Category Archives: Creativity

Creative movement, Creativity, Digital Technology, Expressive Arts, Outdoor Learning, Snack, Technologies

This weeks summer learning at a Cart Mill!

July 12, 2024 Mr Edwards Leave a comment

This week at Cart Mill, we explored a wide variety of activities across all our rooms. Take a look at what we’ve been up to!

In the discovery room it’s been an exciting week exploring forces. We were highly engaged with an activity using balloons attached to cars. It was lots of fun using our observation skills to identify if the air coming out of the balloon was strong enough to move the car back and forth, enhancing our understanding of motion and forces.

In the garden the weather has been kinder this week, allowing us to enjoy the outdoors more. With Wimbledon underway, we decided to have our own tennis tournament and learn all about this exciting racket game. Exploring our technology skills we watched a game of tennis on the smart board, discussed the rules, and then took turns playing on our makeshift court. This fantastic activity kept our bodies active and helped develop our motor skills and hand-eye co-ordination. No Wimbledon experience is complete without strawberries! Our children in the Home Room were busy chopping them up for us to enjoy. Yum!

Lots of fun was had creating enormous bubbles in our garden! Everyone enjoyed this sensory experience immensely. Using washing-up liquid and water, we mixed our own bubble solution and used our fine and gross motor skills to create fantastic bubbles. We then explored cause and effect by blowing the bubbles and popping them with our fingers.

In the home room at the playdough table, we have been experimenting with our playdough recipe and created some delightful chocolate playdough. By adding vegan drinking chocolate to the playdough mixture, we crafted a fantastic sensory experience to explore. The rich scent and smooth texture of the chocolate playdough added an extra layer of excitement to our play. Using loose parts, we created imaginative models, enhancing our creativity and fine motor skills. We also enjoyed spreading the playdough to see how thin we could get it.

In the studio we engaged in mark-making using a variety of paints and tools, providing a rich and creative environment for us to express ourselves artistically. Lots of fun was had through exploring patterns using rollers, discovering how different pressures and movements could create a wide range of textures and designs. Using sponges, we experimented with shapes, learning how to manipulate the tools to form circles and squares. Paintbrushes allowed us to delve into our own unique styles, mixing colours and creating beautiful creations. This activity not only enhanced our fine motor skills but also encouraged us to think creatively and express our emotions and ideas through art.

We ventured outside the nursery to visit the park and explore the large field behind us. At the park, we enjoyed playing on the swings, developing our balance on the wooden beams, and building our confidence on the large slide. The field provided ample space for running and playing games. We participated in running and crawling races with our peers, promoting physical fitness and teamwork. These outdoor activities were fantastic opportunities for us to develop our motor skills and enhance our social interactions whilst enjoying the fresh air and sunshine.

Come back next Friday to see what fun learning activities we get up to next week!

UNCRC Articles: Our activities this week align with several articles from the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC):

Article 13: Freedom of expression
Article 31: Leisure, play, and culture
Article 28: Right to education

Baking, Creative movement, Creativity, Expressive Arts, Froebel, Imaginative thinking, Literacy, music, nature, Outdoor Learning, Snack, Social Studies

What have we been doing at Cart Mill this week?

July 5, 2024 Miss Campbell Leave a comment

This week at Cart Mill we have been taking part in a wide variety of learning experiences across each of our playrooms and our garden.
In our Discovery room we have continued along our Jack and the Beanstalk learning journey by investigating “forces” and “travel”. Our mission was to find a way for Jack to get to and from the castle without the giant seeing! To do this we decided to fill the balloon with air and let it go to see how far it would travel towards the castle. It’s been so much fun seeing how much air we need to make the balloon go fast or slow.

In our Studio we have shown an interest in diggers and have been using the water tray as our construction site. We used dried rice to represent the dirt and had great fun using the construction toys to fill, empty and transport the rice. We used our technology skills to look at videos of real construction vehicles on our smart board. This experience had such a great level of engagement from all our children, especially our younger ones. We even found a Danny go video called “digging in the dirt” to all join in with, incorporating our health, well-being and movements skills.

In our Home room we have continued to develop our baking skills by researching recipes, measuring ingredients and making yummy vegan treats for our afternoon snack! The best part was taste testing our baking!
In our playdough area we have been experimenting by adding different scents to our playdough. We’ve tried peppermint, lemon and orange extracts. We even tried chocolate powder to make chocolate playdough. It smelt so good and looked just like chocolate. This week we decided to wander out to the the planting area to choose herbs and flowers to introduce some different scents. We picked basil, thyme, garlic and some flowers. As we grow in confidence, we are able to make our playdough independently using our self serve playdough station. It has been lots of fun choosing loose parts to add to our playdough and creating wonderful models.
Between the smells of playdough and daily home baking our home room smells delightful.

And finally our garden! The weather has been a little varied this week with showers of rain in between the sunshine. As usual, we didn’t let that stop our fun! We have used the gross motor rollers to mark make, played role play games using the play house and even took part in music and movement games such as head shoulders knees and toes. We extended our muddy movers skills by playing catch with the sticky ball and catching mitts. It was lots of fun taking turns with catching and throwing.

We all love learning through our play at Cart Mill! I wonder what we will do next week during our summer adventures?

UNCRC article 28- we have the right to play.

Creative movement, Creativity, Expressive Arts, Imaginative thinking

Creative Painting

June 26, 2024 Miss Keith Leave a comment

Today in the studio we decided to have some fun with the paint using our hands and feet! Firstly we laid down a clear shower curtain and chose colours of paint to “squirt” onto it.
How are we going to mix the colours together ? Using our problem solving skills we came up with some good ideas.
“We can roll around ! And I can use my feet . Be careful it is a bit slippy!”

