Finger Gym Fun!

Currently in the writing area, our children have been exploring different ways to develop their fine motor skills.

Children need good fine motor control to hold and use a pencil or crayon correctly. Skills such as drawing pictures and eventually writing letters all rely on fine motor strength and coordination. Take a look at some of the fine motor activities we’ve been enjoying this week.

Tweezers and fidget boards

The children used tweezers to pick up colourful pom-poms and carefully place them into the tiny holes on our fidget boards. While it may look like a simple, this activity is a excellent way to build the fine motor strength needed for early writing skills. 

By using tweezers, children are strengthening the small muscles in their hands and fingers, helping them develop the pincer grip they will later use to hold a pencil correctly. The act of picking up each pom-pom and placing it in the right spot requires hand–eye coordination, concentration, and careful control of their movements.

Many children even took on extra challenges, such as sorting the pom-poms by colour or counting them as they worked. This added opportunities for early maths skills, like counting, sorting, and problem-solving, all within a fun, play-based activity. Most importantly, this task gave the children a sense of achievement as they completed their colourful patterns and designs, building confidence as well as skill.

Letters and pipe cleaners

The children threaded pipe cleaners through letters to develop fine motor skills and hand–eye coordination. We Introducing large plastic letters with holes in them and provided colourful pipe cleaners for threading. This activity not only strengthened the children’s fine motor control but also introduced important early literacy skills in a fun and hands on way. As they worked many children began to recognise letters, with some even threading the letters in their own names! With a little adult support, a few created longer words such as “mummy” and “octopus”. This gave them a real sense of pride and showed how early mark making and letter recognition naturally develop through play.

UNCRC ARTICLES 

Article 28 – A right to education

Article 31 – The right to play and relax

 

Hi from the pond

Welcome to our Pond!  Over the last couple of weeks we have been settling into our new surroundings, learning our new routines and getting to know one another.  So far, a firm favourite for us all has been snack and lunchtime!  We are practising our independence skills by choosing which fruit we would like and are enjoying serving our own snack.

Exploring our garden has been lots of fun and we have enjoyed climbing, crawling and jumping!

Using our senses, we have investigated filling and pouring in our water tray, planting seeds for our garden (we really enjoyed mixing the soil to make our own mud), and making different marks and shapes in the sand.

It has been lots of fun so far and we are excited to learn and explore new things over the next few weeks!

 

 

Sensational Snack Time

The children are settling back into the nursery for a new term and have been enjoying taking part in the daily activities at snack time.

In Cart Mill our snacks and meals are guided by “Setting the Table” as produced by the Care Inspectorate and we have taken the children’s learning back to basics.


“I’m cutting apple”

Some of the children have been helping to chop and prepare the fruit and vegetables for snack.

The children have been developing their fine motor skills at snack time and spreading butter on crackers.

They also demonstrate their independence by choosing and serving their own snack and pouring their chosen drink of milk or water.

Once  the children are finished eating snack they clear their dishes away, ready to play once again.

The next activity involved preparing overnight oats for tomorrow’s snack.  The ingredients included oats, soya milk and yoghurt, ground cinnamon and frozen berries.  YUMMY!

UNCRC  Article 28 Every child has a right to education.

Stacking and Enclosure play in the blocks

In the block area, the children have been exploring which stage of block play they are at. Through observation it was noticed that the children were doing a lot of stacking and enclosure play in the block area.

Stacking allows children to develop their fine motor skills and core strength as they stack the blocks higher. Enclosure play in the block area is when the children use blocks to create closed off spaces, demonstrating a concept of inside and outside.

The children decided that they wanted to build houses with the blocks so we added in some wooden people characters which sparked discussions about who lived in our houses.

”That’s my mummy, me, my big brother and my baby brother”

The children used different shapes and sizes of blocks and props to create their own houses, and used the wooden figures to role play real life situations.

”I’m building the walls for the house”

”My baby one is going to bed, this is the mummy one”

The children will be working on expanding their learning in the block area over the next few weeks creating different enclosures and some children have suggested adding in some farm animals, I wonder what they will create next?

 

Article 28: I have the right to an education

 

Great Garden Adventures – fun the sun ☀️

Bonjour every one. It’s been a great start to our new term in our garden. The sun has been shining and we have been taking part in lots of outdoor activities.

