Expressive Arts, Outdoor Learning

Tremendous Truck🚍 painting 😁

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Today in the gross motor painting area the children self selected the trucks to paint  on the shower curtain  .“ I think we need some yellow paint “ “ I chose green paint, it’s a lovely colour. I don’t have any green cars at home just two grey ones “


“I’m mixing green and yellow, it’s turning blue” “ My car is painting fast” “ My cars tyres are painting yellow” “ look I’m making a circle shape with my truck”” My truck is going forwards and backwards , it’s making tracks”

The children are developing their gross motor skills, hand eye coordination as well as learning about colour mixing.
The children were happy with the end result of their art work. Well done everyone your art work looks amazing 🤩

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Active learning at the tinker table 🔨

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The children have been enjoying tinkering at the tinker table……here are some of their creations.

The learning process of the creation is so much more important than the final product. Although as adults we want something to look aesthetically pleasing, the skills that the children gain are by far more important, for example their design process thinking about shapes, size, measurement, problem solving, what do they need, how they are going to make it and also risk assessing what they are doing. The children are supervised at all times and are in what’s called a ‘safe bubble’ which will protect them and others from harm. I told my 80 yr old dad that the children would be working with real tools – he was outraged a young child would hurt themselves. Given that responsibility children learn to keep themselves safe and develop their self confidence when they see their finished product. Feeling proud at what they have been able to achieve with as much or as little support as they need.

These are some of the tools the children choose when at the tinker table.  Using tools help hand eye co-ordination and fine motor skills. The tinker table is ideal for creative play, children are developing their ideas as to how things are made and enables children to have focussed, unstructured time to explore and test ideas.

Tinkering provides so much more than just the finished result.
On our next stay and play, why don’t you come and have a go at our tinker table.

Expressive Arts, Literacy

The Three Billy Goats Gruff

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This month in the clay area we have been creating characters from our favourite stories and this week we chose The Three Billy Goats Gruff. We started by reading the story and discussing the different characters then we set to work making them with the clay. We chose whether to make a 2D or a 3D model and discussed the best way to make the different features.


“My goat has huge horns!” “Look at my troll’s legs.”

Once the clay had dried we painted them then left them to dry again ready for telling the story.

Before starting our re-enactment of the story, we worked cooperatively to decide who would play each character and also compared the goats to determine which was the biggest and which the smallest. Then we were ready to get going….

“

”Who’s that trip trapping over my bridge?”

”I’m coming to eat you!”

We had a great time telling the story and acting out each part with our models. We told the story many, many times, each time swapping which role we played and taking turns with our friends. By the end of the experience we could act out each part independently without an adult reading the story for us!

A wonderfully creative and expressive experience 🐐

Literacy, Makaton, Modern Languages, Snack, Special Event

Learning some Makaton at snack time

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For learning languages week we have been learning some Makaton at the snack table.

Some of the children recognised Mr Tumble. We discussed that Mr Tumble uses Makaton to communicate. This means he is using his hand to talk. We as discovered that some adults and children might use makaton if they have a hearing loss of if they find it difficult to talk.

We looked at the signs and Fiona help demonstrate them.

The children enjoyed putting it into practice.

Here are some of the signs we have been learning at snack time.

“Hello”

“Eat”

“Drink”

“More”

“Thank you”

 

Literacy, Technologies

Exploring our senses!

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Today our little investigators took part in an activity to explore our senses. Following on from exploring our sense of smell, today we looked at our sense of touch.

A selection of item’s were chosen and hidden inside our mystery bag. Using our sense of touch the children had to guess what was inside the bag. They were encouraged to use descriptive words to describe what they could feel. Once they had made their predictions they were asked to mark make to record their findings.

Bellow are some of the items we were exploring along with our drawings and comments.

First up was a woolly glove! We took it in turn to feel inside the bag and make our predictions. Then we drew pictures to record what we thought it could be.

“It feels soft”

“It’s a glove I can feel the fingers”

“It can be a hat”

“It’s not hard it’s soft”

Next up was a feather! Again we used our senses to explore inside the bag and mark make to record our findings.

“It’s a feather I can feel the soft parts”

“It’s got a sharp spiky bit”

“It’s really fluffy”

The last thing we explored inside the bag was a carrot! Lots of discussion took place to decide what it could be. 

“It’s not mushy it’s hard”

“It’s a cold carrot from the kitchen”

“It’s got lines on it I can feel them”

”it could be a banana”

Well done everyone! lots of amazing descriptive words used and lots of amazing drawing to recording our findings. The group managed to identify all the items inside the bag.  They worked together as a team to share our predictions and make decisions.

What sense will we explore next?

Literacy, Outdoor Learning, Social Studies

Languages Week Scotland 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

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This week is Languages Week Scotland 2023 where we celebrate language learning and multilingualism in Scotland. This years theme is “Languages for a peaceful world”.

This morning the children came across some stories and we discovered they were in different languages. This got us chatting about what language we speak in and how not everyone speaks the same language.

