All posts by Mrs Johnston

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

 

🔍🔍🔍 What can we spy in the garden today???

Today we went into the garden with torches and magnifying glasses to see what we could find 🤔

We searched down at the bottom of the garden…..I wonder what we might find???

We found a pea plant and Isla told us “the bigger the pod the bigger the pea, the smaller the pod the smaller the pea!”

We collected them all in a bowl.

We shelled our peas comparing the different sizes of the peas

We were very pleased with the amount of peas we found 😀

We had to be very careful and check if any of our children were allergic to green peas

Article 13 You have the right to find out things

What have we created so far……🧶🧶🧶

We have been very busy with our knitting, the children choose the wool and needles they’d like to use giving ownership to their creations.

We have made rings, friendship bracelets and squares developing our knitting skills. Some children requiring less support than others. The children are selecting the needles and wool they want to use and are asking for the amount of stitches they like, some children are learning to cast on their stitches independently. Knitting helps develop our fine motor skills,  perseverance and patience 😁

What will we make next???🤔

Article 29 Your education should help you use and develop your talents and abilities.

 

 

 

It’s all clickety clack at Cart Mill 🧶

Today we tried a little knitting, we found it a little tricky but we are all going to persevere and practice.

Knitting helps to develop our fine motor muscles which in turn will aid our early mark making skills. It helps our hand to eye co ordination and focus’ our concentration and develops our problem solving skills.

We made a friendship bracelet this week……who knows what we’ll achieve next week!!!

Article 28 You have the right to education

Bookbug 😁

Today Bookbug came to visit, the children enjoy singing the welcome song ‘Hello Everyone’ and giving Bookbug a wee cuddle!

The children decided that they wanted to sing ‘Old Macdonald had a farm’ and they chose the animal they wanted to pick.

We had ducks, horses, pigs, sheep, sheepdogs  and cows 🦆🐴🐷🐑🐶🐄

We all enjoyed our story and joining in with all the animals.

If this looks like something you or your wee one would enjoy why don’t you come along to nursery  at 9.00 or 4.00 to join in the fun on Friday 5th May!🥰

 

Bookbug comes for a noisy visit!!!🤣

Today Bookbug came to visit us in our garden

We got some blankets and cushions out then let the noise commence…..

We decided to choose some instruments to play from our musical wall these included a grill pan, a wok, a pot, a teapot and a frying pan and obviously we used metal spoons for maximum noise (our neighbours loved us this morning)

We read a story Guess how much I love you in the Spring and Big Nutbrown Hare was posed a question that he had to think and think and think about and we decided to have a little think too 🤔

We enjoyed singing and playing along to Old Macdonald had a Band and I am the Music Man, Gail was the conductor that guided us to play loud and softly, quickly and slowly, when to begin and when finish.

Sometimes it was so loud which the children loved!

Why not grab something different and interesting to play when your singing it’s great fun!🥰

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