All posts by Mrs Miles

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Melting snowballs

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Within the science area we have been discussing the properties of materials, particularly learning about the difference between solids and liquids.

While playing with ice the other day we started discussing the properties of snow, hailstones and rain. We decided to make our own snowballs and experiment with various ways of melting them.  We created our snowballs by making gloop and then freezing it inside plastic baubles.

When we took them out of the freezer, they were so cold and frozen we couldn’t even open them and had to put them in the bowl of hot water to start the melting process.

Once we got the snowballs on to the trays the children experimented with dripping hot water on top of them. One of the children realised that if he made a hole and put water inside the hole it speeded up the process. His friend decided to make the holes and he could squeeze the water in. Great team work! The other children realised they could use the tools to help chip away at the snowballs.

Throughout this experience we discussed how the freezing and melting process changes water from a solid to a liquid and back again. After they were all melted we had a great time playing with the gloop and getting messy!

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Cart Mill’s Ice Cream Factory

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In the small world area we have continued to learn about how our food gets from farm to fork. This past week we have been learning about where milk comes from and what other foods can be made from it.
We started by learning about milking the cows.

Then we learned the milk can be used to make butter and experimented with making our own. We put cream in a tub and shook it and shook it and shook it until it turned in to butter. We listened to the song Shake it Off and had a dance while shaking! Then we spread some of the butter on a bit of bread to taste it.


Then this morning we used the milk to make ice cream! First we made a mixture of milk, cream, vanilla and a little sugar. Then we popped it in a bag and sealed it then popped it in another bag and covered it in ice. Then the shaking process began again…

We took the mixture out and had a feel;

– “It’s freezing!”

– “It’s all hard!”

– “It’s a solid now!”

Then time for the best bit…… the tasting!

Literacy, Special Event

World Book Day 2023

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Happy World Book Day!

The boys and girls were invited to wear their jammies and bring in their favourite bedtime stories for World Book Day.

The children enjoyed showing the books to their friends and explaining to everyone what happens in the story.

We have enjoyed lots of stories throughout the day….

We have even used our fairy house as inspiration to write our own fairytales.


“My fairy got stuck in the roof. We need to use magic to help her.”

”I’m drawing an elf and a fairy like Ben and Holly.”

Some of the children from Carolside Primary very kindly shared a story with us as well. We heard about Kevin the Koala and Hairy McLairy from Donaldson’s Dairy. The children loved hearing the stories, thank you to P6 at Carolside!

Then we watched some of the stories from the World Book Day website. Please follow the link below if you would like to watch the stories or find more information.

Events

Outdoor Learning

Ball play

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This morning in the garden we have been practising our balls skills.

We started by setting up the baskets in the tyres and playing some basketball. We tried throwing the ball in to the basket and also bouncing it in.

We had great fun trying but some of us found this a little tricky so we decided to practise our throwing skills a bit more.

We practised throwing and catching and also bouncing and catching.  We learned that we need to make sure the other person is ready to catch before throwing and we need to have hands out and keep our eyes on the ball to catch it.

After this we put our skills to use and played cooperatively by making a circle and passing the ball to the person next to us.

We learned that we should throw under arm when passing to a person and we need to alter how hard we throw depending on how far away the other person is.

Brilliant ball work boys and girls ⚽️🏀⛹️‍♂️

Expressive Arts, Literacy

The Three Billy Goats Gruff

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This month in the clay area we have been creating characters from our favourite stories and this week we chose The Three Billy Goats Gruff. We started by reading the story and discussing the different characters then we set to work making them with the clay. We chose whether to make a 2D or a 3D model and discussed the best way to make the different features.


“My goat has huge horns!” “Look at my troll’s legs.”

Once the clay had dried we painted them then left them to dry again ready for telling the story.

Before starting our re-enactment of the story, we worked cooperatively to decide who would play each character and also compared the goats to determine which was the biggest and which the smallest. Then we were ready to get going….

“

”Who’s that trip trapping over my bridge?”

”I’m coming to eat you!”

We had a great time telling the story and acting out each part with our models. We told the story many, many times, each time swapping which role we played and taking turns with our friends. By the end of the experience we could act out each part independently without an adult reading the story for us!

