All posts by Ms Partridge

The life cycle of a butterfly 🩋

Today we had a very exciting delivery in our nursery! The children were very excited to see what was inside the special box. It’s time to learn about
 the life cycle of a butterfly 🩋

First we had a little look at our new caterpillar friends, which sparked some interesting and thought provoking questions.

“It’s like a teeny wee baby worm. Is it a caterpillar?”

“Why does it have a web around it?”

We talked about all the different stages the caterpillar goes through


“They go into a cocoon first. That helps them get all cosy and grow big and strong”

“When they hang upside down, that’s when they are a chrysalis. They’re nearly ready to pop out then!”

The children showed great curiosity, and came up with some interesting suggestions on what we thought might happen next, using the pictures as clues.

“Maybe the big box is for when they’re butterflies. Because they will need lots of space”

“They might want some snacks too”

“What do butterflies eat?”

Seeing how living things grow and develop over time with proper care in our very own playrooms is a great opportunity  for our children to explore and develop life skills. We are so excited to learn how to take care of our new creatures, and watch them transform into beautiful butterflies 🩋

Eid Mubarak 🎇

Today the children have had lots of fun making different Eid decorations! We have enjoyed drawing our own decorations


Making special playdough cakes


 

And some children even enjoyed sewing decorations too!

We even learned a little about what Eid means from Mr Tumble himself


Eid is the Islamic festival that marks the end of Ramadan and the period of fasting. ‘Eid Mubarak’ is used by Muslims all over the world as a greeting at this special time.

Thank you to the parents who have handed in gifts or shared their time to explain about this occasion. We really value the knowledge you share with us.

If you are celebrating Eid we hope you have a lovely weekend sharing gifts, eating tasty food and making memories with your family, friends and community.

Eid Mubarak from all of us here at Cart Mill Family Centre đŸ€© ☀

Independence at snack 🍊 🍌 đŸ„’

This week the children have been developing their independence skills in the home room, which they demonstrate well while preparing snack for their peers. The children show a good understanding of how we can be safe as we prepare snack in many ways. For example, what should we do before we even begin preparing snack, and why is it important?

“we have to wash our hands 🙌 “

“We have to wash them so we don’t get sticky germs on the fruit”

The children suggested we make some wall displays to show their friends where to wash their hands, since we have some new children who are still learning the snack routine.

“Nice and bright so everybody can see it! Now all the little boys and girls will wash their hands here”

Whilst preparing the snack, we talked about how important safety is when handling the snack tools.

“You go backwards and forwards, backwards and forwards nice and carefully. You don’t want to cut yourself”

“You only do it when an adult helps you”

“Sometimes I need help with the cucumber because it’s a little bit too tricky”

Next we talked about how we can continue to practice good hygiene when serving the snack


“The tweezers stops the germs 🩠”

“Squeeze!”

Once the children have finished their snack, it’s time to finish up by clearing away all our dishes đŸ„ŁđŸ„›

They even suggested designing a separate sign for the dishes, to visualise where everything goes.

The children in the nursery are great at independently following the snack routine, and have been super helpful towards their new peers who are still learning and working as a team to support them.

Well done everybody! Great work 👏

 

Outdoors fun!

This week in the garden, we have been thinking of ways to develop our physical area. We have been working as a team to come up with some suggestions to make it more challenging and interesting.

While doing this, we realised we could add some more things into our obstacle course to focus more on our balancing skills. We talked about what balancing is…

“You freeze, That helps you stay still”

“Put your arms out. That helps you not fall on your face.”

“I can balance like a statue, look!”

“I’m like a flamingo”

This sparked some conversation about being “statues” and how they don’t move because they can “balance”. Think about statues, can they move? Can the wind move a statue?

As the children were becoming more confident with their balancing skills, we explored more tricky ways to practice.

The children found many uses for the tyres in the garden, and ways we could incorporate them into our play to challenge ourselves physically using them.

“Look how super fast I can go”

“I can balance if I lift my feet up!”

“If I put these 2 in front, then that will stop it from toppling over. Look, it worked! I’m a giant!”

Great problem solving everybody!

The children also showed an interest in making their own little chalk obstacle courses too…

“I want to hop! That helps me balance”

“I’m going to do a zig zag. I want to run on it”

Then, to top off a super busy week of physical fun, we played musical statues!

I wonder what we could add into the garden next? Great work everybody!!

Sew much fun đŸ§”

This week in the studio, we have been having lots of fun sewing and weaving. There were lots of volunteers to create DIY boards for us to practice our weaving skills.

We practiced our technique…

“you go over and under and over again! It’s tricky”

Some children enjoyed exploring different patterns while weaving


 

”it’s like an M!”

Weaving is a great experience for children to develop little muscles as it is very intricate work, and these movements help  support the development of their fine motor skills.

