The children wanted to share what they love most about Cart Mill.
Cutting Station :)
This week some of the children in the studio have been inspired by some new catalogues and magazines in the cutting station. This sparked lots of interesting conversation with the children, and they had lots of fun looking at all the media expressing their favourites with their peers.
The children had different ideas about what to do with their cuttings, such as decorating their envelopes…
“I want to wear it”
“Tadaa!”
“I’m going to write my name on it. So I know this is for all my pictures!”
Other’s found it tricky seeing the little pictures, so suggested zooming in with the iPad to see it better… What a fab solution!
“It worked!”
The children have worked really well together, coming up with lots of creative ideas and sharing lots of nice stories from home as they explored. Keep up the great work everybody!
Super Soup
As part of celebrating all things autumnal, the children have been experimenting in making soup using seasonal vegetables.
During this activity the children were developing their gross motor skills when peeling and chopping the vegetables.
Firstly, the children peeled the carrots and parsnips. The children are using their problem solving skills when using the peeler.
“This is white and this orange”
Then they chopped the vegetables into small chunks, so that we could cook them. The children are developing their confidence when using the knife.
“I did it!”
Once the vegetable mix was chopped and washed, we added it to the soup pot with stock cubes and boiling water to cook.
The children were able to sample the soup at snack time and we discussed the taste, temperature, and texture of the soup. Children learn with their senses and during this activity, they were able to enhance their communication, language and social skills.
“It’s good”. “It’s hot”. “Yummy”. “I don’t like it”
This cooking activity allowed the children to develop a healthy relationship with food and be more adventurous by sampling different tastes.
The children were able to feel competent and were proud of their ability to get involved in preparing the soup mix. This also benefits the children from a nutrition, growth and development perspective.
The soup making allowed the children to explore their curiosity about the vegetables they were preparing (carrots, parsnips, butternut squash) and ask questions.
UNCRC Article 27 children have the right to food.
Garden roundup
It’s been a busy week for us in the garden. We are developing our motor skills in a variety of ways.
This simple but effective experience enabled the children to experiment with colour mixing as well as developing their fine motor and early writing skills as they made marks on the foil using different tools.
“ The blue got on the yellow and now the yellow looks a bit green”.
“I making fireworks”
The fireworks have really grabbed the children’s attention and been the topic of conversation. Throwing the powder paint on the ground sparked an idea. “The ground is black like the sky at night”
They threw lots of different colours on the ground and used small and large items to move and redirect the paint in different shapes and patterns.
Learning how to move our bodies in different ways to develop our gross motor skills and mark making skills has been so much fun.
We filled some tights with different materials such as sponges, pasta, pom poms and balls and used them to create a piece of art. This allowed the children to explore descriptive language as they figured out how to make marks on the foil.
“The pasta is spikey”
“ This one is really heavy I had to spin round and round to get the paint up there”
“ I want to get it to the top so I have to stretch my legs and stand on my tiptoes and do a big jump”
To end the week we thought it would be a good idea to begin learning about Remembrance Day and why we mark this as a special day. We watched a short child friendly video about the Poppy and decided to create our own.
The children used cut up potatoes and loose parts to make marks on the paper to create a lovely picture.
“ My dad wears a poppy for all the soldiers”
“ We can put purple on it too to remember the Animals”
Cart Mill Chat
Please note Cart Mill chat will be coming out on Monday instead of tonight. We hope you all have a lovely weekend and we will see you all next week.
Welcome to our potion station today 🎃🎃🎃
Today in the garden we welcomed all the witches and wizards to our potion station …..
This developed our pouring and measuring skills, filling and emptying containers or cauldrons. Encouraging mathematical language how much do we need, do we need more or less?
Decision making….creating their own potions and deciding what they choose to go in.
Enjoying the outdoor sensory experience, the different smells and textures.
Working together and supporting each other’s learning.
Potions were for lions and unicorns fingers crossed some of these come true…. What potions can you make at home?
Article 28 Children have the right to an education
Marvellous Monday fun 👻🎃
As it’s Halloween next week we have a few themed learning experiences around the nursery. The children asked for a Halloween story and they chose Room on the Broom. “ It’s my favourite story” “ I wish I could fly on a broom in the sky.“ “I like the dog best in this story.”
The children used shapes to make spooky patterns and enjoyed mixing potions to use for magic spells. “ It’s fancy orange water I, wonder if the water will change to green If I put a green potion into it”
We made up a letter hunt game using familiar Halloween packaging. The children looked for a letter on the packaging then were encouraged to sound it out and mark it off their pumpkin worksheet.
“I can see a v that’s my Mums name begins with” “pumpkin starts with a p”
“Monster begins with an m look I have found it on my sheet” “ I have found lots of letters “ “ S for sweets, mmmmmm I do like sweets!”
Maybe you could think of some more fun Halloween activities we could do?
Baking Autumnal Cookies!
