Expressive Arts, Literacy

Fun in the snow !!

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What a week to spend in the garden and to finish on a Friday with SNOW!!!!!

Snow angels, using our gross motor muscles to make marks  and patterns in the snow…what fun!

Rolling the tyres to watch the marks and patterns we could make in the snow.

Making a fabulous ice slide…it goes really fast!

Mark making in the snow using different resources helping our fine motor skills and creativity.

The children love being outdoors in all weathers, lets all put on our jumpers and jackets and enjoy being outside having fun together x

 

 

 

 

Outdoor Learning

Outdoors fun!

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This week in the garden, we have been thinking of ways to develop our physical area. We have been working as a team to come up with some suggestions to make it more challenging and interesting.

While doing this, we realised we could add some more things into our obstacle course to focus more on our balancing skills. We talked about what balancing is…

“You freeze, That helps you stay still”

“Put your arms out. That helps you not fall on your face.”

“I can balance like a statue, look!”

“I’m like a flamingo”

This sparked some conversation about being “statues” and how they don’t move because they can “balance”. Think about statues, can they move? Can the wind move a statue?

As the children were becoming more confident with their balancing skills, we explored more tricky ways to practice.

The children found many uses for the tyres in the garden, and ways we could incorporate them into our play to challenge ourselves physically using them.

“Look how super fast I can go”

“I can balance if I lift my feet up!”

“If I put these 2 in front, then that will stop it from toppling over. Look, it worked! I’m a giant!”

Great problem solving everybody!

The children also showed an interest in making their own little chalk obstacle courses too…

“I want to hop! That helps me balance”

“I’m going to do a zig zag. I want to run on it”

Then, to top off a super busy week of physical fun, we played musical statues!

I wonder what we could add into the garden next? Great work everybody!!

Expressive Arts, Literacy

Creative puppets

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Our children have shown a keen interest in making puppets. Today the children have been working hard in the studio creating some characters for a puppet show.  We watched the puppet show The 3 little pigs before starting our own.

We discussed our characters and what they would look like then picked some resources to make them.

“I’m going to use these of his eyes”

Some of the children have chosen there favourite characters from books and some have created there own.

“I’m making a unicorn”

“I want to make a mouse. I’m going to use a small stick for my mouse, he’s little”

“this is the big bad wolf he has a big nose and ears”

“I like Pip and Posy books I’m making Pip”

Once our characters were made we wrote a story about then to act out.

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We made our stage and found some friends to come and see our show.

Everyone enjoyed the show 😀

Expressive Arts

Creative thinking at the tinker table !

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Today we have been looking at some of the loose parts around the tinker table and what we could create with them. We placed our favourite pieces into a tray and decided we would use the hammer, nails and wood glue.

Tinkering is a playful way to explore or solve problems through the direct experience, experimentation and discovery with materials and tools.

The children decided what they would like to make “I am going to make a couch”  “mine will be a windmill”.  As with every activity, children’s ability and engagement can vary. Some of the children are confident to use the hammer and nails . We were also able to use the wood glue to add on some of the smaller loose parts.

The children were very engaged and worked well together discussing their ideas and sharing the tools and resources.
The children were very happy and proud of their creations. We look forward to adding in more loose parts and resources to expand our knowledge and building skills.

Article 12 – You have the right to be listened to and taken seriously.

Literacy, Snack

Our Favourite Fruits

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Today we were having a discussion about our favourite fruits. We decided to go and see what fruits we have in nursery and took pictures of the various fruits we could find.

We wanted to find out everyone’s favourite fruit  so we decided the best way was to create a chart of “our favourite fruits”. We cut out our pictures and glued them on paper and made squiggly lines to separate the fruits. We laminated these so we can use them everyday.

We then went round our playrooms asking our friends what their favourite fruits are.  We put a tick next to the fruit they chose.

“It’s yummy”

“Watermelon tastes the best”

The children then counted how many ticks at each fruit to see which was the most popular.

“The  watermelon Is most popular.” “ it has 10”

“The  pepper only has one “

We decided to have the four different fruits for our snack today so .we washed our hands and gathered our chopping boards & knives and began preparing the fruits . We talked about the different sizes of fruit  and the best way to cut them.

“ Watermelon is the hardest”

“Bananas are easy”

Finally it was snack time and it looked delicious!

We decided next time we could find out what our favourite smells are.
Continue reading Our Favourite Fruits →

Literacy, Special Event

Celebrating world book day we went on a literacy adventure to Busby library

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Today at Cart Mill family centre, we took an exciting trip to Busby library. It was quite a long walk but the children really enjoyed talking about the sights we saw along the way. We noticed some signs of spring, snow drops and the beginnings of daffodils starting to poke through the soil. We also spotted a boat a cat and we waved at a lady who was sat at her window. When we got to the library, we met Peter the librarian who very kindly let us choose some interesting books to explore together. We also got to select some books to take back for our friends at nursery. Peter read us a special story called Oi Goat especially for world book day with lots of laugh out loud rhymes which we loved! We remembered that we have a sister book Oi Frog back at the nursery.


On the way home, we stopped on the bridge to look for the ducks but unfortunately they weren’t there this time . We got back to Cart Mill just in time for our lunch which was just as well as all that walking had made us extra hungry! Later, we handed the books from the library out to our friends to have a look at. What a busy fun day we had today at nursery. Maybe you could visit a different library over the weekend and let us know what it was like.

