Uncategorized

The Cart Mill Sewing Bee 🧵 🪡

March 28, 2023 User deactivated Leave a comment

We have been super busy today at the sewing area making a variety of fabulous creations. A group of children have now mastered using a needle after lots of practice, they are now able to join materials together and begin making their own creations. The children have been using technology for inspiration, drawing out their design, cutting and sewing together, further developing their fine motor and hand eye co ordination skills.

“I want to make a cuddly elephant.”

“I did it, can you take a picture to show my mum.”

“I’m making a love heart pillow for my mum.”

“I’m very good at drawing love hearts.”

A few of the children have been creating models at the tinker table and continuing on with their design at the sewing area, using their imagination and creativity.

“I’m going to measure it on the bed.”

“One pillow is a rectangle and the other is a square.”

“My toys at home now have a bunk bed.”

We have also been having lots of fun practicing our sewing techniques at the sewing table, Great job boys 👍

“I’m going to cut a big bit of wool.”

Our sewing area is a calming place for the children to sit and relax, plan, get creative and have discussions with each other, developing their communication skills.

Uncategorized

Cart Mill’s Ice Cream Factory

March 24, 2023 Mrs Miles Leave a comment

In the small world area we have continued to learn about how our food gets from farm to fork. This past week we have been learning about where milk comes from and what other foods can be made from it.
We started by learning about milking the cows.

Then we learned the milk can be used to make butter and experimented with making our own. We put cream in a tub and shook it and shook it and shook it until it turned in to butter. We listened to the song Shake it Off and had a dance while shaking! Then we spread some of the butter on a bit of bread to taste it.

Then this morning we used the milk to make ice cream! First we made a mixture of milk, cream, vanilla and a little sugar. Then we popped it in a bag and sealed it then popped it in another bag and covered it in ice. Then the shaking process began again…

We took the mixture out and had a feel;

– “It’s freezing!”

– “It’s all hard!”

– “It’s a solid now!”

Then time for the best bit…… the tasting!

Expressive Arts, Literacy

Inspirational Artists 👩‍🎨🧑‍🎨

March 23, 2023 Miss Campbell Leave a comment

This week in the Studio Room the children have been investigating the art styles of the Spanish artist, Antoni Gaudi. He had an ostentatious style of mosaics called “Trencar”. This means “to break”. Gaudi created mosaic forms by putting together broken ceramic tiles, plates and cups.

We used some different types and textures of materials such as felt, foam, tissue paper and shiny paper. We started with some pre-cut shapes to start us off. But we soon got adventurous and used our scissor skills to create our own shapes.

We created our own “trencar” using these shapes to bring our creations to life.

Some of our older children could write their name on their finished art works.

Then pop them into the drying rack, to dry the glue.

We had a cup that was made in the style of Gaudi in our curiosity cube this week to show our children some 3D Art.

We were able to look at the mosaics pattern on the cup. We looked at how the lizard was made up of different shapes and colours.
We used the cup for inspiration to create our own still life drawings.

We have had a very creative, inspirational week in our Studio, learning about Gaudi and his “Trencar” art style.
here is some of our own interpretations.

I wonder what artist will inspire us next week……

Literacy

Wednesdays are for visiting dinosaurs in far away lands🙂

March 23, 2023 Miss Mitchell Leave a comment

Today the children decided they would like to make a story map using dinosaurs. They had great fun creating different habitats for their dinosaurs to live in.“ I’m writing that it’s a dinosaur world we are making” “ I found my same stegosaurus in the book” “ I’m drawing some grass for my diplodocus to eat he’s hungry from walking for a long time”

”I’m drawing around the triceratops’s he’s quite big” “I drew a cave I wonder if my eight dinosaurs will fit in it” “ My dinosaur is going for a swim in the pond”

“This is my triceratops he’s going to eat the purple flower for his lunch.

“Oh no my dinosaur is on fire” “The volcano is to hot”

“It’s okay he can go to the pond he’s not hot now” “ He’s going for a swim”

“The pterodactyl is flying over his land” “ He might fly down on his friends and eat them “ The children were very imaginative with their story telling .

“ I have a sonic dinosaur he is very fast” We thought that next week we could move onto story’s about woodland animals.

Snack

Fragrant Fruits

March 20, 2023 Miss Simms Leave a comment

The children have continued to use their favourite fruits chart and have been taking turns asking their friends what fruit tastes the best.

We had a discussion about what our five senses are and what body part you use for each one.

