The children wanted to share what they love most about Cart Mill.
Slime recipe
I’m sure you are all aware that the children have been making slime. We have been learning the recipe and would love to share it with you so maybe you could try it at home.
In the mornings the children have been disagreeing about what to make at our malleable area. Some want to make play dough and others want to make slime. So we came up with a way to vote to make it fair for everyone. Everyone who wants to will vote by putting a tally mark in the box using the pictures to help. The box with the majority wins for the day.
“4 people want to make slime already”
“Only 1 choose playdough”
“Slime won”
They start by independently collecting all the equipment and ingredients needed.
~ First step is to fill the jug with water
~ Add one cup of Pva glue to the bowl
~ Add equal parts water to the bowl
~Add 1 level tsp of Bicarbonate of soda
~Food colouring of your choice (optional)
~Add small amounts of contact lense solution (Asda one seems to work best) at a time.
~Mix until all ingredients combine and start to pull away from the bowl
~Knead until it not sticky. (This part is messy, the best way to get it off your hands is to roll the palm of your hand on a flat surface, it will gather and become stretchy like rubber rather than sticky.
The children learn so much from such a simple experience. Their fine motor skills are developing as they use their hand muscles to squeeze, roll and stretch the slime in different ways.
They are expanding their vocabulary as they describe the slime, what colour it is, what it feels like etc.
They are following instructions/recipes, measuring ingredients, colours, shapes…
…The list goes on.
“This is the best day ever”
Mini Master Chefs Soup Edition 👨🍳 👩🍳
Following on from our Mini Master Chef classes, the children have been making their own healthy soup for snack using the soup maker that Beth gifted to us.
We have been continuing to develop the different skills and techniques learned to cut and peel vegetables as well as learning new words to add to our expanding vocabulary and how to keep safe while in the kitchen.
“I’m using the claw shape to cut the carrots”
“We need to cut the potatoes in to small cubes, it’s called dice”
They put all the vegetables into the soup maker before adding the stock and of course having a little taste of some carrot.
“ The stock adds flavour”
“Will we make ‘Smooth’ or ‘Chunky’ soup?”
“SMOOOOTH!!”
We have changed the recipe slightly each time we have made soup to let the children taste a variety of different flavours, they explore the different vegetables using their senses.
“It’s very heavy and bumpy”
“Ewww the onion stinks”
“ The carrot looks like a snowman’s nose”
Crazy Hair Fun
In the Studio Room we have been learning about the art style of Jackson Pollock.
We have been busy making our own abstract splat, drip and splash art using a variety of materials to create the splash such as droppers and spoons.
We noticed today there were some faces on the floor but something was missing “no hair”
We decided to use our learning of Jackson Pollocks splash painting to create the crazy hair using brushes to splat the paint.
This was so much fun that we thought why not recreate this outdoors in a larger area.
Outdoors we used chalk to draw the faces on the ground then explored different techniques and materials to create the wild and crazy hair, using a variety of mops, spray bottles, squeezing bottles and turkey basters, as well as large and small paint brushes.
This helped us to develop our gross motor skills as we used our bodies to make massive splashes.
We spoke about the different types of splashes each of our different resources made. We had great fun having more space to make the splashes go further.
We enjoyed expanding our learning across different learning environments to develop a range of skills for our 2-5 year old children.
I wonder what Jackson Pollock inspired art we will create tomorrow.
Coordination at Cart Mill
Since the start of term, we have been working on our coordination skills in the garden. Developing coordination helps to improve gross motor skills such as running, jumping, hopping and kicking. Children must repeat movements hundreds of times to gain muscle memory and the children at Cart Mill have certainly enjoyed taking part in this obstacle course many, many times.
We have been developing our eye- foot coordination by stepping up and over obstacles, keeping our eyes focused and being aware of giving others space to complete their movements.
We have also been learning to jump from two feet and land on two feet safely, keeping knees bent and landing softly.
Our younger children have enjoyed developing their skills and confidence on the obstacle course too. They have learned to use their hands to help steady themselves and to ask for help if they need it.
This morning we developed our hand-eye coordination by playing a ring toss game. This type of game helps to improve children’s spatial awareness and their fine motor skills.
Mini Master Chefs
This week, we were very lucky to have Beth visit us from East Renfrewshire Council. Beth is rolling out a fantastic new program called Mini Master Chefs, which encourages children to get involved in preparing healthy snacks at nursery using a variety of vegetables. It’s a wonderful initiative to help little ones enjoy an extra portion of veggies in a fun and interactive way!
Take a look at what we’ve been up to so far:
Morning Session
A small group of children had the chance to take part in a sensory “touch and taste” session, exploring a range of different vegetables. The children were introduced to some new veggies they hadn’t seen before, like cauliflower. We discussed their textures, smells, and how they grow.
Next, the children had the opportunity to chop the vegetables. Beth taught us how to use knives safely, showing us two new cutting techniques: the bridge hold and the claw hold.
