Monthly Archives: February 2022

Expressive Arts

3D number fun!

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Today we had lots of fun exploring the loose parts and creating our own 3D numbers. The children loved using resources throughout the room to help them write our number board out, and help with numbers that were a little tricky.

 

The children were very creative, using different loose parts to express their own interpretation of numbers. We spoke about the different shapes in numbers, and how we could display it on our board.

“I need two lines for number 11”

”I need a circle shape for number 10”

Some of the children then extended their learning even further by suggesting finding the corresponding  numbers to match their 3D creations. What a fabulous idea 💡

Have a look at some of our creations we made. Well done everyone!!

The children loved using their imagination and being creative with the loose parts, I wonder what we can create next?

Expressive Arts

Clay exploration

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Today we have been enjoying exploring the clay table.

The children decided to use some natural resources to make different models, we used some mini lollipop sticks, sea shells, sticks, little wooden slices, etc to create them.

The children found it tough to roll the clay out. So i asked them what they think clay is and what they think they could use to roll the clay.

“It’s play dough”

” It’s not Play dough its too hard”

” We could use a rolling pin”

The children used the rolling pin to roll out the clay.

“We can use our hands to roll it in a ball like this”

Clay helps to develop fine  motor skills as the children are using their hand muscles to manipulate the clay as they roll, stretch, squeeze it. They are also  using their gross motor skills as they use their large muscles to press down on the clay as it is tougher than play dough.

“look at the shell it looks like it is on my clay now”

We have been making different patterns too.

 

“I made some pretty biscuits, have one with your tea”

The children have been using their imagination to come up with different things to make with the clay.

Outdoor Learning, Trips and Outings

Snow much fun!!

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We were so excited to see so much snow in our Cart Mill garden today.  We had so much fun investigating how deep it was and how it felt to touch. We even made a Snow Angel!

“It’s cold. I’m picking it up and making a snowball.”

We are so lucky to have a large open space next to our garden with lots of hills which are perfect for sledging!

“I was going so fast”.

We had so much fun racing down the hill to see who could go the fastest! Sami joined in too but we reached the bottom before she did!

Next it was off to the Spider Park.  We decided to call it the Snow Park today!

We had so much fun playing snow tig and making snowballs!

We demonstrated excellent teamwork by pulling each other on the sledge round the Snow Park.  It was hard work!

Of course we have to make a Snowman on a snowy day!  We worked together to roll our large snowballs and found some sticks to use as arms. We made a big snowman and a little snowman.

“This is his head”  ” He has arms.”

After all our hard work it was time for snack. Of course we had to have some hot chocolate to warm us up!

We had snow much fun today!

Literacy

People who can help us

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We do love a story here at Cart Mill! Our favourite story today was about Emergency Services and people who could help us.  In particular, the children enjoyed hearing about fire engines.

We chatted about the colour of the fire engine and the sound it makes in an emergency!!!

We love to role play so we found some firemen puppets and used them to re-enact the story.  We were able to discuss what we think firemen do and what we would do if we were firemen!

We love to sing at Cart Mill. Gail taught us 5 little firefighters standing in a row. We were able to sing along and add in our own actions.

Why don’t you sing the song at home!

5 little firefighters standing in a row

1,2,3 swoosh swoosh they go

hop on the engine with a shout

quicker than a wink and the fire is out!!!!

We may have plenty of future fire fighters from Cartmill 🧑🏼‍🚒

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Uncategorized

Magic Beanstalk

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Today in our garden we had lots of fun making our very own magic bean stalk!

After reading the story indoors, the children were super excited and wanted to make their own beanstalk. So we did some research to find all the materials that we needed.

We placed a handful of cotton balls into our individual jars, sprayed them with water to dampen them and then, just like Jack we threw our magic beans into the jars. Now we all have to be patient and wait and watch, checking on them every day to see if they start to grow. Do you think they will grow to the sky?


“It’s going to grow so big”

“It’s going to be just like Jack’s beanstalk”

“I can take this home to show mum”

This exciting experience allows the children to observe the changes in plant growth over time and helps them develop knowledge of seasons and life cycles.

Expressive Arts

Today in the studio we were Marble painting.

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Today some of the children wanted to try out marble painting. This activity allowed the children to express their creativity whilst strengthening fine motor skills and developing their hand eye coordination.

