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Brilliant Building

June 27, 2023 Miss Mitchell Leave a comment

Today in the block area, we have been using our curiosity, problem solving skills and imagination to create different models and explore our small world toys within the block area.

”Lets build a rollercoaster”

”it can be a house too”

”we have to build it big”

The children used their imaginations to work out design criteria and take turns to work together to construct their model. The children decided they were building a ”rollercoaster house” which had lots of different features such as lights and speakers! So cool!!

Some of the other children decided to explore our new small world loose part toys in the block area.

We explored role play with the dinosaurs and people figures creating our own small world stories. There was volcanos, mountains and lava!! Block play helps children to take turns and share different materials, develop new friendships and socialisation skills and co-operate with others.

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Beautiful Butterflies

June 23, 2023 User deactivated Leave a comment

After releasing our butterflies last week the children developed a keen interest in them so using butterflies for inspiration over the last couple of weeks the children have enjoyed learning about symmetry by looking and noticing that they looked the same on each side.

We enjoyed reading all about The Very Hungry Caterpillar and talking about the colours and pattern in the beautiful butterfly.

We looked at half a picture of a butterfly through the mirror to make a whole butterfly.

The children then created their own butterfly designs using paint and folding the page in half creating a mirror image.

We also had fun using loose parts to create our own designs.

Can you find more things in nature that are symmetrical?

Special Event

Moving on up!!

June 23, 2023 Mrs Hannah Leave a comment

It’s a day of mixed emotions today at Cart Mill as our fabulous Class of 2023 head off towards their new adventures in Primary One and some of our younger children prepare to embark on their new journeys at other nurseries.

Looking back over the last year it has been fantastic to see our children grow, develop their confidence and independence, embrace new opportunities and see wonderful new relationships form. We thought we’d share a few of our favourite adventures with you!

Our Cart Mill children are so talented. It has been amazing to see them share this with their friends and encourage and support one another through reading stories, riding our balance bikes, leading a gymnastics class and having a go at knitting!

“Teamwork makes the dreamwork” as some of our children like to say! They’ve certainly achieved this through teaching each other how to make playdough, looking after our babies and each other at Cart Mill A&E, helping each other to climb a tree at forest school, and taking time to chat and share a cheers at snack time.

We’re sure you’ll agree it’s been a such a busy, fun-filled year it has been so far and we’re so excited for the wonderful adventures that lie ahead,

Family really is at the heart of everything we do at Cart Mill and we feel honoured to have made such amazing memories with you and are so proud of our fabulous children.

We don’t like to say goodbye, so it’s a good luck, have fun and please come back and visit us soon! To our children returning in August, we look forward to new adventures and finally to our children we are lucky enough to hold on to for a little longer, we look forward to seeing you next week for more fun filled adventures!

Expressive Arts

What have we created so far……🧶🧶🧶

June 21, 2023 Mrs Johnston Leave a comment

We have been very busy with our knitting, the children choose the wool and needles they’d like to use giving ownership to their creations.

We have made rings, friendship bracelets and squares developing our knitting skills. Some children requiring less support than others. The children are selecting the needles and wool they want to use and are asking for the amount of stitches they like, some children are learning to cast on their stitches independently. Knitting helps develop our fine motor skills, perseverance and patience 😁

What will we make next???🤔

Article 29 Your education should help you use and develop your talents and abilities.

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The very hungry butterfly 🦋

June 20, 2023 User deactivated Leave a comment

From looking after and caring for our butterflies in nursery to saying goodbye and letting them go in our garden. We had discussions on where they flew away too and wondered if they would come visit us again. So the children decided they wanted to make our very own butterfly feeding table.

“Do you think the butterflies will come back.”

We gathered all materials needed and got started. The children showed brilliant fine manipulative skills when cutting and gluing.

”I’m making my flower all rainbow and the butterfly will see it.”

Once it was all glued down and ready to go we filled up the jam jar lids with sugar and water and looked around the garden for the best place to put it.

“It needs to be super high.”

The children decided it would be best to hang it up high so the butterflies can find it, so with a little help we tied it to a branch.

