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Mondrian inspired creations

June 22, 2022 User deactivated Leave a comment

Today in the garden following on from the children’s interests we were inspired by the work of the artist Piet Mondrian.

We discussed how the artwork was created using line, shape and primary colours, then we set about making our own creations.

“A square has 4 sides”

The children were developing both their fine and gross motor skills by pinching the chalk and using cross body movements to place the tape.

“It looks like a window”

Some of the children asked to use the tape independently to make their own designs and what a beautiful design it was, well done everyone.

Outdoor Learning

Sports Super Stars!

June 21, 2022 Mrs Barnes Leave a comment

This week the children have been enjoying sports week. We have been participating in many different sports activities both in the garden and out on the grass! Thankfully the weather has been kind to us so far! The children have been showing their competitive sides and throwing themselves into the races!

One of their favourite races has definitely been the sack race! We are so impressed at how good the children have been at this showing off their fantastic balance and coordination skills!

The egg and spoon race (using bean bags) was great fun, Some of the children managed the whole race without dropping it, especially the ones that were holding it on!!! We also ran balancing the bean bags on our heads! This was tricky but the children showed great perseverance to get to the end!

Throwing the rings on to the cones proved to be very popular! The children enjoyed this game and really tried their best to get all the rings over!

We have some really good jumpers at Cart Mill so the long jump was very successful. The children ran up to the rope and jumped as far as they could landing on two feet! The action photos show how much fun this was!

The good old running race is definitely still a favourite! The children just love to run anywhere and everywhere! We had races in the garden and out on the grass and the children particularly enjoyed running down the hill!

Sports fun will continue for the rest of this week. I think we may have some future Olympians or maybe the next Usain Bolt here at Cart Mill!

Digital Technology, Expressive Arts, Outdoor Learning

Exploring Wood

June 20, 2022 Miss Keith Leave a comment

We have been making lots of lovely creations at our woodwork bench which got us wondering, where does the wood come from? We knew the answer would be found online, we asked the question and it took us to a short film we could watch describing how wood comes from the trees.

We had a look round the room to discover what we had that was made from wood. We found chairs, storage cupboards, construction blocks, a toy toaster from the home corner.
“We have a lot of wood in here”.

We then took our search out doors into the garden which was full of different pieces of wood lots of different sizes, textures and shapes. We have sections of tree trunks in our garden so we could see the whole trunk of the tree. We could see the bit right in the middle, called the pith. Then we could see lots of rings and finally we could see the bark on the outside of the trunk. When you remove the bark, the wood changes colour underneath. “Some of the bark just falls off in the forests 🌳 I see it when I go to the woods”

We then moved back to our woodwork area and chose some materials and fun resources to make a new wooden creation. We all worked together and discussed what we would like to add to our work of art. The children talked about the sizes and textures of the materials they were using to make their models. These included a cat house, planes, chairs and beds for their dolls. All the while this was helping develop their fine motor skills plus hand and eye co ordination. The children’s skills and imaginations plus creativity are amazing, watching what they create each day is lovely. We would love to receive any pieces of wood or bark you might find when out and about.

Expressive Arts, Literacy

Let us entertain you!

June 17, 2022 Ms Taylor Leave a comment

We have had a busy day in our Studio. We have explored our creativity and imagination through art and storytelling.
Using a selection of junk and art materials we were able to build our own puppet theatre.

We shared and discussed what our favourite fairy tale stories were and who our favourite characters from popular stories were. We then listened to some stories before creating our own puppets. Using our great craft and motor skills when glueing, sticking, cutting and drawing we made our very own puppets all ready for the premier of our puppet show performances.

“ I’m making a fairy for my story”

” Sleeping beauty is my favourite so I’m making Aurora “

Once our audience settled, we began our performances! We sat very patiently and demonstrated good listening skills while we all had a turn of being the puppeteer. For some stories we needed some help from a friend to puppeteer alongside us as it got a bit tricky trying to hold all the characters at once!
We used our loud speaking voices to introduce our characters and the name of our stories we would be re-enacting. Some of us were a little shy and nervous to begin but when it came to our turn our confidence shone and we were able to re-tell familiar and popular stories using our own words such as ‘The Three Bears’, ‘Goldilocks’, ‘Sleeping Beauty’ and ‘Jack and the Beanstalk’. Some of us were able to make our own stories up using our puppets we created.

Well done boys and girls you have been great entertainers! We all enjoyed listening and watching your stories and had so much fun with our puppet theatre, why not give this a go at home? You could make up your own puppets and stories!

Literacy

Spider Puppets

June 16, 2022 User deactivated Leave a comment

The children have shown an interest in spiders and today in the noisy and quiet room we decided to create our own spider puppets. We did this in the small world spider area that has been set up for the children to explore their spider interest further.

First, we had a read over one of our favourite spider books and discussed all the different types of spiders you can get . We found out that the first spiders lived about 300 million years ago, even before dinosaurs roamed the earth. We found out spiders are not insects and most spiders are web weaver some, weave sheet, funnel shapes webs, triangle webs and the Orb spider spins a beautiful pattern of many different circles .

”That’s my favourite one he’s called the Tarantula and he is very hairy “

”That goddess turned into a spider”

” This spider has got 10 legs “

we then set to work creating our own spider puppets, for this we used paper plates, pipe cleaners, googly eyes, glue, sellotape and some pencils.
we began by sticking our googly eyes onto our paper plates and by doing this first it allowed us to see where the holes for our spider’s legs should go.