As the days grow shorter, there’s no better time to get creative in the kitchen with your little ones. Pumpkin cookies are not only a delicious treat but also a fantastic way to engage our children in hands-on learning. Baking helps develop fine motor skills, introduces basic math concepts, and encourages sensory exploration.
Using a freshly scooped pumpkin, the children removed the seeds and helped prepare it for roasting in the oven. Once it was perfectly cooked, Derek created a deliciously smooth pumpkin puree, ready to be used in our baking.
The first step of the recipe was measuring out all the ingredients. For early years children, this is a great opportunity to develop important math skills. Weighing and measuring help them understand quantities, recognize numbers, and begin to grasp basic concepts of volume and weight. Plus, they love the hands-on experience of using measuring spoons and scales! “We need 100” “2 big spoons”
With everything prepped, it was time to mix all the ingredients together, watching as the flour, spices, and pumpkin puree blended into a soft dough. The children took turns mixing and exploring the different textures. We even explored solids becoming liquids by melting the butter. “It’s like soup” “It’s hot”
Next, we shaped the dough into small balls, rolling them carefully with our hands, and placed them onto the baking tray, ready to bake in the oven. The excitement grew as the cookies began to take shape and the delicious smell of pumpkin filled the room!
All ready, look at our fantastic cookies snack 😃
Check out our easy recipe below and enjoy a sweet, memorable autumn activity with your little ones!
110g room temperature butter
(dairy free or regular)
165 g light brown sugar
100 g white sugar
120g pure pumpkin puree
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
270g gluten free all purpose baking flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
2.5 teaspoons pumpkin pie spice
0.25 teaspoon cinnamon
0.25 teaspoon salt
60 g chocolate chips
Article 1
Everyone under 18 has all these rights.
Article 28
You have the right to education.
Autumn treasure in the Clay area
Here at Cart Mill we know our children like to find little treasures when out and about. This week we have asked the children to collect some autumn treasure. This could be from a local park, woods or simply in your garden.
Our children have not disappointed us and have come in with bags full of leaves, sticks and twigs. These will be used as we explore the changing seasons through a variety of different experiences.
Today at the clay area we started off using the sticks and conkers to make marks in the clay. We discovered the conkers were smooth and some were very shiny. As we presses the conkers into the clay some of the children discovered that they looked like eyes. This naturally followed onto making some spooky faces.
As the children explore the clay they discussed their own experiences and shared their knowledge of autumn.
“My mummy and I went on a autumn hunt and I found an acorn it had a little top on it”
“It’s autumn today and all the leaves are falling off, falling down, falling down”
”There’s a seedling in the ground”
”it’s smooth”
The conker shell and the pine cone made lot of little holes when we rolled it over the clay. We also discovered some of the branches of the tree had little spikes. One child decided to use as vampire teeth.
“I’m using the stick to mark the blood on his face”
“My monster’s got 5 eyes”
We hope you like our spooky faces. There are still plenty of time to collect some autumn treasure. So please collect a bag from the main door before you come into the playroom. We would love to see you treasure. 🍁🍂
Halloween splat painting
Some of the children were chatting about Halloween this morning. Following their interest, we thought it would be a good idea to search the internet to look for some activities that we could do in our Gross motor art/mark making area in the garden.
We came across splat painting and thought this looked like it would be lots of fun. We chose some Halloween characters and printed them out and stuck them on to a large piece of card. Then it was time to choose our favourite colours of paint!
“I like the pumpkin, my mum said I can get one at the shop.”
“Can I choose the paint?”
“I like red paint.”
“ This is so heavy.”
“I’m using my big muscles to push the blue paint out.”
Next we went outside to the garden and found a good spot to hang our pictures up. Using different sized paint brushes, we dipped them into the paint and tried out lots of large movements to splat the card until it was covered in lots of different colours of paint. Forming a queue, we were able to take turns to move our bodies in different ways and splat the paint in different directions.
“I’m going to run so fast like Sonic.”
“Me too!”
When the card was covered in paint, we peeled the Halloween pictures off to see what we had created.
“Look, I can see the witches cat.”
“The witches cat is wearing a hat, oh that rhymes!”
“and the pumpkin.”
We had so much fun using large body movements to create a piece of art, while developing our gross motor skills.
Creative with paints!
The children have been exploring various different ways to express their creativity in the painting area this week. The children were very excited to discover special waterproof paper in the art area, which sparked lots of imaginative ideas!
Some children wanted to draw their pictures first using chalk, and copying it with paints
Others explored fun patterns using different resources…
The best part is, as the paper is waterproof, you can paint and clean as many paintings as you like!
“Taadaa!”
The children were keen to take their paintings home with them, so after some wonderful suggestions the children came up with a solution.
“Maybe if I put it on the big paper, it will stick?”
“It worked!”
“Great idea! I’m going to try it too”
The children worked so well as a team, helping their peers with fun suggestions and solutions. Keep up the great work everybody!
