Bookbug joins us for some spring songs 🐣🐑🌞

April 5, 2024 Mrs Johnston Leave a comment

Bookbug came to visit us today so we all sang our ‘Hallo’ song to welcome him..

We wondered how many spring animals were on the farm…we thought about chicks, lambs, bunnies.

We pretended to be bunnies with flies upon on noses and curly whiskers 😂 enjoying the song Little Peter Rabbit. We were dancing, jumping and hopping to Sleepy Bunnies and after all that exercise, sat down and enjoyed the story of the 6 Little Chicks.

It’s so lovely that spring has arrived, to think and see the wonders of nature, the bright mornings and light evenings, the flowers and plants and to enjoy all this with our friends 😁

Article 31 You have the right to play and relax by doing things like sports, music and drama

Creativity

Creative with Clay

April 4, 2024 Ms Partridge Leave a comment

The children have shown fantastic curiosity in the clay area this week, and have been expressing themselves in lots of different ways.

Some children investigated the clay tools, exploring what different designs and patterns they could make…

Other children enjoyed showing off their writing skills…

“I can do H for Hulk!”

Others explored their problem solving skills, paying close attention to the different shapes of the resources to capture their ideas…

”that can make the eyes because it’s round”

“I’m making a holiday park. The big round shell is the pool. This tall one is like a palm tree”

“These pretty buttons can make the petals. It’s a button flower!”

Clay is a fantastic canvas for children’s learning as it is such a holistic experience. Children develop their little fine motor muscles through all the rolling, moulding and squishing as well as engage their imagination and problem solving skills too when creating their models. It can be as educational or as fun as you want it to be! Great work everyone 😁👍

Creativity

At the car wash 🧼🫧🚙🫧

April 2, 2024 Mrs MacRae Leave a comment

Our children have been showing an interest in washing the cars in the water tray. We set up a tray to drive the cars through the mud. The children had great fun running their car’s though the shaving foam, exploring the different track marks their car made before dipping it into the water to wash with soap and sponges. We discussed if anyone had been though a car wash and decided to watch a short video of a car going though one.

After some of the children helped to make a car wash for the cars to drive though. Marking some lines on the wash cloth, the children were encouraged to cut along the lines. Then we stapled it onto the wooden frame.

“look at my track marks”

“My cars so dirty I need to give it a wash”

With the use of the sponges and soap dispensers, the children are developing all their muscle and co ordinations in their hand. The soap dispenser was tricky to use at first, but after a quick demonstration, they soon got the hang of it!

All are cars a sparkly clean, but I’m sure it won’t be long before they get all muddy again. 💦

Article 31 – I have the right to relax and play

Creativity, Expressive Arts, Literacy, Outdoor Learning

Creating The Cart Mill Scarecrow!

March 28, 2024 Mr Edwards Leave a comment

In our garden adventures on Wednesday, we dove into the beloved story of “The Scarecrows Wedding” by Julia Donaldson. Inspired by the tale, one of our little minds proposed an exciting idea – let’s make our own scarecrow to protect our plants from hungry birds!

”The birds like to eat fruit so they maybe will eat our seeds”

Excitement bubbled as we brainstormed what we’d need, just like in the story we got to work and wrote some lists. These included:

Straw
Clothes
Hat
Scarf
Head
Legs
Face

With our list in hand, we turned to the internet for guidance. Click the link to try building a scarecrow at home. How to build a scarecrow

Today was the big day! We gathered our supplies and got busy.

First, we stuffed some old clothes with straw to make our scarecrow’s body. We made sure everything was nice and secure.

Next came the fun part – creating the face! We discussed facial features together and gave it some eyes, a nose and a big friendly smile. We also gave it some lovely Cart Mill branding.

Once the body and face were ready, we used sticks from our willow tree to give our scarecrow a strong frame. Then, we proudly placed it in the garden to stand guard over our precious veggies.

As we admired our handiwork, one question remained: What should we name our new friend? Suggestions flew around, each more imaginative than the last. It came to a vote and we decided on Harry!

With our scarecrow watching over the garden, we wrapped up another day of fun and learning in our outdoor classroom. 😀

Article 13 (freedom of expression)

Article 31 (leisure, play and culture)

Article 28 (right to education)

Creativity, Digital Technology, Expressive Arts

Play dough shapes and numbers….

March 27, 2024 Miss Keith Leave a comment

At the play dough table our children are always very busy . This week we have tried forming the dough into shapes, numbers and patterns. The children drew some patterns that we could use with the play dough.

Play dough gives the children an excellent opportunity to develop fine motor skills and strengthen the muscles in their fingers and hands.

We used our hands ,fingers and rolling pins to help make the shapes for the numbers. “It’s very soft” “ mine is nearly long, now it might fit”.

Some of the children could recognise the numbers that were written and some of the children filled the circles with play dough to count to the number . “I have two circles it’s the number 2 “

The children were able to recognise most of the shapes “it’s a circle” “ now it’s a purple circle”. Our children were very pleased when they completed a shape . “I need four pieces for a square”.

