Today we have enjoyed a visit from Clydebuilt Puppet Theatre. The children were very excited…
We heard the story of The Three Billy Goats Gruff..
…and Jack and the Beanstalk…
We had to help count out the magic beans and warn Jack if the Giant was coming!
Thank you Clydebuilt Puppet Theatre for a brilliant and fun story time.
We had a very busy day today, hosting two fabulous Christmas concerts. Both started off with a welcoming hot chocolate, complete with cream and marshmallows and what else, but a mince pie 🥧.
This gave parents the chance to chat and catch up with each other before our first indoor concert since 2019.
It was so nice to have such a busy centre, filled with the chat of families.
The children have been practising their songs all month and the hard work and rehearsals paid off as they were magnificent.
The staff have worked so hard with everyone and our families were treated to the Christmas favourites, We Wish You a Merry Christmas and of course Jingle Bells, as well as a few other songs.
Once the children had finished, we decided it was so good, we would sing it all again but this time we decided the grown ups should join in too!
Thank you all for joining us for our concerts today, we loved having you back in the centre and hope you agree with us that our Cart Mill children are super talented!
For anyone who finished up with us today, please have a wonderful break with the people you love and we will see you next year.
Today at Cart Mill we got to wear our pyjamas to nursery! All the children loved showing off their cosy warm pyjamas.
We watched a short video of Santa outside Cart Mill which got the children very excited! Some of the children heard bells ringing and spotted Santa in our garden! He had arrived at nursery to see us all!
The children went in groups to see Santa and they all got a gift and their photo taken! Santa was so happy to meet such lovely, polite children!
After the excitement of seeing Santa we had some chilled time and got comfy with cushions and blankets on the rug and watched some Christmas Mickey Mouse!
We then had plenty of energy for some Christmas dancing! We copied the elves on the board and made up our own unique dance moves!
What a great fun day we all had, getting in the festive spirit. We are all so excited to share our wonderful singing with you at our concert tomorrow.
Today in the studio the children have been super busy decorating the ginger bread house they had made the previous week, writing letters to Santa to send off to the North Pole and making baubles at the clay table.
The children had been talking about sending letters to Santa, so we created our own Santa’s station were the children cut, collaged and mark made their letters.
”Will this go to the North Pole”
”I’m going to write merry Christmas”
Everyone was working together to decorate our ginger bread house with loads of loose parts.
“It’s all finished”
Over at the clay table the children were making their own baubles to hang on their Christmas trees, they were squeezing rolling and cutting. After they had made their baubles they decorated them with paint and coloured sand.
Here are the children’s fabulous work!
Today Bookbug joined us around the Christmas tree for some festive songs and stories.
We passed Bookbug and toy Santa round the circle so all our friends could have a hug and a squeeze 👍
We bounced Bookbug and Santa as high as we could and that made us all giggle!
We had a special request for the story ‘Twas the night before Christmas’ which made us all very excited 😁
We wished all our friends a ‘Merry Christmas’ which may or may not have been a practice for next week 🤫
When it comes I wish you all a very Merry Christmas and look forward to seeing you all in 2023 🥰
It’s been a cold and frosty morning in our garden this week. We have wrapped up warm and have been taking a winter walk around our garden exploring the frost and ice in our garden.
We have seen some frozen spiderwebs on our play house and enjoyed looking at the patterns the spider had created in his web.
We found icicles on our bike wheel they were very cold to touch but looked really interesting with different sizes and shapes of icicles .
We listened to the sound of the ice and grit crunch under our feet as we walked.
We discovered our obstacle course was all covered in frost and had to be extra careful. We learned how to risk asses our own play.
Our water tub was full of ice chunks we could pick up and investigate.
Today we decided we wanted to play In the snow. So we made our own. We used a mixture of shaving foam and cornflour to create snow.
It was fun mixing the shaving foam and cornflour together but it was a little messy but we love getting messy.
When we made our snow some of our children were mark making in it, creating shapes, patterns or even making letters.
“ I can make a snowman”
”Its’s cold like real snow”
“You can make a snow storm”
Some of our children used paint brushes to create marks and patterns.