A wonderfully creative and expressive experience 🐐

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Dancing Raisins

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This morning our little scientists have been carrying out more experiments and making predictions about the outcomes. We are learning about forces and describing their effects.

We started by filling three glasses- one with still water, one with fizzy water and one with super fizzy limeade. We then made predictions about about what would happen if we put a raisin in each of the glasses.


We then dropped the raisins in the glasses to test our predictions and were amazed by the results.

Through a previous bubble experiment, we have learned that bubbles have air called carbon dioxide in them. It is these bubbles that are attaching on to the raisins and making them float but when the bubbles pop the raisins fall back to the bottom as they are denser and heavier than water. This makes the raisins look like they are dancing. We then continued to add more raisins and discovered that the smaller ones were lifted up by the bubbles more easily.

”The bigger ones are heavier and they just make the bubbles pop.”

If you have some sparkling water and raisins in the house, please try this at home and share your findings with us @cartmillcentre

 

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Scottish Inventors

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To celebrate St Andrews Day we are learning about Scottish inventors in the discovery room this week. We started by asking “What is an inventor?”

  • ”It’s someone who builds lots of stuff.”
  • “They make robots.”
  • “An inventor makes stuff.”

Then we learned about Henry Faulds who invented finger printing. We discussed what we know about fingerprints, what they can be used for and what makes each one unique.

  • “Police use them to catch baddies.”
  • ”We use them for mysteries.”
  • ”There’s hundreds of little lines.”
  • ”It means you’re not the same.”

Then we used our ink and made our own prints.

We also examined them through the telescope to see all the lines and whirls better.

“I’m making a picture with mine.”

Next we learned about Sir Alexander Graham Bell, the inventor of the telephone and had a great time making our own phones.

We discovered that the string had to be pulled as tight as possible or the sound will not travel to the receiver. We experimented with different lengths of string and found the longer the piece, the better the sound.

Excellent work from our own little inventors!

Expressive Arts, Social Studies

Remembrance day

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This week some of the children have noticed Angela’s poppy badge and have been asking why she is wearing it. In honour of Remembrance Day we decided to make our own poppies and discuss the importance of Remembrance Day. This can be a difficult subject for children to understand, so we talk about remembering the soldiers who help to keep us safe and focus on the importance of kindness and celebrating each other’s differences.

The making of the poppies has been a two part process. We started yesterday by looking at pictures of poppies and discussing the different parts of the flower. We dyed pasta red for the petals, rice black for the seeds and coloured lollipop sticks green for the stems. We then left that to dry to use the next day and made red playdough to make poppies with that day.

Today we observed a two minute silence while watching a CBeebies video about Remembrance Day. The children sat beautifully and we reminded them about the importance of being kind to each other after the video.


“We need to remember the soldiers that fought in the fight.”

The video shows the poppies growing in the fields after the war has ended so we then went to make our own poppies.

“I’m making a poppy field. These are the seeds so more can grow.”

“Look at my poppy man.”

Just look at our beautiful designs…

Outdoor Learning, Social Studies

Big Wild Walk 2022

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This week is the Big Wild Walk week organised by the wildlife trust. It is used to raise money and awareness of the importance of protecting our wildlife. Adults are encouraged to walk 30 km over the week and children are to walk 3km as this is the same distance a hedgehog can walk in a night. We have used this as an opportunity to highlight the importance of caring for our natural world.
We started by discussing what we know about wildlife, what animals live in the forest and how to look after them.

“We can build wee homes.”
“We can make beds with leaves.”
“We can go a walk to check on them.”

Then we spoke specifically about hedgehogs and what we know about them. We also made our own hedgehogs using pine cones.

“Hedgehogs have little feet.”
“They’re really spiky”
“Hedgehogs like chestnuts.”

Then we went for a walk to see if we could find any hedgehogs having a sleep and decided to collect leaves while we were there.

When we got back we used our Autumn leaf spotter sheet to identify the leaves and discover which types of trees are in our forests.

If you like to join in you can find more information here;

https://www.wildlifetrusts.org/bigwildwalk

Happy walking 🚶‍♀️ 😀