All posts by Mrs MacRae

Outdoor Learning

Exploring in the garden☘️🌱🌼

Leave a comment

Today we had lots of little helpers in the garden. The children have been helping to pull up some of the weeds in our planting area. There were some jaggy nettles growing in our garden. We quickly identify these and let the grown-ups get those ones, so they didn’t hurt our fingers.

“I’ve been stung by a nettle before it hurt.”

Using the gardening tools, we used our gross motor skills for digging, carrying and lifting the weeds.  We had to dig deep into the soil to get the roots of the weeds or the weeds would just start to grow back.

We discussed how the roots soak up all the water from the soil and that helps the plants to grow.

“A bit like you having a big drink of water.”

“Look at the size of this root, it’s been growing a long time”.

As we were digging, we came across some insects that live in the soil and mud, so we made sure that we were extra careful.

“Look! lots of spiders.”

“I’ve found a worm.”

We made up some rules to look after our worms.

  • We do not hurt the worms.
  • We pick them up very carefully.
  • We put them back into a safe place in the garden.

We love to spend time in the garden exploring and learning about our environment.

Article 29

You have the right to education which tries to develop your personality and abilities as much as possible and encourage you to respect other people’s rights and values and to respect the environment.

Outdoor Learning

🌻Sunflowers🌻

Leave a comment

Now the sun has appeared, it time to get planting our sunflower seeds

“what do we need to grow a sunflowers?”

</a

“soil is like food”

“water helps it grow”

“seeds”

“sunshine”

First we filled our pots with compost

“This is flower food”

“how long will it take to grow?

The children poked a small hole for the sunflower seed. Once the seed was in we covered it with a little soil.

“mine is going to be so tall. Can I take it home”

Now our seeds need a drink of water to help them grow.

“can I help water them”

Expressive Arts, Literacy

Creative puppets

Leave a comment

Our children have shown a keen interest in making puppets. Today the children have been working hard in the studio creating some characters for a puppet show.  We watched the puppet show The 3 little pigs before starting our own.

We discussed our characters and what they would look like then picked some resources to make them.

“I’m going to use these of his eyes”

Some of the children have chosen there favourite characters from books and some have created there own.

“I’m making a unicorn”

“I want to make a mouse. I’m going to use a small stick for my mouse, he’s little”

“this is the big bad wolf he has a big nose and ears”

“I like Pip and Posy books I’m making Pip”

Once our characters were made we wrote a story about then to act out.

<

We made our stage and found some friends to come and see our show.

Everyone enjoyed the show 😀

Digital Technology

Bee-Bots & Colours

Leave a comment

This week we have been exploring the bee bots in our technology area.  We began with  learning how to program the bee bots to go forward.

Our bee bots have very good memories, they remember every button we press. We had to learn how to clear the bee bots memory, so we could program them to do what we want.

We then introduced a colour line and were challenged to direct the beebot to a given colour. This helped us to practise our knowledge of colours as well as practising our beebot skills.

“I got yellow.”

“Can you find something in the room that is yellow?”

”The bee.”

“”Can you count how many squares to the yellow square?”

“1,2.”

“Ok we need to program the bee bot to move forward 2 spaces. Press the button 2 times”

“My top is green”

“How many times do you need to press the forward button to get to green?”

“5.”

Once we  were able to program the bee bots ourselves, we  added further challenge by learning how to direct the beebot left and right to land on the given coloured square.

Article 28

You have the right to education

 

 

Literacy, Makaton, Modern Languages, Snack, Special Event

Learning some Makaton at snack time

Leave a comment

For learning languages week we have been learning some Makaton at the snack table.

Some of the children recognised Mr Tumble. We discussed that Mr Tumble uses Makaton to communicate. This means he is using his hand to talk. We as discovered that some adults and children might use makaton if they have a hearing loss of if they find it difficult to talk.

We looked at the signs and Fiona help demonstrate them.

The children enjoyed putting it into practice.

Here are some of the signs we have been learning at snack time.

“Hello”

“Eat”

“Drink”

“More”

“Thank you”

 

Uncategorized

Scone tastic🥯

Leave a comment

The children are learning to make Scones independently.

First the children wash their hands and help to collect the ingredients and resources we need to make the scones. Today the children have chosen to make plain scones.

The children have been having a guess at how much ingredients we need.

”we need 1 scoop of flour”

We looked at our recipe “oh our recipe says we need 2 cups so we need more”

“I can measure the milk” ok can you pour the milk to the number 6?

The children have had so much fun making the scones and can’t wait to take them home to try them. 😋

Outdoor Learning

Bubbles bubbles and more bubbles

Leave a comment

At Cart Mill we have been having lots of fun with bubbles.

“How do you make giant bubbles”

Some of the children wanted to make giant bubbles. So we decided to experiment to see what we could use to make giant bubbles.

“how about that hola hoop?”

We mixed some water and washing up liquid and used our hola hoop, but our bubbles just kept popping.

“I think we are going to have to look up a special recipe.”

We used the internet to find a recipe to make giant bubbles. We also watched some video’s of The amazing bubble man. The children were fascinated with the bubble tricks Louis Pearl created.

We made up our recipe and started experimenting trying out different techniques to creating some amazing bubbles.


 

 

Outdoor Learning

Cart Mill Mini Olympic Games

Leave a comment

The children have been busy in our garden developing their gross motor skills.

The children were able to follow the instructions on the ground to develop their co ordination and balance, Hopping like a bunny and hopping on one leg like a flamingo

Once the children got the hang of this. They decided they wanted to add their own ideas.

“Let’s add some star jumps”

The children worked collaboratively using their imagination to come up with some great ideas to add.

“Let’s add a dancing box”.                  “Can we stomp like a dinosaur”.    “We need a shouting box”

We even added a love box at the end to and hug a friend and celebrate friendship.

The children had great fun using their own thoughts and ideas in this game. I’m sure we will be re visiting this again and come up with more fantastic ideas.