After developing our little muscles, we put our creative hats on đŸ‘©đŸŒâ€đŸŽš

”I want to make a little cushion for my LOL doll”

This sparked some curiosity in the children, so we decided to explore it further.

“I want to chop my own stuffing for my little pillow.”

“I want to sew a button”

The children had lots of fantastic ideas to share


“I’m going to make a bow”

“mine is like a little butterfly”

Sewing with children is great for many reasons, but most importantly it’s a really fun way to express ourselves. The children have been talking about making “purses” for “all their pennies”! I wonder what other wonderful role playing ideas we could come up with next week for the sewing area? We can’t wait to find out! Have a fabulous weekend everyone ☀

Helicopter stories 🚁

Today, the children had so much fun exploring their imagination and creating helicopter stories. Firstly, we worked together as a team suggesting ideas for our story outline. and we came up with a space theme 🌎

“the spaceship and the rocket are crashing into each other”

”it’s a person in the rocket”

Next, we put our thinking caps on and decided on what roles we would act out and put our story into action!


The children all had different ideas for their helicopter stories, some of the suggestions were:

“The chocolate brownie stands up in space”

”I’m the rocket”

”it exploded when it crashed at the door”

”the alien fell down with a Big Bang”

After creating our story we illustrated our characters. Great work everyone 👍

Here’s a look at the children’s fab imaginative story!

Helicopter stories are a fun way to build literacy skills, develop emotional and social skills, explore and extend a child’s imagination and gain confidence especially when acting them out to their peers. Why don’t you come up with a theme at home and see how the story develops.

Loose parts fun đŸ€©

Today the children have enjoyed being creative in the loose parts area. We explored different patterns including numbers


Shapes


and some letters too…

“I want to do a S. That’s in my name”

“The pipe cleaners will work, because they’re straight lines.”

Some children even loved making something completely different all together, like the Scotland flag!

“the peg is for the wee stick on the flag. How can I do the triangles for the inside? I know, why don’t I squish the pipe cleaners?”

The children loved being creative with their patterns, and showed really great problem solving skills when choosing their materials. They were able to recognise patterns that included straight lines as well as more curved lines, and choose their loose parts to explore this. Great work everyone!
What can you make out of loose parts at home? We would love to see your ideas.

 

Do you want to build a snowman ⛄

This week in the studio, the children have been engaging in lots of imaginative and creative play, making lots of different suggestions for the clay table. The children were really excited to make fun festive decorations


“I want to make a snowman”

”gingerbread man”

”I like candy canes. I have them on my tree!”

 

We had lots of interesting ideas when making our clay decorations


”if you roll it into circles, that makes a snowman”

”mines is a melted snowman”

“I need to make wee buttons. And eyes”

”he’s a jolly snowman!”

“I’m going to give him buttons”

”I have enough left over to make a snowman too!”

The children engaged their fine motor skills really well, shaping and moulding the clay and doing lots of rolling, cutting and mark making.

“snowman’s eyes”

“it’s Gingerbread Fred!”

It has been lots of fun exploring imaginative play in the clay area and we can’t wait to see what other fun ideas the children come up with 💡

Liquid Layer’s đŸ‘©â€đŸ”Ź 👹‍🔬

Today in the discovery room, we found some interesting new books about science, and even found some experiments we wanted to put into practice.

 

“Look, it’s a big spaceship!!”

The children chose their favourite experience from the book and have loved experimenting with different liquids.  We explored how they can change when mixed together, and what happens to the different layers. We used very basic ingredients, and got to mixing! The children liked predicting what they thought might happen


“Is it going to explode like a volcano?”

“Maybe it will fizz up!”

We simply mixed water with food colouring, oil and golden syrup to create our magic mixture. The children suggested we all tried adding it in different orders to see if the outcome would be any different. We were really interested to see that no matter what order we mixed our ingredients, it turned out exactly the same every time!

“It’s because the syrup is the heaviest!”

“The oil is floating to the top. Look at the bubbles, it’s like a lava lamp!”

“Bubbles!!”

As the syrup is much more dense than the other liquids, it sunk to the bottom each time, and the oil floated all the way to the top. We even put all our mixtures into one big jug to see what would happen, and it turned back into 3 perfect layers!

Well done everybody! Let’s get our thinking caps on for our next experiment đŸ‘©â€đŸ”Ź 👹‍🔬

 

Building fun đŸ‘·đŸ»â€â™‚ïž

Today the children loved engaging their imaginations in the construction area. We had a variety of building materials for the children to use, and they enjoyed creating different types of role playing scenarios.

“I want to make a hotel for spider man”

“We’re making a tunnel for the train”

”eyes!”

The children worked great as part of a team, helping each other and using their problem solving skills to build their creations. Some children loved making rocket ships


Other children enjoyed making busses and dens


”beep beep!”

And we even had a Spider Man fire engine!

The children really loved showing off their creativity through role playing with the blocks, and sharing the fun with all their friends. Great work everybody đŸ‘đŸ€©