Welcome to Miss Prescott's
Nursery Blog
20th July 2018:
On behalf of all the staff in Nursery I would like to say a huge thank you for all of your very kind and thoughtful gifts, the staff were completely overwhelmed by your generously.
We've had a fantastic year in Nursery and taken part in lots of fun and exciting learning experiences. We hope the children have enjoyed it just as much as we have. Time flies when you're having fun.
We hope you all have a great summer and we look forward to welcoming the children back in September. We wish all of our children who have left Grange Valley good luck at their new schools.
9th July 2018:
Nursery Graduation 2018
We would like to say a huge congratulations to all of our children who graduated from Nursery on Friday.
We were so proud of the children's confidence on the stage and how well behaved they were. We hope you enjoyed it just as much as we did!
Well done everyone.
2nd July 2018:
Well done everyone!
This week we continued our pirate theme. The children couldn't believe their eyes when a real pirate arrived at nursery this week! Pirate Prescott followed her treasure map all the way to Grange Valley Nursery and she was trying to steal our treasure. She talked to the children about her pirate ship and it's features, her shipmates, her special pirate accessories and treasure. The children asked her lots of interesting questions about cannons, flags and bad guys. Before she left we sang our pirate Rhyme of the Week together. Thanks for visiting us Pirate Prescott!
In our number session this week we practised our counting skills. The children each chose a pirate number card and counted out the correct amount of golden coins from the sand.
This week our Rhyme of the Week was all about a sinking pirate ship. Following the song we explored floating and sinking in our water tray. The children experimented with different toys from around nursery to find out which toys would sink to the bottom and which would float on top.
At the end of the week the children each wrote one thing they had learnt about during our pirate theme. The teachers were super impressed with the children's mark making and use of phonic skills to sound our pirate words.
25th June 2018:
Well done everyone!
This week we have been learning all about pirates. We read a story called 'Pirates Love Underpants' and it was about a gang of pirates going in search for the special golden underpants. Following the story we made treasure maps and some of our children labelled the different parts of their map. We went on a hunt for hidden golden underpants in our nursery and recorded the letters we found.
We played pirate bingo, "House!"
We played pirate themed parachute games. The children sneaked under the parachute to steal the treasure.
Our children have been showing an interest in jellyfish and octopuses. In the Craft Area some of children made their favourite sea creatures.
On Friday we had bouncy castle day. Thank you to everyone who donated money to our PTFA.
18th June 2018:
Well done everyone!
We had a brilliant trip to Farmer Ted's we had lots fun looking at the animals, playing on the park and riding the very bumpy tractor. The children's behaviour was outstanding as usual. Thank you to all of our trip helpers.
On Friday our children started their transition into their new Reception class with Mr Ashton, The children enjoyed exploring their new environment and playing circle games with their new teachers. The children will continue to visit Reception every Friday until we finish for the summer.
11th June 2018:
This week the children took part in our Nursery Sports Day. We were super proud of all of our children as they confidently took part in their races in front of a huge audience. Thank you to everyone who came to cheer the children on.
4th June 2018:
Well done everyone!
This week we have been learning all about summer. We went on a summer walk and observed all the changes that take place during the summer season. The children said summer is their favourite season because they like having BBQ's and playing in the paddling pool. In group time we talked about the importance of looking after our bodies in the warm summer weather, Children should come into nursery wearing a high factor suncream and a sunhat each day. Some of our children made some beautiful sunshine craft.
Over the holidays we had new equipment fitted on our EYFS playground. The children have had lots of fun using it this week and we can't wait to get it all finished.
21st May 2018:
Well done to all of our Stars of the Week!
In Nursery this week we have enjoyed learning all about Cinderella. We read the story and used the story masks to retell it and act it out. The children remembered lots of the characters words and they used special vocabulary like next, then and finally to order the story when retelling. Some of our children wrote some beautiful invitations to the ball. On Wednesday we found 2 special shoes had been left in our Nursery but we didn't know who they belonged to?! We used cubes to measure the prince and princess shoes and then we measured our own feet but it didn't fit anyone in our nursery. Some of our children tried the shoes on but they didn't fit. The children all learnt a song called 'There was a Princess Long Ago' about a princess who was trapped in a tower, you can find it on Youtube.
