The children wanted to share what they love most about Cart Mill.
🎄🎄Christmas Lunch at Cart Mill Cafe 🎄🎄
The festive season is in full swing at Cart Mill, and today we celebrated with our annual Christmas lunch! Preparations began this morning, with the children using their mark-making skills to create beautiful baubles to decorate our dining room, adding a personal touch to the festivities. Using a selecting of Christmas craft materials, they explored their creative skills and made some fantastic Christmas decorations. We even has some amazing name writing!
On the menu was a mouthwatering traditional turkey dinner, complete with all the trimmings. It was a real treat for everyone! Let’s not forget the delicious ice cream for our pudding!
In early years, sharing meals together is so much more than just eating. It’s a valuable opportunity for children to develop their social skills, engage in meaningful conversations, and build connections with their peers and adults. Moments like these create lasting memories and help foster a strong sense of community.
Take a look at some of the photos and comments from today ☺️
”The carrots are my favourite”
”We have Christmas dinner at our house but it’s different”
”I like the turkey”
”It’s chocolate ice cream, that’s my favourite!”
The children were all smiles and clearly enjoyed every bite of their Christmas lunch, and let’s not forget a big thank you to our Louise our fantastic Cart Mill Chef!
Wishing everyone a joyful and festive season!
Article 1
Everyone under 18 has all these rights
Article 27
You have the right to a good enough standard of living.This means you should have food, clothes and a place to live
Ship Ahoy!!
Last week in the Discovery Room the children were fascinated with Aeroplanes! This stemmed from one child talking about his Daddy being an engineer for an Airline! The children watched clips of planes landing and then designed and built their own aeroplane using the blocks!
Following on from this, we had a discussion about different modes of transport and today the children decided to design and build their own boat! We looked at clips of different types of boats on the screen and got to work creating our masterpiece!
“This boat needs big sides!”
“Don’t forget a steering wheel!”
Once the Cartmill Cruise Ship was complete the children wasted no time jumping on board and playing in it!
“There’s too many people, it might sink!”
The children used their imaginations and went on holiday to many places from Glasgow to as far away as Canada!
”My Gran goes on a cruise ship!”
When we were in bed sleeping the sea got a bit choppy which the children thought was scary!
”Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh!”
The children then used the iPad to scan the QR code for our five little boats song which they enjoyed singing along to!
Once we had travelled the world in our boat the children decided they wanted to make their own little boats to race in the water tray! It was agreed that tinfoil would create the best boats.
“Tinfoil is light, because it’s light it stays on top of the water!”
“The sides are going up to stop the water going in!”
”Mine is a big boat with a little boat inside!”
The children had great fun racing their boats, they also decided to use empty butter tubs which they discovered also floated and they covered the lids in tinfoil to make a life raft!
“Ah, mine has sunk, my floating bits have come off!”
”Oh no, I have a leak, it’s sprung a leak!”
”There’s been a Tsunami which caused a whirlpool!”
We explained to the children their boats had capsized! They had not heard this expression before so we looked it up on the iPad to show them images of what it meant!
A lot of fun was had by the children starting with them being so imaginative in the block area. Block play encourages the children’s creativity whilst learning to take turns and share materials. They are learning to cooperate whilst playing and communicating with their friends!
Well done to the Cartmill designers and builders!
Article 31 – Children have the right to play.
Cart Mill goes Christmas Crazy 🎄🎶🎅
We are officially in the festive mood now!
The Christmas trees came out of storage and the children were very excited to help decorate them. We popped on some Christmas tunes and got to work. The children shared lots of lovely stories about putting up their own trees at the weekend too.
The Christmas vibe took over other areas of the nursery as well..
Then we enjoyed a wee boogie to the Christmas music. Some of the children were even break dancing or doing ‘The worm’!
23 days to go!!
Family Learning Event
A huge thank you to our families who attended our Family Learning event. Within East Renfrewshire schools and nurseries, there is a campaign to encourage more family learning in both early years centres and primary schools. Many parents engage in their child’s education through stay and play sessions or meet the teacher, but we want to encourage you to join in their learning with us.
- family learning helps extend teaching outside of the nursery and can improve educational outcomes for children
- It is an effective way for parents to engage with their child’s nursery and can improve communication between practitioners and parents
- it can also open new communication between parents and children and make learning fun for both
Our staff follow Curriculum For Excellence which is the curriculum for children from the age of 3-18. All staff are qualified to deliver this and our event was a great opportunity to share the fantastic work they do. Our teacher Helen helps staff to plan learning activities in each area, which is then shared on our planning wall in the playroom, along with ideas of how you can continue this learning at home.
Eilidh, our STEM Ambassador, shared some of the fantastic experiments she helps our children create. Snowstorm in a jar and monster in a cup are amongst our favourites!
Helen helps support our children to develop their literacy and numeracy skills by creating fabulous learning activities. She has created some really useful information on phonological awareness which is the foundation for helping our children develop their early reading skills and showcased some examples of how this could be reinforced at home.
