Sunflower seeds

Here at Cart Mill we were very lucky to have received our good to grow package from Morrison’s, thank you to all the parents who supported us with this.

After having a look at the seeds the children asked to plant  the sunflower seeds.

We read about  the life cycle of a sunflower then  gathered together our plant pots, soil, trowels and seeds then set to work.

“we need to leave room for the seed”

”the seed got stripes”

After carefully planting our seeds we filled our watering can to give the seeds a drink before we very carefully carried them to the greenhouse.

“seeds need water and  sun to grow”

We are so lucky to have received a donation of sunflower seeds from Barrhead Garden Tidy team.  The team worked hard to harvest seeds from their own sunflowers which they have carefully packaged with sowing instructions on them.

We have used our excellent mark making skills to create some planting instructions and a lovely Sunflower display at our front door.  Please feel free to take a packet of seeds.


We would love you to share your photos of your sunflowers growing with us.  Why not ask the children to measure them and we can have  a competition to see who’s sunflower grows the tallest!

 

What is a scientist?

Today we have been learning about and  discussing scientists.

In our science area  during a group discussion we used a mind map to  record what we already know  and knowledge we could share with each other.

Here are some or our thoughts……

“ A scientist looks at things with a magnifying glass “

”They make explosions ”

”They investigate things”

We looked at things  as scientist might wear and why. Some of us tried dressing up as one.

“They wear coats so they don’t get messy from mixtures and gloves and goggles to keep their hands and eyes safe”.

We  looked at some of the equipment that a scientist might use with their experiments. We looked at magnifying glasses and microscopes and we learned that they help to make things bigger and  easier to look at. At first we found it a little bit tricky as we has to focus the lens but we soon got the hang of it and had fun exploring and looking more  closely in our Discovery area.

 

We took time to look at and read through a popular book we have in nursery. It is called ‘Ada Twist Scientist’. This book tells the story of a girl who has lots of questions and always wonders how things work and why. We watched her story on our Promethium board to help tell us more about how  Ada  the scientist  investigates things.

Do you have questions about how things work? Or what new things can you discover together at home?

 

 

Planting and growing 🌱

Today in our lovely sunny garden we were super busy planting our potatoes. We had previously left our potatoes in our greenhouse in the sun to chit, so we looked to see if our potatoes were ready to be planted, they were so we got started. The children used their gross motor skills for digging, carrying and lifting the soil over to where we are growing our potatoes, they then placed them into the black bag and covered them in soil again.

The children will be taking responsibility for the care of our vegetables in Cart Mill’s garden and that we will need to make sure we are watering them regularly, especially when the weather is sunny. We discussed what things we needed to do to look after our vegetables and also that we will need to be patient while waiting for them to grow.

Easter Fun at Cart Mill!

It’s been such a busy week at Cart Mill.  We are so looking forward to our holiday weekend! What better way to end the week than having a fun day!

First of all we decided to have an Easter Egg hunt to make sure everyone has had an egg to take home.  The eggs were tricky to find, but with a bit of teamwork and encouraging each other, we managed to find them all!

Next it was time to practice our directions and positional language on our bikes! We were able to go forwards and backwards, stop and start,  fast and slow, and race each other round our track.  We drew our own arrows and reminded each other to follow them so that we didn’t  have any crashes!

We created our own obstacle course and carried out our  own risk assessments to decide how many crates we would feel safe to jump from.

Then it was time to see who could roll the cable reels the furthest!
We were exhausted after using up all of our energy outside so it was time for some Peter Rabbit  and some popcorn and fruit for snack.

Have a lovely holiday weekend everyone.  We look forward to welcoming you back when we reopen on Tuesday.

 

Numbers, Numbers all around.

Today in Cart Mill we went on a number hunt. We searched high and low for numbers. We found them everywhere. Some were hard to spot!  Luckily more helpers joined us on our hunt to spot some more. We discussed that numbers are all around us and why the numbers we found are important.

We found numbers on the clock on the wall. Those numbers are important because they tell us what time it is.

We found numbers on the buttons on the phone. We know that you need to dial lots of numbers to phone somebody.

We found numbers on the microwave. We know those buttons tell us how long we need to put our food in for to heat it up.

We found numbers on the stage, those numbers help us with our action songs and games we preform while on the stage.

We even found numbers on our clothes. This number is important because it tells us our age.

Numbers really are everywhere at Cart Mill. Number recognition is a great skill to have. It helps us with so many tasks, and introduces us to the importance of numbers and what they are for.
Maybe you can go on a number hunt in your house, or even spot numbers when you are out in your local area or shopping.

Easter Egg Hunt 😀

We had our very own Easter Egg Hunt at Cart Mill today!

Our older children demonstrated egg-cellent leadership skills by hiding the eggs for their friends and giving a wee helping hand to find them!

 

We found some egg-cellent hiding places…..

While our friends played “Sleepy Bunnies”

Then the fun began.  We popped on our beautiful Easter bonnets and off we went!  We all took turns and worked together.  It  didn’t take long to find all the eggs!  There were some great hiding places!

