Outdoor Learning

The Cart Mill Campsite!

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This week at Cart Mill, some of the children have enjoyed building dens, sparking discussions about camping. To further explore this interest, we decided to embark on a fun learning experience by pitching a tent and creating the Cart Mill Campsite!

First, we worked together to set up the tent, following the instructions and learning about its different parts along the way. Through this activity, the children not only learned practical skills but also developed important social skills such as effective communication, sharing responsibilities, and supporting each other.

We began by carefully laying out the tent, taking our time to select the perfect spot and ensuring that it would fit just right. With teamwork in full swing, we joined the tent poles together and skilfully threaded them through the fabric, gradually bringing the tent to life

We focused on securing the tent to the ground by hammering the pegs firmly into place. Working together, we used our strength to make sure each peg was secure.  One of our group stressed the importance of this, saying “It will keep it from blowing away in the wind”

 

One child suggested making a campfire, remembering how they had learned it at forest school by rubbing sticks together. Excited, some of the children got busy gathering sticks from the garden and creating the pretend campfire to cook on and keep warm.

The tent became a provocation for imaginative play, allowing the children to explore role play camping adventures, fostering creativity, storytelling, and role-playing skills. We even gathered around for some campfire songs, with “10 Fat Sausages Sizzling in a Pan” being a firm favourite, helping the children practice counting backwards from 10 to 0.

Some of the children gathered inside the tent for a story. The children chose a book that sparked a discussion about what jobs we could so when we grow up.  Take a look below at some of the suggestions.

“I want to a builder”

“I want to be a king”

“I want to be a dragon”

“I want to a teacher”

“I want to be a builder like dad”

“I want to be a princess doctor like the story”

” I want to be a vet and look after dragons”

It was a fantastic experience that combined learning and fun, fostering a love for camping and outdoor exploration in our little Cart Mill campers. 🏕️🔥🎶

(Article 12) (respect for the views of the child)

(Article 28) (right to education)

Article 29 (goals of education)

Article 31 (leisure, play and culture)

life cycles, nature

Life cycle of frogs 🐸

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This week at Cart mill we have been reading the book “The teeny Weeny tadpole”. This got us discussing the life cycle of frogs.

The life cycle of frogs is a super interesting part of life. Our children have been so fascinated with the four different stages of the metamorphosis process.

We have been learning that the frog goes though four different stages of life. Starting with the female frog laying eggs. Once the egg hatches, the tadpole is born with a tail.  As the tadpole increases in size it begins to grow legs and arms and soon becomes a froglet. The last stage is when the froglet grows into and adult frog and no longer has a tail.

“This tadpoles has legs”

“mine has arms and legs it’s a froglet”

Though the small world play in our water tray the children have been exploring the different stages of life and the environment frogs live in. We started off by making the frogspawn which we added to the water with plants, pebbles, logs, flowers, frogs, tadpoles, froglets and other insects we would find living in and about a pond. The children have been so engaged in their play, discovering the tadpoles and froglets in the water. They have enjoyed comparing the different stages, putting them into order, building a habitat in and out of the water, lining up the frogs, creating frog family’s, splashing them into the water and most of all sharing their new found knowledge about the frogs life cycle.

We have also been very lucky to have a friend with a pond who has brought in some of their tadpoles for us to get a up close look. The tadpoles are around 5 weeks old and have started growing legs.

The children have been very curious about the tadpoles and have been asking lot of different questions.

“Where did they come from?”

“Are they real tadpoles?”

“When will they be frogs?”

Some of the children have also been busy coming up with some names.  So far we have Stormy, Bob, Keekey, Tommy, Boo-boo, Tingy, and Lady.

We hope the tadpoles come and visit again so so that we can see the change in them.🐸

Creative movement, Expressive Arts, Froebel, Imaginative thinking, Literacy, Outdoor Learning, Social Studies

Dandelion tea in our mud kitchen cafe

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We have really been enjoying our mud kitchen area in our nursery garden. The children have particularly enjoyed the role play aspect of our mud kitchen.


We have been using the mud, water and utensils to create lots of wonderful muddy meals.  The children have turned our mud kitchen into the “mud kitchen cafe”. The children have been taking it in turns to  see who will be the cook and who will be the customer.  This has been especially enjoyed by our 3-5 year old children.

This week in our mud kitchen cafe some of our children noticed there were some dandelions growing in our garden and wanted to use them as part of the ingredients for their muddy meals.

The cooks got to work mixing, whisking and cooking the delicious muddy meals and daffodil tea.

We were using so many skills during our role play, such as gross and fine motor skills, creative thinking, imaginative play, problem solving and learning new vocabulary.

Once the food was cooked at the kitchen it was time to take it to the table to serve the customer

and pour the dandelion tea.

