All posts by Miss Campbell

Expressive Arts

Let’s explore loose parts.

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Today in the Discovery Room, we were exploring the loose parts. We set up the loose part area with some natural materials and some familiar objects that might spark some interest in our children’s creativity.

We had objects such as shells, wooden disks, bottle lids, wooden pegs and wooden rings.
Our older children decided to have a loose parts tea party.

They used the loose parts and pretended they were foods such as burgers, pizza  and cups of tea. The older children were able to use their imaginative skills to add the loose parts into their role play, making connection with objects, relating them to real life scenarios.
Some of our older children used the loose parts to turn into different objects and shapes.

We recreated shapes such as love hearts and faces.

Our younger children were using the loose parts to stack, line up and  using containers to fill and empty with them.

The children were making long bridges with all the different types of loose parts adding each one to make the bridge longer.


The 2-3 year old children were enjoying exploring each of the loose parts seeing what can be done with them. We could balance the wooden disk on the large screw.

We could stack them on top of each other.
We enjoyed looking at the different shape, size and texture of each of the loose part materials.

Our children are all at different stages in their play with  loose parts and it is wonderful to see how the creative minds of each of our children works. Each child has their on unique way of using the loose parts.

Article 31 – every child has the right to relax, play and take part in a wide range of cultural and artistic activities.

Expressive Arts, Literacy

Inspirational Artists 👩‍🎨🧑‍🎨

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This week in the Studio Room the children have been investigating the art styles of the Spanish artist, Antoni Gaudi. He had an ostentatious style of mosaics called “Trencar”. This means “to break”. Gaudi  created mosaic forms by putting together broken ceramic tiles, plates and cups.

We used some different types and textures of materials such as felt, foam, tissue paper and shiny paper. We started with some pre-cut shapes to start us off. But we soon got adventurous and used our scissor skills to create our own shapes.

We created our own “trencar” using these shapes to bring our creations to life.


Some of our older children could write their name on their finished art works.


Then pop them into the drying rack, to dry the glue.

We had a cup that was made in the style of Gaudi in our curiosity cube this week to show our children some 3D Art.

We were able to look at the mosaics pattern on the cup. We looked at how the lizard was made up of different shapes and colours.
We used the cup for inspiration to create our own still life drawings.

We have had a very creative, inspirational week in our Studio, learning about Gaudi and his “Trencar” art style.
here is some of our own interpretations.
    

I wonder what artist will inspire us next week……

Expressive Arts

Froebelian Fun with block play

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We have been continuing our exploration of our seven stages of block play in our Discovery room this month. This week, we have been looking at stage 5, “patterns and symmetry”. Some of our children have been observed creating wonderful block builds using this stage without any adult intervention. This stage of block play encourages the children to use more blocks, incorporating balance and pattern as they become more intentional in their selection of the kinds of blocks they want to use.

The children are so pleased with the creations they built. This was was a “zoo”.

We were able to make symmetrical builds and describe how they were the same. We were able to pick from our vast selection of wooden blocks which shape we required.


We all worked together today with our stage 5 builds. We created a “city centre.” We had fun discussing with each other what type of buildings we need as part of the city centre.
To further develop our stages of block play, we introduced the Froebel gifts. These were developed by a pioneer of early years from  the 1840s named Friedrich Froebel. Today in many nursery/schools we still follow the principles outlined in the Froebelian Approach.  His theory is still highly regarded in education.
We looked at gift 5 which was a selection of small wooden cubes and 3D triangles.

We were very curious about the shapes and sizes of the blocks. We discovered we could put two of the triangle blocks together to create a cube.

Our stages of block play were evident here as some of our children were using stage 2 “stacking” with the blocks.

We have seen more spontaneous  stage 5 builds. “Patterns and symmetry”.

 

As the children were showing high levels of engagement in this learning experience, we introduced another one of the Froebel gifts.

The children were able to use their own creative thinking to use each of the different sizes of coloured wooden sticks to make something. We made patterns, fireworks, shapes, aliens, and even 3D houses.

We even used our imagination to create “chopsticks”.

We really enjoyed exploring the Froebel gifts. We will continue to explore our stages of block play and introduce more of the Froebel gifts into our play.

Article 31 – “you have the right to play and relax by doing things such as sports, music and drama”.

Expressive Arts

Really wild in the block area.

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This week in the discovery room we have been exploring the seven stages of block play. A lot of our children are at different stages of block play. This becomes evident during their spontaneous play when using the blocks.
Stage 1 is carrying. This this is the initial stage where children show interest in carrying the blocks or using them to hit together or make sound.

