All posts by Mrs Johnston

Promoting muffin and snack making, self serving and tidying up after ourselves 👍

At Cart Mill we are promoting independence, responsibility through learning to be resilient and confident and to be able to do things for ourselves.

Today we made muffins to serve at snack for our friends, this is a very popular experience which we do daily to give everyone a turn. By making the same recipe everyday allows the children to become confident in making the muffins independently with only a little support needed for the oven.

The children are familiar with the receipe…3 scoops of gluten free flour, 1 scoop of sugar, xanthum gum, baking powder and some coconut milk to bind together.

We put the muffins in the cases ready for the oven, 180 degrees for 20mins.

Whilst waiting for the muffins we start preparing our snack. The children choose their snack in the morning and being very careful with the knife we start chopping…

Watermelon, green apples, pineapple to go along with our freshly made muffins….delicious!!!

The choice and amount are displayed on our wall so the 2-5 year olds can identify the snack and clearly see how many they can have in accordance with our guidance and learning that we are sharing with our friends.

We sit together at snack enjoying the social element of talking to our friends and scaffolding our learning by watching the example set by our peers.

Why not try to make these muffins easy muffins at home (I’m sure the children will help you 😀)

Article 31 Every child has the right to relax, play and take part in a wide range  of cultural and artistic activities

 

 

Grow grow let our trees grow 🌳🌳🌳

What a busy day we’ve had today, planting some baby seedling trees with the hope that they will grow and grow into big trees that we all can enjoy for many years…

We were planting a variety of different trees dogwood rose, blackthorns and elders. We could have a look at the seedlings, touch and smell the soil.

We made a hole in the ground for the seeds then the children patted it down to embed the trees into the soil.

We could share the learning that we already had on how the trees grow, they need sun, water, fresh air and love just like us and this will help the trees to grow big and strong just like us.

Isn’t it amazing to think that the children  today could visit these trees as dads and grandads and show them off  and be proud of them, providing a lifelong love of nature.

Article 29 Education must develop every child’s personality, talents and abilities to the full.

Intergenerational play 😀

In preparation for our visit to Bonnyton House the children helped to make gift to take…..what should we make??


Bird feeders

Last weekend was our big birdwatch, we had made bird feeders to welcome birds to our nursery garden and we thought it would be a lovely idea to make some bird feeders to share.

After we had delivered our gifts we all enjoyed a little sing, with the children demonstrating ‘Twinkle twinkle chocolate bar’ and our friends teaching us ‘The farmer wants a wife’

The children and staff all had a great time and we think we could all benefit from these visits…we’re all looking forward to the next one 😄

Article 31 Every child has the right to relax, play and take part in a wide range of cultural and artistic activities

Keeping warm in the cold 🥶🥶🥶

Today it was very cold in the garden but the children were excited to discover the changes in our garden due to the weather! We wrapped up in our jackets, hats and gloves and ventured out. We only stayed moving about for 20 mins then we came in again to get warm!

We stomped….

We tiptoed….

We used ribbons to dance with…..

We ran very carefully!

We star jumped ☃️

By keeping moving we kept ourselves toasty warm and fighting fit👍

Article 31 You have the right to play and relax by doing things like sports, music and drama

 

 

Experimenting – sinking & floating 🤔🤔🤔

Today we decided to problem solve and discover the objects that sunk and floated in the nursery…

We all worked together to fill a box with water, when children are  involved they are much more engaged!

The children wrote the words float and sink so we could record our results.

We searched the playrooms for items to use……we had lots of different ideas!

We recorded our results to share with others

Look at all the different loose parts we investigated in our box!!!

The children had a great time exploring and investigating different objects to experiment with …you could try this at home,  learning through fun!

Article 28 Every child has the right to an education.

Exploring, investigating and being creative with the pumpkins!🎃

Today in the discovery room we put some pumpkins down with some tools and gave the children time and space to decide, explore what and how they wanted to do with the pumpkins.

We cut the top of the pumpkins to investigate inside and the children guestimated there were “50 million seeds in the large one”

We looked inside and discovered the seeds, we used some spoons but was much more fun  with our hands, enjoying the sensory experience of feeling different textures.


“let’s use our hands”

“I’m mixing it”

The children then decided to make some ‘potions’

We needed some green water, white water and then put some magic cornflower to mix it all together using the pumpkin as a bowl!

The children enjoyed mixing the potion adding the slime of the pumpkin and seeds.


Now the potions were made, our friends could enjoy them too!!!

Article 31 You have the right to play and rest

Space week with Bookbug 👨‍🚀👨‍🚀👨‍🚀

Anyone want to come to Bookbug? The girls went round the whole nursery inviting everyone to join us….

As this week is space week this was our theme, we investigated our space mat with the children identifying ‘the moon’ We sang “Hallo” to Bookbug and had a little cuddle

We sang, danced and joined in with the song 5 little people in a flying saucer which went on for a little while as we had 15 people in our flying saucer…


We bounced twinkle twinkle little star on our Lycra and tried to bounce them into space, working together singing as we went.

We finished off  by enjoying our story ‘Goodnight Spaceman’ before singing goodbye to Bookbug.

We investigated numeracy, developed our literacy skills, worked together with our friends and enjoyed our visit from Bookbug!

If this is something you would enjoy with your child, Bookbug will be visiting us again tomorrow at 9.00 and 4.30 you would be very welcome to come along 😁

Article 28 You have the right to a good quality education.

Homemade banana muffins for snack 😋😋😋

Today the children made banana muffins for snack to share with their friends. This is helping develop their sense of responsibility and the pride they feel in looking after others.

First aprons on and hands washed, table cleaned ready to start..

Then we mashed up the bananas helping develop our fine motor muscles

Then we measured our ingredients helping develop our numeracy and problem solving skills..3 scoops of gluten free flour

We carefully put our mixture into the cases

Then we shared the muffins with all our friends….delicious 😋😋😋

Article 28 I have the right to an education.

Sewing the seeds… (of potatoes)

Today we decided to grow some potatoes! We rolled two tyres from the top of the garden all the way to the bottom practising our hand to eye co-ordination and balance. We put some top soil into the tyres and covered up the potatoes.


We wrote potatoes on our tyres practising our mark making skills.

We enjoyed planting the potatoes so we made a seed station, an area that the children could self select a pot and gardening tool and plant a seed to put into the green house to grow.

We made our own label so we could recognise our pot when we looked after our seeds, nurturing them to continue in their life cycle.

We hope our seeds will grow as well as our cucumber, tomatoes and peppers.

Article 28 You have the right to education.

Growing our apple and orange seeds today 🤔


Today we decided to reuse our seeds from snack to see if we could grow our own fruit……how do we do this?
First of all we had to wet some paper towel then…


We put the seeds on the towel with plenty of wriggle room…..

 

We added a little cinnamon to help prevent our seeds rotting

Then we added another wet piece of paper towel put them in a zip locked bag and put them in the fridge

We’ll need to keep the seeds damp and wait to see what will happen……🤔

We also tried to grow some orange pips…

We soaked the orange pips for 30mins

We placed them between 2 pieces of cotton wool with a little cinnamon, put them in an air tight bag but this time……

We found a nice warm space in the kitchen above the oven, again we’ll need to make sure the pips are damp and let’s check on them in a couple of days  to see if anything has happened……?🤔

Article 28 You have the right to education