We are so pleased to see our returning children back again and also to meet lots of new friends who have joined us at Cart Mill. We had lots of happy faces this week.

In our garden this week we have been adapting some of our areas. We have our mud kitchen where we have added a table, chairs, jugs, pots and pans. We have also added in a water jug for children to self select some water to enhance their role play experience.

We haven’t got a name for our mud kitchen yet. I wonder what we will call it…..

In our gross motor art area we have been exploring pouring, filling and colour mixing using large apparatus and loose parts. We enjoyed using the watering cans to pour the coloured water down the guttering and watch the colours mixing together at the end. We kept fixing the guttering when we had a “leak in the system” we had to work fast to fix it.

We changed our story area to give us a cosy comfortable area to share stories with friends. We love choosing our stories and the most comfortable cushion to sit on.

In our Planting area we have been exploring the seeds of the sunflowers that we had grown. By dissecting the sunflowers and removing the seeds, it allows us to replant them again and grow more sunflowers.

We have loved our stage where we have been dressing up and putting on shows for our audience. We have had lots of renditions of “let it go”.

We have enjoyed our small world areas where we have had mini beasts, farm and sea animals to play with. The children liked the sea animals the best. We made our very own “aquarium”.

We have been mark making at our writing area. We have been making treasure maps and hunting for the X that marks the spot. We have been using our imagination to become pirates searching for the lost treasure, following the clues on our maps.

In our Water area we have continued our pouring and filling and used both large and small piplets to transport water. We’ve enjoyed water play in our warm weather.

In our construction area we have been using the polydron to build wonderful creations such as dens and houses. We added loose parts and material to bring our creations to life. We worked together to problem solve and share our design process.

At our Muddy movers area we have been building and creating our own obstacles course. We have been discussing how to stay safe and risk asses our play.  We have enjoyed balancing, climbing and jumping. The children are enjoying adding different challenge to our obstacle courses.

It’s been so much fun I wonder what will will get up to next week.
Au revior everyone

Super Summer Fun!

We can’t quite believe our super summer term is about to come to an end! It’s been action packed with lots of fun and laughter!  Here’s a quick round up of the fabulous experiences we’ve had over the past few weeks.

As some of us were showing an interest in Wimbledon, we decided to host our very own Cart Mill tennis tournament!


Putting our problem solving skills to the test, we created our own tennis court where we practised our hand eye coordination by “hitting the ball over the net” and trying to hit it back! Playing tennis is such hard work and we enjoyed a well deserved snack afterwards. Of course we had to have strawberries just like they do at Wimbledon!
Physical activity is always a firm favourite here at Cart Mill, along with a game of football!  Having come up with the idea of creating our very own football team, our “sports activity co-ordinator” Cheryl rose to the challenge and stepped into the managers role! It was decided that our team would be called “The Red Ducks” and Cheryl soon put everyone through their paces during training sessions, with assistant manager Gail providing support as goalkeeper and ensuring we had half time refreshments.


Safety always comes at Cart Mill so we always take SIMOA on our trips to remind us how to keep ourselves safe.

Screenshot

Having completed regular training it was time to head to the “pitches” for a “match”.  Huge thanks to our SFA qualified referee Stuart who gave up his own time to ensure we played fairly and “followed the rules”. Thanks to our families who supported us by very kindly donating equipment and much needed new balls!

Arts and crafts are another favourite activity.  Gail’s sister Lynne very kindly visited and spent time teaching us how to create our very own fabulous dolls using wool!  We had a lovely time with Lynne and so appreciate her giving up precious time to visit us.

Being very curious and loving construction (and deconstruction!) Gail very kindly bought us some bikes and an old typewriter to explore! Demonstrating we can use real tools safely, it was lots of fun to investigate how to take the bikes apart and then work as a team to put them back together again!

Being outdoors is one of our favourite activities and we are so lucky to have our very own vegetable patch! Luckily our peas were ready to harvest so we decided to pick, wash them and then try some at snacktime! They were “so sweet and yummy!”

We hope you’ve enjoyed a wee look at just some of the fun we have had over the last few weeks.  As we prepare for our new term we would like to wish our children lots of luck as they move on to primary one or new nurseries. So many lovely friendships and memories have been made.   We will miss you all very much, please come back to visit us! We are so excited to meet lots of new friends over the coming weeks.

