The centre will close today at 1.00pm and will reopen on Wednesday 5 January 2022 to all children. The staff would like to take this opportunity to wish you all a very merry Christmas and a healthy and happy new year.
See you all in 2022.
Last Call for Christmas Concerts
Please remember that the access link to the Christmas Concerts will be removed tomorrow at 1pm so this is your last chance to view them! Thank you again for coming and joining in, we are still singing the songs in over and over in our heads!
PJs and Popcorn
Well the children had a relaxed day in their pyjamas and got comfy with cushions and blankets ready to watch a show. They also enjoyed popcorn as a special treat. Merry Christmas!
Lots of fun in the garden!
Today the children had great fun in the garden. They set up the guttering on our new stands and loved rolling balls of different sizes down the slopes. The aim was to catch the balls in the basket at the bottom!
The children showed great problem solving skills whilst developing their gross motor skills stretching, reaching and chasing the balls. They were very excited when the balls landed in the basket.
Before home time the children enjoyed having fun out on the bikes. They loved zooming around the garden and were very excited that it was getting dark! This further develops their gross motor skills, balance and coordination.
Lots of fun and fresh air today and the children showed great teamwork and amazing turn taking in the garden!
Christmas Concerts
The children were amazing today performing for the parents and family members who had come along to watch in our garden.
We loved having the ponies, Annabelle and Eddie to join us.
The children got the chance to feed them and their favourite snack is carrots.
The children give us year-round joy and it was so lovely to have our parents and families here with us today to share in that joy.
Making Christmas memories
Today in the home room the children have been busy making their very own Christmas tree ornaments using salt dough and their own creative skills!
We demonstrated good social skills by working together to carefully measuring the ingredients and adding them to a bowl to mix.
We exercised our manipulative and fine motor skills and we strengthened our muscles through lots of mixing, kneading, rolling and cutting our dough.
We listened carefully and demonstrated we are very careful when using an oven as it can get very hot! We baked our dough shapes in the oven to make them hard.
We decorated our decorations with our own choice of coloured paint, glitter and snow dust. We then tied some beautiful ribbon to them so we can hang them on our tree,
Sensory Christmas Playdough
This morning the children were making chocolate cookies with the play dough. They have been showing an interest in role play, so this lead us to a discussion about different senses we could explore .
The children used their sense of smell to test and compare the various flavours. We tested cocoa powder, peppermint, salted caramel, ginger, orange and lemon.
Ginger – “gingerbread man , Nannas house”
Peppermint – “mint choc chip”
Cocoa powder – “Christmas pudding and cookies
The children then independently made their own playdough using their favourite scent.
The children then explored with their playdough and decided to make lots of different shaped cookies and candy canes for Santa. They used the home corner to put them in the oven to bake.
Santa’s Festive Garden 🎅🏼
Santa arrived in our Garden today and gave all of the children a present. He also left presents for the children who were not here. Santa loved our Garden and he said it was the best one he had visited this year so far. 
Thank you Santa from everyone at Cart Mill Family Centre.
Science Citrus explosions
Today some of the children in the discovery room wanted to make an explosion. We decided to try and make one using lemons and tangerines. We placed the orange and tangerine onto a plate and then took the tops off and squished the insides of the fruit to bring out some of the juice. We then squeezed some washing up liquid into the juice and added some food colouring and a teaspoonful of baking soda. After we did this, we watched as the fruits exploded with colourful bubbles! It was so exciting!!
We talked about the science and how the experiment worked. Citrus fruit contains citric acid which has a chemical reaction when it mixes with the baking soda due to form carbon dioxide, which is a gas. Once the citric acid and the baking soda have neutralised each other the reaction stops and no more gas is made. The children had so many things to say about the experiment including:
“ I think the lemon has more citrus acid in it than the tangerine because the lemon has bigger bubbles”
“I want my explosion to be rainbow colours”” Look the blue and red has turned black”
“I need more baking powder I want a big explosion “ “ It feels slimy if you touch it” “The lemon smells nice”
We really enjoyed participating in this fun science activity.
Tinker Table Workbench
Over the last few months the children in the Discovery room have been practising their skills at the Tinker Table work bench. The children have learned the rules of the Tinker Table and why these rules are very important to follow for their safety. They created a rule book for the Tinker Table work bench to encourage them and others to put on gloves and safety goggles when using the tools in the tool box.
The children have been learning to use hammers and saws properly as well as learning that there are different types of saws and hammers used for different jobs. The claw hammer has been popular for creating pieces using nails as well as the children learning that the claw can remove nails. The children’s saw skills have really flourished as they now know how to hold the hacksaw properly and use their body weight to make the saw move through the wood.
With the children’s skills improving at the work bench so too did their understanding of how to better construct their creations. The children decided that they wanted to introduce glue to the Tinker Table and with that came wonderfully creative pieces.
The children have now progressed on to drawing a plan first of what they would like to create. They are looking online at images, drawing it, then thinking of how to create it with the resources at the Tinker Table.
A wonderful plan producing a fabulous rocket.
The children’s pieces have all been displayed in the Tinker Table Gallery for several months now. The children decided that they wanted to close the gallery in December and take their exhibits home to stay. I hope you are looking forward to seeing how creative your child has been at the Tinker Table workbench this year.