Our EYFS playground and woodland area is coming along beautifully. Over the holidays we will be having lots of new playground equipment fitted. We can't wait to see it finished. We hope the sun stays out when we return to school.
Have a fantastic half term break and we look forward to seeing you all on Monday 4th June.
14th May 2018:
Well done everyone!
What a wonderful week we've had in Nursery! We started the week off by reading this weeks story 'Stick Man'. We read the story and we found a letter from the Stick Man hiding in the back of the book. The letter asked the children if they would make lots of stick people friends for his children. The children each made a stick person using sticks, wool, pipe cleaners and googly eyes.
On Tuesday we found a secret fairy garden in our woodland area. There was a letter from Woody the woodland elf to let us know him and his friends had moved into our forest. The children enjoyed investigating the new area and they wrote letters to Woody to ask him lots of questions. Woody and his friends have been watching the children throughout the week and we've since found lots of tiny fairy doors hiding in the trees.
In Nursery we've been making clay faces on the trees, wooden tree signs and dream catchers to decorate our beautiful woodland area. We've also made natural paint brushes using grass, twigs, leaves and flowers and used them to paint on large rolls of paper. We made fairy wands and fairy potions and used them to turn people into frogs!
We collected some sticks from our forest and brought them indoors to make 2D shapes.
On Friday we came to school dressed in red, white and blue clothes to celebrate the royal wedding at the weekend. We decorated wedding cakes, made flags, made wedding cards and played party games.
7th May 2018:
Our story this week was about a cat called Jasper who planted a bean, he looked after the bean for a long, long time before it grew into a HUGE beanstalk. In Nursery we have each planted our own bean and we will look after them for the next few weeks until they are growing big and strong.
After planting out beans and digging in the garden our children had very dirty hands! We watched a video clip all about germs and the importance of regular hand washing. We followed the instructions on the bathroom wall to wash our hands thoroughly.
Some of our children made some beautiful flower pictures using circles, triangles and rectangles.
When we arrived in Nursery on Monday our caterpillars had hatched out of their cocoons and we had 5 beautiful butterflies in our net. We looked after them all week until they were strong enough to be released in our woodland area.
30th April 2018:
This week we have been learning all about minibeasts. On Thursday we went on a minibeast hunt in the forest and we carefully brought in the minibeasts to investigate indoors. We used the magnifying glasses to look closely at worms, spiders, woodlice, snails and even a millipede. We talked about the minibeast body parts and we counted how many legs they had.
We looked at a range of information books to find out more interesting facts about minibeasts. We talked about the titles, photographs, labels and captions. The children liked the book all about buzzy bees and they found a photograph of a stinger.
This week we have continued to watch our cocoons. The caterpillars are still fast asleep inside. Hopefully next week they will turn into beautiful butterflies.
23rd April 2018:
Well done everyone!
On Wednesday we had a visit from Dylan's Reptiles. The children had a fantastic time learning about a range of reptiles including snakes, spiders, tortoises, lizards, frogs and snails. Dylan talked to the children about the names of the reptiles, facts, the things they eat, etc and then the children had the opportunity to handle each reptile. We were extremely proud of our children who had the giant snake around their neck.
Some of our children did some beautiful pictures and writing about the reptiles. The children are starting to use their phonics skills in their writing e.g. recording s for snake and f for frog.
On Monday we celebrated St.George's Day. We read the story Saint George and the Dragon and we painted flags.
In our Mathematics group session we explored different sized snakes. We sorted them by size and ordered them from shortest to longest. We used special size vocabulary to describe the size of each one.
This week our caterpillars are have made their cocoons and they are beginning to transform into butterflies. We will continue to watch them closely over the next few weeks to see what happens next.
16th April 2018:
Well done everyone!
This week we introduced 5 tiny caterpillars in our Investigation Area. Over the next few weeks we will watch them as they transform into beautiful butterflies. In group we talked about the butterfly life cycle and we used playdough to make eggs, caterpillars, cocoons and butterflies.
