Expressive Arts

Playful pom poms

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Today the children decided they would like to make something for themselves.  We had a discussions and thought we could make our own Pom Poms.

We had lots of different ideas as to what we could use pom poms for. Some children thought they would make nice decorations ,some thought they would be good to use for ball games or as a honeypot for Mr.Bear ! 🧸

I demonstrated how to make our Pom poms using wool and a  Pom Pom maker. The children listened well to my instructions and began  by choosing what  colour of wool they wanted to make their pom poms:

We talked about how their Pom poms will look and the different sizes they will be.

“ mine is going to be big”

“I like my pink colour”

Now it was time to cut our wool to create our pom pom the children began to cut with a little support needed. We weaved the wool in and out and around our maker until we had several layers This took lots of concentration and patience!

 

Once we had our makers covered we then wrapped a piece of wool round the middle of the pom pom and tied a knot..

Carefully we then separated our pom pom from the maker.

Now we could see our own creations!  A beautiful ;colourful ;fluffy pom pom!

“ it’s like a ball”

“It’s fluffy”

“Mine is big and blue”

“So soft”

Outdoor Learning

Grassy games

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This morning we went out to the grassy area behind the nursery to play some ball games. These games are designed to encourage colour recognition, sorting and team work.
We started by playing a game of beans to warm up our bodies. In this game the children have to act out the name of the bean e.g. runner beans= running on the spot. We particularly enjoyed pretending to be French beans and calling out “Oooh la la” 🇫🇷😄

After our warm up, we played a game of pirate’s treasure where we pretend the coloured balls are gems and we have to take them from treasure island and put them in to the corresponding coloured treasure chest.

Then we played a colours game where the children run around and, when I shout a colour, they have to pick up the coloured ball as fast as they can.

After this we went completely off script as the children decided they would like to make up their own games. Here are the games we have now added to our repertoire;

Ball tig – the children run around holding the ball and when the chaser tigs you, you have to drop your ball and can’t move until a friend returns the ball to your hand.

Freeze and go- holding up the green ball means you can run around, holding up the blue ball means you have to freeze

Throw and go- holding up the green ball means you can run around and holding up the pink ball means you have to pick up a ball and throw it up to the sky.


A great fun morning with brilliant team work and creativity from the children. Well done guys!

Expressive Arts, Outdoor Learning

Holiday Tales and Shells

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The children have been returning to nursery after their holidays with lovely stories to tell us. Some of the children have also brought us shells which we have used for some creative crafts.

One of the children decided to make her own beach for her shells. First, she cut the wood and then separated her beach area, making one for water and another for sand and shells.

She then told us that she had been at the beach and had gone swimming in the water. Great story telling and creativity!

We have also been making our own shell and beach pictures including a lovely mermaid.

Whilst this activity is great fun, the children are also developing their fine motor skills , creativity and imagination as well as developing language and social skills when taking turns and discussing their pictures.

Today we used the shells to make a wind chime adding some beads to make different sounds.

We searched for shells that had holes in them or we made holes in them carefully using a nail and hammer, we had to be very careful to tap gently so that the shells did not break or crack.

We then threaded them onto the string, which was a bit tricky, before adding the beads. We now have a beautiful wind chime hanging in our garden. If you are walking past, why don’t you listen out for it on a breezy day.

Thank you for your summer themed donations and all your holiday stories, please keep them coming.

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Garden fun at Cart Mill

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We have been having lots of fun in our garden this week at Cart Mill. The children have been extremely busy and creative using their imagination in their play…

On Monday, we opened the ‘Cart Mill Cafe’ where macaroni cheese, chips and ice cream were the speciality! The children used various pots and pans, spoons and bowls and lots of mud to create their meals in the cafe. Throughout this experience the children were developing their role play and imagination skills and using real life experiences in their play.

What would you like from the ‘Cart Mill Cafe’ the next time you visit the nursery?

                              ”I’m making you some macaroni cheese”

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”I need to mix the cake, you scoop up the cake and mix it together in the bowl, it needs to go in the oven”

” Here’s ice cream, it has a flake in the top and chocolate sauce”

Then, today, we got a special show performance on our stage in the garden! The children treated us to a performance of ”5 little monkey’s jumping on the bed”. We had to be patient and wait for the curtains to open and for the show to begin…

”It’s nearly time for the show to begin”

     

The children had so much fun putting on a show for their friends, we even had some music on to dance along to!

Expressive Arts, Outdoor Learning

Amazing Architecture in Cart Mill City

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Over the last few weeks, we have spent lots of time in our construction and block play area. We are so lucky to have a large selection of block play and construction materials to choose from here at Cart Mill. This gives us the opportunity to explore our creativity through designing and building our own models.

Using one of our house plans as a guide, we chose various sizes of wooden blocks to recreate our own houses! Using our knowledge of shapes, positional language and by working together, we created a living room, dining room, kitchen and bedroom!  By adding loose parts, we were able to add some extra special features!

“There’s a kitchen. This is the living room. We’re going to make a dining room”.
“The kitchen is next to the living room.  The bathroom is behind the kitchen.”
“It’s got 2 toilets”.
“These are the statues. My mummy has statues in the bathroom”.
“It has a chimney. Steam comes out of it and the bad guys can’t come in!”  “This is my bedroom.  I’m putting a cushion in to lie on”.

Using smaller blocks gives us the opportunity to develop both our fine motor and problem solving skills by discovering how to connect the blocks together to build our models.

