All posts by Mr Edwards

Getting busy in the Mud Kitchen

August 21, 2023 Mr Edwards Leave a comment

You might be wondering how playing in a mud kitchen can be educational. Well, let’s find out:

During mud kitchen play, kids explore various soil types, textures, and material transformations. They observe how mud changes with water and experiment with different natural elements. This activity also introduces early math concepts like measurements and proportions as they scoop, pour, and mix mud. Teamwork, cooperation, and sharing blossom in the mud kitchen, enhancing social skills. The kitchen’s open canvas sparks imagination, letting children be chefs, scientists, or nature artists, opening doors to endless creativity.

So let’s see what happened in the Cart Mill Mud Kitchen today.

First we foraged the garden and collected lots of different plants to use during our play. They will make fantastic ingredients for the items on the menu today. We found pea pods, pea shoots, dock leaves, clovers and mint in the garden.

The children decided that on todays menu was “Beans and pea pie”

Next our little chefs set out to start cooking in the mud kitchen. Exploring their imagination they worked together to chop the leaves on the chopping boards. They scooped water using ladles, spoons and cups and mixed the mud and sand together in pots, pans and bowls.

“We need to turn the gas on to cook them”

”Chopping them all up so it’s small”

”Pour the water in the kettle”

”Mixing it all together”

One of the children opened some of the pea pods we found in the garden and explored what he found inside. “They are green beans”

The finished result! Look at the fantastic creation ready to be served.

Article 6- I should be supported to live and grow

Article 28 – I have the right to an education

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Busy at the workbench!

May 31, 2023 Mr Edwards Leave a comment

Today at the woodwork bench we have been creating new furniture for our dolls house. In a small group we talked about the different rooms we have in our homes. We discussed different kinds of houses, what makes them different and introduced The UN convention on the rights of the child (UNCRC) article 27 ‘I have the right to a home’.

We used the computer and magazines to look at different rooms and furniture and decided we would start to create some bedroom furniture. We talked about what we have in our bedrooms at home.

“I have a bed in my room with pillows”

“I have a cupboard that mummy keeps my clothes in”

“I have a little table next to my bed”

Once we had decided what we were going to make we set about selecting our wood and tools for the job.

First one of the children decided they would like to make a bed. He looked in the wood bag and decided to use 3 pieces to make his bed. He used “one big bit and 2 little bits”. Next he decided he was going to use “nails to stick it together”. He put on his safety glasses “to keep safe” and set about using the hammer to make his creation. He then selected 4 screws to use as the feet. “I need 4” pointing to all for corners. Using the screwdriver with support he attached the screws. Then using sandpaper he made sure it was nice and smooth ready to finish his design by decorating it with pens.

The second visitor at the workbench today decided to make “the cupboard for my clothes” He selected 3 pieces of wood. One for the cupboard and 2 more to use “for the bottom. He placed on his safety goggles to “stop the dust getting in my eyes”. Next he used the hammer and “2 nails” to attach the feet and added “a screw for the handle” The final step was to use sandpaper to sand it down so it was smooth ready to use pens to draw on the door.

What a fantastic start to creating some bedroom furniture to use during small word play.

Article 27 – The right to a safe home

Article 28 – The right to education

Article 31 – The right to play

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Caring for our garden

March 15, 2023 Mr Edwards Leave a comment

Today in the Cart Mill garden Derek had a couple of helpers to check in on our seeds and see how they were coming along. Take a look at some of our seedings starting to sprout up.

We looked at the seed trays and noticed that some of the pots had more than one seed growing in it. We decided to separate these so they would have more space to grow.

We gathered everything we needed compost, seed trays and our gardening tools. Using a stick we were very careful and removed the seedling. They were very fragile so we were super careful when we separated them.

We looked at the seedling and learned about the different parts. We discussed the stem, the leaves and one of the children identified the roots.

We filled the new trays with compost ready to plant one seeding in each space. Being super careful not to break the seeding we made a hole and planted them in their new homes.

“They will get big roots now”

“They will have more space”

Once we had planned the seeds in their new homes we watered them and placed in indoors so they are warm and ready to grow.

Article 28
You have the right to education.

Article 1
Everyone under the age of 18 has all the rights in the Convention

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Pancake Tuesday Celebrations!

February 21, 2023 Mr Edwards Leave a comment

Today at Cart Mill we took part in all the pancake fun and made our own pancakes. In true Cart Mill style we decided to cook them a little differently….using our camp fire!

First we needed to make the pancake batter. In a small group we looked for a recipe using technology. Then we gathered our ingredients.

We needed:
1 and a half cups of gluten free flour

1 egg

1 teaspoon bicarbonate soda

1 cup coconut milk

Take a look at the pictures below. We even had help from one of our mums who was in for stay and play.

