All posts by Miss Mitchell

Block Play & Lose Parts exploration!

This week in the block area, the children have been investigating various different ways to create models & use their problem solving skills, self expression and imagination to create their own models.

The most popular creation this week has been building bridges of various shapes, sizes, length and height. The children have been developing their social and emotional skills by learning to take turns and share materials with their peers.

Block play helps children to become more confident in social situations and create friendships through communication and taking turns. Some of our children used the blocks and included some of our lose parts to create a ”tea party” where they made ”chicken nuggets” for their friends and shared them out one at a time. Very imaginative!

In the lose parts area, some of the children have showed that they are able to confidently match and sort objects using their own criteria such as colour or shape. The children were able to collect specified groups of objects and are beginning to organise objects.

”All the circles together”

”Orange”

Article 28: You have the right to education

Article 31: You have the right to play

Welcome to our block play! 🧱

Today in the block area the children have been exploring the first two stages of block play, carrying and stacking. These stages allow children to carry the blocks around and use their senses to feel different shapes and weights and begin to explore building by stacking blocks vertically to create towers and horizontally to form rows.

Froebel block play has 7 stages, the children are starting at the beginning as for some of our children we are exploring the block area for the first time. For our older children, this gives us the opportunity to become role models and share our previous knowledge and skills.

The children worked together to carry the blocks to where they wanted to go, great teamwork everyone!

Then we used our knowledge and problem solving skills to create our stacking towers, some children used large blocks, some used small blocks. We remembered our safety rules and didn’t build our towers any higher than our necks.

  

Block play helps children to learn to take turns and share materials, develop new friendships and co operate with others. It also allows children to develop their special awareness and develop their risk assessment skills.

What can we create with clay?

Today in the clay area, the children enjoyed taking part in various model making, exploring different techniques to mould and design and also being kind and sharing with one another.

At cart mill we value the opportunities we have to make friends and be part of group experiences sharing our ideas and thoughts with one another.


We have been sharing and co operating with our peers and recognising how we can communicate with others in different situations.

The children then demonstrated how to use different techniques for moulding and creating in the clay area.


The children were able to create and develop using a variety of techniques in making things by hammering, rolling and cutting using different tools and materials.

The children then created their own models by using their curiosity and imagination to select different loose parts such as pebbles and sea shells.

”I made snails”

”My shells look like unicorns horns”

Creative clay ⚒

In the clay area today the children have been super creative and using their design skills and imagination to create models. We have also been exploring and using different tools and techniques to create patterns and prints on the clay…

we used lots of different loose parts to create some “birthday cakes” and sang happy birthday to our friends.

then we used different tools to copy and create patterns and textures on the clay, we practiced hammering, rolling and creating prints showing how creative and imaginative we can be!


Exploring with clay helps to develop our hand eye co-ordination and fine motor manipulating skills. It gives the children the opportunity to socialise with their friends through talking and listening to each other’s ideas and also work independently.

i wonder what creations we will make over the next few weeks! 🤩

 

Brilliant Building

Today in the block area, we have been using our curiosity, problem solving skills and imagination to create different models and explore our small world toys within the block area.

”Lets build a rollercoaster”

”it can be a house too”

”we have to build it big”

The children used their imaginations to work out design criteria and take turns to work together to construct their model. The children decided they were building a ”rollercoaster house” which had lots of different features such as lights and speakers! So cool!!

Some of the other children decided to explore our new small world loose part toys in the block area.

We explored role play with the dinosaurs and people figures creating our own small world stories. There was volcanos, mountains and lava!! Block play helps children to take turns and share different materials, develop new friendships and socialisation skills and co-operate with others.

 

Cart Mill Sports Day!

The children had so much fun today exploring the different stations of our sports day event. We had to listen really well and follow the instructions as we moved around each of the stations & at the end we had the famous Cart Mill water slide!

Here is some pictures.. enjoy!

We had a running race.. we can go so fast!

The sack race..

Hurdle jumping…

Egg and spoon race

and the famous water slide…

As you can understand it is super difficult to post all of the pictures on the blog.. We will have them on the tv screen in the reception area for you to have a look at at pick up or drop off time!

I climbed aboard the Pirate Ship!

In the block area today, the children used their problem solving skills throughout imaginative play to build a model pirate ship. The children showed that they were able to think creatively whilst working together to build their ship.

The children discussed possible design criteria and shared ideas about where they think the different parts should go and what they could be.

”These big bits can be the floaty bit to stop the boat from sinking in the water”

”Everyone climb aboard! The ship is setting sail”

The children were able to work together as a team and cooperate within a small group to complete the pirate ship.

And we couldn’t forget the most important thing… our treasure map!

 

Article 31 – I have the right to play

Article 15- I have the right to meet with friends

People who help us

In the home corner, the children have enjoyed exploring role play experiences acting out different jobs that people have. The children were able to describe some of the different kinds of work that people do in the community and have been exploring the wider world of work.

To begin with, some of the children enjoyed exploring playing in a restaurant and being the “cooks”. They decided that the speciality of the day was pasta bolognese!

“In a restaurant, they bring the food to your table for you to eat it” L

“They bring you cups of juice too, I like orange” K

Some other children decided they wanted to be workmen.

“Workmen phone important people, like my grandpa” P

“I have to write down what we need” A

“My daddy does work on a computer at school” P

One of the most popular jobs to pretend to be was a police officer. We found a police officers hat in our resource cupboard and the children enjoyed “searching for the stolen hat”. It really was an important case to solve!

Jump, Jump, Jump!

In the garden, we have been developing the skill of jumping! Jumping requires power and balance and children can develop this skill by showing they can bend their knees when landing, having their head up looking straight forward and using their arms to balance if they need to.

The children have been demonstrating their jumping skills from a height over a low beam.

They then increased the difficulty and the height of the beam and assessed whether they felt safe or not and as their confidence grew, the children were encouraged to jump from a greater height.

The children were able to guide their learning and decide how high they were able to feel comfortable and felt safe to jump over.

Some children then decided to use their problem solving skills and different materials to create a seesaw with equipment from the obstacle course. The children have decided that the next steps they want to take is practicing balancing and jumping on one foot.

What ways can you develop your jumping and balancing skills at home? Feel free to share your learning with us via twitter @cartmillcentre and email at schoolmail@cartmill.e-renfrew.sch.uk

Article 31: every child has the right to play and take part in a wide range of activities.

Fun Day Friday!

As it was such a lovely sunny morning this morning we decided to take a walk over to the Spider Park… the children were so excited!!

There was lots of smiles as we played with our friends and had lots of fun on the equipment in the park. The children explored different ways to move their bodies whilst developing their gross motor skills and most importantly…having so much fun!

 

The children showed great confidence climbing up the ladders and getting to the top of the slide showing good use of their problem solving skills and risk assessment skills.

C, N & L all demonstrated how well they could balance by walking across the wooden beam in the park. A even showed us a different way of moving our body across the beam by crawling across it on his knees… well done!!

N – ”my favourite was the big swing that we could all fit on”

L – ”it went so high up”

R – ”I liked going round and round on the roundabout, it made me dizzy”