 

Expressive Arts

Froebelian Fun with block play

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We have been continuing our exploration of our seven stages of block play in our Discovery room this month. This week, we have been looking at stage 5, “patterns and symmetry”. Some of our children have been observed creating wonderful block builds using this stage without any adult intervention. This stage of block play encourages the children to use more blocks, incorporating balance and pattern as they become more intentional in their selection of the kinds of blocks they want to use.

The children are so pleased with the creations they built. This was was a “zoo”.

We were able to make symmetrical builds and describe how they were the same. We were able to pick from our vast selection of wooden blocks which shape we required.


We all worked together today with our stage 5 builds. We created a “city centre.” We had fun discussing with each other what type of buildings we need as part of the city centre.
To further develop our stages of block play, we introduced the Froebel gifts. These were developed by a pioneer of early years from  the 1840s named Friedrich Froebel. Today in many nursery/schools we still follow the principles outlined in the Froebelian Approach.  His theory is still highly regarded in education.
We looked at gift 5 which was a selection of small wooden cubes and 3D triangles.

We were very curious about the shapes and sizes of the blocks. We discovered we could put two of the triangle blocks together to create a cube.

Our stages of block play were evident here as some of our children were using stage 2 “stacking” with the blocks.

We have seen more spontaneous  stage 5 builds. “Patterns and symmetry”.

 

As the children were showing high levels of engagement in this learning experience, we introduced another one of the Froebel gifts.

The children were able to use their own creative thinking to use each of the different sizes of coloured wooden sticks to make something. We made patterns, fireworks, shapes, aliens, and even 3D houses.

We even used our imagination to create “chopsticks”.

We really enjoyed exploring the Froebel gifts. We will continue to explore our stages of block play and introduce more of the Froebel gifts into our play.

Article 31 – “you have the right to play and relax by doing things such as sports, music and drama”.

Literacy, Special Event

World Book Day 2023

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Happy World Book Day!

The boys and girls were invited to wear their jammies and bring in their favourite bedtime stories for World Book Day.

The children enjoyed showing the books to their friends and explaining to everyone what happens in the story.

We have enjoyed lots of stories throughout the day….

We have even used our fairy house as inspiration to write our own fairytales.


“My fairy got stuck in the roof. We need to use magic to help her.”

”I’m drawing an elf and a fairy like Ben and Holly.”

Some of the children from Carolside Primary very kindly shared a story with us as well. We heard about Kevin the Koala and Hairy McLairy from Donaldson’s Dairy. The children loved hearing the stories, thank you to P6 at Carolside!

Then we watched some of the stories from the World Book Day website. Please follow the link below if you would like to watch the stories or find more information.

Events

Uncategorized

Let’s get creative 🛠

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Today at the tinker table the children have been super busy, we have had so much fun creating using the tools, loose parts and blocks of wood.

To begin with the children were investigating and experimenting with the different tools to see which would work best.

“I’m going to need the saw and hammer.”

After choosing all the resources needed we then got started!

First the children wanted to measure out their fabric, so we used our measuring tapes.

“I’ll draw a line to help measure.”
“I’m going up to number 4.”

The children then carefully hammered the nails into the blocks of wood, joining the pieces together.


“I use the hammer with my dad to fix things in the house”

Next the children used the saw to cut the wood into smaller pieces and carefully sanded down the sharp edges, using our sandpaper tool that the children previously made themselves.


“It’s sharp we need to make it soft.”

”You need to saw very carefully, like this.”

Here is the children’s fantastic pieces of work! Great job everyone 👍🏻

“My giraffe has a very long neck, his name is Max.”

”My airplane goes all the way into the sky.”

”I have made a cheetah.”

The children demonstrated brilliant independence skills as they made their own choices and decisions. The children were encouraged to use the majority of the tools and resources independently while being supervised.

Literacy, Outdoor Learning

Gardening fun in the Greenhouse!

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The children at Cart Mill are very excited that we have entered the Pocket Garden Design Competition. They have been busy last week planting seeds and learning how to look after them. The children have remembered that, for the seeds to grow, they need watered regularly, especially after the weekend!

”The seeds are getting a drink of water!”

We were so delighted to see that some of our seeds had started to sprout already. “Look! I can see some green leaves!”

After watering our seeds we talked about the life cycle of plants again and I was super impressed with how much the children remembered. We also looked at a chart showing us some of the seeds and bulbs that will flower in Spring!

The children decided they wanted to plant more seeds which will hopefully grow in our nursery greenhouse. They looked at the chart and chose to plant some dwarf daffodil bulbs instead of seeds.

”I like them because they are pretty and yellow!”

As we opened the packet, we guessed what we thought they would look like!

”I think they will be rectangle!”

“I think they are soft and a circle shape!”

The children knew exactly what to do and set about planting the bulbs. First they filled the tray with some compost. Some of the children liked to use a trowel but some preferred to get stuck in with their hands!

One child remembered that we use our finger to make a hole in the soil to put the bulb in! They showed the rest how to do it! Then the bulbs got covered with compost and patted down with our hands!

We collected some water in our watering cans to give our new bulbs a drink.


We then put our new tray on the shelf in the greenhouse, beside all our other planters.

Finally we had to write on a lollipop stick so we could remember what bulbs we had planted in our tray!

We stuck the lollipop stick in and covered the new tray of buLbs!

”The cover will keep them warm at night!”

We are excited to keep watering all our seeds and bulbs and can’t wait to see them grow. Once they have grown enough we will be planting them in our own pocket garden, designed by the children.

Article 28
You have the right to education

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