Project Picasso 🧑‍🎨

After the success of learning about the art styles of Jackson Pollock we looked at another artist who uses “ faces” as part of their art work. We discovered “Picasso”. He used different shapes and designs to create his art work.

We learned about Picasso, first by looking at how he used vibrant colours to design each part of the face. The faces were a bit funny everything was in different places! But we learned this was called “abstract art”.

Next we tried to see if we could make a “Picasso face” using faces we cut up from magazines. To se if we could create an abstract face.

It was fun selecting different parts of the face to piece together and seeing how it looked at the end. Very Picasso inspired.

To challenge the thinking of some of our older children we added pictures of other types of objects to see if they could make a Picasso face with things that aren’t facial features.  Some of our children thought using pictures of pens as hair was a great idea!

The next step on our Project Picasso learning journey was to see if we could draw our very own “Picasso face” using coloured pencils.

We used some Picasso prints as inspiration and let our creative minds design our own interpretation of Picassos work.

The last stop of our Project Picasso was painting (the best part) we used our colour mixing skills to create our very own abstract face in the style of Picasso using our creative design skills.

We have been such successful learners in our art area, leaning about the art styles of famous artists. We might have the future “Picasso” here at Cart Mill.

As Picasso used lots of vibrant colours we found another artist who used vibrant colours and grids to create his art…. “Piet Mondrian”. This is the next artist we will be leaving about in our art areas both inside and sharing our learning out into the large outdoor art area. I am very excited to see how it turns out.

Cart Mill Pancake Party

Today at Cart Mill we have been celebration Pancake Day or Shrove Tuesday.  We have been busy baking and tasting pancakes as part of our daily snack.

In the morning, a small group of children worked together to follow a simple gluten and dairy free pancake recipe. Using their numeracy skills, they carefully measured the dry ingredients with scales and poured the wet ingredients into a jug, developing hand eye coordination, number recognition and teamwork skills. 

Once everything was ready, Izumi kindly cooked the pancakes to perfection for everyone to enjoy.

Snack time was extra special as we got to taste our homemade pancakes alongside some fresh, tasty fruit. The children shared their thoughts — take a look at some of their comments:

“It’s Pancake Tuesday today!”

“We are having pancakes because it’s Pancake Day.”

“The pancakes are delicious!”

“I’m going to try them and see if I like it.”

“It tastes good!”

“I love pancakes.”

“I love pancakes with honey.”

What a wonderful way to celebrate the day while building life skills and trying new foods!

Why not have at home using our simple recipe

Ingredients (Makes 12 pancakes)
  • 200 g gluten-free self-raising flour
  • 1.5 tsp gluten-free baking powder
  • 1 tbsp sugar
  • 300 ml milk (dairy free if necessary)
  • 2 large eggs
  • vegetable oil for frying

 

Article 1 – All children under 18 have rights

Article 7 – The right to have a name an nationality

Article 28 – The right to an education

Fun with Gross Motor Art!

Recently in the garden we have been enjoying ourselves at the gross motor art area. We have been experimenting with ways in which we can create pictures using many different resources.

One of our favourite activities was dipping balloons in paint to create a very colourful picture! We tied string to the balloons and had great fun bouncing them in the paint and then on to the paper.

“Ha, it bounced on my nose, I have a red rudolf nose!”

”The balloons are all the colours now!”

We then got the big brushes out and used them on the shower curtain to further develop our gross motor skills.

“Look, I’ve made a pretty rainbow!”

The rain made all the colours run together, we had fun brushing the puddles and guessing what colours it would make!

”Its pink now!”

The children always enjoy when the spray bottles come out! This time we filled them with watery paint. We hung the shower curtain up and used the spray bottles to design a picture!

“It looks so pretty now!”

The children also really enjoy the large rollers we have for painting in the garden. They love rolling them in the paint and seeing what patterns they can create when rolled on the paper.

“Wow, it looks like a train track!”

Finally today in the garden we tied paper cups to sting and hung them from a stick. The cups had holes in the bottom to allow paint to come out when the children were swinging them. This proved to be messy but super fun!

“Ahhh, the paint nearly got me!”

There are so many ways to enjoy outdoor art whilst developing the children’s gross motor skills. This is enhancing their coordination, balance and body control. These activities encourage the children to use larger muscle groups and helps with their physical development.

Article 31 – you have the right to play.

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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”

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