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Super Soup!

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Our Cart Mill children have been thoroughly enjoying our new lunch regime. We are very excited about our new lunch menu and we have been tasting lots of delicious  new foods.

One our favourites is Stephanie’s super lentil soup. It is so yummy!

Pouring our own water helps us develop our measuring skills  and promotes independence . We are very careful not to spill any! We are also very good at turn taking and passing the jug carefully around the table.

Sitting around the table together helps us develop our language and communication skills. We love to discuss what foods keep us healthy and can recognise and name our favourite fruit and vegetables and discuss our likes and dislikes!

“I like cucumber, do you want some?”
”I like the red pepper, I don’t like the green”

We also further developed our fine motor skills by using the tongs to select our own crudités.

We love to help tidy up and practise resetting our table for our friends to have their lunch!

“We need to clean the table. Then we need a bowl and spoon for our soup”

“I’ll put the water and vegetable tray out”

Our super soup got a big thumbs up today!

“I’m finished. It was so yummy!”

 

 

 

 

Expressive Arts

Musical mornings!

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Today was a musical morning at Cart Mill. We have been learning all about percussion. We have learned that a percussion instrument is an instrument that makes a sound when it is hit, shaken or scraped. We have been using our information sheet to help us learn which instruments are part of the percussion section.
We had a look in our instruments baskets and picked the percussion instrument we wanted to play.

The xylophone was the most popular choice and we all took turns playing it.

We discussed how each instrument should be played. Do we hit, shake or scrape them?

Next we experimented with the sounds each instrument made. Was it a loud sound? Was it a nice sound?

We discussed pitch, rhythm and tempo. We played our percussion instruments fast, slow, and softly.

We followed the instructions of the conductor just like in an orchestra so that we knew when to play.

We sang songs and made our very own Cart Mill percussion band.
What other instruments can you think of that are percussion instruments?

Expressive Arts, Literacy

Book Bug fun!

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The children in the 3-5 room have been engaged in different rhyming experiences this week, and have shown an interest in a variety of rhyming nursery songs and story books too. We have been talking about words that “sound the same at the end” and what that means. We have had lots of fun games like “find the rhyme”. Maybe you could play something like this at home! Start by finding an object, and try to find a word that sounds the same at the end (or rhymes). Some examples we had in nursery were “sock” and “rock” or “spoon” and “moon”. It can be as simple or as complicated as you want 🙂

We have been enjoying our rhyming and singing nursery rhymes so much that Book Bug even came for a visit to hear it!! We look forward to hearing what rhyming objects you can find over the weekend 🙂

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Super Science!

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This morning in the Discovery room the boys and girls took part in a science experiment. This experience was to introduce the children to the mathematical concept of volume. Within this experience some children practised their measuring skills, while others were encouraged to share  their knowledge of primary colours and what happens when you mix colours together.


Some of the children have been exploring 3D shapes  and shared their knowledge by discussing what 3D shapes the containers represented.

The children listened carefully to instructions while we explained that 500mls of coloured water would be added to every container on the water tray. The children then had to decide if they thought the container had enough space inside to hold the volume of water we were going to be pouring in.

Great fun and giggles was had watching the smaller containers over flow with the coloured liquid.

Lastly,  we mixed the coloured waters together to see what would happen and guess what colours would appear.  Why don’t you try the volume experiment at home?

Outdoor Learning

Patterns in the sand

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This morning we have been creating patterns in the sand trays. The children have used the pattern stones to print a pattern and have also been using sticks or their fingers to trace the pattern. Some of the children even started creating their own. We have enjoyed discussing the different shapes within the patterns and what we think they look like.


“They’re squares.”


“It’s a 1, 1, 1, 1.”


“It’s my name.”


“I think it’s curly.”


“I’ve got stripes. “

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Sensory Play

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Today the children found a packet of marshmallows and were keen to explore and investigate them.

 

Using an iPad they researched what things they could make. We found a recipe for marshmallow playdough so we chose that.

The children measured out the marshmallows and poured some vegetable oil into a bowl.

The recipe asked for the marshmallows to be melted and the children asked how they would do this. They talked about it and used the microwave in the staff room to do this.

After 30 secs the microwave pinged and they were excited to see what the marshmallows looked like. They noticed that they had all melted but looked hot.

They brought the bowl back to the playroom and added some cornflour to the mix. Using their super muscles they took turns at mixing it.

It’s very soft
It’s sticky

The children enjoyed exploring the texture of this new play dough and by adding dried oranges and lemons added to their sensory experience.

Expressive Arts

Let’s count with Bookbug!

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Today Bookbug came to visit! Bookbug knew we have been taking part in Maths Week Scotland here at Cart Mill and wanted to introduce us to number songs and rhymes.
BookBug brought his box filled with wonderful visual aids, puppets and books to help us have fun with our numeracy and maths skills through our songs and rhymes.

We started off by singing our welcome song to warm up all our voices.
We sang our number songs next such as 1,2,3,4,5 and 5 little peas. These songs teach us to count forwards in sequence.
We then sang songs such as 5 little ducks and 5 fat sausages to help us practice counting backwards in sequence. Ours songs also introduced us to early mathematical concepts such as adding and subtracting.

Then the stretchy Lycra came out and the puppets were bouncing and jumping up and down! We were using our listening skills, hand-eye co-ordination as well as numeracy and rhyming skills.

We all enjoyed singing number songs with Bookbug.

Numbers are all around us. Songs and rhymes are a fantastic way for us to learn and develop our numeracy and mathematical skills. What number songs can you sing at home?

Expressive Arts

Exploring shapes

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Maths week in the toddlers has been great fun! We have been super busy. Today we focused on shapes.

The children were exploring common 2D shapes on the geoboard. They were able to confidently name the shapes and use their fine manipulative and problem solving skills to put the elastic bands around the nails to create their shapes.

The children had lots of fun learning and creating shapes. We decided to get creative and use shapes for printing!

From an early age, children notice different shapes, even if they don’t yet know that the shapes have names. Giving children lots of practice with shapes helps them solidify their understanding of the two-dimensional structures. That knowledge of shapes gives the young children an advantage in many areas of learning.

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Fun with shapes

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Today in the garden we had great fun identifying and creating shapes to celebrate Maths Week Scotland.

The children collected various loose parts such as blocks, large and small planks, tyres and crates and used them to explore the properties of different 2D shapes.

We then worked brilliantly as a team putting our knowledge into practice as we made our very own large shapes!

“Our square has 4 corners! “

”A triangle has 3 sides!”

Can you be shape detectives and find any 2D shapes around your house?

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Maths Week Scotland in the Discovery

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This week is Maths Week Scotland. The children in the Discovery room are showing off their number recognition skills.

“We can match the pebbles with the numbers”


They decided to use our loose parts box to match the parts with the numbers eg. “It’s number 7, we can use 7 pebbles”

”what about sea shells, 1,2…6,7”

Loose parts are not just shells and pebbles, they are open ended resources meaning they can be used for anything, counting, sorting, making patterns, transient art. The list goes on.


The children then decided to sort the numbers in order from 1-9, they worked together to swap them round until in the right order.

“Put the 5 next to 4 and 7”

”Number 3 is upside down”

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