All posts by Mrs Hannah

Block building, Creative movement, Creativity, Imaginative thinking

All aboard the Cart Mill train!

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“All aboard the Cart Mill train”, has been the cry throughout another fun filled week!  Holidays have been a hot topic of conversation, with much discussion over where we are going on holiday and how we are going to get there! This has led to a natural progression of our interest in forces through using personal experiences to explore different ways of travelling from one place to another!

In our garden “the floor is lava!”.  Using our problem solving skills we worked together to design our own obstacle course so that we could travel across the “lava without getting on fire” by climbing, balancing and jumping! It was lots of fun to explore balance further through using our “wobble” board to move from sided to side and up and down! Using our knowledge of forces, we explored different ways to transport water to “put out the lava” using hoses, pipes and funnels!

In our discovery room and studio we have demonstrated wonderful creativity through designing our own mode of transport on our interactive board and constructing  planes, trains, cars and boats using junk modelling and a fabulous kit donated by one of our families.

“It’s a boat.  I’m going on holiday to Ireland on a boat with my family”. “I maked a train. I love trains. I go’d on a train”.

Trains have been a firm favourite and we have been so busy in our block area constructing our own “Cart Mill station”  and “trains”which have been picking up passengers and dropping them at exciting destinations! “The train leaving platform 3 is for Spain”.


“I maked a bridge for the trains to go under”.  “My train is East Kilbride”.

Role play is another favourite activity! This week we have made our very own “bus” which took us on a journey full of fun, laughter and much excitement “to school”.

“I drived the bus. To school”. “I readed  a book”. “Beep beep”.

Of course one of our favourite ways to travel around Cart Mill is by bike! Lots of us have bikes and scooters at home. Gail very kindly brought us some bikes in and we had so much fun investigating how they work and using real tools to take them apart and using our problem skills to try and put them back together again!

Of course we had to bring out our Cart Mill bikes so that we could race each other round our garden!  What a fun filled, action packed week! We can’t wait for more adventures next week.

Article 13 – Freedom of expression

Artice 28 – Right to an education

Article 31 – Leisure, play and culture

 

Special Event

Super Sports Day!

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Today was Sports Day here at Cart Mill! Excitement has been building over the last couple of weeks and we have all been practicing our favourite races!

It was very exciting to arrive at our sports area and see all our races set up by Chris, our Active Schools Co-ordinator.  Off we set to our first race.  After a quick run down of what we needed to do it was time to ready, steady, GO!!!

We ran and jumped over the hurdles and then ran back to the start to see who could finish first! It was so much fun that our families wanted to join in too! (Well done mums!)

Next up was our obstacle course.  We had to run up to the hula hoop, hop or star jump and then see if we could walk balancing a beanbag on our heads! It was a wee bit tricky but we took our time and demonstrated some fabulous balancing skills!

It was time for our flat race next! Some of us were a wee bit excited and forgot to wait for the ready, steady Go.  With a bit of practice, we soon got the hang of it! Who do you think was fastest!

Our final race was the egg and spoon race.  We are very imaginative here at Cart Mill, so we decided to have our own version, the tangerine and spoon race!

Of course what better way to round up sports day than  our super duper water slide!

It was so much fun to take turns sliding super fast down our slide.  We discovered if Val gave us a wee helping hand, we went even faster! And more bubbles appeared the faster we went (there’s definitely a science experiment in there somewhere!).
After all the fun it was time to head back inside for a quick change, ice pole and to receive our certificates.  We truly are sporting super stars!

A huge thank you to staff, Chris from Active Schools and to our fabulous families and children for making it such a memorable event.

Article 31 – the right to engage in play and recreational activities.

Froebel, nature, Outdoor Learning

Farewell to our forest!

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We can’t quite believe that our forest school sessions have come to an end for this term!

Here’s a wee summary of our fun filled 4 weeks!
Week 1: we were introduced to our forest site where we explored how to keep ourselves safe through setting boundaries and learning how to identify hazards and assess risks. It was super muddy so we squelched in the mud and even lost our wellies! It was lots of fun to look for trees we might want to climb and to learn about plants that grow in our forest.

Week 2: As we were now experienced explorers, we recognised familiar landmarks to navigate our way to our forest  and were able to remind each other of our rules and boundaries.  Our bug hunt helped us discover insects and animals that might live in our forest and we learned more about what they need to survive.  And who could forget that this was the week Harry Potter came to the forest with us!

