Local Landmarks

Today in the discovery room we looked at some different landmarks in and around Glasgow. We used the tablet, lap top and promethean board to search and look at popular landmarks we may have visited.

We demonstrated good listening when we sat together and discussed what we knew about the places we looked at. We were able to share stories of places we had visited with our families. Two of the most recognisable were the Clyde Arc which a few children recognised as the Squinty Bridge and one child shared with the group his own name for it – ‘The Scotland Bridge’. The other one being Kelvingrove Art Museum -“that is where you see a big dinosaur, but it only has bones”.

We took our findings and landmarks to our block area where we showed great team work when we re-created Kelvin Grove Art Museum using a variety of blocks of different shapes and sizes.

The children were extremely creative with their design and creation of the Cart Mill Kelvingrove! Perhaps they can display some of their own works of art in it!

Magic backpack adventure

Good morning adventurers, it’s time for another adventure. Let’s make our map and find out where our adventure will be today.

Today we will be going over the high, snowy mountains. Across the wavy river filled with sharks, snakes and grumpy fish. Into the Forest with tall trees and long grass, but watch out for those cheeky monkeys. Then finally we need to search for X marks the spot.

Our magic backpack will help us along the way. It will provide us with all the tools we need, but it’s not always what we ask for that we get. Let’s pop on our backpacks and get ready.

Off we go to find the mountains, we checked the map to make sure we were going the right direction. When we arrived we couldn’t climb the third mountain, it was too high. We reached inside our magic backpack saying the magic words “magic backpack, magic backpack have you got a ladder.” And it did. Up the ladder we climbed and on to the next spot on our map.

We asked the magic backpack for a boat to help us cross the river, but instead we got rope, wood and a hammer. So we got to work to build our own boat. We have to be quiet and not wake up those sharks as we sail past.

Time to check the map. Where to next, the forest. We had to ask magic backpack for help to climb the high trees and we got spiky shoes and binoculars. Once we got over the tree and into the long grass we had to crawl past to hide from the cheeky moneys.


We made it past, and finally it was time to hunt for the X marks the spot!
We are such great adventurers we found it, hidden in the garden. We went back to our backpack to ask for a spade to help us dig up our treasure.

Once we collected our treasure it was time to go back and tell each other what treasure we found.
“I found a chocolate sauce.” “I found golden coins.” “I found a monster biscuit.”
Time to hang up our magic backpack now, till the next adventure.  Maybe you can make your own map and take your magic back pack on an adventure at home.

World Book Day

We have had lots of fun celebrating World Book Day here at Cart Mill!

We sang our favourite songs and rhymes such a Twinkle Twinkle, Incy Wincy Spider,  Wheels on the Bus and Humpty Dumpty during Book Bug with Emma and Gail.

We had to work together as a team to keep Incy Wincy Spider up in the air! We were so excited to guess what was inside the box and which song we would sing next!

We did lots of bending and stretching following the actions of Head, Shoulders, Knees andToes and Peter Hammer with Gail.

Thank you so much to our parents and children who recorded their favourite stories to share with us.  We really enjoyed watching them on our big screen!

Gail read us a lovely story called the Wonderful World of Weather.  We have chatted about our favourite stories and read some of our favourite books.

Our budding authors have created some potato characters and stories of their own.  Other children have made their favourite characters from books. How many can you recognise?

 

 

Balancing skills

This morning in the garden we have been working on our balancing skills. We used loose parts to create our Muddy Movers course which helps us strengthen and improve our gross motor skills. We are becoming very confident in our balancing skills, so we decided it was time to make the course a little more challenging! We had a look in our cupboard and found some bean bags and some egg and spoons! We decided to challenge ourselves and see if we could balance the beanbags on our heads and the egg on the spoon as we walked around the course.

We started by discussing what it means to be balanced;

“It means you don’t wobble.”

“You need to practice.”

”You put your hands out to help.”

The course is designed in a way that helps us to assess our own risk and abilities.

We like to use our loose parts to make changes to our course every day. We can choose to walk along the plank on the ground or if we are feeling confident, we can step up and walk along the bridge.


By keeping a beanbag on our heads, this encourages us to keep our heads up, or the beanbag will fall off! This helps us improve our balancing skills.

We had to walk really carefully to make sure the egg didn’t fall off the spoon!

We demonstrated excellent balancing today! We were getting faster and more confident each time we competed the course.

We had so much fun!

Pancake 🥞 Day

Today is pancake day and the children were very excited to make pancakes for snack. We had a look at our recipe and gathered together our ingredients. The children had a look at the numbers on the scales and jug to make sure we measured the correct quantities.  We then added everything together and used the whisk to blend it into a smooth, runny consistency ready for cooking.