“What does this say”

“That is the title of the story, “The tortoise and the Hare” written in Mandarin, Chinese”

”When I went to Italy I hear a different language”

“Can you say any words in Italian”

”No”

“What language is the Elmer book in?”

“The Elmer book is in English and Polish”

“ how do you speak to someone if they don’t speak the same language?”

“Say Hello”

We used the internet to find out how to say Hello 👋  in other languages and wrote them down so we could practice how to say them.

The children were developing their mark making and writing  skills as they wanted to copy the words so they can practice.

We can now say Hello in different languages to welcome our friends who speak English as an additional language.

Digital Technology, Literacy, Outdoor Learning, Special Event

Big Garden Birdwatch

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This week we have been preparing for the RSPB Big Garden Birdwatch. We discussed why birds might come into the garden. “It’s for seeds, we have some in my garden”. We then decided to to make our own bird feeders and hang them up on a branch.

The birds might need a drink as it’s been very cold and all the puddles are icy, so we made the birds their own drinking bowl “Let’s put sticks near it so they can stand on them”.

We then did some research by looking at some of the information sent to us by the RSPB which showed us lots of pictures of the birds that might visit our garden.  “ I have seen some of these birds, that’s a magpie”.

It was very exciting watching for the birds. Some were far away so we used our binoculars. Then we could see some birds sitting in the trees and on top of the houses. We then thought about where else we could see the birds so we went for a bird watch walk.

We collected our bird watch recording sheet and set off.  I will hide in the trees like a bird watcher and see if the birds come near me we have to be very quiet 🤫. Look I saw a blackbird let’s mark it on the sheet .

We managed to spot magpies, blackbirds, crows and blue tits. We all had a turn of recording the bird we had seen on our RSPB sheet, it was great fun!

The children are continuing to watch for birds in our garden and are independently recording them in our nature corner.
If you would like to join in this weekend the RSPB ask that you record the birds that visit your garden within 1 hour and then you can upload your results at rspb.org.uk/Birdwatch using the code BH35.

Everyone has worked very hard recording the information and have had great fun developing their skills of mark making, data collection, fine motor skills, health and well being and lots more. Happy bird watching everyone!

Expressive Arts, Literacy

Helicopter stories 🚁

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Today, the children had so much fun exploring their imagination and creating helicopter stories. Firstly, we worked together as a team suggesting ideas for our story outline. and we came up with a space theme 🌎

“the spaceship and the rocket are crashing into each other”

”it’s a person in the rocket”

Next, we put our thinking caps on and decided on what roles we would act out and put our story into action!


The children all had different ideas for their helicopter stories, some of the suggestions were:

“The chocolate brownie stands up in space”

”I’m the rocket”

”it exploded when it crashed at the door”

”the alien fell down with a Big Bang”

After creating our story we illustrated our characters. Great work everyone 👍

Here’s a look at the children’s fab imaginative story!

Helicopter stories are a fun way to build literacy skills, develop emotional and social skills, explore and extend a child’s imagination and gain confidence especially when acting them out to their peers. Why don’t you come up with a theme at home and see how the story develops.

Snack, Social Studies

Burns day at Cart Mill

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Happy Burns Day!

Today at Cart Mill we have been celebrating all things Scottish…

We have been making Scotland flags in the playdough area with Emma using blue and white playdough…

We have had so much fun helping Fiona to make Haggis, Neeps and Tatties, we helped to peel the potatoes 🥔 and then we got to taste it at snack time!

We also had a try at some Scottish dancing today in the discovery room… We listened to Scottish ceilidh music and practiced some traditional dance moves with the help of Gails expertise!

In the studio, we have used different coloured ribbons to create our own tartan pictures. The children were able to select their own colours and create their own patterns inspired by pictures of various tartan…

As you can see the children have had so much fun exploring a variety of experiences throughout the day at nursery! We have had a fabulous burns day  🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

 

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Super sewing in the studio😍

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Today in the sewing area we had a discussion about why we sew?

“ it makes stitches”

“”It’s fun”

“My mum sews”

We looked to see if anyone had buttons on their clothes

“I have a button on my jeans”

“My cardigan has buttons”

“My jacket has buttons”

We looked at the seam on our clothes and could see the stitches that had been made.

“ I can see lots on my leggings”

“They’re on my sleeve”

”look at my shoes”

We talked about sewing is a process of using a needle and thread to connect pieces of fabric or attach something like a button to a fabric surface. It’s a practical skill used to make or repair.

It was then our turn to have a go, some of the children chose and attached the buttons to the fabric.

“That was very hard”

“The little needle is very jaggy”

“ the eye of the needle is so small”

“I done it, it’s together”

A few of the other children chose to sew bits of material together we made holes with the punch and then used the needle and thread to attach the fabrics together using our hand and  eye coordination and lots of concentration.

“Look at mine is so colourful”

“Mine is together”

That’s so cool”

“Can we make some clothes for the puppet?”

The children had great listening and communication skills took turns  and were able to follow my instructions. Good job everyone 😁

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