Taking turns to use our new knife skills Everyone took a turn to chop the vegetables. Once they were chopped, it was time for a taste test! One child said, “I like the mushrooms.” Another shared, “I love tomatoes,” while someone else commented, “The onion is spicy.”
Afternoon Session
In the afternoon, we made some delicious carrot flapjacks. Beth guided us through the preparation, and the children had another sensory experience, exploring the carrot peelings and oats. We discussed how they smelled and felt as part of the activity.
One child remarked, “The carrots are like worms,” while another said, “It tickles my fingers.”
Once the flapjacks were ready, the children got to enjoy them as part of their afternoon snack.
It has been such a fantastic experience for the children, and we can’t wait to try out more activities with our Mini Master Chefs later in the week.
article 24 (health and health services)
article 3 (best interests of the child)
article 28 (right to education)
Introducing helicopter stories 🚁
Helicopter stories allows children to become familiar with the role of being an author, illustrator, actor, character, audience and performing.
The start of the process is to use their imagination to think of their story and support can be given to scribe, introducing the concept of being an author and ‘writing’ their own story.
Next follows the role of becoming the ‘illustrator’ creating a picture to go along with their story….developing their mark making skills.
Next we have to move the furniture and create our stage for the children to perform, introducing the concept of a stage and where the audience should sit to support and watch their friends perform.
As the children perform, we can introduce the concept of characters and their friends are there as the audience, if they need any help and support telling their story.
This is a story about ‘A crabby crab’
This is a performance about a ‘turtle’
Children are excited to create their stories and gain confidence in performing for their friends. We can change the process slightly for our younger children. We are developing our literacy skills and using our imaginations to create wonderful stories 🥰🥰🥰
Article 28 You have the right to an education
Clay Play
The children have been exploring the great benefits of clay since returning to nursery after the holidays.
Clay modelling helps to spark the brain’s creativity and problem solving skills. The children have been expressing their thoughts and emotions through the clay modelling, boosting their imagination and creativity.
”The mermaids are stuck in the mud”
Some of the younger children begin by exploring the texture of the clay and quickly realised the imaginative aspects of clay play.
“Ice Cream”
The children squeeze and pinch the clay with their hands, helping to develop their fine motor skills.
“I’m making a snowman.”
The clay provides lots of play based learning, as the children count and sort materials when decorating their clay.
“1,2,3,4……..”
The children use a variety of tools when using clay such as rolling pins and wooden and metal clay tools, ensuring that they keep themselves and others safe when using the tools.
The tools allow the children to roll, cut and make patterns in the clay.
As the children develop their clay skills, they can roll clay into balls to make clay lollipops.
The clay provides a great opportunity for children to express detail in their artwork.
“This is my dog”.
We even created our own Cart Mill Forest!
The clay is a fantastic social activity as the children share ideas and learn from one another.
UNCRC Article 31 Every child has the right to relax and play.
Free HENRY Programme
Please find information on the HENRY programme starting soon in Busby Parish Church.
Colourful Mondays in the studio 🥰
Today in the studio some of the children enjoyed a mark making
sensory activity involving lots of cling film and colourful paint.
The older children took pleasure in writing their names and drawing shapes in the squishy paint they also realised by mixing the colours together they could make secondary ones. The younger children made patterns with their fingers and delighted in feeling the squishiness of the paint beneath their hands. Some of the children thought that next time they would like to use their feet to see how that felt.
Later on a few of the children took part in some alphabet printing and searching for the first letter of their name. We also did a letter hunt in some play foam. G found a v for her Mums name .
What a lovely busy day we all had today at Cart Mill . I can’t wait to see what exciting activities we get up to over the rest of the week .
X marks the Spots
This week in the creative area we have been exploring patterns. We have been using different utensils to create these patterns. Today we used different circular resources from our junk modelling area. We used tubes, corks and lids dipped in paint to make our spotty prints.
We noticed the paper was in the shape of an X. “X marks the spots.”
Meanwhile In our Junk modelling area we were gifted a large box.
We didn’t know what we could do with it. Could we fit inside?
Yes we could it was so big! If X marks the spot maybe we could make a pirate ship! We soon got to work. We used our technology skills to look for ideas for our ship on the iPad.
We decided we needed a pirate flag. We worked together to problem solve how to attach it to our ship.
Once we had secured it with tape and ribbon, we got to work making the windows and shape of the boat.
We used our safety skills to cut the box with scissors.
We needed to paint it next. It was such a huge box it took lots of us to paint it.
One of our children spotted that we can’t have a pirate ship without a steering wheel!
We used paper straws to make “the jaggy bits the pirate captain holds to drive the boat.” We tried lots of different ways to attach the wheel so we could still turn it. Luckily we tried pipe cleaners and it worked!
It was time to set sail on the seas to hunt for pirate treasure! At the writing table, we had the fantastic idea of creating a telescope for our adventures!
At group time today we found a book in the story area about pirates and decided tomorrow we will make a treasure map to give us directions to the treasure.
Our learning experience and ideas went on a journey and crossed all over the nursery today using different areas to add to our initial idea.
We can’t wait to see how our treasure maps turnout and if x really did mark the spot!