This week our story was 'The Very Hungry Caterpillar'. We read the story and acted it out in the hall. We used the fruits from the story to make fruit kebabs, the childen's favourite fruit was strawberries! We used apples to print caterpillars for our new display.
We explored symmetry and we painted our own symmetrical butterflies.
This week the sun has been shining on our playground. The children have enjoyed spending lots of time outdoors and exploring our forest area.
19th March 2018:
Well done everyone!
We started the week with a visit from the local Community Support & Traffic Officers Emma and Natalie. The children sat beautifully and listened to the officers as they talked about their job role. At the end the children each thought of a question to ask them.
After a visit from the officers we observed some fantastic role-play in our Police role-play area and jail. We made our own police hats to take home.
In group we talked about our Golden Rules that the children must follow in Nursery. Over the next few days our key group bears will pretend to be police officers watching the children and making sure they’re following all of the rules.
We had a shock when we came into nursery on Thursday! Someone had eaten our fruit, snapped our pencils and stolen our cars! The culprit had left behind their fingerprints for us to investigate. PC Abbott checked the children’s fingerprints and took their photographs to see if they matched the fingerprints left at the crime scenes. We completed some incident report forms to help Chase the police officer track down the criminals.
In our hall time this week we had fun with the parachute.
12th March 2018:
Well done to our Stars of the Week!
This week our theme has been Elmer. Elmer is a colourful patchwork elephant who wishes he could be a grey elephant just like all of his friends. In group time we talked about being unique and how we all have similarities and differences and how we should be happy just the way we are.
We continued our work on pattern and we used coloured cubes to make repeating patterns just like a tiger and zebra.
In the Creative Area we explored colour mixing to make all the colours of Elmer's patchwork body. We used white and red to make pink, red and blue to make purple, blue and yellow to make green and black and white to make grey.
On Friday we used our hall time to do a Write Dance session. Our Write Dance book was Animal Boogie. We explored moving around the hall like the different animals from the story and then we made up a pattern for each one. We used pens to create the patterns on large pieces of paper. The teachers were super impressed with the children's first efforts.
5th March 2018:
Well done to our Stars of the Week!
This week we have been learning all about the jungle. Our story focus this week was 'Rumble in the Jungle'. We used our new FANTASTICS symbols to pick out the things we could hear, notice, feel and how the animals moved. We will continue to use the FANTASTICS throughout our story sessions.
This week we have been practising counting out groups of objects. The children chose a number card 1-10 and counted out the correct amount of jungle animals.
We looked at animal patterns and we created our own. We made tiger and zebra stripes, cheetah and giraffe spots and we used textures to create an elephant and a snake. We also used paper plates to make snake decorations.
In our hall time we explored moving like jungle animals. We stomped like elephants, ran like jaguars, flapped like parrots and slithered like snakes.
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26th February 2018:
Thank you to everyone who came to our Stay and Play sessions this week. We hope you enjoyed it and found the information on your child's progress and next steps useful.
Well done everyone!
Today we gave 3 prizes to some of our children for fantastic story re-telling. Happy World Book Day!
This week we have been learning all about Goldilocks and the Three Bears. We read the story and put pictures from the story in order. We used props to re-tell the story, including our wonderful bear headbands that we made with Miss Upton. We also learnt a song called 'What Goldilocks went to the House of the Bears', you can find it on Youtube.
On Thursday we had a visit from Goldilocks. She broke our chair and spilled porridge all over our floor. Some of our children wrote letters to Goldilocks to tell her how to be a good girl.
During play time some of our children explored size. They sorted the three little bears objects and used size vocabulary to describe them.
We had porridge for snack just like Goldilocks and the Three Bears in the story.
Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow! This week we had lots of snow in Haydock. The children enjoyed making tracks in the snow and building a snowman.
On Friday we came to Nursery in our pyjamas and we brought in our teddy bears, blankets and favourite books. In group time we enjoyed sharing our stories in group time as we had a drink of hot chocolate. The teachers were super impressed with the children's writing they did about their favourite stories.
