used collage and paint to create the dragons head and body.

Keep Checking next week for the finished Dragon!!

As part of our Chinese New Year celebrations, on Wednesday afternoon we visited the Chinese Buffet in Wigan to taste Chinese food. It was delicious, we tried noodles, rice, prawn crackers, spring rolls, sweet and sour chicken, crabsticks and much more!!

In class, we have been practising using chopsticks.

They are very tricky to use but we tried really hard to pick up the food.

We also had a very special visitor!

Laura brought Baby Ella Rose into Pre-school to meet us.

She is very small and stayed asleep the whole time she was here!!

This week in out and about in the local environment, the children chose to visit the local park.

Pre-school will finish for half term after session on Friday 13th February 2015

and re-open on Monday 23rd February 2015.

W.B 09.02.2015

As part of physical fortnight, we have been talking about the foods which are good for us.

On Thursday morning, we walked to the shop to buy some healthy vegetables.

In the afternoon, we chopped up and cooked the vegetables to make a delicious, healthy soup. Mmmmmmmmmmmm!

W.B 09.02.2015

On Wednesday, we had a teddy bears porridge picnic!

We all brought our favourite teddy to Pre-school and went into the woods on the ALP's to eat porridge.

We talked about the story of the 3 bears and sang our favourite 3 bears song.

I bet they could hear us we sang it so loud!

  The porridge wasn't too hot or too cold, it was just right! 

W.B 09.02.2015

We wrote a letter to Goldilocks, telling her what she can and can't do in the 3 bear's house!

The children said, Goldilocks could not......

Kacey - "Don't go in mummy's bed."

James - "Don't sleep in baby's bed."

Paddy - "Don't come in our house and lock the door too!"

But Goldilocks is allowed to.......

Ciella - "Dance."

Tia - "Play and tidy up."

We walked to the post office to post our letter to Goldilocks.

We also looked at the different things they sell in the post office. We saw envelopes, stamps and paper.

W.B 02.02.2015.

This week in Baking with Jules, we made our own pizza's!

We used different ingredients to make the dough and used a rolling pin to roll out the base.

We chopped up cherry tomatoes and grated a block of cheese. We added the toppings and Julie carefully put them in the oven to bake. We each took a slice of pizza home with us. It was delicious!

We had a surprise visitor on Friday 6th February!

Mrs Wright brought Crocky the Bearded Dragon to visit!

We all gently stroked him, some of the children said he was hard and some of the children said he was prickly!

 Zeele was very brave and let him climb on her shoulder!!

W.B 02.02.2015

As part of 'Physical fortnight', we have been talking about what foods are good for our bodies. We walked to the local fruit shop to buy a variety of fruit. In our classroom, we carefully cut up the fruit using a knife and made fruit smoothies. They tasted yummy!

Week beginning 02.02.2015

This week, we have started the first week of our 'Physical fortnight.'

We have been talking about why exercise is good for our bodies, why we brush our teeth and what

foods are good for us.

We have been using the teeth puppets to practice how we brush our teeth correctly and talking about why it is important to look after our teeth.

During PE we did lots of exercises to get our bodies moving!

Week beginning 19.01.2015

We have been reading the story of 'Going on a bear hunt'.

This week in baking, we talked about what we think the bear's favourite food is.

The children wanted to bake cookies as they thought the bear would like these.

But............................ What if the bear smells our cookies????

We used flour, oats, butter, eggs, choc chips, baking powder and smarties.

We mixed all the ingredients together with a wooden spoon.

Once the dough stuck together, we each took a small piece and rolled it into a ball using the palms of our hands.

The children said it looked very pretty with the smarties in!

Then guess what happened?.............a group of children found footprints on the ALP's...........Bear prints!

They followed the prints and saw 2 big furry ears, 1 shiny, wet nose and 2 big, goggly eyes!

IT'S A BEAR!!

But, the bear was really friendly and came to our classroom to share the cookies we had made.

He said they were delicious.

Also this week, something really exciting is happening in our classroom.

We have started participating in 'Dough Disco'!

This is a fun activity to music, were each child has a piece of play dough and are instructed to

pat, rip, stretch, squeeze, poke or squash their dough. This helps to develop the children's fine motor skills

  It is lots of fun.