”First we need water”

We used special paint called marbling paint which contained oil. We learnt that oil and water don’t mix and because the paint has oil in it, it sits on the surface of the water.

“I want the red paint”

“when you mix the yellow and the red it makes orange ”


”Let me add the black to see what happens, Oh it’s turned brown”

The children soon realised if we stirred the colours together too much they would all mix together to make one colour so they were very careful just to swirl the paint in the water. The children noticed that the paint was lying on top of the water and that it looked shiny. They took a piece of paper and laid it gently on top of the paint to make prints of the patterns they had made. Everybody commented on how smelly the paint was but that it did make pretty pictures. The children demonstrated some excellent turn taking skills and were able to show off their knowledge of colour theory.

Outdoor Learning

There’s no stopping us….

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It may have been freezing rain, intermittent hail stones and blowing a hoolie but the children at Cart Mill weren’t going to let that stop them playing outdoors!

We started by having a chat about how to keep warm while playing outdoors and discussed what games we would like to play. The children asked to play banana tig and toilet tig.


If the tigger catches you in banana tig you have to put your hands above your head like a banana skin and you cannot move until a friend ‘peels’ the banana.


If the tigger catches you during toilet tig you have to stand with your arm out and cannot move until a friend ‘ flushes’ the toilet.

These types of games encourage turn taking and co-operation between the children.

The children then asked to play hide and seek and got very creative with their hiding places!

We had a great time keeping ourselves active during Storm Dudley.

Expressive Arts, Literacy

Dough Disco!

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Welcome to the Dough Disco.

The dough disco is a fun way for our children to combine play dough and a series of hand and finger exercises designed to improve fine muscle control.  These exercises help prepare for writing  and pencil control.

Today the children chose Let It Go for our disco song.
Our first move was “squeeze”. We used each hand one at a time to warm up our hands.

Next move was “ball it” we had to use the palm of our hands to roll the playdough into a ball.

Next was “smack it”. We had to use our hands to smack the playdough flat into our other hand.

Up next was “single fingers” we had to take each of our fingers one by one and press them onto the playdough.

Lastly we made a “sausage” we had to roll the playdough  between our hands.

Each dough disco move was in time to our music and the experience lasts as long as the song does. It’s a quick fun way to strengthen our finger muscles. It’s harder than it looks!
Why don’t you have a go at your very own Dough Disco at home.

Expressive Arts, Literacy, Outdoor Learning

Nature walk between showers!!

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Today we had a very interesting nature walk! Our mission was to collect leaves and acorns of all different shapes and sizes.
However,  the first thing we spotted on our walk was was two little ducks! We thought this was very exciting as they were running around so close to our nursery!

The children noticed the ducks were different colours and spotted a duck pond for them! (A very large puddle!!)

“They are shouting quack, quack!”    “They are so cute!”
“I love the ducks!”     “They came to our nursery!”

We continued on our walk and the children managed to find lots of leaves and pine cones.  They found both green leaves and brown leaves. They climbed small hills to reach the leaves they wanted.

When we were walking back to nursery  the children spotted a big muddy puddle which, of course, they just had to jump in!! They had so much fun seeing how high they could jump and how big a splash they could make!

”I made a great big splash!”      “The water feels so cold on me!”

Once we got back to nursery we did some printing with our leaves using different coloured paint. The children noticed that the different leaves made different patterns on the paper! We also dipped our pine cones in paint and rolled them across the paper to create some nice patterns.

Whilst making some amazing pictures with the materials we gathered, the children were developing their gross motor skills and had great conversations about their outing! What a fun morning we had!

Literacy, Social Studies

Busy Builders

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All go this morning in the construction corner but safety first! We ensured we had our high viz jackets and goggles on and most importantly our checklist. We had a discussion on why we wear protective clothing and complete checklists to ensure our safety for ourselves and others around us…

The children took time to design what they would like to build using clipboards, paper, rulers and pens. Then we got to work, we looked around at different blocks shapes and sizes.

The children built their own creations from the variety of resources on offer to them and then worked together as a group expanding their ideas to create a big castle using their imagination. During this time the children were using mathematical language such as taller, smaller, long and short,  The children demonstrated good communication skills when sharing ideas. They also shared equipment and worked together, passing blocks to each other.