We shared some of our new story sacks. The children's favourite was Room on the Broom.
19th February 2018:
Well done everyone!
This week we have been learning all about Chinese New Year. We explored Chinese artefacts and learnt about how Chinese New Year is traditionally celebrated. We compared the celebrations to ours e.g. sending cards on birthdays and putting up decorations at Christmas time. The children painted Chinese symbols and practiced their name writing inside their cards. We practised our scissor control when making beautiful Chinese lanterns.
On Thursday we had a Chinese banquet. The children sampled spring rolls, prawn toast, egg fried rice, prawn crackers and soy sauce.
Our favourite part of the week was when we went into the school hall to do some Chinese dragon dances. The children watched Chinese dragon dance clips on the IWB and then used their dragon puppets to move high, low, fast, slow, etc in response to the music. At the end of our session we made a huge dragon and paraded around school.
On Friday the children came to Nursery in their beautiful party clothes. We danced, played games and had Valentines themed party food.
5th February 2018:
Well done everyone!
This week our theme has been superheroes. We have enjoyed looking at superhero comics and using the pictures to tell superhero stories. We also read a story called Superkid that was all about an ordinary boy who had secret special superhero powers. Following the story we talked about the powers the children would like to have e.g. flying and X ray vision.
Our new children enjoyed exploring the different sounds they could make with our musical instruments. They played the instruments fast to make loud sounds and slow to make quite sounds.
Next week is pancake Tuesday. We made our own pancakes and had them for snack.
We are all super excited about our new playground. This week we displayed some outdoor idea photographs and talked to the children about their favourites. We can't wait to set it all up.
29th January 2018:
Well done everyone!
This week we have been focusing on developing our children's number skills. Some of our children went on a number hunt around the environment too see what numbers we could spot. Some of our children practised counting out dinosaur eggs.
We also introduced repeating pattern. The teachers were super impressed at how fast the children picked this up. All of the children were able to make their own repeated colour pattern using beads, lego and bears.
We've been busy in the Creative Area this week! At the beginning of the week we made dinosaur spotting binoculars and we used them to hunt for binoculars on the playground. Later in the week we made scary dinosaur masks, "Roar."
In our hall time we played a team game were the children had to race to collect the dinosaur eggs and put them in their nest. The children enjoyed the game and it was great to see them cheering each other on. To finish off our hall time we explored moving like different types of dinosaurs e.g. a flying pterodactyl and a fierce stomping TRex.
Don't forget our Valentines parties on Friday 23rd February. Children should wear party clothes and come to Nursery at their normal time.
22nd January 2018:
Well done everyone!
This week our theme was all about dinosaurs. On Tuesday we found an egg in a nest in Nursery, the children were very excited to find out what creature was inside. On Thursday the egg cracked and a baby dinosaur hatched out. The children enjoyed feeding and looking after the baby triceratops. On Friday the children came into Nursery to find the nest was empty! They each did some fantastic writing about the missing dinosaur.
We used paper plates to make dinosaur craft.
This week in Nursery we've had lots of children's birthdays. We set up a party area for the children to celebrate. The children enjoyed writing party invitations, dancing, playing party games and pretending to eat party food.
15th January 2018:
Well done to our Stars of the Week!
This week our theme has been The Three Little Pigs. The children enjoyed reading and watching a range of different versions of the story, their favourite was The Three Horrid Pigs and the Big Bad Friendly wolf. The children used the role-play props and masks to act out the story. In the hall the children enjoyed pretending to run away from the big bad wolf!
This week we have been learning about different types of houses e.g. bungalows, semi-detached, etc. We went on a walk to find all the different types in the local environment. In the Creative Area the children made junk model houses.
This week we have been finding shapes in the environment.
In our hall time we explored travelling on the benches. We walked, crawled, shuffled and slithered.
8th January 2018:
Well done to our Stars of the Week!
Well done to all of our new children who started nurser this week. They have all settled in beautifully and we are looking forward to learning all about them.
This week our theme was Winter. We watched a video clip about the changes that happen during the winter season and then we went out on a winter walk. We wrapped up warm because it was foggy and freezing cold outside!