Taste “- your mouth”, tongue”, “ I lick my lips and taste”
Touch – “with your hands”
Smell – “My nose”
See – “eyes”
Hear – “Ears”

We decided we could use another one of our senses to gather information using our chart. The children chose their sense of smell to try and guess what fruit was in the cup.
We prepared the fruit and put them in our paper cups and covered it with a paper towel sealed on with an elastic band.

Everyone gathered their cups and charts and went to ask their friends to smell the fruit and say what their favourite smell and what they thought it was, before making a mark on the chart to record their answer. The children all had different favourites but were very good at identifying the correct fruit just from its smell.

We then all came back to the table and counted up all the marks we had gathered to see which one was the most popular.

“Apple has 9 it is the favourite”

” Orange has the most on my chart”

“ watermelon had none but I like watermelon”

We discussed our favourite smells before making a plan to use a different sense for our next fruit identification, what sense do you think we chose?

Uncategorized

Slimy, Squishy Beans

March 20, 2023 User deactivated Leave a comment

Today in our malleable area the children enjoyed some sensory play with beans supporting brain development, and learning about the world around them.

Through this play the children are developing fine motor skills through tactile play, developing language, improving co-ordination, as well as fine/gross motor skills. Improving social skills such as communication and co-operation.

“I eat beans at home“

“They’re sticky”

We used all sorts of utensils to scoop, fill, pour, mash and weigh.

We used big spoons, small spoons, slotted spoons and watched the sauce “drip drip”through.

“I’m mushing the beans”

“Tap tap tap”

“Scoop, scoop, scoop”

“Wow it’s slimy”

“Look it’s slipping”

“Look squishing up”

We also had a go at balancing the scales with various degrees of success.

Uncategorized

Exploring technology in the studio

March 17, 2023 Miss Mitchell Leave a comment

As part of STEM week, the children have been exploring technology in the studio room by using the promethean board to create pictures.

The children were able to explore the different features of the ‘Actispire App’ by selecting different colours that they wanted to use..

”I’m using the yellow colour”

”I can pick black for my picture”

The children then used their gross motor and fine motor skills to perform different movements with their arms to create their picture on the board.

”I can do a circle”

”My picture is red and wavy like this”

”I can do a green colour on my picture”

T discovered that he could control the board by using the mouse pad on the laptop, he chose this as his preferred way to make selections for his picture.. great problem solving skills!

He then used the Ipad to take a picture of his creation all by himself.

Uncategorized

Caring for our garden

March 15, 2023 Mr Edwards Leave a comment

Today in the Cart Mill garden Derek had a couple of helpers to check in on our seeds and see how they were coming along. Take a look at some of our seedings starting to sprout up.

We looked at the seed trays and noticed that some of the pots had more than one seed growing in it. We decided to separate these so they would have more space to grow.

We gathered everything we needed compost, seed trays and our gardening tools. Using a stick we were very careful and removed the seedling. They were very fragile so we were super careful when we separated them.

We looked at the seedling and learned about the different parts. We discussed the stem, the leaves and one of the children identified the roots.

We filled the new trays with compost ready to plant one seeding in each space. Being super careful not to break the seeding we made a hole and planted them in their new homes.

“They will get big roots now”

“They will have more space”

Once we had planned the seeds in their new homes we watered them and placed in indoors so they are warm and ready to grow.

Article 28
You have the right to education.

Article 1
Everyone under the age of 18 has all the rights in the Convention

Literacy

What can you SEE👀?

March 13, 2023 Miss Brown Leave a comment

It’s STEM week! (Science, Technology,Engineering, Mathematics)

Following on from learning about the sense of hearing in the science area we have been talking about how many senses there are and what they all are. We found out there are 5 senses. Today we discussed which of our senses we would like to focus on, we chose sight.

The children looked through the microscope to SEE the different specimens on the micro slides.

“I can see it, it looks like a little bit of grass from the garden”

“It’s tiny stones” “Now it is BIG”

Next we did an experiment to SEE if the items we chose would Sink or Float. We discussed each item before it went in the water. We predicted whether each individual item would float or sink, developing our critical thinking skills.

“The golf ball will sink”

“Why do you think it will sink?”

“Because it’s heavy”

“The pom pom will float”

“i know, it’s not heavy, it’s light”

”I can see it sinking all the way to the bottom”

We used our mark making skills to record our findings. The children made tally marks for each item and recorded them on a table.

“3 floated and 2 sinked”

For our final experiment, the children used pipettes (developing their fine motor skills and hand- eye co-ordination) to add different coloured food colouring to individual glases and then filled them up with water.

In each glass they added a paper towel so that half was in one glass and half in the one beside.

We watched as the coloured water transferred from one glass to another causing some of the colours to mix creating different colours in the empty glass.