Week 3: This week saw us swinging through the trees on our very own rope swing! Our confidence has grown in leaps and bounds and we led our own learning by revisiting who lives in our forest through searching for bugs and reminding each other of how we should respect the environment and look after our forest.

Week 4: cook out week – a firm favourite! We listened very carefully to our safety instructions! It was very important that we stayed outside the “green square” to make sure we “stay away from the fire so we don’t burn ourselves”.  In our fire safety kit Fiona had special gloves to protect her hands, a fire blanket and lots of water in case she needed to put the fire out very quickly.  We also learned that only adults should light the fire in a safe place away from “trees and houses”.   The potato scones Fiona toasted on the fire were so tasty!  There was a pond at our site today and we discovered it had tadpoles in it! We were very careful around the pond to keep ourselves safe and to ensure we didn’t “frighten the tadpoles”.

There was lots of time left for us to have fun and play some games! Hide and seek was a firm favourite, along with a game of football, rolling the ball to our friends, pole climbing and of course a wee impromptu dance on the stage!

As always, our last sessions are a time to come together, have some fun, reflect on our favourite moments and most importantly, celebrate the new friendships we have made.

“I liked playing hide and seek”.  “I liked snack the best”.  “I climbed the tree”.  “I was on the rope swing”. During our time in the forest we have grown in confidence and self esteem, become independent, are able to use our problem solving skills and  have learned how to care for our environment, all while creating some wonderful memories!

Article 29 – the right to an education which develops my personality, respects each other’s rights and the environment.

Outdoor Learning

Who lives in our Forest?

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We can’t believe it’s week 3 of our forest school experience already!  Each week we have grown in confidence leading us to be independent and lead our own learning!

Today was a wet and damp day in our forest. As we came together to do our sticky toes, we immediately noticed a number of “friends” had joined us!   Can you guess who they might be?

“Look what I found, it’s a baby snail”

”Look at that one up there. It’s massive”. “How did it get up there?”

There were lots of snails,  we counted at least 20 of all different sizes.  Using our magnifying glasses we spotted some tiny baby snails hiding on a leaf and some bigger more adventurous snails higher up in the tree! This sparked much discussion of where snails live, how they move around and how they managed to climb up trees!

It was lots of fun exploring our forest floor to see who else might live there!  Looking carefully under logs and gently moving leaves we discovered a “family” of woodlouse, “a wee black beetle” and a spider who was making a web “just like Spider-Man”.   Just like last week we could  also hear “birdies singing in the trees”.  We have been learning how to look after our forest and the wildlife who live there.  With this in mind, we decided to carefully return our friends to their homes and be super careful “not to stand on them and squash them”.

Before we left there was just enough time to squeeze in a wee turn of our rope swing where we demonstrated we could assess our own risk by deciding where to place our swing, identify the rock nearby was a hazard and warn our friends to “stand back so you don’t get hurt”.

It was another action packed, fun filled forest school where we demonstrated we truly are responsible citizens!

Article 29 – the right to an education which develops my personality, respects each other’s rights and the environment

Froebel, Imaginative thinking, Outdoor Learning

Forest fun

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It’s been a fun filled couple of weeks for our Wednesday forest schoolers!

As we are so experienced and have demonstrated we can play safely in our forest, we decided we would like to build our own rope swing! Luckily Val was on hand to find a nice strong tree and put our swing up for us. We had so much fun taking turns to see how far we could swing!

“look at me I’m going so high!”

Climbing trees has been our favourite thing to do.  After a wee bit of help and some practice, we are now able to assess our own risk and climb to a safe height by ourselves!

“Look at me, I’m swinging like a monkey”

”I’m split man because I can do the splits!”

Our imaginative thinking has shone through in our forest.  With sticks as our inspiration we have built campfires to go camping, been doctors helping look after our friends, been old people using a walking stick, and have created our own X marks the spot and an equals sign!

Our Forest truly is a magical place! We wished “we could live here” “can we go camping”.  We can’t wait to come back next week!

Article 12 – (respect for the views of the child)

Article 28 – (right to education)

Article 29 – (goals of education)

Article 31 – (leisure, play and culture)

 

 

Creativity, Froebel, Imaginative thinking, Mindful moments

When Harry Potter came to Forest School!