We had so much fun and we all received an egg to take home….. We took our time to choose which colour of egg we would like!

The wheels on the bus

Today in the Discovery room we were learning about transport. We looked at different pictures of ways we can travel to and from places.

We shared stories of places we have travelled by bus, cars trains and some of us have been on holiday on aeroplanes.

”I have been on bus with my brother and daddy”

“My favourite is a plane ”

We thought about how we could create our own transport by using our variety of blocks. Together we decided to make our own bus so that we could go a trip to the zoo and beach. We displayed great teamwork and together we chose which blocks would be best to make our bus.

First we built up the side of the bus using the longer pieces. We found that the square block would make good seats on the bus for the passengers. We made a special compartment for the bus drivers.  We made doors for everyone to come on and off the bus. We added a fuel tank to ensure we had enough to get home.


Our bus door

That was us ready to take our seats to go on our adventure to the zoo. It gave us a great opportunity to sing one of our favourite songs The Wheels  On  The Bus.

Spring has Sprung at Cart Mill🐥

Today we have been discussing Spring.  Some of the children were able to identify things we may see during Springtime.

“birds making nests”

“flowers on trees”

“Baby animals being born, Lambs”

“spring flowers in gardens and parks”

We have some lovely spring flowers in our playroom, the children decided they would like to paint them. We talked about the different types of spring flowers for example Crocus, Hyacinth and Bluebell.

” I seen bluebells in the woods”

“daffodils are my favourites because they are yellow and in my front garden ”

“I like tulips the best because my Mum has them at home”

We pegged our daffodils and tulips to a line and put mirrors underneath them. We noticed that we could see the spring flowers reflection in the mirror.

“I can see the purple tulip, I want to paint it on the mirror”

“I’m painting the yellow daffodils in the mirror”

The children enjoyed mixing different tones and shades for their spring flowers. They noticed the differences between the petals on the flowers.

“The shapes are different”

We discussed the different parts of the flower.

“that tulip has the longest stem”

At the end of the day the children didn’t want to throw away their creative work, so decided to print their mirror painting onto a big sheet of paper to make a spring freeze next week.

Well done, great team work everyone.

Internet Safety

Today in the Discovery Room the boys and girls have been learning about staying safe online. The children enjoy using the Promethean Board and are beginning to explore and investigate different things online so we decided we needed to find out how to stay safe while we were ‘surfing’.

We watched Hector’s World to help us learn about keeping our personal information safe, it is a very informative cartoon which helps us understand what internet safety means.


The children were very curious and discussed how Hector was able to stop his friend, the crab, from sending his personal information all the way across the ocean to lots of other creatures he didn’t really know, just to make new friends.

After the video we discussed that not everyone is your friend especially online. Even though people try to make friends with you, we don’t know everyone. Everyone spotted that Hector was a really good friend to crab as he suggested that crab should not to use his real name. Hector helped crab make up a user name to use which would keep him safer. Hector even knew not to let crab send his address to anyone he didn’t know.


We then discussed how we can keep safe on the internet. Some of the children said :
“We can ask our mummy’s and daddy’s or grown-ups to help us to keep safe on the computer”

“I have a password on my tablet so no one can play my games”
“My daddy has a password on his phone so I can’t get in”
“Passwords are used so we can keep our information safe”.

We discussed how some passwords are made up from our favourite names, colours and numbers so that we can remember them. We then decided to have a go at making our own favourite passwords up.
Look at our favourite passwords!

 
“Batman”

“Elsa“

Some were secrets ones so we can’t tell you 🤫

We had so much fun exploring and investigating how to keep personal information safe.
Why not visit Hectors World and his friends again at home and enjoy learning more on how to keep safe on the internet.

Sharing stories in spring

Today in the Home room was all about stories. We enjoy exploring stories together in our story area.
We like sharing stories together in different ways. We can share stories as part of a group, listening to a story being read by an adult.

When we read stories together, we are learning about taking turns, when to talk and when to listen, learning new vocabulary and sharing our thoughts and feelings as part of a group.
Today we discussed all things Spring during our story. We read about big and little nut brown hare sharing their ideas about Spring. We discussed our ideas and found out it’s “when the sun gets a little warmer” and “I know it’s Spring because it’s my mummy’s birthday in Spring”.
We can also explore stories with our friends, forming our own ideas about what the story can be about from looking at the pictures. If we recognise the book we can use our recall skills to retell the story.

Sometimes we can use visual aids to help us read a story. Visual aids such as puppets are a great way for our visual learners to interact with the story. Today the Gruffalo was helping read the story all about his adventures in the deep dark wood.

Sometimes we don’t even need a book to tell a story. We can use our imagination with different visual aids to bring our own stories to life, such as puppet shows.

We can also use role play to act out as characters from familiar stories, our become our own characters.
Story telling has so many learning opportunities for our children, it’s great to tell these stories in a way that captures the interests of our individual children.

What way do you like to share stories together at home?

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