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April showers

April 5, 2022 Ms Partridge Leave a comment

Since the weather outside has been frightful today, we decided to make inside ‘spring time delightful’!
It was a bit wet and windy for the children today so we decided to have some spring fun indoors and make a beautiful spring display. The children had lots of fun being imaginative and decorating it.

We spoke about what kinds of things we might see at during spring.

“I see lambs when I’m in the car!”

“I see daffodils in the grass”

”that’s when the Easter bunny comes”

The children explored their creative streaks, planning and then making a variety of designs. Some children decorated Easter eggs, creating different patterns using various mediums including pens, sequins and different crafty resources to express our artistic talents.

Some children made bunnies and other children made lambs, daffodils and daisies for our lovely spring display!

Maybe next time you’re in the car or out a walk with your little ones , you could see what kind of spring animals or flowers you see!

Outdoor Learning, Snack

Our own Rhubarb Scones

April 5, 2022 Miss Keith Leave a comment

Today we have picked our own rhubarb from the garden to use in our scones . We could easily spot the rhubarb in the garden because it has very big green leaves. When the rhubarb is ready to use we discovered that you can easily pull it out the ground.

We then prepared the rhubarb . The children listened to some safety rules before using knives to cut it into smaller pieces. We then washed it clean and added a little sugar before stewing it in the microwave. Don’t touch the bowl now as it is very hot !

We put the rhubarb aside to cool. “Smells yummy”. As the children are now very good at making scones they were able to prepare the scone mix themselves ready to add the rhubarb. We cut out the scones using our circular cutter (sometimes it’s flower shaped) today . It’s a bit sticky so we knew that the mixture need some more flour.

The scones were now ready for the oven.

The children have really enjoyed watching the rhubarb grow in the garden then being able to pick this themselves and use in our scone recipe. This is a great way to see where and how foods get from the garden to our table. We are looking forward to discovering some more recipes using our home grown fruits.

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Spring Break!

April 1, 2022 Mrs Hannah Leave a comment

On behalf of all of the staff at Cart Mill we would like to wish our Term-Time children and families a really lovely, well-earned holiday fortnight. Please keep safe, enjoy some downtime and as much time as you can having fun outdoors.

We will be here, looking forward to seeing all of our children back in our centre again from Tuesday 19th April.

While some of our staff are on holiday, Val and the rest of the team are here for a chat or to answer any queries you may have.

Outdoor Learning, Snack

Fun at Forest School

March 31, 2022 Mrs Hannah Leave a comment

We are always so excited when it’s a Forest School day! We have been observing the changes in the Forest over the last few sessions. As it has been sunny and dry over the last week, it was safe enough for us to explore the river. We collected our nets and set off!

The water was so clear we could see right to the bottom. Unfortunately we didn’t see or catch any fish! We used a stick to measure the depth of the water and then held it against our boots so that we could see where it was safe to stand.

We found our very own stoney beach where we could look for stones and throw them in the water. As a group, we conducted a risk assessment and discussed safety rules we should follow when throwing our stones. We had to be careful to look around us and stay a safe distance from each other before we threw our stones into the water. We had so much fun investigating who could throw their stone the furthest and make the biggest SPLASH! We found lots of different sizes and shapes of stone. We were able to identify which were bigger, smaller, heavier and flatter. We found one that looked like a pizza and put two together to make a duck!

Of course we have to have snack when we’re at Forest School. We enjoyed apple, hot chocolate to warm us up and a biscuit (to give us energy!)

There was just time for us to make a few trips up our favourite hill! It was hard work climbing to the top! We were able to feel our hearts beating really fast! Our favourite part was pulling Angela back down the hill with us. She was going really fast!

We can’t wait to see what we can discover and explore next week!

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How tall is a T-Rex?

March 30, 2022 Mrs Johnston Leave a comment

The children had been enjoying the story “How tall is a T-Rex?” and we decided to investigate this further…….

We measured the height of the t-Rex approximately 12feet

12 feet = 4 children

12 feet =2 ladies

12 feet =9 chairs

12 feet=20 welly boots =10pairs welly boots

The children all used their imagination, problem solving and numeracy skills whilst working together collaboratively 😀

Expressive Arts, Outdoor Learning

Outdoor fun!!

March 29, 2022 Mrs Barnes Leave a comment

The children had great fun in the garden today. They were stacking the crates to see how high they could jump from! This enabled the children to push themselves physically whilst developing their gross motor skills.

“I can do it myself!” “Look how high I can jump!” “1,2,3 JUMP!”

The children really enjoyed climbing, jumping and challenging themselves!

We then got the parachute out for some fun and singing! We put our little star on the parachute and sang twinkle twinkle little star! We tried hard to keep the star from jumping off!

We then lifted the parachute high in the air and took turns to run under it. “It looks like a big balloon in the sky!”

The children wanted to put a bouncy ball on the parachute and roll it around fast to see how long we could keep it on for! We practiced our counting and kept it on till we got to twenty! Great job!