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It was a dull and wet start to forest school today, but in true Cart Mill style we didn’t let that dampen our enthusiasm! We popped on our waterproofs and off we set!  As we are such experienced explorers, we were able to navigate our way there, remembering the busy roads we had to cross and to look our for “the white house with the rainbow flower in the garden we saw last week!” so that we knew where to turn to find our forest.   Being our usual inquisitive self’s, we spotted some signs along the way.  At Field Grove we were able to spot “that’s an L for my mummy’s name.” “My mummy has an L too, and my brother has a r”.

When we arrived at our site we remembered all the hazards we had chatted about last week and were able to carry out our own risk assessment and set our boundaries.

Bug hunting has been a real area of interest and we have been doing lots of research on bugs.  What better place to search for “real” bugs than in our forest!  Off we set with our magnifying glasses 🔍.  It was so much fun to search under logs, on trees and even in the mud to see what we could find!


We were amazed to find “sammy snail”,  “super slug”, “colin” who was a millipede and a whole family of woodlouse! Who knew we would find a baby worm that “looks like an angry eyeball”. Dr Doolittle had better watch out! 🐛

“It’s a C for my name”.

“Look it’s crawling on my arm!”

Of course as it was so wet we decided our bugs would need a bug house! After lots of discussion we collected our building materials. Working together we built a “super special” house for our bug family.

“This can be the roof.”

“This stone is big.  They can sit or sleep on it.”

“This can be the food. They might be hungry.  I’m hungry, when can we have snack?”

After a quick snack and a wee recharge we noticed the sun had appeared! Off we set to find some sticks! This sparked an impromptu game of forest “freeze” and “unfreeze” using our “Harry Potter wands” while “Harry Potter” himself flew above us on his “broomstick” along with “a flying car that goes invisible”.

“I’m Harry Potter flying on my broomstick”.

”I’m flying.  I’m in a flying car. I can spread my wings and fly over you”.

Before we left we had a wonderful mindful moment, sparked entirely by a cry of “stop talking and listen”. “I can hear the birds.  They’re making a woo hoo sound”.  “I can hear the wind blowing through the trees”.  We even spotted a pigeons nest high up in the trees.

Our tired legs got us back to Cart Mill safely, even spotting a number sign along the way.

“It says 20”.

This week we have been navigators, explorers, bug hunters, builders, flying cars and our favourite of all, Harry Potter! We truly do have fabulous forest schoolers at Cart Mill and we can’t wait for another amazing adventure next week!

Article 29 – I have the right to an education which develops my personality, respect for others’ rights and the environment.

 

 

 

 

Expressive Arts, Special Event

Super Spring Crafts!

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It has been lovely to see the first signs of spring arriving at Cart Mill through our beautiful crocuses and daffodils blooming in our garden, which inspired some fabulous art artwork!

What better way to celebrate the arrival of Spring than to welcome our families to join us at our Spring Craft Event!   As ever, our children brought their creativity and enthusiasm and created some wonderful transient art, spring wreaths and some amazing artwork using their foot and handprints to display on our wall!


Of course we can’t forget decorating our biscuits, which were a firm favourite!

“I putted lots of sprinkles on mine”

”I love jam”

Family is so important to us at Cart Mill, please feel free to pop in anytime for a coffee, chat or to stay and play.

Article 31 – I have the right to relax and play.

 

Creativity, Froebel

Froebel Friends

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We were delighted to be part of East Renfrewshire’s Froebel Friends first exhibition at Netherlee Pavilion on Saturday, where we had the opportunity to showcase our children’s wonderful woodwork creations.

Friedrich Froebel (1782-1852) was the inventor of kindergartens and a pioneer of early education and care.  Froebel’s work and writing changed the way we think about and value early childhood. His principles of unity and connectedness, autonomous learners, value of childhood in its own right, relationships matter, creativity and the power of symbols, the central importance of play, engaging with nature and knowledgeable and nurturing educators were considered revolutionary in the 1850’s (Froebel Trust, 2021).  At Cart Mill we firmly believe Froebel’s principles continue to be so relevant and we strive to adopt them into our everyday practice.

Our Cart Mill children just love our tinker table where they have the freedom to “learn through doing”.   It is truly magical to observe our children exploring their creativity by creating their own unique and marvellous models using a wide range of natural and manufactured materials.  Simply giving children freedom to spend time discussing, planning, designing and investigating resulted in this amazing box bursting in creativity, with each model having its own unique story.

”Woodwork is active learning at its best” (Bruce 2004:109). It is such  a rich learning experience to explore creative and critical thinking skills through problem solving , trying new ideas and building on previous learning experiences.   Our children have formed unity and connectedness by exploring where wood comes from and experimenting with its different natural forms of wood, shavings, sawdust, sticks, cardboard and even recycling from home!

