Category Archives: Creativity

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!

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.

Creativity, Expressive Arts, music

World Earth Day Painting

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In Cart Mill, the children enjoy painting and exploring the use of different textures and materials.

As part of World Earth Day the children  were creating their very own planet earth by painting on tin foil using cotton buds as a painting tool.  This activity helps to promote the childrens’ creativity, whilst enhancing their fine motor skills.

First, we covered the paper plates with tin foil to create our earth.

Next, the children chose colours that represented the earth.  Blue for the sea, green for the land and white for the clouds.

Water
They described what they were painting and how it looked and sounded.

Water!


“Shiny”

“Noisy”

“Ta da”

Some of the children also created amazing artwork using the tin foil as a printing tool.  This method produced a lovely textured painting.

The children showed great enthusiasm when painting their planet earth and demonstrated excellent focus and poise.

Lovely work everyone.

We then learned some new World Earth Day songs to familiar rhymes that we already know.

Article 31 (leisure, play and culture).  Every child has the right to relax, play and take part in a wide range of cultural and artistic activities.

Creativity, Expressive Arts, Froebel, Literacy, Social Studies

Expressing our imaginations 👩🏼‍🎨

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Some of the children have been expressing themselves through imaginative play this week in our clay station, creating mini role playing scenarios.

“guess what Pokémon this is?”

“it’s an eel. And it turns into a rhino. I need to paint it so it blends in”

“I need to roll it so it’s longer. So his mouth fits on. Super big Supertayto!”

“lots of walls. So nobody can see”

“I’m making a surprise. Guess what’s inside?  Surprise! You’re at the beach!”

Other children were very observant noticing familiar letters they recognised, and sharing stories with each other through their play.

“This looks like a L. L is in my daddy’s name. How do I write Lorenzo?”

“L is in my sisters name too. It’s Lexie”

“Is your brother in my sisters class?”

Some even created their own letters using their manipulative skills to mould and shape their designs.

The children have shown such fabulous creativity in our clay area, learning lots of different skills while exploring their imaginations and having fun 🤩 keep up the great work, everybody 👍🤩👩🏼‍🎨

Article 29 – I have the right to an education which develops my personality, talents and abilities.

 

 

Creativity, Literacy

Blasting off to Planet Mars!

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The children are still really focused on learning about space in the Discovery Room. This morning we revisited the solar system. The children counted confidently that there are eight planets. Looking at pictures we tried to remember the names of all these planets.

“I know that’s Mercury because it’s the grey one!”

”Mars is the big red dot!!!”

The children decided Mars looked like the most exciting planet and got busy making a spaceship that would take them there!

”We can all sit in this big box!”

The children used their cutting, gluing and sticking skills to prepare parts of their spaceship! They had great conversations with each other about what they needed to make a super fast spaceship.

”I’m cutting the buttons for the front!”

We decided to decorate the ship with bright colours so that it would be seen in the sky! The children choose to use pom poms, sparkles and coloured paper.

“The spaceship needs fire to make it fly!”

The children added red coloured paper cut like flames to the back so that the spaceship would blast off!

”It needs to fly super fast, wooooooooooosh!”

We added some finishing touches and then jumped in to set off on our journey!  3,2,1 blast off!!!!

”I can go from side to side!”

Some of the children decided they wanted to cut holes in the bottom of the spaceship so that they could actually move it around!

”Weeeeeeeeee look we can fly to Space! Let’s go to Mars!”

What a fantastic idea that was, how inventive and imaginative! What  great fun everyone had taking turns to steer the spaceship around Cartmill!

Article 28 – You have the right to Education

 

 

 

 

 

Creativity, Expressive Arts, Literacy

Welcome to our hairdressers ✂️

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A conversation sparked between the children when some members of staff came to nursery last week after having their hair done in preparation for Derek’s Big Day.

“I went to the hairdressers last week”

” Can I do your hair?”

“My mum gets her hair cut in my kitchen, the hairdresser comes to my house”

“I go to the barbers with daddy”

The children used imaginary brushes and “honey spray” to do each others hair until it was “nice and soft”.  This morning I left a box of hair styling and barber tools in the home corner to see what the children did with them.

They tried out some of the tools, brought some chairs over and then went searching for new customers to get their hair done.

“My mum has one of these, she uses it before work In the morning”

“The baby doesn’t have lots of hair”

“Next! What number do you want, a 1 or a 2 or a 3?”

“Look at me, do you like my new hair?”

The children loved being hairdressers and barbers for the day, they were so excited to share and re-enact  their own experiences of hair cuts, at home, at the barbers or at the salon. They can’t wait to do it all again tomorrow.

“Can we do it again tomorrow?”

Creative movement, Creativity, Expressive Arts, Outdoor Learning

Street Art Garden. 🌼🌸🌺

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Some of our children have been commenting on the wonderful, colourful flowers we have growing in our garden.