Fiona recently attended the Hanen ABC and beyond training which supports children to develop and build their language, reading and writing skills. She shared the wonderful work Iona has done with our children to develop their knowledge of environmental print such as familiar logos on packaging, signs and creating their own posters and helping with labelling their playroom.
Angela and Val were on hand to answer any questions, share information on transitions to Primary 1 or for families who may wish to defer their entry.
Our event was a wonderful opportunity to share information with families and to ask for ideas of how we can work together to help you join in your child’s learning. Your thoughts and opinions are so important to us and we would love your feedback on times that would suit you best for us to hold future events and whether you would be interested in learning bags, information leaflets or any ideas you have.
Superworm at Book Week Scotland 2024
Last week in our playdough area we were celebrating Book Week Scotland by reading “Superworm”.
Engaging with our favourite stories and finding joy in reading helps to strengthen our children’s literacy skills and comprehension abilities whilst having fun. Reading books with our children also helps them to enhance their cognitive abilities such as memory retention, critical thinking and problem solving.
Today we had the curiosity cube in our playdough area and who was inside? Our very own Superworm!
We made pink playdough and had a go at creating our very own Superworm. We used some of our dough disco moves we have been practicing to help us roll the playdough into a sausage to make our Superworm .
We found some googly eyes and some sticky stickers to add to our Playdough just like the real Superworm .
We enjoyed making our Superworm and some of our children even wanted to make lots of friends for Superworm.
We counted them as we made them, promoting our numeracy learning through our play experiences.
Our older children wanted to make different characters from the story. Some children chose their favourite baby toad to create.
We decided to retell the story of Superworm using our playdough creations. Some of us decided to change the story and create their own.
We had Super worm with his friends, Superworm saving the princess in the castle, Superworm with the zoo animals and Superworm the flying worm.
We shared our ideas with our friends and discussed different characters and events in our story. Storytelling provokes conversations between our children of different ages and stages of development.
Here is a look at some of our own Superworms.
We read the story of Superworm and used Superworm and one of our playdough toads to help retell the story.
“Superworm is super long.”
”Superworm is super strong.”
“watch him wiggle.”
”see him squirm.”
”Hip hip hooray for Superworm.”
I wonder what characters from our favourite stories will be in our curiosity cube tomorrow? Don’t forget to help yourself to a book at our front door to share with your children at home as part of our Book week Scotland.
Creative Cars and Crafts
This week in the junk modelling the children have continued to use their imagination to create their own creations. They have been using a variety of materials and glue and cellotape to connect the different resources together. The children have helped each other and shared resources and ideas with each other.
” I am making a car”
”oh I want to make a car”
” we can make a car we both can go in”
” cellotape is stronger”
” glue is easier , but sometimes doesn’t stay on”
some of the children were making boxes for jewellery, making trains & decorating their boxes with lots of different colours.. they were able to use the glue and pick their own resources
A few of the other children had so much fun creating their own cars. They talked to each other on what they would need for the cars and got to work. A few of the children added great detail to their cars.
“ 4 wheels”
” steering wheel”
” I need a coffee cup & cup holder”
” oh I want a coffee cup too”
I am putting a horn on my wheel”
” I need lights on mine”
Th children then had lots of fun in the cars, some then turned into choo choo trains.
“ we are going a shopping & taking the baby”
“ I am going to the beach”
” I am going to the park”
The children continued their play in the or cars and shared them with their friends so everyone could have a turn.
Different stages of clay
At Cart Mill this week the younger children have been exploring the clay in the new 2-3 room called the pond.
We started off with a big block of clay and discussed what clay is. The children describe it as playdough. Yes, it’s very like playdough but clay comes from the earth. It’s cold and messy in your hands. As the children start to feel the clay. We encourage them to talk about how it feels and what do they notice about the clay.
“Hard”
“Good”
”Stuck on my fingers”
The children used their hands to pull the clay off they then explored the clay further by squeezing, rolling and piling up the clay.
“I’m getting a big bit”
”I’m rolling it”
We will continue to offer opportunity for the toddlers to use all their sense to explore the clay learning different techniques to manipulate the clay with our hands. Ie pinch, squeeze, roll and how to stick it together.
Our 3-5 children have been exploring our clay further by making clay models. With the change in season and frosty weather outside the children have been interested in making snowmen with the clay.
Recently the children have been making clay model and painting them but find the clay is fragile and can break easily. We started to discuss how we can make it stronger. The children suggested things like we need to be careful with it, not rolling it to thin and make it bigger. I suggested to make the clay hold together we could add some small sticks in the middle of the clay to hold the snowman’s body together. While making the snowmen we challenged the older children to split their clay into 3 parts using the language of quality such as ‘some’ ‘a bit’ and ‘equal’
while we waited for our clay snowmen to dry. We set about making a winter wonderland town backdrop to play with our snowmen. This involved drawing some houses on cardboard and cutting it out to create our sky line.
With the clay taking a long time to dry. The children have been enjoying lots of role play with the stone people and are excited to see there snowmen dry to paint and play with.
Our snowmen have been a huge hit with the children. Some children have started to create a whole family of snowmen. ☃️⛄️☃️⛄️
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”