Stage 2 is Stacking. This is where the children begin to stack the blocks in a variety of ways. This is when the building begins.

This week the children have been showing a lot of interest in jungle animals. We decided to incorporate the animals into our block play.
This takes us to Stage 4, enclosures.
The children have been using the blocks to make homes, zoos and animal enclosures. The children have been working hard to create wonderfully exciting enclosures for their animals.

We have made small enclosures that animals can fit inside or on top.

We have made large 3D enclosures that fit different animals in different sections.

We worked on our own and together to create our builds.

We are very proud of the enclosure builds we created

Not only have we enclosed the animals, we enclosed ourselves. We built massive enclosures for us to play with the animals inside.


It’s been lots of fun this week. We put on some relaxing music to listen to on the iPad which had images of animals. Our children got very excited at seeing the animals they were playing with on the big screen.


We had lots of spontaneous learning opportunities through our week. We will continue to record our learning in our block area floorbook where we will be showcasing each of our stages of block play.

Expressive Arts

Perfecting our Playdough

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We have been very busy creating our visual recipe for our playdough station this week. We have nearly finished it, it’s a work in progress.

Our visual recipe board is to encourage our children to make their playdough independently.
Our playdough area has all the utensils and ingredients accessible to prompt the confidence and independence skills of all the children.

Today, some of the children tried out the recipe board for themselves.
The children looked at the board and collected what they needed. They looked at the numbers which told them the quantity needed and the picture to tell us the ingredients or colour of the measuring spoon.

The children took a bowl each and set to work to add each of the ingredients.

We added oil, warm water, gluten free flour, salt and xantham gum.

The children then chose which colour to make our playdough.

Today everyone wanted to make it red so that colour was added and mixed all together to form the red playdough.


Next the children put their hands in to knead the dough. It was a bit sticky at first so they added more flour.

Then it was ready to play with. We got the playdough tray out and got to work creating our playdough masterpiece.
We had lots of fun making aliens, people, presents and birthday cakes. We also were using the playdough tools to cut, roll and manipulate the playdough.

It’s a very popular area of our nursery, we all like to make our own and learn lots of skills and develop our hand muscles as we play with the playdough.

We are all very proud of the children developing their independent playdough making skills. The children were very pleased with themselves, doing it all independently and having full ownership of the area.

Outdoor Learning

Frosty Fun ❄️

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It’s been a cold and frosty morning in our garden this week. We have wrapped up warm and have been taking a winter walk around our garden exploring the frost and ice in our garden.

We have seen some frozen spiderwebs on our play house and enjoyed looking at the patterns the spider had created in his web.

We found icicles on our bike wheel they were very cold to touch but looked really interesting with different sizes and shapes of icicles .

We listened to the sound of the ice and grit crunch under our feet as we walked.
We discovered our obstacle course was all covered in frost and had to be extra careful. We learned how to risk asses our own play.

Our water tub was full of ice chunks we could pick up and investigate.

Today we decided we wanted to play In the snow. So we made our own. We used a mixture of shaving foam and cornflour to create snow.
 
It was fun mixing the shaving foam and cornflour together but it was a little messy but we love getting messy.


When we made our snow some of our children were mark making in it, creating shapes, patterns or even making letters.

“ I can make a snowman”

”Its’s cold like real snow”

“You can make a snow storm”

Some of our children used paint brushes to create marks and patterns.

Some of our children wanted to use different shape and sized containers to try pouring and filling the snow and transporting them to different places.
It’s been a different week in our garden this week but we still had the best kind of fun.
I wonder what the weather will look like in our garden next week? Will there be real snow for us to play in?

 

Expressive Arts

Counting animals on the Farm

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Today in the Noisy/Quiet room the children continued to develop their learning of “farms”. The children had been showing an interest in farms and we choose this as the learning focus of our floorbook.


So far, we have been learning to use the animals and farm to create drama and role play scenarios.

We found a book that showed us sign language for some animal names. We could copy some of the signs for cow, horse and pig.
 


We also enjoyed perfecting our fine manipulative and problem solving skills with jigsaws that are in the theme of farms.

 

One of the children noticed we had a lot of animals on our farm. We decided to try our hand at some data analysis.
First, we got some large paper, then wrote the name of the animal at the top.

Next, we filled a box full of mystery animals and we took it in turns to select one from the box and matched it to the paper with that animal on it, making a 3D graph to record our findings.

We sorted and categorised each animal and, at the end, we counted up how many of each animal we had and wrote our findings.
 

