Hi from the pond

August 28, 2025 User deactivated Leave a comment

Welcome to our Pond! Over the last couple of weeks we have been settling into our new surroundings, learning our new routines and getting to know one another. So far, a firm favourite for us all has been snack and lunchtime! We are practising our independence skills by choosing which fruit we would like and are enjoying serving our own snack.

Exploring our garden has been lots of fun and we have enjoyed climbing, crawling and jumping!

Using our senses, we have investigated filling and pouring in our water tray, planting seeds for our garden (we really enjoyed mixing the soil to make our own mud), and making different marks and shapes in the sand.

It has been lots of fun so far and we are excited to learn and explore new things over the next few weeks!

Baking, Snack

Sensational Snack Time

August 25, 2025 Miss Welsh Leave a comment

The children are settling back into the nursery for a new term and have been enjoying taking part in the daily activities at snack time.

In Cart Mill our snacks and meals are guided by “Setting the Table” as produced by the Care Inspectorate and we have taken the children’s learning back to basics.

“I’m cutting apple”

Some of the children have been helping to chop and prepare the fruit and vegetables for snack.

The children have been developing their fine motor skills at snack time and spreading butter on crackers.

They also demonstrate their independence by choosing and serving their own snack and pouring their chosen drink of milk or water.

Once the children are finished eating snack they clear their dishes away, ready to play once again.

The next activity involved preparing overnight oats for tomorrow’s snack. The ingredients included oats, soya milk and yoghurt, ground cinnamon and frozen berries. YUMMY!

UNCRC Article 28 Every child has a right to education.

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Stacking and Enclosure play in the blocks

August 21, 2025 Miss Mitchell Leave a comment

In the block area, the children have been exploring which stage of block play they are at. Through observation it was noticed that the children were doing a lot of stacking and enclosure play in the block area.

Stacking allows children to develop their fine motor skills and core strength as they stack the blocks higher. Enclosure play in the block area is when the children use blocks to create closed off spaces, demonstrating a concept of inside and outside.

The children decided that they wanted to build houses with the blocks so we added in some wooden people characters which sparked discussions about who lived in our houses.

”That’s my mummy, me, my big brother and my baby brother”

The children used different shapes and sizes of blocks and props to create their own houses, and used the wooden figures to role play real life situations.

”I’m building the walls for the house”

”My baby one is going to bed, this is the mummy one”

The children will be working on expanding their learning in the block area over the next few weeks creating different enclosures and some children have suggested adding in some farm animals, I wonder what they will create next?

Article 28: I have the right to an education

Creativity, Expressive Arts, French, Froebel, Imaginative thinking, nature, Outdoor Learning

Great Garden Adventures – fun the sun ☀️

August 19, 2025 Miss Campbell Leave a comment

Bonjour every one. It’s been a great start to our new term in our garden. The sun has been shining and we have been taking part in lots of outdoor activities.

We are so pleased to see our returning children back again and also to meet lots of new friends who have joined us at Cart Mill. We had lots of happy faces this week.

In our garden this week we have been adapting some of our areas. We have our mud kitchen where we have added a table, chairs, jugs, pots and pans. We have also added in a water jug for children to self select some water to enhance their role play experience.

We haven’t got a name for our mud kitchen yet. I wonder what we will call it…..

In our gross motor art area we have been exploring pouring, filling and colour mixing using large apparatus and loose parts. We enjoyed using the watering cans to pour the coloured water down the guttering and watch the colours mixing together at the end. We kept fixing the guttering when we had a “leak in the system” we had to work fast to fix it.

We changed our story area to give us a cosy comfortable area to share stories with friends. We love choosing our stories and the most comfortable cushion to sit on.

In our Planting area we have been exploring the seeds of the sunflowers that we had grown. By dissecting the sunflowers and removing the seeds, it allows us to replant them again and grow more sunflowers.

We have loved our stage where we have been dressing up and putting on shows for our audience. We have had lots of renditions of “let it go”.

We have enjoyed our small world areas where we have had mini beasts, farm and sea animals to play with. The children liked the sea animals the best. We made our very own “aquarium”.

We have been mark making at our writing area. We have been making treasure maps and hunting for the X that marks the spot. We have been using our imagination to become pirates searching for the lost treasure, following the clues on our maps.

In our Water area we have continued our pouring and filling and used both large and small piplets to transport water. We’ve enjoyed water play in our warm weather.

In our construction area we have been using the polydron to build wonderful creations such as dens and houses. We added loose parts and material to bring our creations to life. We worked together to problem solve and share our design process.

At our Muddy movers area we have been building and creating our own obstacles course. We have been discussing how to stay safe and risk asses our play. We have enjoyed balancing, climbing and jumping. The children are enjoying adding different challenge to our obstacle courses.

It’s been so much fun I wonder what will will get up to next week.
Au revior everyone

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Super Summer Fun!

August 5, 2025 Mrs Hannah Leave a comment

We can’t quite believe our super summer term is about to come to an end! It’s been action packed with lots of fun and laughter! Here’s a quick round up of the fabulous experiences we’ve had over the past few weeks.

As some of us were showing an interest in Wimbledon, we decided to host our very own Cart Mill tennis tournament!

Putting our problem solving skills to the test, we created our own tennis court where we practised our hand eye coordination by “hitting the ball over the net” and trying to hit it back! Playing tennis is such hard work and we enjoyed a well deserved snack afterwards. Of course we had to have strawberries just like they do at Wimbledon!
Physical activity is always a firm favourite here at Cart Mill, along with a game of football! Having come up with the idea of creating our very own football team, our “sports activity co-ordinator” Cheryl rose to the challenge and stepped into the managers role! It was decided that our team would be called “The Red Ducks” and Cheryl soon put everyone through their paces during training sessions, with assistant manager Gail providing support as goalkeeper and ensuring we had half time refreshments.

Safety always comes at Cart Mill so we always take SIMOA on our trips to remind us how to keep ourselves safe.

Having completed regular training it was time to head to the “pitches” for a “match”. Huge thanks to our SFA qualified referee Stuart who gave up his own time to ensure we played fairly and “followed the rules”. Thanks to our families who supported us by very kindly donating equipment and much needed new balls!

Arts and crafts are another favourite activity. Gail’s sister Lynne very kindly visited and spent time teaching us how to create our very own fabulous dolls using wool! We had a lovely time with Lynne and so appreciate her giving up precious time to visit us.

Being very curious and loving construction (and deconstruction!) Gail very kindly bought us some bikes and an old typewriter to explore! Demonstrating we can use real tools safely, it was lots of fun to investigate how to take the bikes apart and then work as a team to put them back together again!

Being outdoors is one of our favourite activities and we are so lucky to have our very own vegetable patch! Luckily our peas were ready to harvest so we decided to pick, wash them and then try some at snacktime! They were “so sweet and yummy!”

We hope you’ve enjoyed a wee look at just some of the fun we have had over the last few weeks. As we prepare for our new term we would like to wish our children lots of luck as they move on to primary one or new nurseries. So many lovely friendships and memories have been made. We will miss you all very much, please come back to visit us! We are so excited to meet lots of new friends over the coming weeks.