We also used our early writing and mark making skills to create our menu board to tell the customers what they could buy and how much it was going to cost them.

Our older children have been great role models for our younger children helping them to develop new skills and guiding them how to play.

Within our mud kitchen we have noticed the enjoyment the 2-3 year old children have gained from pouring and filling using the mud kitchen utensils. We set up a pouring and filling station on our tough tray in the mud kitchen to engage our younger children and follow their interests.

The children had so much fun using the water to fill up the different sized utensils and containers pouring them from one to the other or down the plastic gutter.

Our younger children were using their pouring and filling skills while developing their curiosity.

We had so much fun mixing and whisking the water just as if we were cooking in the mud kitchen cafe as well.

We loved pouring and filling the water so much we even made a puddle to splash in.

If our hands got too muddy and we didn’t like it we used our water jugs to wash away all the mud from our hands if we wanted to continue to play before going inside to wash our hands with soap.

I wonder what we will be serving in our mud kitchen cafe tomorrow?

Article 31 – I have the right to relax and play. 

Creativity, Froebel, Imaginative thinking, Mindful moments

When Harry Potter came to Forest School!

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It was a dull and wet start to forest school today, but in true Cart Mill style we didn’t let that dampen our enthusiasm! We popped on our waterproofs and off we set!  As we are such experienced explorers, we were able to navigate our way there, remembering the busy roads we had to cross and to look our for “the white house with the rainbow flower in the garden we saw last week!” so that we knew where to turn to find our forest.   Being our usual inquisitive self’s, we spotted some signs along the way.  At Field Grove we were able to spot “that’s an L for my mummy’s name.” “My mummy has an L too, and my brother has a r”.

When we arrived at our site we remembered all the hazards we had chatted about last week and were able to carry out our own risk assessment and set our boundaries.

Bug hunting has been a real area of interest and we have been doing lots of research on bugs.  What better place to search for “real” bugs than in our forest!  Off we set with our magnifying glasses 🔍.  It was so much fun to search under logs, on trees and even in the mud to see what we could find!


We were amazed to find “sammy snail”,  “super slug”, “colin” who was a millipede and a whole family of woodlouse! Who knew we would find a baby worm that “looks like an angry eyeball”. Dr Doolittle had better watch out! 🐛

“It’s a C for my name”.

“Look it’s crawling on my arm!”

Of course as it was so wet we decided our bugs would need a bug house! After lots of discussion we collected our building materials. Working together we built a “super special” house for our bug family.

“This can be the roof.”

“This stone is big.  They can sit or sleep on it.”

“This can be the food. They might be hungry.  I’m hungry, when can we have snack?”

After a quick snack and a wee recharge we noticed the sun had appeared! Off we set to find some sticks! This sparked an impromptu game of forest “freeze” and “unfreeze” using our “Harry Potter wands” while “Harry Potter” himself flew above us on his “broomstick” along with “a flying car that goes invisible”.

“I’m Harry Potter flying on my broomstick”.

”I’m flying.  I’m in a flying car. I can spread my wings and fly over you”.

Before we left we had a wonderful mindful moment, sparked entirely by a cry of “stop talking and listen”. “I can hear the birds.  They’re making a woo hoo sound”.  “I can hear the wind blowing through the trees”.  We even spotted a pigeons nest high up in the trees.

Our tired legs got us back to Cart Mill safely, even spotting a number sign along the way.

“It says 20”.

This week we have been navigators, explorers, bug hunters, builders, flying cars and our favourite of all, Harry Potter! We truly do have fabulous forest schoolers at Cart Mill and we can’t wait for another amazing adventure next week!

Article 29 – I have the right to an education which develops my personality, respect for others’ rights and the environment.

 

 

 

 

Uncategorized

Some marvellous Monday fun for our little scientists 😍

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Today some of the children wanted to do the sticky ice experiment for today’s experiment. We used some ice and then put some thread in the centre of the ice cube. Then we sprinkled salt onto it waited a few minutes and just like magic the thread had stuck to the ice cube enough for us to lift the cube up using the thread. I explained to the children that salt lowers the freezing point of water making the ice easier to melt. After sprinkling the salt around the thread the melted water is affected by the surrounding low temperature and freezes again so the thread and ice are frozen together.

The next experiment the children asked to do was the blow up the balloon without blowing experiment. Firstly we had to measure out 100mls of water into a beaker. We then added two spoons of baking soda and poured the mixture into a bottle. We then carefully used the funnel to fill our balloon with two spoons of citric acid put the balloon on the lip of the bottle and poured the citric acid from the balloon into the bottle.

To the children’s delight the balloon started to slowly inflate. I explained that the reason for this is baking soda is an alkaline substance that reacts with acidic citric acid to produce a large amount carbon dioxide gas the more carbon dioxide produced the more the balloon inflates. The children followed my instructions and measured the ingredients out accurately  they quickly realised that the more baking soda and citric acid they used the bigger their balloons got.


