All posts by Miss Campbell

Expressive Arts

Musical mornings!

Leave a comment

Today was a musical morning at Cart Mill. We have been learning all about percussion. We have learned that a percussion instrument is an instrument that makes a sound when it is hit, shaken or scraped. We have been using our information sheet to help us learn which instruments are part of the percussion section.
We had a look in our instruments baskets and picked the percussion instrument we wanted to play.

The xylophone was the most popular choice and we all took turns playing it.

We discussed how each instrument should be played. Do we hit, shake or scrape them?

Next we experimented with the sounds each instrument made. Was it a loud sound? Was it a nice sound?

We discussed pitch, rhythm and tempo. We played our percussion instruments fast, slow, and softly.

We followed the instructions of the conductor just like in an orchestra so that we knew when to play.

We sang songs and made our very own Cart Mill percussion band.
What other instruments can you think of that are percussion instruments?

Expressive Arts

Let’s count with Bookbug!

Leave a comment

Today Bookbug came to visit! Bookbug knew we have been taking part in Maths Week Scotland here at Cart Mill and wanted to introduce us to number songs and rhymes.
BookBug brought his box filled with wonderful visual aids, puppets and books to help us have fun with our numeracy and maths skills through our songs and rhymes.

We started off by singing our welcome song to warm up all our voices.
We sang our number songs next such as 1,2,3,4,5 and 5 little peas. These songs teach us to count forwards in sequence.
We then sang songs such as 5 little ducks and 5 fat sausages to help us practice counting backwards in sequence. Ours songs also introduced us to early mathematical concepts such as adding and subtracting.

Then the stretchy Lycra came out and the puppets were bouncing and jumping up and down! We were using our listening skills, hand-eye co-ordination as well as numeracy and rhyming skills.

We all enjoyed singing number songs with Bookbug.

Numbers are all around us. Songs and rhymes are a fantastic way for us to learn and develop our numeracy and mathematical skills. What number songs can you sing at home?

Expressive Arts

Our future Artists.

Leave a comment

Today in the Studio Room we were using our creative skills to make our massive art piece.
First we selected the colours we wanted to use.

Then we picked our paper and used the floor as our canvas.

We picked the tools we wanted to experiment with and got our paint ready to use.

All the children had so much fun having the large space to express their creative arts, we used our mark making skills to make unique and wonderful marks. We used both our fine and gross motor skills to complete our masterpiece.

The children decided to use their hands and feet to gain a whole sensory experience.
We have very happy children in our Studio Room, engaging fully in their learning.
Maybe we have some future artists here in our Studio.

 

Expressive Arts

Letters to Santa.

Leave a comment

This Week in the Home Room we have been writing our letters to Santa.

We have been spending time at our writing station practicing our mark-making skills and looking at magazines with pictures of toys in them discussing what we would like for our Christmas presents from Santa this year.

The children have had great enjoyment at making their Santa List and getting to share their ideas with their friends.

Even our Elf was writing his list for Santa. The children wonder if the Elf will take some of our Santa Lists back to the North Pole.

We developed lots of skills during this activity such as mark-making, early writing skills, fine manipulative skills, and letter recognition.


Merry Christmas everyone from all in the Home Room, hope Santa brings you everything on your list.