All posts by Miss Campbell

Expressive Arts

Bubble, Bubble, Splat.

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In the Studio Room our children have enjoyed using the rollers to paint. Today we used bubble wrap to further develop their interests.

We started with the different shaped rollers. We picked the colour of paint we wanted then got to work rolling the paint rollers across the bubble wrap.


We enjoyed listening to the pop of the bubbles as the rollers glided over. We spoke about the patterns our rollers were making onto the bubble wrap. “Curvy” and “zigzag” ones are the favourites.

We like popping the bubbles with our hands and exploring the texture of the bubble wrap.

Our activity soon took a change and became much more fun and sensory based as we used our hands to paint.

Much more fun! We decided the the bubble wrap was “bumpy” and the paint was “cold” and  “smooth”.

We tried different ways to pop the bubbles, with our fingers and our whole hands.

We used our hands to mix the colours together to make new colours and spread the paint all over the bubble wrap making it look colourful and bold.


We even tried printing our hands and the bubble wrap with corks to experiment with the sounds and shapes it would make.

We had such fun with something so simple that inspired thought provoking questions from our children from 2-5 years. We enjoyed incorporating sensory experiences into our painting. We were learning about patterns and using new descriptive language.
But most important of all, we had the best fun getting messy.

Expressive Arts, Literacy

Mark making masterpiece

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We have been developing our mark making skills in the Studio room.
Our children enjoy exploring their mark making skills in a variety of fun, unique ways. Some of the ways we have been extending our mark making skills been using pastels, water paints and we experimented with marbling inks.

Mark making is a very important skill for our children to learn, but what is mark making? Mark making is a term used for the creation of different pattens, lines, textures and shapes. This can be done on a piece of paper, floor, outside in the garden or on an object or surface.

Mark making is a sensory and physical experience which can be enjoyed by all ages and abilities.
Today in the Studio we extended our mark making skills by using cardboard and a selection of mark making tools to create pictures of our favourite things.

We made race cars, ice creams, our family and our toys.

We enjoyed showing each other what we made, discussing what our favourite things were.  We were proud of the work we created. We like to be responsible to the environment and reuse and recycle our cardboard.

Some of the children enjoyed using the easel to mark make using pens and chalks.

We have opportunities to mark make across each of the playrooms, through arts and crafts, shaving foam, mud kitchen, and playdough to name just a few. What mark making do you like to do at home?

Expressive Arts

Having a splashing time in the Studio

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We had a special donation of some huge cardboard to our Studio Room. Our children enjoy using cardboard for lots of creative creations in our Junk model area. But today we had a idea of something else we could use the large cardboard for.

Splash painting.
There was different bottles, syringes, droppers and different colours of paints. It was very exciting picking which one we were going to use.

Because it was such a big piece of cardboard we could even sit in the middle to create our art work.

 

 

 

 

 

We mixed a little bit of paint and water to help our paint splat, spray, drop and squeeze.

We are very independent in our Studio Room and can pick and put on our own paint aprons when we want to paint or get messy.

We loved how far we could squeeze and spray the paint that was inside the syringe.

Good job our cardboard was so big.

It was interesting watching all the colour mix together to see what different colours we created.

We were learning different techniques of making art by using our spay bottles, droppers and syringes to mark make in creative ways.

We think it looks really nice. We all worked really hard together creating our large scale art.
We really did have a splashing time.

Expressive Arts

Cardboard Creations

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Today in the Studio Room we were perfecting our painting.
We enjoy painting on a variety of resources on the floor, on the easel, on paper and on boxes etc, the floor is our canvas. Today we incorporated all of these and used cardboard to make our own DIY easel.

First we used recycled boxes from our junk modelling area to create our easel and used tape to secure it to the floor.  We all love using the sellotape dispenser.

Next we put on our painting aprons, selected a paint pot and brush and selected which paint we wanted to start with. We are very independent in our art area and can pour our own paints.

  

Then it was time to start our painting masterclass. We each shared our ideas of what we were creating. We all shared and swapped the paints to ensure we had all the colours on the colour wheel to choose from.

   

We worked hard using our fine manipulative skills to control our paintbrush as it glided over our paper creating our works of art.

 

Some us were feeling inspired to try using sponges to add texture to their paintings.

 

What fun we had, inspiring our future artists. Maybe one day we will grow up and be like Picasso or Van Gogh with our paintings displayed in an art gallery.

Expressive Arts

Creative Clay Creations

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Today in the Studio we continued our experiment with clay. We have been learning about the difference in textures between clay and playdough, as well as the difference between wet and dry clay. So, today we took our learning one step further to investigate what we can make, by adding loose parts to our clay station.

We added some buttons, wooden sticks, paper straws, corks and our clay tools and markers as a invitation to spark the creative minds of our early learners.

We used our gross motor skills to roll out the clay, using the large rolling pins. We even tried using the other end of the rolling pin to make marks and indents into the clay.

Some of us used the clay hammers to create marks or flatten the clay to make it more malleable.

We each selected the loose parts we wanted and got to work creating our model, and look what we created! A hedgehog using the wooden sticks.

Others used the wooden sticks to make candles for a birthday cake.

We also created a robot, adding detail with paper straws.

We used the corks and wooden letters to make clay people.

We worked together to share our ideas and inspire each other.

We used our fine manipulative skills to select and place buttons onto our clay as part of our design process.

We even used the clay tools and loose parts to extend our mark making skills.
We learn best when we are having fun through play.
I wonder what will be at our clay station tomorrow?

Expressive Arts, Literacy

Scribble while you wiggle.