We had some fun tossing our pancakes in the air and catching them in our pan.  This helped develop their hand and eye coordination skills and also  their balance.  We also enjoyed our Bookbug session with stories and a few renditions of “pop a little pancake into the pan”.

At snack time the children chose what they would like to have on their pancakes. We had bananas, strawberries, raspberries or lemon juice.  “This was a great snack”. There was lots off discussion amongst the children about who had pancakes for breakfast today . This social time helps the children with language and taking turns during the conversation. “Hope my mummy makes pancakes tonight “ .

The children asked if they could make more pancakes in the afternoon. It had been such a long time since we had cooked pancakes on the fire we asked Val and Fiona if they would light the fire. It was a big yes so we spent the afternoon in the sun, around the fire pit having… MORE PANCAKES!

The children watched as the pancakes turned from a liquid into a solid and commented on the bubbles!

‘We can see bubbles! That means they’re ready to turn!’

3D number fun!

Today we had lots of fun exploring the loose parts and creating our own 3D numbers. The children loved using resources throughout the room to help them write our number board out, and help with numbers that were a little tricky.

 

The children were very creative, using different loose parts to express their own interpretation of numbers. We spoke about the different shapes in numbers, and how we could display it on our board.

“I need two lines for number 11”

”I need a circle shape for number 10”

Some of the children then extended their learning even further by suggesting finding the corresponding  numbers to match their 3D creations. What a fabulous idea 💡

Have a look at some of our creations we made. Well done everyone!!

The children loved using their imagination and being creative with the loose parts, I wonder what we can create next?

Clay exploration

Today we have been enjoying exploring the clay table.

The children decided to use some natural resources to make different models, we used some mini lollipop sticks, sea shells, sticks, little wooden slices, etc to create them.

The children found it tough to roll the clay out. So i asked them what they think clay is and what they think they could use to roll the clay.

“It’s play dough”

” It’s not Play dough its too hard”

” We could use a rolling pin”

The children used the rolling pin to roll out the clay.

“We can use our hands to roll it in a ball like this”

Clay helps to develop fine  motor skills as the children are using their hand muscles to manipulate the clay as they roll, stretch, squeeze it. They are also  using their gross motor skills as they use their large muscles to press down on the clay as it is tougher than play dough.

“look at the shell it looks like it is on my clay now”

We have been making different patterns too.

 

“I made some pretty biscuits, have one with your tea”

The children have been using their imagination to come up with different things to make with the clay.

Snow much fun!!

We were so excited to see so much snow in our Cart Mill garden today.  We had so much fun investigating how deep it was and how it felt to touch. We even made a Snow Angel!

“It’s cold. I’m picking it up and making a snowball.”

We are so lucky to have a large open space next to our garden with lots of hills which are perfect for sledging!

“I was going so fast”.

We had so much fun racing down the hill to see who could go the fastest! Sami joined in too but we reached the bottom before she did!

Next it was off to the Spider Park.  We decided to call it the Snow Park today!

We had so much fun playing snow tig and making snowballs!

We demonstrated excellent teamwork by pulling each other on the sledge round the Snow Park.  It was hard work!

Of course we have to make a Snowman on a snowy day!  We worked together to roll our large snowballs and found some sticks to use as arms. We made a big snowman and a little snowman.

“This is his head”  ” He has arms.”

After all our hard work it was time for snack. Of course we had to have some hot chocolate to warm us up!

We had snow much fun today!

People who can help us

We do love a story here at Cart Mill! Our favourite story today was about Emergency Services and people who could help us.  In particular, the children enjoyed hearing about fire engines.

We chatted about the colour of the fire engine and the sound it makes in an emergency!!!

We love to role play so we found some firemen puppets and used them to re-enact the story.  We were able to discuss what we think firemen do and what we would do if we were firemen!

We love to sing at Cart Mill. Gail taught us 5 little firefighters standing in a row. We were able to sing along and add in our own actions.

Why don’t you sing the song at home!

5 little firefighters standing in a row

1,2,3 swoosh swoosh they go

hop on the engine with a shout

quicker than a wink and the fire is out!!!!

We may have plenty of future fire fighters from Cartmill 🧑🏼‍🚒

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Magic Beanstalk

Today in our garden we had lots of fun making our very own magic bean stalk!

After reading the story indoors, the children were super excited and wanted to make their own beanstalk. So we did some research to find all the materials that we needed.

We placed a handful of cotton balls into our individual jars, sprayed them with water to dampen them and then, just like Jack we threw our magic beans into the jars. Now we all have to be patient and wait and watch, checking on them every day to see if they start to grow. Do you think they will grow to the sky?


“It’s going to grow so big”

“It’s going to be just like Jack’s beanstalk”

“I can take this home to show mum”

This exciting experience allows the children to observe the changes in plant growth over time and helps them develop knowledge of seasons and life cycles.

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