The children also enjoy taking photos of their hard work and record them in their learning journals. This reminds us all of how creative the Cart Mill children are.

Using our fabulous imaginations, the children enjoyed creating their own patterns and designs! We had lovely rainbows, cherry pies and so much more! We are looking forward to many more play dough creations.

Article- You have the right to development and participation.

Creativity, Expressive Arts, Literacy, Social Studies

Story time 📖📚

March 26, 2024 Miss Brown Leave a comment

This morning the children had transferred some of our stories and story puppets to the home corner.

They brought some of our dolls over and pretended they were going to read them a story. First of all they picked out “A squash and a squeeze” then showed the ‘babies’ the matching puppets and named them.

“This one is the pig, the pig says oink”

” This is cow, he says Moooo!”

” The hen goes cluck, cluck”

Using the pictures the children showed their understanding of what was happening in the story and ‘read’ to the babies, using the puppets as they went along and imitating the ways that adults round about them would read a story.

“The hen knocked the jug over”

“Lady pushes pig in house”

“and the cow, its getting too busy in there”

The children had so much fun using their imagination to re-enact real life situations in the home corner.

Article 31 (leisure, play and culture) Every child has the right to relax, play and take part in a wide range of cultural and artistic activities.

Expressive Arts, Special Event

Super Spring Crafts!

March 25, 2024 Mrs Hannah Leave a comment

It has been lovely to see the first signs of spring arriving at Cart Mill through our beautiful crocuses and daffodils blooming in our garden, which inspired some fabulous art artwork!

What better way to celebrate the arrival of Spring than to welcome our families to join us at our Spring Craft Event! As ever, our children brought their creativity and enthusiasm and created some wonderful transient art, spring wreaths and some amazing artwork using their foot and handprints to display on our wall!

Of course we can’t forget decorating our biscuits, which were a firm favourite!

“I putted lots of sprinkles on mine”

”I love jam”

Family is so important to us at Cart Mill, please feel free to pop in anytime for a coffee, chat or to stay and play.

Article 31 – I have the right to relax and play.

Outdoor Learning

The Bug Collectors

March 25, 2024 Mrs Miles Leave a comment

The children have noticed that when it is raining we find more worms in the garden. Today we decided to go on a bug hunt to discover what other bugs live in our garden. We started by reading the story of The Bug Collector.

We talked about all the different bugs in the story and which ones we though we might find today. The children also shared stories of their own bug hunts..

“I have a frog in my garden and one time a bee landed on my nose.”

“I saw a frog in the fountain at Greenbank Gardens.”

Next we got our magnifying glasses and our bug catchers and set off round the garden. The children said we need to look under things because the bugs like living underground. Look at all the worms we found…

We decided to move them somewhere safe so “the birds can’t get them.”

Then we discovered lots of spider webs but we didn’t see any spiders! We thought they must be hiding from the rain so we decided to make our own. We looked at the story of ‘Aargh Spider’ to see what the webs and the spiders look like then created some beautiful bug artwork…

“I made a bed for my spider to sleep in.”

What can you find in your garden? Please share with us @cartmillcentre

Article 13- Every child must be free to express their
thoughts and opinions and to access all
kinds of information.

Creativity, Expressive Arts, Literacy

Fun with words 💡🖌

March 21, 2024 Ms Partridge Leave a comment

The children have been experimenting with mark making in the clay area today using a variety of interesting materials, and demonstrated fabulous letter recognition while investigating the resources. Some children created their own names…

Other children enjoyed copying the letters themselves using the clay tools…

Some children recognised familiar letters from their friends and families names…

“How do I make Mummy? I need an M”

The children had lots of fun exploring the different sounds the letters make, and learning how they work together to create new and fun words.

“what does this say?”

”lots of words!”

“E for elephant.”

“no that’s an e”

”No it’s a big letter so it’s E! A big capital E”

The children have shown wonderful creativity while developing their literacy skills at the clay table, and most importantly had lots of fun doing it. They have even suggested we try shapes next time!

Article 29 – I have the right to an education that develops my personality.

Block building, Creativity

Creative Cement Constructions

March 19, 2024 Miss Simms Leave a comment

Today we had a discussion how we could ensure our towers did not fall down.

“Don’t move from it”

”cellotape”

“Glue”

What do you think builders use to keep bricks together.

“Cement”

We deceived to make our own cement so we got a bowl and added our two ingredients sand and shaving foam. We used our gross motor skills to stir and combine them together.

”it looks crunchy”

”it looks sticky”

”it looks like real cement”

We then began making our creations using a variety of tools to spread the cement on the blocks. The children used their fine motor skills and hand and eye coordinating to help secure the blocks together. The children had great imaginations and communication skills sharing their thoughts, ideas and creations.The children used mathematical language.while building their structures

“Mine is so high”

“ it have lots of bricks

“mine is big an getting bigger and bigger”

”mine is going to be very tall”

” I have made a castle”

“Look at my bridge, the troll lives under it”

” I have made a big tower”

” I have made a big house”