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Today in the Studio Room we were scribbling while we wiggle. There is lots of activities we can do to help us on our journey to writing. The first step is ensuring  we have the gross and fine motor skills ready to hold our pencils.
We used material and scarfs and chose our song to wiggle to.

First we copied Emma’s actions moving the scarfs round and round, twisting and twirling. Then we listened to the rhythm of the music, and then we all used our own movements to control the scarfs.

Another activity we can scribble while you wiggle to is painting to music. We chose music from an orchestra and listened to the sound each instrument made and painted what we thought the sound would look like.


Was it a splash or bang, would the sound make us paint long strokes or short.

We used paint brushed but one of our children decided to use her hands to represent the sounds she heard.

Another scribble while you wiggle activity our children enjoy is using large paper and a wide range of mark making resources to mark make and use scribble streams. We chose the instrumental Encanto songs. This music was fast with an upbeat tempo and we used different movements with our pens/pencils to this music.

We enjoyed  working together and showing each other what we had created and what we each thought the music sounded like. We even used our turn taking and sharing skills. This is a great activity enjoyed by all our children from 2-5years old.

Why don’t you have a go at scribble while you wiggle at home? What do you think sound looks like?

Expressive Arts

3D Paper Sculpture Techniques

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Today in the Studio Room we are learning a new skill. We are learning to make 3D paper sculptures. Today was all about creating a “fringe”

We each picked a piece of paper and a pair of scissors.
We learned that to create a fringe we needed to cut the paper half in strips, but only half way up the page, leaving a band. The higher we cut the longer the strip we created. We were very careful when using our scissors to cut.

It was a bit tricky at first to keep the band at the top and not cut the paper in half. But we soon got the hang of it and made of fringe snips in lots of different sizes of paper.

We made big ones

Middle size

and even tiny ones.
Once we mastered the technique of fringing we moved on to a new technique of rolling and folding.

We used our fringed paper to create, fringe people, robots, lions, octopus, and funny faces.

We drew on our designs then folded the paper and used glue to keep the edges together.

We were proud of our finished results. It was fun engaging with a new learning experience and seeing where our imagination would take us today.
Next week we will be learning a new 3D paper sculpture technique.

 

Special Event

Glitter Bug

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We had a special visitor at Cart Mill today! One of our nursery mum’s came to teach us all about hand washing. Eilidh brought her special germ finding equipment to show us what happens when we don’t wash our hands properly.


First Eilidh asked us if we knew when and why we wash our hands. Of course our clever Cart Mill children could tell us. “Before my lunch/snack” “when you go to the toilet.”  “If you touch anything that’s muddy” “when you blow your nose”.
Eilidh told us about Glitter Bug. Glitter bug was shy and was hiding in the bottle. Glitter bug is a special soap that shows us what we miss when we clean our hands.

When we had the glitter bug Soap on, Eilidh showed us her method of checking our hands. We put our hands in the black tent and a UV light was able to highlight any spots that were dirty.

When the UV light was on, our hands went a purple colour and we could see the white “germs”. Next Eilidh asked us to re-wash our hands and look at the difference.

We put our freshly washed hands back in the tent, under the UV light and all the “germs” had vanished.

We loved seeing the difference good hand washing with soap makes, and we learned the importance of properly washing our hands. It was so much fun! Even Emma and Helen had a turn. Thank you so much for coming to visit  us today Eilidh!

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Numbers, Numbers all around.

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Today in Cart Mill we went on a number hunt. We searched high and low for numbers. We found them everywhere. Some were hard to spot!  Luckily more helpers joined us on our hunt to spot some more. We discussed that numbers are all around us and why the numbers we found are important.

We found numbers on the clock on the wall. Those numbers are important because they tell us what time it is.

We found numbers on the buttons on the phone. We know that you need to dial lots of numbers to phone somebody.

We found numbers on the microwave. We know those buttons tell us how long we need to put our food in for to heat it up.

We found numbers on the stage, those numbers help us with our action songs and games we preform while on the stage.

We even found numbers on our clothes. This number is important because it tells us our age.

Numbers really are everywhere at Cart Mill. Number recognition is a great skill to have. It helps us with so many tasks, and introduces us to the importance of numbers and what they are for.
Maybe you can go on a number hunt in your house, or even spot numbers when you are out in your local area or shopping.

Expressive Arts, Literacy

Sharing stories in spring

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Today in the Home room was all about stories. We enjoy exploring stories together in our story area.
We like sharing stories together in different ways. We can share stories as part of a group, listening to a story being read by an adult.

When we read stories together, we are learning about taking turns, when to talk and when to listen, learning new vocabulary and sharing our thoughts and feelings as part of a group.
Today we discussed all things Spring during our story. We read about big and little nut brown hare sharing their ideas about Spring. We discussed our ideas and found out it’s “when the sun gets a little warmer” and “I know it’s Spring because it’s my mummy’s birthday in Spring”.
We can also explore stories with our friends, forming our own ideas about what the story can be about from looking at the pictures. If we recognise the book we can use our recall skills to retell the story.

Sometimes we can use visual aids to help us read a story. Visual aids such as puppets are a great way for our visual learners to interact with the story. Today the Gruffalo was helping read the story all about his adventures in the deep dark wood.

Sometimes we don’t even need a book to tell a story. We can use our imagination with different visual aids to bring our own stories to life, such as puppet shows.

We can also use role play to act out as characters from familiar stories, our become our own characters.
Story telling has so many learning opportunities for our children, it’s great to tell these stories in a way that captures the interests of our individual children.

What way do you like to share stories together at home?