Monthly Archives: February 2023

Outdoor Learning

Ball play

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This morning in the garden we have been practising our balls skills.

We started by setting up the baskets in the tyres and playing some basketball. We tried throwing the ball in to the basket and also bouncing it in.

We had great fun trying but some of us found this a little tricky so we decided to practise our throwing skills a bit more.

We practised throwing and catching and also bouncing and catching.  We learned that we need to make sure the other person is ready to catch before throwing and we need to have hands out and keep our eyes on the ball to catch it.

After this we put our skills to use and played cooperatively by making a circle and passing the ball to the person next to us.

We learned that we should throw under arm when passing to a person and we need to alter how hard we throw depending on how far away the other person is.

Brilliant ball work boys and girls ⚽️🏀⛹️‍♂️

Expressive Arts, Outdoor Learning, Trips and Outings

Framing Winter

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As our weather is crisp and cold we have been looking and discovering more about winter in the world around us and how we keep ourself warm during this chilly time. We asked the children what they knew about winter weather and got some lovely responses;

“It’s Cold” “

“I wear snow boots”

“My fingers go red”

“Frost makes beautiful patterns”


We decided together that we would enjoy exploring our local environment to see what effect the colder weather had on our world around us.

First we dressed appropriately for our walk, we put our warm jackets, hats, boots and some of us had cosy gloves to keep us extra warm .

We looked at how the trees looked a bit sad and cold as their beautiful big leaves have left them bare, some of the leaves were lying on the ground.

During our walk we collected some of the leaves, some sticks, twigs and stones to take back to Cart Mill

“Leaves are wet”

“ I have found the biggest stick”

On our travels we also spotted a deer and its family through the bare trees. We walked a little further and saw lots of sheep.
“Are there any baby ones?”
We discussed that baby lambs can be seen in the spring and that’s the next season after winter, so not long to wait now.

When we arrived back at the nursery we decided to create our own winter pictures using the resources we found. The children were very creative designing their own trees and snowflakes. A lovely way for us to show our fun winter walk time.

 

Expressive Arts

Really wild in the block area.

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This week in the discovery room we have been exploring the seven stages of block play. A lot of our children are at different stages of block play. This becomes evident during their spontaneous play when using the blocks.
Stage 1 is carrying. This this is the initial stage where children show interest in carrying the blocks or using them to hit together or make sound.

Stage 2 is Stacking. This is where the children begin to stack the blocks in a variety of ways. This is when the building begins.

This week the children have been showing a lot of interest in jungle animals. We decided to incorporate the animals into our block play.
This takes us to Stage 4, enclosures.
The children have been using the blocks to make homes, zoos and animal enclosures. The children have been working hard to create wonderfully exciting enclosures for their animals.

We have made small enclosures that animals can fit inside or on top.

We have made large 3D enclosures that fit different animals in different sections.

We worked on our own and together to create our builds.

We are very proud of the enclosure builds we created

Not only have we enclosed the animals, we enclosed ourselves. We built massive enclosures for us to play with the animals inside.


It’s been lots of fun this week. We put on some relaxing music to listen to on the iPad which had images of animals. Our children got very excited at seeing the animals they were playing with on the big screen.


We had lots of spontaneous learning opportunities through our week. We will continue to record our learning in our block area floorbook where we will be showcasing each of our stages of block play.

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Little Investigators ⚒️

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Today at the tinker table we have been very busy learning a new skill, deconstructing! We have been learning to use our tools to join things together, now we will be learning how to use our tools to take things apart!

 We started by looking in our playrooms for items that we could take apart. We decided that if we broke down the appliances into parts, we could then investigate each component and discover how they work and were assembled together.

The children found a selection of items that we then took over to our tinker table to investigate.

“I wonder what is inside of this one?”

“What else can we find”

Once at the tinker table we had a discussion on what tools we thought would be best to use to open up our appliances.

“I think the screwdriver”

We chose to deconstruct the keyboard first. Once opened we discovered that the soft plastic inside is what makes the keys move.

“This has lots of screws”

“There’s so many buttons on this”

“It’s all squishy inside”

We then opened up a computer mouse to see what was inside.

“It has a wheel”

“It goes click click”

We had so much fun today learning a new skill. The  children explored how each of the appliances were assembled and learned about how the different elements all interact. We also discussed with each other the purpose of each component.

We are excited to explore what else we can find to deconstruct at our tinker table next!

 

Literacy, Outdoor Learning

Nature Walk Fun!

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This week is Children’s Mental Health Week, with the aim of making a difference to the lives of children and young people across the UK. It has been highlighted how beneficial nature can be for a child’s well-being and for them to learn outside and connect to the environment around them.
At Cart Mill the children have opportunities every day to play and learn outside. Today we decided to go for a walk to find out more about the natural world around our nursery!
We challenged ourselves to collect some sticks for an activity.

“Wow!! Look at how big this stick is!”

”it’s a stick man!”

Some of the children noticed that some of the sticks they tried to collect could not be picked up! They cleverly spotted that it was because it was actually the roots from the trees nearby and we should leave them alone!