Back in nursery we made some beautiful winter themed collages using blues, whites and silver to represent the wintry colours. They look wonderful displayed in our creative area.
This week we also enjoyed using shapes to make pictures. Do you like our snowmen?
The children enjoyed our sensory gloop area on Friday. The children used some excellent Wow words to describe it.
Today was our new children's first time in the hall. We stretched and did Sticky Kids.
18th December 2017:
Thank you for all of your very kind cards and gifts. We hope you have a very merry Christmas and a happy new year. We look forward to welcoming our children back in 2018.
Well done to our Stars of the Week!
On Tuesday we had our nursery party. The children had lots of fun dancing, playing party games and eating party food.
This week we had a surprise visitor! Santa came to see the children to find out what they each wanted for Christmas. Santa said all of our children are on the good list and they each got a present.
W/B: 11th December 2017
Well done to our Stars of the Week. We hope you have a fantastic weekend with Buzz, Mikey and Honey Bear!
Thank you to everyone who came to our Nursery Christmas Sing-Along. The children were fantastic and all of their teachers were so proud of their beautiful singing. Well done children!
On Wednesday we went on our first school trip to Imagine That! The children enjoyed playing in the role-play areas, digging in the sand, splashing in the water zone, making Christmas craft, watching science shows and lots lots more. The children met Santa in his grotto and each got a present for being on the good list.
W/B: 4th December 2017
This week Santa installed a secret elf camera and a tiny little elf door in our nursery to watch the children.
Throughout the week the children have enjoyed looking at the photographs on the elf camera to check what Elvis has been up to while nursery was closed. Elvis has had so much fun at nursery this week and each morning he left us a cheeky surprise. Naughty Elvis!
Some of our children wrote letters to Santa and Elvis.
W/B: 27th November 2017
Well done to our Stars of the Week. We hope you have a fantastic weekend with Buzz, Mikey and Honey Bear!
This week we read the story 'The Gingerbread Man' and the children enjoyed joining in with the repeated phrase, "Run, run as fast as you can, you can't catch me I'm the Gingerbread Man." We followed the little old ladies recipe to make our own gingerbread's and decorated them with icing and raisins.
On the IWB the children used the magic pen to draw pictures of the Gingerbread Man.
On Friday 1st December the children helped put up the Christmas decorations. The children enjoyed putting all the tinsel and baubles on our tree and Amelie put the angel on top.
W/B: 20th November 2017
Well done to our Stars of the Week. We hope you have a fantastic weekend with Buzz, Mikey and Honey Bear!
We had a lovely time when Miss Abbott's dog Flo came to see us.
We made biscuits in the shape of doggy bones.
This week has been National Road Safety week. In Nursery we talked about road safety and the children each received a road safety certificate. Well done children.
W/B: 13th November 2017
Well done to our Stars of the Week! Enjoy your weekend with Buzz, Mikey and Honey Bear.
This week our theme has been space. Our story focus this week was 'Whatever Next!' After reading the story the children enjoyed using the story props to act out the story.
The children were very excited about the bears trip to the moon and decided they wanted to plan their own visit. We wrote a shopping list of all the things we needed for our picnic.
We blasted off in a box rocket and the children pretended to wave at the people on the aeroplane just like the bear did.
After landing on the moon we all enjoyed a picnic of juice, apples and cookies. Whilst eating the picnic we watched the first moon landing video clip on the IWB and talked about the rocket and the astronauts.
The children made some beautiful space themed pictures to display in Nursery.
Some of our children designed and built their own rockets just like Apollo 11.
W/B: 6th November 2017
Well done to our Stars of the Week! Enjoy your weekend with Buzz, Mikey and Honey Bear.
Following Bonfire Night on 5th November our theme was fabulous fireworks . In the Playdough Area the children used sequins, pipe cleaners and lots of other sparkly resources to make their own fireworks.
In the Creative Area the children made firework pictures. They experimented with colour mixing by mixing different coloured paints.
In the Maths Area the children enjoyed pretending to squirt the numbered flames.