We all love playing with our stickle bricks and Lego.  Sometimes it can be really tricky to fit the blocks together. With a bit of patience, perseverance and using our fantastic imaginations, we have created some fantastic models!

“It’s a birthday cake with candles on it”.
”It’s a T”.

“I made a play park.  It has a climbing frame, a slide and a swimming pool”.

Working together and sharing our ideas, we were able to create our very own Cart Mill Lego city! Isn’t it fabulous! We think we would have lots of fun living there!  Can you recognise the special people who live there?

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“The swimming pool looks like so much fun. It has a bit to jump off into the water and you go up the stairs and through the door to get to the slide.  It’s got a cafe if we are hungry!”.

To challenge ourselves further, we decided to take our block building  outside! It was so much fun! Working together, we placed the blocks carefully in front and behind each other to create a path all round the Cart  Mill garden! It was sooooo big and meant we were able to walk all round the garden without our feet touching the ground (the floor is lava after all!).

 

 

 

 

Literacy

Snakes and ladders 🪱🪜

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Today the boys decided to play a game of snakes and ladders. This game encourages collaborative play, turn taking, patience!

Working together to set up the game encourages number recognition and colour recognition deciding which colour of counter you’d prefer.

Playing the game encourages touch counting, directional language forwards, backwards, up the ladder, down the snake.

“Your turn, my turn” rolling a six, gets another turn – understanding the rules of the game and developing an understanding that it may not always be your turn is a concept that some children can find very hard.

We then developed our learning experience by creating our own snakes and ladders boards.

Snakes and ladders is a fantastic game with many learning opportunities and can be lots of fun!🥰

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Who is that in the mirror..

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Today the children have been very creative in the Discovery room. They have used loose parts in many different ways.

After discovering their own reflections in the mirror they decided to use some loose parts to recreate their features using the different pieces.

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‘eyes and nose’

“that’s my face, I can use these stones for my eyes and this small one for my nose”

The children used the loose parts to sort and match by colour and practice their counting skills.

”blue like your eyes”

We counted together… “1,2,3,4,5”

Loose parts are a great way for children to use their imagination and learn in lots of different ways.  They are able to arrange and rearrange, sort, match and create their own images focusing on the process instead of the end product.

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Pancake Friday

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Did you know today was Pancake Friday? Well it was at Cart Mill! We thought it was so nice outside we should have snack out in the garden, but what could we have? Pancakes was the request. So, we decided to get to work mixing the flour, sugar, milk and an egg to make our pancake batter. Once we were all sitting down, we spoke about keeping safe around the fire.

Then it was time to light the fire

We put some butter in the frying pan so the pancake mix wouldn’t stick but we noticed very quickly that the butter had melted in the pan before it had even got near the fire. That made us wonder, what made it melt? After a lot of thought, we realised that the sun had been so hot in the sky, it had melted the butter!

We put the pan on the fire and added our runny pancake mix and we sat and waited. What did we begin to notice? Bubbles! There were little bubbles appearing on top of our pancake mix. We learned that this happens because the heat is cooking the pancake mixture.

Once there were a lot of bubbles it was time to flip our pancakes. Because we were outside at the fire pit, we decided that flipping them in the air might be a bit dangerous so we used a spatula to turn them over. When the first one turned over it was different shades of brown.

“it looks like the world!”
Soon all the pancakes were ready to eat, we put some butter on them and enjoyed them round the fire pit.

Cart Mill’s Pancake Friday was a hit!

Expressive Arts

Getting Creative with clay using sea shells 🐚 🐚

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Today in the Studio room We have been sharing stories of summer, our holidays together and the fun days we have had with our families at the beach. 🐚  😎 ☀️
We have made sand castles, splashed in the sea, and when digging in the sand or looking in rock pools we have found and made sea shell collections. We looked at some shells we have in our nursery and discussed the different shapes, sizes and colours they were.

“This one’s got a crab in it” 🦀

 

“It feels smooth”

“This is a big flat one” 

“This one is bumpy”

“This one is round and bumpy “🐚

“ we can hear the sea in it”

First we made a round ball shape by rolling the cold sticky clay in our hands. We then pressed it down to make a flat shape before pressing our shells on to the clay to make some beautiful prints and patterns.
We found by pressing the shells into the clay we could make our own fossils!

Creating art with clay and shells gave the children endless ways to get creative and explore different textures through nature.

Clay also stimulates the children’s curiosity and imagination whilst exercising their fine motor skills when rolling, pressing and moulding.

We sat our clay shells  aside to dry out before we painted  them to make some colourful decorations for our nursery and home gardens.

“ I am going to paint mine blue and white”

“ I want to put on lots of colours on mine”

” I am going to put on lots of glitter on mine”

The children express and developed there creative skills and strengthen there fingers and hands and arm muscles.

What can you make at home using your sea shell collection? Let us know how you can be creative ! 🐚 🐚 🐚 

 

 

 

Expressive Arts, Outdoor Learning

Kandinsky kids

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We have been learning about different styles of art while developing our gross motor mark making skills and this morning we have been looking at the work of the artist Kandinsky. We discussed how the circles could have been created and the different colours he used. We noticed each adjacent circle was a different colour. Then we started creating our own using the mini mops and a selection of colours.


“It’s like a rainbow Easter egg!”


“It looks like a tornado. You’re going to get sucked in to it!”

Then we decided to try a different method and use brushes to make smaller circles.


“Look at all my spirals.”

Absolutely amazing pieces of art created and some good messy fun!

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