Now time to wait and see if our butterflies come and visit us 🦋

Outdoor Learning

Delicious summer salads harvested fresh from our garden 😁🍓

June 19, 2023 Miss Mitchell Leave a comment

Today some of the children noticed that our chard had grown “I wonder what else has grown that we could pick”

“Look the peas have grown big, Let’s pick some, I bet they taste good” “ I know we could make a salad, let’s see what else we could put in it”

“ Look there’s a big red strawberry it looks ready let’s pick it, but there’s only one ready” “ we could cut it into four, and have a piece each”

“Look I think the cauliflower looks ready, it’s to hard to pull it out myself can you help me ? “ Yeah sure” 1,2,3, pull.”

“yeah we did it”

” We could have carrots in our salad” “ My Mum has a sauce on her salad it makes it taste better” “I’m going to make a dressing “ “ I’m using lemon juice and oil”

“Mix,mix,mix”

“I’m cutting up the carrots small for our salad” “they are a bit dirty, I need to wash them”

“I think the dressing tastes lovely “ “My favourite is the cauliflower, I could just eat it all day” “ Peas, peas are my favourite they are sooooo sweet”

Well done children great team work glad you enjoyed your home grown salad🤩 I wonder what we could plant next?

Expressive Arts, Outdoor Learning

How do we make paint move?

June 14, 2023 Mrs Miles Leave a comment

Today we have been combining gross motor art with science to learn how to make paint move without using a brush.

“We can pour it.” “It needs to be high up.”

The children had some great ideas so got straight to work! We mixed up the paint and found some pipes to roll it down. One of the children noticed his pipe was sitting further out so he was sure his paint would go further.

The blue paint went further than the yellow! On examination we found the yellow paint was thicker than the blue so we then tried adding more water to the paint. It went much further than the first attempt!

The next pair decided to experiment with altering the height of the pipes to see if that would make the paint travel further.

“I’m putting it on the highest one!”

We found that the paint travelled faster down the pipe when it was higher and it did make it go further.

The next challenge was to direct the paint on to the paper to create a long distance artwork. We had to use all of the prior learning to make sure we mixed the paint to the right consistency, we had to make sure the pipes were at the right height and we had to aim in the right direction. Very tricky!

The children all enjoyed predicting what would happen each time we changed a variable and then testing the theory. A beautiful crossover of science and art!

Article 29- you have the right to education which tries to develop your personality and abilities as much as possible.

Makaton, Special Event

Cart Mill Celebrations – Class of 2023

June 13, 2023 Miss Campbell Leave a comment

It was a very exciting day at Cart Mill today as we celebrated our pre-school tie ceremony.
We have been working hard to learn all our songs. We sang “hello everyone” to welcome everyone who came to watch.
We then sang “ if you are happy and you know it” we gave it a little twist and changed the lyrics to add in a little dance and blow a kiss.

Next we sang two songs using Makaton sign language that we had learned. “I can sing a rainbow” and “here comes the sun”

Next was our show stopper song that all the children love to sing loud and proud “ we are going to a new school” and we finished off with a firm nursery classic “twinkle twinkle”.
Then we were individually presented with our new school tie. As our name was called, we read out what we wanted to be when we were older. We had a few budding scientists and police in our group.
Once the tie ceremony presentation was over we made our way through to the noisy quiet room for treats and juice.
There was pictures of us on the wall from when we started until now to see how we had grown. We had also each drew a self portrait.
It was a lovely day and I for one was very proud of each and every one of our pre-school children.
Here is a small selection of pictures of our day. A huge thank you to every who attended.

We hope school is ready for you all. Well done everyone.

Article 28- You have the right to education.

Outdoor Learning

Butterflies!

June 12, 2023 Mrs Barnes Leave a comment

The children have really loved following the journey of our nursery butterflies. They have now hatched and will soon be ready to be released. Today in the garden we were looking again at the life cycle of the butterfly.

The children are now very familiar with butterflies and wanted to make their own. We decided to use our loose parts for our creations.

We discussed the parts of a butterfly and decided to use the pipe cleaners as the bodies! The children then used all the different materials to design their own butterflies!.

“Both wings need to match!”

”I want my butterfly as a pet!”

”Mine has lots of colours,”

I think you will agree that our finished butterflies are fantastic!

It got so hot in the garden today that we came in to cool down and we watched ‘The Hungry Caterpillar’ story with ice poles!! They were yummy in this heat!

Article 31 – you have the right to play and rest.

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