“ I am going to put on eight legs on my spider “

“ my spider is a daddy one”

we used the tip of a pen to carefully poke holes for our fingers to go through to create the spider’s legs. Some of us wanted more legs for our spider so we decided to use pipe cleaner to create more .

look at our lovely spider’s!

The children enjoyed making their spider puppets whilst learning lots of facts about spiders and developing their fine motor and language skills.
why not give it a try at home and make your own spider puppet and put on a puppets show! Let us know how you get on, have fun!🕷

Outdoor Learning

We’re going on a bug hunt 🐞

June 15, 2022 User deactivated Leave a comment

In the garden we are taking part in the 30 day wildlife experiences. The children chose day 23 which was a bug hunt, we searched for our favourite mini beasts.

We worked as a team, flipping over logs, checking under stones, looking through flowers, soil and the grass.

“I found a ladybug” “Look there’s a worm”

There are so many benefits of going on a bug hunt;

Learn about insects
Observational skills
Social skills
Exercise and fresh air
Encourages children to explore

After searching for our mini beasts, we decided to make our very own butterfly feeding table. We gathered all the materials needed and got started. The children showed brilliant fine manipulative skills when cutting and gluing.

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

Now we wait for the butterfly’s to come visit our garden.

Expressive Arts, Literacy

Mark making with the Cars

June 14, 2022 Miss Brown Leave a comment

Today the children were showing an interest in the different cars ,trucks and trains in the Discovery room. We decided to collect some items to see if there were different to do with the cars.

We collected:

“A big, massive piece of paper”
Scissors
sticky tape
Pens

We taped the paper to the floor but the children also wanted to tape the pens to the cars to see what would happen to them.

” The train drawed a line and then a circle”

They realised when they moved the trains and cars on the paper, the pens were leaving a trail behind them.

The children noticed that by using different sized pens that the marks were different sizes.

“It looks like my dads map of Scotland, with all the lines on it”

Mark making is an important step in a child’s journey in learning to write. This allows them to practice holding a pencil and learning to control their marks. This improves their fine motor skills and helps to develop their hand- eye coordination.

Mark making can also encourage creativity by giving the opportunity to communicate through drawing and using their marks to tell a story.

” My truck is going to follow the track to find the other cars”

Expressive Arts

Blocks Rock!

June 13, 2022 Mrs Hannah Leave a comment

We have been very busy in our block area today!

Using our excellent problem solving skills, we explored measurement and balance. We were able to identify which blocks were “lighter” and “heavier” and discovered we needed to put some of the heavier blocks on the bottom of our towers so that they didn’t topple over!!

It was so much fun adding in our small world figures. We worked together to build stairs for them to climb into their houses and we even constructed a lego train which had a bed to sleep in!

Next we decided to use our larger blocks to build “somewhere to give money out”. We decided we needed steps and a seat “so we can give the money out to people”. Using our measuring skills, we were able to compare the size of each block and identify which were “bigger” and smaller” and discussed where we should place them so that it “would be safe to climb on”. Placing the blocks together we discovered that 2 of our smaller “square” blocks were the same size as “the rectangle one”.

“this one is bigger”

Collecting lots of loose parts gave us lots of “money” and we took turns being “the person who gives the money to people”. Everyone demonstrated excellent turn taking, counting and negotiating skills!

Block play enables us to explore logical and abstract thinking, use our imaginative and creative skills and develop our communication and negotiating skills, while having lots of fun!

Outdoor Learning

Exploring our garden

June 10, 2022 Miss Mitchell Leave a comment

Today in our garden we have been exploring a variety of areas. We have been focussing on developing our fine and gross motor skills and practiced this by using our pincer grip to create a den. We also used our obstacle course and pieces of material to develop our den building skills.

We have also been making the most of the huge puddles the rain had left us overnight! We put on our puddle suits and wellies and had lots of fun jumping in the muddy puddles. We have also been practicing measurement by pouring and filling using different sized containers.

And finally, we have been developing our balancing skills on our obstacle course that we put together ourselves. Look at how high the children can jump and their excellent balancing

Expressive Arts, Literacy

Scribble while you wiggle.

June 9, 2022 Miss Campbell Leave a comment

Today in the Studio Room we were scribbling while we wiggle. There is lots of activities we can do to help us on our journey to writing. The first step is ensuring we have the gross and fine motor skills ready to hold our pencils.
We used material and scarfs and chose our song to wiggle to.

First we copied Emma’s actions moving the scarfs round and round, twisting and twirling. Then we listened to the rhythm of the music, and then we all used our own movements to control the scarfs.

Another activity we can scribble while you wiggle to is painting to music. We chose music from an orchestra and listened to the sound each instrument made and painted what we thought the sound would look like.

Was it a splash or bang, would the sound make us paint long strokes or short.

We used paint brushed but one of our children decided to use her hands to represent the sounds she heard.

Another scribble while you wiggle activity our children enjoy is using large paper and a wide range of mark making resources to mark make and use scribble streams. We chose the instrumental Encanto songs. This music was fast with an upbeat tempo and we used different movements with our pens/pencils to this music.

We enjoyed working together and showing each other what we had created and what we each thought the music sounded like. We even used our turn taking and sharing skills. This is a great activity enjoyed by all our children from 2-5years old.

Why don’t you have a go at scribble while you wiggle at home? What do you think sound looks like?