Our last experiment of the day was to see if oil and coconut milk which we added food colouring to would mix the children quickly seen that it doesn’t. This is because the molecular structure is very different as is their density so that when the milk is dropped into the oil it forms small droplets.
Well done everyone, you made predictions about what you thought would happen next, studied cause and effect and answered my questions about what actually happened during the experiment. You truly are the best scientists.

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Sensory Fun

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We have been trying out some fun sensory experiences this week.  We tried mixing custard powder with water which gave us a really smooth surface and was  hard to press into but when we lifted it up it became all runny “wow its like magic“. Did you know this is called a non Newtonian fluid?

The children enjoyed watching the mixture do its magic.

The girls and boys were able to use some great descriptive words when playing with the magic potion.  “ My potion is very sticky and cold” and it’s like a bath bomb my mummy uses.

We were able to talk about the visual elements how thick or thin, rough and smooth as well as shape, colour and patterns. What a lot of things to learn!

Our next sensory experience we decided should be crazy soap as this is always a favourite

The girls and boys enjoy moulding this foam and squeezing it through their fingers . It feels very tickly  in my hands.

This week we have made up some sensory bags. We made jelly to put in one of them although we had to use our muscles to try and break the jelly into pieces, this helps develop our fine motor skills.

Everyday we had something different in our bags and we had great fun guessing what might be in the bags, what colours they were and what the would smell like.

It was decided that the jelly bag was the best it smelled so good and was nice and “squishy”. The beans went all yucky and were cold so not as good. The tomatoes were good as you could make patterns in them with your fingers. We also had lentils one day, they felt really different.
Sensory experiences help us use all our senses while we explore them.

Article 13 – You have the right to play and learn through new experiences.

Creativity, Imaginative thinking

Outer Space

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As you may remember the children had a great time creating their robot alien a few weeks ago.  To continue along that theme, we decided to  make our own spaceship! Luckily we had a huge box that was exactly what we needed.  After much discussion, it was decided how it should look, that it was to be painted red, and off to work we went displaying great teamwork.

It was great fun imagining where to go and we chatted about what planet would be the best.  This led us on to learning all about the planets in our solar system.  We learned a great way to remember the planets by saying this sentence My Very Excellent Mom Just Served Us Noodles

We decided that we would like to make some planets using balloons, newspaper and wallpaper paste. Everyone really enjoyed the texture of the paste and spreading the paper with their hands.  We are still in the process of painting them before we hang them up for all to admire.

“the paste feels slimy and cold”

“it’s very gooey”

”I like how it feels slimy”

“This is where we live on planet earth”

Who knows where our imagination will take us next!

Snack

Beautiful banana and blueberry muffins independently 😁😁😁

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Today at Cart Mill we enjoyed some delicious banana and blueberry muffins.  The children are familiar with this receipe but today it was carried out independently by a 4 year old with the only assistance given was with the oven.

He collected all the ingredients he needed.

He could recall the measurements and weighed out what he needed

He peeled his banana using his fine motor muscles in his strengthening hands.

We used coconut milk and he poured out just enough using a measuring jug, supporting his numeracy skills.


He mixed all the ingredients together very well

And divided the mixture evenly into the cupcake tray

When he had finished making the muffins he washed his dishes and put all his ingredients away….well done, what a great job today!!!

Ingredients :

3 scoops of gluten free flour

1 scoop of sugar

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon xanthum gum

100 ml of coconut milk

some blueberries and a banana

Try to make these delicious muffins we can always guarantee lots of tasters if you need any. 😜

Article 24 A right to be healthy

Block building, Creativity

Building Bridges

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This week we decided we would use small blocks and loose parts to build our bridges.

The children began exploring the different materials provided  and using their fine motor skill and hand and eye coordination  to connect the pieces together.

“ this is too heavy, it’s going to fall.”

“This is really hard”

“Mine is a bit wobbly”

The children used problem solving skills while exploring a variety of ways to ensure the creations did not fall apart. The children shared their thoughts and ideas with each other.

“ I think the clips are too big and they bend”

“ glue would be good”

”mine are staying together”

”I like the pegs the best”

While building the children were discussing what they were creating and continued to share their thoughts and ideas.  They used mathematical language to describe their creations and had great concentration skills.

“Mine is strong and long”

“I am building a bridge which  is going going to be so long”

“I am going to build a big one for cars”

”mine is for cars too”

We then decided we would check how strong our bridges were. and chose a car or person to put on it.


“ I have 3 cars on”

”I have 3 people”

”I have 3 cars and 8 people”

The children were delighted at how strong their bridges were and that they were able to hold cars, figures or both.

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