Some of our children wanted to use different shape and sized containers to try pouring and filling the snow and transporting them to different places.
It’s been a different week in our garden this week but we still had the best kind of fun.
I wonder what the weather will look like in our garden next week? Will there be real snow for us to play in?
This morning our little scientists have been carrying out more experiments and making predictions about the outcomes. We are learning about forces and describing their effects.
We started by filling three glasses- one with still water, one with fizzy water and one with super fizzy limeade. We then made predictions about about what would happen if we put a raisin in each of the glasses.
We then dropped the raisins in the glasses to test our predictions and were amazed by the results.
Through a previous bubble experiment, we have learned that bubbles have air called carbon dioxide in them. It is these bubbles that are attaching on to the raisins and making them float but when the bubbles pop the raisins fall back to the bottom as they are denser and heavier than water. This makes the raisins look like they are dancing. We then continued to add more raisins and discovered that the smaller ones were lifted up by the bubbles more easily.
”The bigger ones are heavier and they just make the bubbles pop.”
If you have some sparkling water and raisins in the house, please try this at home and share your findings with us @cartmillcentre
Today in the home room we used the kitchen to cook up a delicious Christmas dinner. First we had a chat about what we might eat at Christmas dinner and what we need to cook it. . Below are some of the suggestions.
“Potatoes, broccoli and cat food for my cat. We also have paper crowns.”
“Cake for pudding”
“Chocolate”
“We have carrots and chicken”
“We need pans to cook the food”
“Chop it with knife”
“Dish to put the carrots in”
“Plate and spoon”
The children chopped up potatoes and carrots developing their fine and gross motor skills. We also talked about how to chop safely keeping ourselves and others safe when using knives. Developing our understanding of managing risk.
Then we started cooking everything and getting it ready to serve.
Once the Christmas dinner was ready we set the table for our Christmas dinner. With a table cloth, plates, cups, cutlery and we even made some paper crowns.
Then everyone enjoyed sitting at the table to eat our delicious dinner and chat with our peers. This helps to develop our social skills while exploring imaginative play skills. We discussed our families and Christmas traditions that we do I’m our homes .
“Christmas dinner time”
“My gran comes for Christmas dinner”
“Christmas crackers on the table”
“You tell a funny joke”
We even had a visitor come to our Christmas dinner. It was “babies first Christmas”
Well done everyone for creating a fabulous Christmas dinner. Derek really enjoyed his dinner in the home corner today 😀
Today in The Studio we had a discussion about the change in weather over the weekend as we noticed our garden was very icy.
“ it’s very icy and slippy, you need to be careful not to fall”
“it was snowing in my garden yesterday”
”there wasn’t enough snow to make a snowman, it was just little snow flakes”
After speaking about the snow the children decided they wanted to make their own snow flakes, so they collected the materials they needed and got started.
While we waited on our snowflakes drying we got wrapped up in our jackets, hats and scarves to go outside and explore the ice in the garden. We spoke about how slippy the ice was and how to stay safe.
”don’t run because you will fall and bump yourself”
”don’t throw the ice, it is jaggy”
We only stayed out for a short time because it was so cold 🥶 the children had a great time exploring the ice. “It sounds crunchy” “it’s freeze” They described the sounds the ice made when they walked on it and how it felt to touch.
This week in the studio, the children have been engaging in lots of imaginative and creative play, making lots of different suggestions for the clay table. The children were really excited to make fun festive decorations…
“I want to make a snowman”
”gingerbread man”
”I like candy canes. I have them on my tree!”
We had lots of interesting ideas when making our clay decorations…
”if you roll it into circles, that makes a snowman”
”mines is a melted snowman”
“I need to make wee buttons. And eyes”
”he’s a jolly snowman!”
“I’m going to give him buttons”
”I have enough left over to make a snowman too!”
The children engaged their fine motor skills really well, shaping and moulding the clay and doing lots of rolling, cutting and mark making.
“snowman’s eyes”
“it’s Gingerbread Fred!”
It has been lots of fun exploring imaginative play in the clay area and we can’t wait to see what other fun ideas the children come up with 💡
