Marvellous Monday fun 👻🎃

October 21, 2024 Miss Mitchell Leave a comment

As it’s Halloween next week we have a few themed learning experiences around the nursery. The children asked for a Halloween story and they chose Room on the Broom. “ It’s my favourite story” “ I wish I could fly on a broom in the sky.“ “I like the dog best in this story.”

The children used shapes to make spooky patterns and enjoyed mixing potions to use for magic spells. “ It’s fancy orange water I, wonder if the water will change to green If I put a green potion into it”

We made up a letter hunt game using familiar Halloween packaging. The children looked for a letter on the packaging then were encouraged to sound it out and mark it off their pumpkin worksheet.

“I can see a v that’s my Mums name begins with” “pumpkin starts with a p”

“Monster begins with an m look I have found it on my sheet” “ I have found lots of letters “ “ S for sweets, mmmmmm I do like sweets!”

Maybe you could think of some more fun Halloween activities we could do?

Baking, Snack

Baking Autumnal Cookies!

October 18, 2024 Mr Edwards Leave a comment

As the days grow shorter, there’s no better time to get creative in the kitchen with your little ones. Pumpkin cookies are not only a delicious treat but also a fantastic way to engage our children in hands-on learning. Baking helps develop fine motor skills, introduces basic math concepts, and encourages sensory exploration.

Using a freshly scooped pumpkin, the children removed the seeds and helped prepare it for roasting in the oven. Once it was perfectly cooked, Derek created a deliciously smooth pumpkin puree, ready to be used in our baking.

The first step of the recipe was measuring out all the ingredients. For early years children, this is a great opportunity to develop important math skills. Weighing and measuring help them understand quantities, recognize numbers, and begin to grasp basic concepts of volume and weight. Plus, they love the hands-on experience of using measuring spoons and scales! “We need 100” “2 big spoons”

With everything prepped, it was time to mix all the ingredients together, watching as the flour, spices, and pumpkin puree blended into a soft dough. The children took turns mixing and exploring the different textures. We even explored solids becoming liquids by melting the butter. “It’s like soup” “It’s hot”

Next, we shaped the dough into small balls, rolling them carefully with our hands, and placed them onto the baking tray, ready to bake in the oven. The excitement grew as the cookies began to take shape and the delicious smell of pumpkin filled the room!

All ready, look at our fantastic cookies snack 😃

Check out our easy recipe below and enjoy a sweet, memorable autumn activity with your little ones!

110g room temperature butter

(dairy free or regular)

165 g light brown sugar

100 g white sugar

120g pure pumpkin puree

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

270g gluten free all purpose baking flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

2.5 teaspoons pumpkin pie spice

0.25 teaspoon cinnamon

0.25 teaspoon salt

60 g chocolate chips

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Creativity, nature

Autumn treasure in the Clay area

October 16, 2024 Mrs MacRae Leave a comment

Here at Cart Mill we know our children like to find little treasures when out and about. This week we have asked the children to collect some autumn treasure. This could be from a local park, woods or simply in your garden.

Our children have not disappointed us and have come in with bags full of leaves, sticks and twigs. These will be used as we explore the changing seasons through a variety of different experiences.

Today at the clay area we started off using the sticks and conkers to make marks in the clay. We discovered the conkers were smooth and some were very shiny. As we presses the conkers into the clay some of the children discovered that they looked like eyes. This naturally followed onto making some spooky faces.

As the children explore the clay they discussed their own experiences and shared their knowledge of autumn.

“My mummy and I went on a autumn hunt and I found an acorn it had a little top on it”

“It’s autumn today and all the leaves are falling off, falling down, falling down”

”There’s a seedling in the ground”

”it’s smooth”

The conker shell and the pine cone made lot of little holes when we rolled it over the clay. We also discovered some of the branches of the tree had little spikes. One child decided to use as vampire teeth.

“I’m using the stick to mark the blood on his face”

“My monster’s got 5 eyes”

We hope you like our spooky faces. There are still plenty of time to collect some autumn treasure. So please collect a bag from the main door before you come into the playroom. We would love to see you treasure. 🍁🍂

Creative movement, Creativity, Digital Technology, Expressive Arts, Literacy, Outdoor Learning

Halloween splat painting

October 14, 2024 Miss Brown Leave a comment

Some of the children were chatting about Halloween this morning. Following their interest, we thought it would be a good idea to search the internet to look for some activities that we could do in our Gross motor art/mark making area in the garden.

We came across splat painting and thought this looked like it would be lots of fun. We chose some Halloween characters and printed them out and stuck them on to a large piece of card. Then it was time to choose our favourite colours of paint!
“I like the pumpkin, my mum said I can get one at the shop.”

“Can I choose the paint?”
“I like red paint.”

“ This is so heavy.”

“I’m using my big muscles to push the blue paint out.”

Next we went outside to the garden and found a good spot to hang our pictures up. Using different sized paint brushes, we dipped them into the paint and tried out lots of large movements to splat the card until it was covered in lots of different colours of paint. Forming a queue, we were able to take turns to move our bodies in different ways and splat the paint in different directions.

“I’m going to run so fast like Sonic.”

“Me too!”

When the card was covered in paint, we peeled the Halloween pictures off to see what we had created.

“Look, I can see the witches cat.”

“The witches cat is wearing a hat, oh that rhymes!”

“and the pumpkin.”

We had so much fun using large body movements to create a piece of art, while developing our gross motor skills.

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Creative with paints!

October 9, 2024 Ms Partridge Leave a comment

The children have been exploring various different ways to express their creativity in the painting area this week. The children were very excited to discover special waterproof paper in the art area, which sparked lots of imaginative ideas!

Some children wanted to draw their pictures first using chalk, and copying it with paints