We had lots of fun extending our Maths skills during this learning experience.
We recorded this learning experience in the floor book, with the children taking ownership by cutting the photos and writing their own comments. The children enjoy looking through the floorbooks to reflect on their past learning.
Next time you visit the centre why not take a look at our wonderful floorbooks.

Literacy, Special Event

Scotland Stories – Book week Scotland 2022

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Today is the start of Book Week Scotland 2022. This year the theme is Scotland Stories – traditional Scottish tales and legends.
We introduced Book week Scotland in our Noisy/Quiet room by sharing traditional and Scottish books with our children.

We picked which story we liked best and settled down, nice and comfy, to read them together.

One of the Scottish stories the children picked to read was about bagpipes. Some of the children were keen to find out more about Bagpipes. Luckily Gail was on hand to show us videos of her family members who had visited Cart Mill previously to play the bagpipes for us.

It was a fantastic learning experience for the children to relate the story book to a real life event.
After we brushed our teeth, we read another story. This one was about the Lock Ness monster. Some of our children had the opportunity to paint their very own Loch Ness monster after reading the story in the Studio Room.

Book Bug came to visit the Noisy/Quiet room and shared a Scottish story about a girl named Katie Morag. Emma told the children that she used to read this story when she was at school a very long time ago.


We even had a wee cuddle of Bookbug as we shared the story.

We have enjoyed listening to the Scottish stories both as part of a group and on our own.

Reading stories are so much fun and are a fantastic way to promote the early literacy skills our our children. Books hold vast learning opportunities. Reading books promotes vocabulary expansion, introducing new words. Books also helps to increase imagination and creativity. Reading stories together also helps to Improve concentration and memory skills. And many more skills all from reading stories.
I wonder what other learning opportunities we will have through the week as we celebrate Book Week Scotland across each of our playrooms/gardens within Cart Mill.

Expressive Arts

It’s all about the Monet

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We have enjoyed learning about kandinskys abstract art the last few weeks at our art provocation area.
Today we introduced a new artist and art style.  We will now be learning about Claude Monet.
Monet was a French painter who was the founder of impressionist painting.
We used our technology skills to research who Monet was and look at a picture of him.

We decided to use water colours to recreate one of his famous paintings. The water Lilly Pond that he painted in 1899.

We found a picture of the painting and we each talked about what we seen within the painting. We seen “trees,” “a bridge,” “lily  pads”


We discussed the colours that Monet used. We used our thin brushes, paint pallets and water to create our own  representation of the Water Lily Pond.

We used our colour mixing skills to make our purples and greens we needed.

We used the picture as inspiration for our art work.

We enjoyed using a variety of skills such as fine manipulative skills when controlling our paint brushes. We were communicating and sharing learning with each other.

We worked really hard to create our pictures and enjoyed sharing them with each other.

“I made mine a card”

“I used purple”

“I mixed together the colours”

“Look at mine”

I wonder what Monet painting we will look at next.

Expressive Arts, Maths Week Scotland

Kandinsky Corner – Maths week in the Studio

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It was all about maths in the Studio Room as we celebrated Maths week Scotland. Which fitted in perfectly with our learning provocation area.


We have been learning about different artists and what their famous art work is. This month it’s Kandinsky.
Kandinsky is famous for his wonderful abstract work that have various shapes in them.
We have been trying our hand at creating our version of some of his paintings, using circles.
First we used paint to create a large scale painting. We used each of our primary paint colours and using our colour mixing skills creating bright and different colours just like the one’s Kandinsky uses.  We used our shape recognition skills to create huge and tiny circles inside one another.

Next we used our scissor skills to cut circles out of felt, gum paper, foam and shiny paper. We experimented with different textures for this abstract art picture.

We used our counting skills as we counted how many circles we used for our pictures.
We also tried ink prints using ink pads and corks to print circles onto paper to create a different type of abstract art. We used our 3D shape recognition skills to learn the shape of the cork.

The children enjoyed using the provocation area themselves to recreate Kandinskys work in their own ways. They used chalks,

Using digital technology on our paint app, on the smart board,

Paint dabbers,

and our pencils.

We were very proud of the work we created.
to finish off our week of Kandinsky circles art we used different circle shaped resources to draw around. We tried records, cups, pots  and mirrors.

It was a wonderful creation.
Maths can be a big part of art and is found in each area in our art room, it could be shape recognition with the different sizes of boxes in the junk model area. Counting how many pumps of the paint  we need to mix colours. Making patterns with the collage materials or clay and many more opportunities to learn our Maths skills with the joy of Art.
I wonder what artist we will learn about next?
Here is a wee look at some of our other maths experiences we have took part in through the week within our Studio Room. That have challenged and develop our children from 2-5 year olds with their maths skills.