  Let's goooooooooooooo to the disco!! 

PRE-SCHOOL NEEDS YOU!!

Parent/Carer input is crucial in how our Pre-school runs.

Please, please keep filling in your child's section on the planning wall.

  High five to all the Parents/Carers who do this every week. 

Week beginning 12.01.2015.

We have been reading the story of 'Going on a bear hunt.'

We have been listening to and acting out the story, pretending we are squelch, squerching through the mud and swimming across the deep, cold river! We think the bear just wants to be friends really!

On a Thursday afternoon, all the children will have the opportunity to take part in a baking activity with Julie.

This week, we have been baking 'Bear biscuits'.  We took it in turns to add the ingredients and stir the mixture, we used a rolling pin to roll out the dough and then used a bear cutter to create our own biscuits.

We used silver balls for a shiny, wet nose and raisins for two big, goggly eyes!

Julie very carefully put them in the oven to bake. They were delicious.

You can see more photographs displayed in our classroom.

Mmmmmmm I wonder what were baking next week.............

Week Beginning 05.01.2015

What a busy first week back after Christmas!! 4 New children have started in Room 1 and we are so pleased with how well they have settled into Pre-school life!

We have a new area in our classroom called, Who will you be today? This area is filled with lovely resources like, dressing up clothes, hats, bags, shoes and masks.

 The children are really enjoying exploring their new area!

We have also been busy practicing our cutting skills and talking about why we need to be careful

when using scissors.

We all did really well and are official Careful Cutters!!

 We would like to wish all our Children, Parents and Carers

   a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.  

From, all the staff in Pre-school Room 1.xx

Week beginning 15.12.2014.

This week we have been drawing pictures of what we hope Father Christmas will bring us.

We put our picture in an envelope and stuck a special stamp on it.

We gave our letter a kiss and a whooooooooooooooooooosh, to create the Christmas magic!!

We then walked to our local post box and posted our letters. We hope he replies.xxx

Christmas Nativity Play.

WOW, How fantastic are all the children!!

We are all so proud of how well the children took part in the nativity. They sang their hearts out so much that even Father Christmas heard them and stopped by for a visit!

Well done boys and girls.

Week beginning 01.12.2014.

This week we are starting all our exciting Christmas activities.

We are starting to practice the songs for our nativity play too.

The children have been decorating our Christmas tree and what a fantastic job they did!

Week beginning 10.11.14 - This week we have been raising money for Children in Need and Wigan's neo natal unit.

We baked cakes and biscuits and sold them at the end of every session. On Friday we held a pyjama party!

We raised a massive total of

£207.21p

WELL DONE EVERYBODY!!

We have been learning about Remembrance day, what it is and why we have it.

We made our own poppies and went to Wigan on the local bus to lay them at the Cenotaph.

We have been joining in with activities to enrich our Communication and language skills. This includes singing nursery rhymes, learning about the story of the Gruffalo, visits to the ALP's, visits to the library and

activities within our continuous provision.

We performed a small showcase to our parents to show them what we have been doing!

We used different materials to build a model of the Gruffalo.

As a group we thought really hard as to what we wanted our Gruffalo to look like.

Kaitlyn - "Claws on his fingers and his feet."

Leo - "A tail."

Nicole - "A meanie Gruffalo."

Flynn - "Oh help, oh no!"

We have been using the play dough to make a model of the Gruffalo.

Nicole - "Gruffalo got a big head."

Ciella - "He's got knobbly knee's."

Flynn - "Prickles all over his back!"

Jessica - "I rolled a ball for head."

Paddy - "He's got terrible teeth and they bite you!"

We went on the ALP's looking for different materials to make the Gruffalo's den! We found leaves, twigs,

sticks and acorns. 

We went looking for The Gruffalo in Haigh Hall!

He took Mrs Wright and all our packed lunches!!!!

We went into the deep, dark woods and saw the mouse looking for nuts, the snake in his logpile house, the owl in his treetop house and the fox in his underground house. The mouse told us the Gruffalo's favourite drink is Mrs Wright Sprite!

We followed the Gruffalo's tracks and found him sat with our packed lunches and Mrs Wright.......phew!!