On Wednesday we made sparkler snacks, they tasted yummy!
Thank you to everyone who brought in tubes for our rocket craft. The children had lots of fun decorating them and using them to zoom around the hall.
In the Role-Play Area the children played firefighters. They dressed up and pretended to answer 999 calls, draw maps, drive the fire engine and use the hose to put out fires.
On Friday we discussed Remembrance Day. We watched a video clip on CBeebies to explain to the children why we wear poppies and then we made our own.
W/B: 30th October 2017
This week we practised our pumpkin carving on the IWB. The children enjoyed using circles, squares and triangles to make pumpkin faces. We also learnt the name of a new shape called a hexagon.
We practised our rhyming skills when we made magic rhyming potions. When we found a matching pair of rhyming pictures the potion turned us into frogs!
In the craft area we made spiders with 8 springy legs and 2 googly eyes.
In group time this week we read the story 'Room on the Broom'. The children's favourite part was when the monster game out of the bog and scared the big dragon away!
In preparation for our Ugly Bug Ball we made chocolate apples and we decorated spooky cupcakes.
Thank you for all of your kind donations for the Christmas box appeal. The children helped us sort the donations and pack them ready to be sent off next week.
W/B: 16th October 2017
Well done to our Stars of the Week!
This week our theme was harvest. We read the story 'The Little Red Hen'. We read the story together and each group was a different character from the story. The children enjoyed wearing story masks as they repeated the story words, "Not I said the Cat."
We made bread just like the Little Red Hen in the story.
At snack time we enjoyed eating our bread with vegetable soup.
We used our senses to explore a range of different vegetables. We also sang a song to help us remember how each vegetable grows e.g. digging up potatoes.
We used the vegetables to print patterns on our harvest crowns.
Some of our children enjoyed mark making in oats and different cereals.
W/B: 9th October 2017
Well done to our Stars of the Week!
This week we went on an autumn walk down the lane and on our school field.
Whilst we were out on our walk we collected autumn leaves, conkers, acorns, berries and conker husks. We used the autumn objects to make some beautiful autumn craft. We used the leaves to print and we arranged a range of objects to make autumn collages.
We explored autumn further as we played autumn themed bingo. The children learnt the names of pine cones, chestnuts and seeds.
In our maths group session we sorted leaves. First we sorted the leaves by colour and then by size.
Our children had lots of fun exploring autumn coloured rice, lentils and pasta. Our nursery was very messy!
In our hall time this week we went on the apparatus for the first time. We practised safely mounting the benches, balancing on the benches and jumping off the end.
W/B: 4th October 2017
Well done to our Stars of the Week
This week we have been learning about a story called 'We're Going on a Bear Hunt'.
In group time we explored the different scenes from the story. We used puppets to retell the story and each time we moved to a new scene we used special words to describe how it felt e.g. sticky, cold, hard, etc.
In the Craft Area we used a range of materials to create a 'We're Going on a Bear Hunt' story collage. They will look great on our display.
In the hall we acted out the story. We pretended to go through the long wavy grass, a deep dark river, thick oozy mud, a big dark forest, a swirling whirling snowstorm and a narrow gloomy cave.
Some of our children enjoyed exploring the thick oozy mud, it was very messy!
W/B: 25th September 2017
Well done to our Stars of the Week.
This week our theme has been teddy bears. The children brought in their favourite teddy bears from home. We wrote our names on a label so we wouldn't get them mixed up.
This week we introduced each groups key bear. Mikey belongs to Blue Group, Buzz belongs to Green Group and Honey belongs to Yellow Group. The children from each group put a heard inside their teddy bear. Before we put them inside we rubbed the hearts on our head for wisdom, on our heart for love and we exercised with them so it was nice and healthy. When we had finished we each gave me a cuddle and told them our names.
This week was Baby Bear's birthday and Mummy Bear asked us to write her a list of things we could buy for his birthday picnic.
We made jam and cheese sandwiches in preparation for our teddy bears picnic in the woods.
We had lots of fun out in the woods on our picnic. We ate sandwiches and cake, we had our milk and read a story about Mr Bear.