It was an amazing opportunity to meet like minded Froebelian friends and form new connections and relationships.  We  had such a lovely day and were so proud to share our children’s work and experiences with our Froebelian colleagues.

Please feel free to speak to our Froebelian experts Ana, Fiona H and Emma if you would like any further information or pop in anytime to see how we put Froebelian principles into practice. We are so excited to see where our Froebelian journey takes us next!

Article 13 – you have the right to find out new things and share what you have learned with others.

Creativity, Woodwork

Wonderful Woodwork

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It’s been a very creative few weeks in our woodwork area! We decided we would focus on independence and free choice and let our creativity and imagination flow!
By choosing which materials and tools we would like to use, we demonstrated the ability to make a choice.  Through discussions with others, we shared reasons for making our choices.

“I’m using the elastic bands.  I like to stretch them and I like the different colours.  I can show it to my brother”.

”I like this one.  We use it so we don’t hurt our fingers”.

”I like the beads.  I choosed rainbow colours”.

”I’m making a taxi like this one.  We need a big bit and a wee bit for the top.  And we need an orange light on the top like a real taxi.”

Working both independently and with others, we used our curiosity and imagination and shared our thoughts and ideas.

“I’m making a helicopter.  It has a big bit at the top that makes it fly.  You need to use the big nails cos the wee ones don’t go through the wood and it will fall off”.
“I’m making a plane.  What are you making?”  “A plane too. A red one”. “You need a big bit at the bottom and a wee bit on the top for the wings.  Look like me”.  “Ok this bit?” “Yes. And you need to put the big nails in.”
As we grow in confidence, we are sharing our knowledge and experience with our friends and supporting and encouraging them when they are making their models. We are beginning to assess risk when using the tools and can discuss how to use them safely.

“I want to make the same as you”. “Ok I’ll show you.  We use this, you need to watch you don’t squash your fingers!.  “Is this the right bit”. “Yes look it’s the same size”.  “Then you use this and put it on the end so it’s smooth and you don’t get a skelf”. “I got a skelf one time.  It was really sore and my mummy putted a plaster on it”. “You need to use this hammer for this bit.  You need to hit it hard. Like this”. “Ok. It’s noisy”. “Watch you don’t hit your fingers cos it will be sore”.

At Cart Mill we are very creative,  imaginative and love to plan, design, and construct fabulous models! We are able to apply our knowledge and experience across a wide range of learning experiences adding breadth, depth and challenge to our learning!

Some of us are able to plan our models in advance, while others prefer to use our models to draw afterwards.  We do this in our design book so that we can keep a record of what we have made and to share our ideas and fabulous models with our friends!   Aren’t we creative being able to plan, design and create our wonderful models!

Please come and have a look through our book anytime!

Creativity, Expressive Arts, Woodwork

Wonderful Wood!

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It’s been a busy week so far in our Woodwork area! We have been very interested in where wood comes from, so we decided to have a wee look for some books that might tell us!

“look it’s trees. Wood comes from trees!”

”that looks like the wood we have outside”.

”and it says paper is made from trees. So that’s wood too. And pencils”.

We decided to go on a wood hunt to see what else was made of wood! Off we set with the iPad to see what we could find!

“Look the blocks are made of wood”. “So is the door. And the table”

”is this box made of wood?”  “I think so”.

Our families have very kindly donated lots of materials to our junk modelling area, so we decided to have a look through and sort out the materials we thought would be made from wood.   We couldn’t believe a Rice Krispies box came from a tree!

We also had a look around our woodwork area and discovered we had lots of “things that are made of wood but look different”. Wood shavings that “were curly and bouncy”, sawdust “my mummy buys me sawdust for my horse.  It makes his bed all cozy when he’s sleeping”.  “The shopping back is made from trees. Look it has a picture of a wee tree on it!”.

It was time to get creative! Using cardboard tubes, paper, wood and of course lots and lots of glue, we produced some fabulous 3d models and artwork!

There was lots of discussion about why trees are cut down to make wood and paper, which led to us deciding to make our own trees and Forest!

Of course we had to “make a giant tree so we can grow it on the wall”.

We proudly displayed our recycled wood and paper artwork in our woodwork area.  We are so lucky to have such talented children at Cart Mill!

“Wood can provide endless opportunities for creative expression and developing design thinking.  There is something special about woodworks’s ability to engage young children.  It is learning through doing”. (Froebel Trust, 2023)