Finally, the children needed a rest so we sang sleeping bunnies whilst they lay under the parachute. We threw it up in the air and the children loved bouncing around under it like bunnies!

We had so much fun in the garden today.

Expressive Arts

Colour mixing creativity in the studio😊

March 28, 2022 Miss Mitchell Leave a comment

Today some of the children chose to do some colour mixing learning experiences. They decided to use shaving foam and food colouring and see what happened when the colours mixed the children thought they would mix the colours using marbles.

First they found some big trays added some foam and then used the pipettes to add different colours of food colouring. “ Its turning brown” “ Its hard to mix the colours with all of the shaving foam” “ I need more red” “ We need to add lots of different colours for a rainbow effect“

The children then got some paper and pressed it down on the foam. “ It looks lovely like a butterfly “ The younger children particularly enjoyed the sensory aspect of the experience.

Next the children decided to mix some different shades of green, orange and purple using paint. They used problem solving to decide what to do if the colour they mixed didn’t turn out how they expected, they also took turns guessing about what colour they were going to make. There was lots of opportunities to use mathematical language, such as more and less.
This activity allowed the children to have great fun experimenting with cause and effect. What a fabulous, busy day in the studio.

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Our super scientists investigate volcanoes!

March 25, 2022 Ms Taylor Leave a comment

🌋 🌋 🌋 🌋 🌋 🌋

Today in our Discovery room we were learning about volcanoes and how they erupt. We looked at pictures of volcanoes erupting in some of our books we have in the science area. To investigate more and gather more information we watched some videos of live volcanoes on our promethean board. We were amazed at how the lava could shoot out the top and then flow all the way down to the bottom.

“It looks like a fire river”

“Wow! It explodes like fireworks!”

We learned some fascinating facts during our learning.

We now know that volcanoes can be active,dormant or extinct.

The liquid inside a volcano is called magma but when the volcano erupts the liquid becomes lava.

🔥🔥🔥🔥Lava is very , very hot!🔥🔥🔥🔥

We thought it would be a great idea to make our very own erupting volcano. We used chose some art materials such as paper, paint and glue to create our volcano and even added some dinosaurs to make them run from the lava!

Now it was time for us to become Super Scientists!👩‍🔬🧑🏽‍🔬
We put on our safety goggles and gloves and some children thought it would be safer to put on some pretend ‘lava boots’ so our feet wouldn’t burn!

We listened carefully to our instructions as we had to measure out our science ingredients- 5 tablespoons of bicarbonate of soda
1 tablespoon of easing up liquid
1 cup of vinegar
Some red food colouring ( to show the lava is hot!)

We added the washing up liquid to the bicarbonate of soda and added the colouring then gave them a good mix together.
Now for the fun part! We sat back when it was time to add our vinegar and watched our volcano erupt!

Why don’t you look out some lava boots and goggles and become a super scientist? A fun and easy experiment you can try at home!

🌋 🌋 🌋 🌋 🌋 🌋

Outdoor Learning

The water cycle 🌦

March 24, 2022 Mrs Miles Leave a comment

This morning the children have enjoyed revisiting the ice gardens that they made last week. They could see the different layers within the ice and noticed that the ice was starting to melt in the sun.

“The sun is hot today.”

”The ice is melting!”

We discussed the different properties of water and this led to a discussion about where water comes from. I explained to the children that all the water on our planet continuously moves in a cycle. The sun dries up the rain and sends the vapour up to the sky where the cold air turns it in to clouds. Then once the clouds are full the water comes back to earth as rain.

We then created our own rain clouds.

We used shaving foam to represent the clouds then dropped food colouring on top to represent the rain. This is a great visual for the children to see the cloud filling up before it starts to rain. The children then experimented with adding more drops and also used different colours to see what would happen.

“It’s raining!”
“It looks like an explosion!”

“I mixed them together and now it looks like coffee.”
”Look, the orange is falling!”

The children had a great time taking part in our science experiment to learn about the water cycle. I’m sure we will be repeating this experience again in the near future.
Why don’t you try this with your budding scientists at home and share your experience on our twitter page @cartmillcentre

Expressive Arts

Junk DNA

March 23, 2022 Ms Partridge Leave a comment

Today, the children have been exploring their creativity and imaginative skills through use of Junk DNA! They loved using the book as a stimulus. We put our thinking caps on to create lots of little stories and creations using different resources.

Junk DNA can be whatever you want it to be! Some of the children made weights “to do press-ups”, and some children made some letters from their names.

“I need 3 lines to make an E. That’s my name!”

Some of the children were very interested in making small world using the junk, and made a little home.

They even made a little garden and a vegetable patch!

“Look I’ve made a little vegetable patch. And that’s the conservatory, look there’s a little doorbell!”.

Some children loved making robots too, and even some space robots with “moon boots”.

“He’s got moon boots so he can walk in space”

Junk DNA is a really fun way to develop our creativity skills, and the great thing is you can use anything at all. Have a look and see what else you can find in your homes or garages, and see what your littles ones can create from them. It’s also a good way for us adults to use our imaginations too and think outside the (tool) box! Good luck everyone!!!