We carried on walking down to the bridge. We could hear birds chirping, an aeroplane in the sky and the river running. The children guessed the river was running fast today!  We played our favourite game, Pooh sticks! This involved collecting sticks, throwing them in the river and running to the other side to watch them!

We all threw our sticks in at the same time and they had a race!
“I can see mine! It’s winning!”

Walking back to nursery we came across some big piles of bark! The children absolutely loved running up and jumping off the bark! It was a nice soft landing!

”Look how high I can jump!”

We all enjoyed our nature walk and talked about all the things we could hear and see! We were definitely ready for lunch when we got back to nursery!

Expressive Arts, Outdoor Learning

Tremendous Truck🚍 painting 😁

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Today in the gross motor painting area the children self selected the trucks to paint  on the shower curtain  .“ I think we need some yellow paint “ “ I chose green paint, it’s a lovely colour. I don’t have any green cars at home just two grey ones “


“I’m mixing green and yellow, it’s turning blue” “ My car is painting fast” “ My cars tyres are painting yellow” “ look I’m making a circle shape with my truck”” My truck is going forwards and backwards , it’s making tracks”

The children are developing their gross motor skills, hand eye coordination as well as learning about colour mixing.
The children were happy with the end result of their art work. Well done everyone your art work looks amazing 🤩

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Active learning at the tinker table 🔨

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The children have been enjoying tinkering at the tinker table……here are some of their creations.

The learning process of the creation is so much more important than the final product. Although as adults we want something to look aesthetically pleasing, the skills that the children gain are by far more important, for example their design process thinking about shapes, size, measurement, problem solving, what do they need, how they are going to make it and also risk assessing what they are doing. The children are supervised at all times and are in what’s called a ‘safe bubble’ which will protect them and others from harm. I told my 80 yr old dad that the children would be working with real tools – he was outraged a young child would hurt themselves. Given that responsibility children learn to keep themselves safe and develop their self confidence when they see their finished product. Feeling proud at what they have been able to achieve with as much or as little support as they need.

These are some of the tools the children choose when at the tinker table.  Using tools help hand eye co-ordination and fine motor skills. The tinker table is ideal for creative play, children are developing their ideas as to how things are made and enables children to have focussed, unstructured time to explore and test ideas.

Tinkering provides so much more than just the finished result.
On our next stay and play, why don’t you come and have a go at our tinker table.

Expressive Arts, Literacy

The Three Billy Goats Gruff

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This month in the clay area we have been creating characters from our favourite stories and this week we chose The Three Billy Goats Gruff. We started by reading the story and discussing the different characters then we set to work making them with the clay. We chose whether to make a 2D or a 3D model and discussed the best way to make the different features.


“My goat has huge horns!” “Look at my troll’s legs.”

Once the clay had dried we painted them then left them to dry again ready for telling the story.

Before starting our re-enactment of the story, we worked cooperatively to decide who would play each character and also compared the goats to determine which was the biggest and which the smallest. Then we were ready to get going….

“

”Who’s that trip trapping over my bridge?”

”I’m coming to eat you!”

We had a great time telling the story and acting out each part with our models. We told the story many, many times, each time swapping which role we played and taking turns with our friends. By the end of the experience we could act out each part independently without an adult reading the story for us!

A wonderfully creative and expressive experience 🐐

Literacy, Makaton, Modern Languages, Snack, Special Event

Learning some Makaton at snack time

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For learning languages week we have been learning some Makaton at the snack table.

Some of the children recognised Mr Tumble. We discussed that Mr Tumble uses Makaton to communicate. This means he is using his hand to talk. We as discovered that some adults and children might use makaton if they have a hearing loss of if they find it difficult to talk.

We looked at the signs and Fiona help demonstrate them.

The children enjoyed putting it into practice.

Here are some of the signs we have been learning at snack time.

“Hello”

“Eat”

“Drink”

“More”

“Thank you”

 

Literacy, Technologies

Exploring our senses!

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Today our little investigators took part in an activity to explore our senses. Following on from exploring our sense of smell, today we looked at our sense of touch.

A selection of item’s were chosen and hidden inside our mystery bag. Using our sense of touch the children had to guess what was inside the bag. They were encouraged to use descriptive words to describe what they could feel. Once they had made their predictions they were asked to mark make to record their findings.

Bellow are some of the items we were exploring along with our drawings and comments.

First up was a woolly glove! We took it in turn to feel inside the bag and make our predictions. Then we drew pictures to record what we thought it could be.

“It feels soft”

“It’s a glove I can feel the fingers”

“It can be a hat”

“It’s not hard it’s soft”

Next up was a feather! Again we used our senses to explore inside the bag and mark make to record our findings.

“It’s a feather I can feel the soft parts”

“It’s got a sharp spiky bit”

“It’s really fluffy”

The last thing we explored inside the bag was a carrot! Lots of discussion took place to decide what it could be. 

“It’s not mushy it’s hard”

“It’s a cold carrot from the kitchen”

“It’s got lines on it I can feel them”

”it could be a banana”

Well done everyone! lots of amazing descriptive words used and lots of amazing drawing to recording our findings. The group managed to identify all the items inside the bag.  They worked together as a team to share our predictions and make decisions.

What sense will we explore next?