This was the inspiration for our next street art creation in our gross motor art area in our garden.
We chose colours that we thought were like the ones we had seen on our flowers. One of the children wanted pink. Using our colour mixing skills, we mixed our red and white to make a pastel pink colour. We also mixed red and blue together with a little white to create a wonderful deep purple colour.

We made some flowers on our ground in chalk as the start of our street art creation and got our paints and brushes ready to use.  As we were using the ground as our canvas, we made sure we put on our welly boots and aprons to protect our clothes.

Now for the fun part. To get creating and using our gross motor art skills.

Some of our children wanted to use the paints to colour in the chalk outlines.

Some of our children wanted to design their own flowers using lots of different colours to create a rainbow flower.

We were enjoying having the freedom to create and use the paints in our design process on a larger scale.

We spoke about what kind of flowers we were making for our street art garden. We had Daffodils, Tulips, Sunflowers and even a Spider-Man flower.

Some children were finding their own spontaneous inspiration and created different shapes.

We even made numbers and fruits as well with one child creating a green apple and a yellow banana.

We had so much fun painting our street art garden in the sun and letting our creative thinking shine.

I think our street art garden looks as wonderful and as colourful as the real flowers in our garden.

Article 21 – “Your education should help you use and develop your talents and abilities. It should also help you to learn to live peacefully, protect the environment and respect other people.”

Creativity, Outdoor Learning

Our Local Landmarks

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Last week the children were creating bridges and castles. We looked up the squinty bridge ( Clyde Arc) and Stirling Castle. Quite a few of the children recognised the bridge.


So this week we decided we would go and explore our own local environment.
We had a think about what we needed to do to keep us safe when we are out a walk.

“ we need to hold hand & listen”

”watch the roads”

” walk nice”

” have fun”
First of all we passed the spider park and continued towards the forest where we could hear the water so we went to explore and we found our very own bridge! “can we pick up sticks and watch them go under bridge?”

The children had fun playing Pooh sticks – throwing their sticks and running to the other side to watch for their stick coming. We then walked further along and found an even bigger bridge.

“ it’s so big I can’t see over”

“The cars go over this one”

“I can hear the train”

“My house is up there and there’s another bridge”

It was now getting close to lunch time and it was time to head back the children were using great listening skills and road safety and  we spotted lsome more familiar landmarks Williamwood high school  and  Bonnyton House. They were also intrigued by the black and white cat.

Today the children have been busy using their gross motor skills and imaginations to build bridges similar to those they have seen in our local  environment.  The children shared their thoughts and ideas, and used mathematical language to describe how their towers were going to look. They had great concentration and problem solving skills  to ensure they would stay up and connect.

children working together as a team


“We are making the one we were on yesterday, Lots of people can walk over it .”

”mine is going to be so long”

Some of the children chose to create their own bridge.

“I am going to make a bridge for cars”

”Look how high it is”

“I have 6 cars on mine”

”“I will make one for people”

” I am putting signs on my bridge”

Creativity

Creative with Clay

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The children have shown fantastic curiosity in the clay area this week, and have been expressing themselves in lots of different ways.

Some children investigated the clay tools, exploring what different designs and patterns they could make…

Other children enjoyed showing off their writing skills…

“I can do H for Hulk!”

Others explored their problem solving skills, paying close attention to the different shapes of the resources to capture their ideas…

”that can make the eyes because it’s round”

“I’m making a holiday park. The big round shell is the pool. This tall one is like a palm tree”

“These pretty buttons can make the petals. It’s a button flower!”

Clay is a fantastic canvas for children’s learning as it is such a holistic experience. Children develop their little fine motor muscles through all the rolling, moulding and squishing as well as engage their imagination and problem solving skills too when creating their models. It can be as educational or as fun as you want it to be! Great work everyone 😁👍

 

 

 

 

 

Creativity

At the car wash 🧼🫧🚙🫧

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Our children have been showing an interest in washing the cars in the water tray. We set up a tray to drive the cars through the mud. The children had great fun running their car’s though the shaving foam, exploring the different track marks their car made before dipping it into the water to wash with soap and sponges. We discussed if anyone had been though a car wash and decided to watch a short video of a car going though one.

After some of the children helped to make a car wash for the cars to drive though. Marking some lines on the wash cloth, the children were  encouraged to cut along the lines. Then we stapled it onto the wooden frame.

“look at my track marks”

 

“My cars so dirty I need to give it a wash”

With the use of the sponges and soap dispensers, the children are developing all their muscle and co ordinations in their hand. The soap dispenser was tricky to use at first, but after a quick demonstration,  they soon got the hang of it!

All are cars a sparkly clean, but I’m sure it won’t be long before they get all muddy again. 💦

Article 31 – I have the right to relax and play