Terrific threading!

Today is fun Friday at Cart Mill! We decided we would like to make our own necklaces or bracelets!  We discussed what we would need to make them and decided we would need ribbon, some beads, and some scissors to cut our ribbon.

We carefully cut our ribbon and used our problem solving skills to discover we would need to tie a knot at the end of our ribbon to stop the beads falling off!

We carefully shared out our beads and each chose our favourite colour, design and size of bead. We had to concentrate really hard as it was tricky to thread the ribbon through the small hole.

We concentrated very hard and demonstrated fantastic patience and teamwork. Finally our Terrific Threading was finished!

We had lots of fun deciding which thread was the longest, shortest, which followed a pattern and which had our favourite colours. We decided we liked the rainbow threads the best! 🌈

We decided it might be a wee bit dangerous to put some of the threads around our necks as they were too tight so we decided to tie them to our bags instead!

Threading is a great activity to help develop fine motor skills, strengthen muscles, develop hand-eye co-ordination and concentration skills. It’s a lot of fun too!

Transient Art

This week the children in the Home Room have been creating their own fabulous pictures with transient art.

‘Transient art is simply moveable art’. The children are getting creative using loose parts such as stones, shells, buttons etc, to create pictures using their imagination.

Transient art allows children to make a picture 100 different ways, rather than having 1 end product when gluing and sticking.

The children added blue playdough to their pictures and pretended they were at the seaside and the playdough was the sea.

“Look at the waves in the sea, they are very big”

They even made 3D pictures. “Look the bird is sticking out of the picture”

This experience can be explored indoors and outdoors and can often lead from collecting sticks, stones, leaves etc. when out a local walk.

The children had lots of fun creating their own pictures, why dont you have a turn at home, when at the park or out a walk?

Flapjack fun!

Today the children in the toddlers had so much fun making yummy, sticky flapjacks! We did lots of measuring, weighing, melting, greasing and mixing to make the perfect consistency. This morning it turned out a little bit dry, so we put our thinking caps on… how do we make it stickier? The answer of course, was more sticky syrup!! We added some extra tablespoons of syrup to see if it would change the texture as it  was “too crumbly” and “crunchy”the first time, and it turned out just right. Well done guys! See if you can spot the difference.

We can’t wait to see what the children decide to make next from their book of baking ideas. Stay tuned!!

 

Come Fly With Me!

Welcome to Cart Mill Airways, were our pilots welcome you aboard our new aeroplane!

Our new state of the art aircraft was designed and constructed by the children in the Discovery room.

The design process was well thought out, we used our smart board to explore different aircrafts such as Concorde, Boeing 747 and Jet planes before we built ours.

The children worked together to build the aeroplane. They used different size and shaped blocks along with loose parts.

We also created a flight menu for you to enjoy while you fly with us.

Today’s flight is to Australia 🇦🇺

Today the children worked together while building the air craft. This developed their communication and language skills. We also Role played different roles such as pilot and air hostess.

We can’t wait to welcome you aboard our next flight. Where will our next destination be?

 

 

Toddlers and Water 💦

Today the toddler children have been investigating the different ways we can use water. We learnt that some items will float in water and some will sink. “Look the bin lorry sinks”. We found stones and shells in the garden and they didn’t float. The children came to realise that if the object was heavy it would sink to the bottom.  We found ducks and they liked to float on the water, this made the children think about what else maybe lives in water we looked around our garden and discovered some fish, frogs, sharks and dolphins, that all like to be in or around water.

When we finished, we talked about what to do with the water with a little help we discussed how to recycle the water and give all our growing vegetables in the garden a drink. The children searched the garden and came back with their chosen containers to carry the water. We practised some great pouring, measuring and balancing skills to transport the water to the vegetables. Well done tods.

Cart Mill Mini Olympic Games

The children have been busy in our garden developing their gross motor skills.

The children were able to follow the instructions on the ground to develop their co ordination and balance, Hopping like a bunny and hopping on one leg like a flamingo

Once the children got the hang of this. They decided they wanted to add their own ideas.

“Let’s add some star jumps”

The children worked collaboratively using their imagination to come up with some great ideas to add.

“Let’s add a dancing box”.                  “Can we stomp like a dinosaur”.    “We need a shouting box”

We even added a love box at the end to and hug a friend and celebrate friendship.

The children had great fun using their own thoughts and ideas in this game. I’m sure we will be re visiting this again and come up with more fantastic ideas.

Fruit skewers anyone…..

In the toddlers today we decided to make fruit skewers today. We were able to focus on colours, patterns, taste, numeracy as well as developing our fine motor skills.


Firstly, we washed our fruit

We picked from a selection of strawberries, apples, grapes and bananas

We used our fingers to carefully thread the fruit onto our skewers creating patterns


It can be quite tricky but we all persevered


The fruit is very tasty

Happy children enjoying their snack 😁

Ice cream parlour🍦

What a beautiful day it is🌞

After discussions last week on how to keep cool in the sun, the children decided they wanted to open their own ice cream parlour.

we used:

  • Shaving foam
  • Food Colouring
  • Chocolate powder
  • Sprinkles


The children used different sized spoons and bowls to mix the foam and chocolate power to make chocolate ice cream. They then mixed red food colouring to make strawberry ice cream.

“We need to add more chocolate powder, I cant smell it properly”

“I’m going to have a pink cone”

”I’m scooping the ice cream, it’s very slippy”

” I made a unicorn Ice cream, it’s gooey”

We made our ice cream cones in the shade while we had a break from the sun.

The children used their senses to smell and touch the foam with their hands.

They used their counting skills to count how many scoops of ice cream it took to fill the cone.