We measured out the ingredients following our recipe and made our delicious pancake batter ready to cook.

Next step was cooking them with Val on our fire pit. In small groups we followed our campfire rules to keep ourselves and others safe. We took a seat on the logs around the campfire and got ready to watch.

First we watched Val light the fire 🔥

Next Val started to cook our delicious pancake batter. We watched closely for when we could see bubbles on the top. That’s when you know they are ready to turn over.

Yum yum! Look at these delicious pancakes. We thought they were very tasty and ate them all up. 😃

Article 28
You have the right to education.

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Let’s get painting!

February 20, 2023 Mr Edwards Leave a comment

Today in the studio a group of our children selected materials to paint. They choose rollers and a selection of different coloured paints. They displayed good understanding of the rules in the studio and put on aprons before they began to make their creations.

Using different rollers they created different patterns. Below are some pictures and comments from the children.

“It’s a zig zag”

“It’s got lots of dots”

“I wavy like the beach”

“Squiggles”

We then added in paint brushes and let the children explore their fine and gross motor skills to create their masterpiece.

Article 28
You have the right to education.

Literacy, Technologies

Exploring our senses!

February 1, 2023 Mr Edwards Leave a comment

Today our little investigators took part in an activity to explore our senses. Following on from exploring our sense of smell, today we looked at our sense of touch.

A selection of item’s were chosen and hidden inside our mystery bag. Using our sense of touch the children had to guess what was inside the bag. They were encouraged to use descriptive words to describe what they could feel. Once they had made their predictions they were asked to mark make to record their findings.

Bellow are some of the items we were exploring along with our drawings and comments.

First up was a woolly glove! We took it in turn to feel inside the bag and make our predictions. Then we drew pictures to record what we thought it could be.

“It feels soft”

“It’s a glove I can feel the fingers”

“It can be a hat”

“It’s not hard it’s soft”

Next up was a feather! Again we used our senses to explore inside the bag and mark make to record our findings.

“It’s a feather I can feel the soft parts”

“It’s got a sharp spiky bit”

“It’s really fluffy”

The last thing we explored inside the bag was a carrot! Lots of discussion took place to decide what it could be.

“It’s not mushy it’s hard”

“It’s a cold carrot from the kitchen”

“It’s got lines on it I can feel them”

”it could be a banana”

Well done everyone! lots of amazing descriptive words used and lots of amazing drawing to recording our findings. The group managed to identify all the items inside the bag. They worked together as a team to share our predictions and make decisions.

What sense will we explore next?

Literacy

Exploring our Senses

January 12, 2023 Mr Edwards 1 Comment

This week in the discovery room we have taken on the role of scientists and started exploring our senses. Following on from our experiments on how sound travels and using our sense of hearing. Today we explored our sense of smell!

First we had discussions about the 5 senses, focusing on our sense of smell. The children talked about what we use to smell and even what we could smell around us. Bellow are some comments.

“We use my nose to smell”

“My nose is very good at smelling”

“I smell soap on my hands”

“I’m smell my perfume, it’s my mummy’s favourite”

Next we set up our learning activity. Providing 8 tubs containing orange, banana, cucumber, coffee, garlic, mint, cinnamon and ginger. These were accompanied by matching picture cards with the written text.

Next I invited the children to start exploring the tubs using their sense of smell and asking if they could identify any of them. Some of the smells were familiar and some were new scents. We made our productions on what we thought may be in the tubs and match them to the picture cards. Once they were all matched we looked inside to see if we were correct. Below are some of the comment during the activity.

“I smelled orange and banana”

“I have never smelled ginger before”

“I smelled cucumber”

“The garlic is very smelly”

“I smelled coffee, mummy smells of coffee sometimes”

As some of the scents were new to us we had matched some of them to the wrong cards. Now we had seen them all and we were more familiar with the items in the tubs we tried the activity again. Everyone worked together as a team to smell and share what they thought it may be. Having discussing and debates about what they thought could be in each tub. Working together this time they matched all the correct tubs to the picture cards.

Well done little scientists!

I wonder what we will explore next?

Expressive Arts

Exploring our Senses

November 25, 2022 Mr Edwards Leave a comment

This week in the garden we have been exploring our sense of smell by using the herbs growing in our garden in different ways.

Today we explored our senses further by using teabags to create our own art in the studio.

We started by using our sense of smell to make observations about the different kinds of tea. We discussed the different kind of scents and what they smelled like.

“It’s mint”

“It smells like toothpaste”

“Like strawberry”

“We have mint in the garden”

To create our masterpiece we placed the tea bags on paper and used spray bottles with water to wet the tea bags. This is an excellent way to developing our fine motor skills. As the teabags absorbed the water we squeezed them, painted with them and explored the mixing of the colours. We also talked about the texture of the tea as the bags started to break apart.