This week has been very exciting at Cart Mill, we are all getting delicious hot lunches served in nursery. We have tried lots of different food including tomato pasta, lentil soup, fish fingers and pizza! Our family room is now set up like a real dining room where we can all sit together round the table and eat our lunch.
We have been learning to use our cutlery properly as well as pour our drinks and help serve our vegetables.
It has been so nice to see the children try all the new tastes, we are already looking forward to next week’s menu!
The children in the Toddler Room are always very expressive and creative so when we found some very colourful finger paints in one of the cupboards in the playroom they were keen to try them out.
At first they were very careful, using only one finger, testing out each colour.
They experimented with different colours, making swirls on their paper.
Very quickly they started to use their whole hands, feeling the paint between their fingers.
Its cold and squishyBlue paint.
Small swirls with one finger became huge swirls and mark making with a whole hand.
Oh look at my colourful hands tooPink hands
All the children had loads of fun painting with their fingers and hands and were very excited to see their finished artwork hanging up drying ready to take home.
Today in the studio we decided to paint using magnets. We moved metal objects around the paper and over the paint to make patterns. The children chose the colours of paint they would like to use and practised their pouring skills to fill the paint trays.
The children were creative and used the magnets to draw paper clips and screws across the paint and make some lovely designs. This then expanded to making paint patterns on the spoons which were very effective. The children combined different colours to make different shades “This looks like a river” and “I have a pond for ducks”. The children also enjoyed discussing there techniques which improves their language and social skills.
We are looking forward to exploring lots of different methods of using paint in the new term.
At Cart Mill we love to explore our creativity in many ways.
We explored with paints on the ground and logs creating different patterns and pictures.
Then we mixed the paint to create our own colours and painted our hands!
Rainbow puddles! Using chalk and water we made lovely rainbows 🌈
When we finished painting we got the hose and scrubbing brushes to clean up the logs and the rain helped wash the rest away.
During this the children learned different ways to be creative, explored making their own colours and becoming more confident in their mark making skills.
Today some of the toddlers decided to explore mark making and colour. They used their fingers to push the paint around and make patterns. “I made orange with red and yellow” “This is squashy and squishy” “I can make purple with blue and red”
We also engaged our five senses playing in our very own orange sensory water scooping, pouring, mixing stirring filling and emptying. The toddlers were able to answer my open ended questions exposing them to new vocabulary. “The flesh feels soft, but the skin is bumpy” ”Orange juice, I like it” They were all able to take turns and play cooperatively.
The boys and girls have been discussing the change in the weather. We all had so much fun playing in the sun but now the grey clouds are out and we think a thunder storm is coming for a visit!
The children decided to have a look at our weather board and pick out their favourite weather and what the weather was doing today.
“ the grey clouds mean rain “
” I eat ice cream when it is sunny “
“ I love snow the best “
After discussing the different weather, the children decided to create their own weather pictures of their favourite weather!
This week the toddlers have been extremely busy. After enjoying home grown vegetables for snack this week, they decided to make some yummy blueberry muffins to enjoy for snack.
We all washed our hands and found a recipe book to let us know what ingredients we needed.
We put all of the dry ingredients into a bowl, flour, sugar, baking powder, lemon rind and salt and gave it a stir.
Now we had to mix the wet ingredients, buttermilk, eggs and melted butter.
And gave it a good stir.
We carefully added the wet ingredients to the flour mix and gave it a good mix. It became very gloopy!
Pop in some blueberries.
The children took great care filling the muffin cases before putting them in the oven to cook.
The muffins looked delicious when they were cooked. The children had to wait till they had cooled before enjoying them for snack.
Some of the children wanted to taste some of the blueberries…. even the lemon!
The toddlers have been growing vegetables in our garden. We have been watering them regularly and today we were able to harvest them! We enjoyed some delicious toddler grown snacks including carrots and spring onion, with a potato to take home for later.
We firstly picked our carrots, spring onions and potatoes.
Then we washed the soil off.
Finally after working so hard today, we enjoyed tasting our Cart Mill grown vegetables at snack time.
The children have been learning where our food comes from and it was nice to be able to learn and share together. 😀
Today in the Studio Room we were using our creative skills to make our massive art piece.
First we selected the colours we wanted to use.
Then we picked our paper and used the floor as our canvas.
We picked the tools we wanted to experiment with and got our paint ready to use.
All the children had so much fun having the large space to express their creative arts, we used our mark making skills to make unique and wonderful marks. We used both our fine and gross motor skills to complete our masterpiece.
The children decided to use their hands and feet to gain a whole sensory experience.
We have very happy children in our Studio Room, engaging fully in their learning.
Maybe we have some future artists here in our Studio.
Yesterday the children enjoyed their own mini games which started them talking about various sports that they all take part in. Running races, jumping, bike racing, tennis, basketball, gymnastics, swimming, football, golf to name a few.
This led to talk about the Olympics being held over the next couple of weeks in Tokyo, Japan. Some children asked what the Olympics were. Through discussions with staff, they learned that the Olympics were held every 4 years with people from countries all over the world taking part in lots of different sports to win medals for their country.
The children watched some of the Opening Ceremony from London 2012 with great interest and tried to guess the countries from their flags, as well as watching the ceremony where the medals are awarded.
1st, 2nd and 3rd placeJ said it goes round her neckShe looked very happy
After their mini games some of the children asked if they could make their own little medals. They found some gold, silver and a bronze coloured shiny paper and some ribbon. They glued the shiny paper onto some card, cut out a circle and attached some ribbon.
S’s medal goes over her head like the one on the screen.
C shows her silver medal off with pride.
Who knows we may have a future olympian here at Cartmill.
Taking part in sports helps to keep our bodies fit and healthy and improves our general health and wellbeing.