We have developed our tactile and sensory skills from touching the paint and feeling it on our skin and between our toes. This also helps us develop gross motor skills and balance. We discussed colours and watched them mix together .

As we explore the paint, some of us enjoy fully covering ourselves as a form of self – exploration.
As we become more experienced artists, we demonstrated excellent gross motor skills by using our hands and feet to walk through the paint.

After all the fun we had with our body painting, we were able to hang our art work outside and use the remaining paint to draw shapes and letters on it with brushes. “A pointy A for my name”.

“I made a circle ⭕️”.
We all had a great morning having the freedom to discover and choose ways to be creative.

Article13 – I have the right to find out and share information.

Creativity, Literacy

Billy’s Bucket

June 21, 2024 Mrs Johnston Leave a comment

Today we enjoyed the book Billy’s Bucket, a story about a boy who wanted a bucket for his birthday! Using his wonderful imagination, he described all the exciting events that happened and the sea creatures that came to visit. After reading our story we decided to design our own buckets…

Then we thought about all the creatures we wanted in our own buckets….sharks, whales, sea lions!!

We thought our bucket was too little so we made an even bigger one in our water tray. After lots of discussion, problem solving and decision making, we decided to make our water red!

Reading a story has helped us develop our literacy skills, fuels our imagination and creativity and allows us to share ideas with our friends. We have demonstrated we can make decisions, problem solve, work together and lead our own learning. 😁

Article 28 You have the right to an education

Creative movement, Creativity, Outdoor Learning

Outdoor Fun

June 13, 2024 Mrs MacRae Leave a comment

So far this month we have had great fun outdoors where we have been developing our gross motor skills. We have done this through various activities from running in an empty garden, designing an obstacle course, to practicing our hopping and ball throwing and catching skills.

“I’m the winner!”

“Look I can do it!”

Using our creative imaginations, we turned our stage into a pirate ship! It was so much fun drawing our own treasure maps and using them to go on an adventure to find the treasure. “X marks the spot!” We climbed the mountain, crawled through the cave, balanced on the bridge, avoiding the shark invested waters below, to find the treasure.

“Shiver me timbers!”

As it’s nearly time for sports day we have been practicing running, balancing, waiting patiently for our turn, sharing equipment and cheering each other on!

Article 29 – I have the right to an education that develops my personality.

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

Creativity, Expressive Arts, Literacy

Number Stones

June 12, 2024 Miss Brown Leave a comment

Over the past week we have been developing a range of skills at our play area. From counting to recognising numbers, shapes and patterns, Gross motor skills and writing stories we have experienced it all. The children have been so creative.

I observed the children playing a game at the clay table, they were drawing pictures in the clay with different clay tools and asking their friends to guess what they had made. One child wrote the number 4 in clay.

“Guess what I’m drawing it has a shell on it” – A snail

“I draw happy face”

“I did number 4, cause I’m 4”

This lead us on to writing numbers in the clay, we made number stones and decided to paint them lots of different colours. When the paint was dry we brushed over them with Pva glue and left them to dry. Finally using a black marker to make numbers stand out.

The children have used these number stones to lead their own learning. We have used our counting skills and number recognition to rearrange the numbers in order from 1-10.
They have played lots of different games with the number stones, one game involves the children laying the numbers out in order and closing their eyes 👀 I take one number stone away and they have to guess what number is missing. To make it more challenging we mixed the numbers up and before removing one.

“It’s number 4” Next we added in numbers 10-20 to add fun challenge to their learning.

“I’m doing it upside down and the wrong way round 😂”

Creativity, Imaginative thinking

Puppet Play

June 12, 2024 Miss Welsh Leave a comment

Over the last few weeks the children have been involved in activities relating to castles in the junk modelling area. As we come to the end of this activity, the children realised that the castle had no people living in it, so they wanted to make some characters for the castle.

First, we searched to see how to make puppets and what resources we had available in junk modelling. We found some lolly sticks and colourful paper to make our characters.

Some of the children chose to use glue to make their puppet and others used cello tape.

Then they dressed the puppets using colourful paper before giving the puppets a face, which gave the puppets their own personality.

“That’s the bones, otherwise he will fall apart”

The children came up with the idea of using a second lolly stick to give their puppet arms.

Children benefit from puppet making as it helps to develop their creative imagination. Some of the children played with the puppets in the nursery through role play and creating personalities for their puppets.

One puppet even got his very own castle.

This fun activity also increases communication and social skills.

Cart Mill Castle.

Article 28 – I have the right to an education.

Creativity, Expressive Arts, Outdoor Learning

Symmetry in our Butterflies 🦋

June 5, 2024 Miss Keith Leave a comment

The children have been fascinated by our butterflies and the patterns on their wings “ look the two wings are the same.

With this in mind we decided to make our own butterflies. We worked hard preparing our wings sharing our ideas and discussing colours.

” Butterflies fly in the sky so we paint the sky and added in a few clouds because it’s raining today “. We then got busy cutting out our butterflies.

The boys then added on some circles to the butterfly wings “ they look like little eyes”. Now they are ready to fly in the sky…..

We looked at another way to create our own pictures which shows how symmetry works this is a geometric shape or object which can be divided into two or more identical pieces.

The boys and girls worked independently and also co-operated with each other to chose colours of paint and discussed patterns for their butterflies.

We also used a mirror to give the effect of a larger image of symmetry.

I am sure you will agree we created some lovely pictures. Have a look when you are outdoors to see if you can spot any butterflies 🦋.

Article 13 – You have a right to find out things and share with others what you think.

Creativity, Expressive Arts, Froebel, Imaginative thinking

Colour Mixing Playdough.

May 30, 2024 Miss Campbell Leave a comment

We have been learning how to make playdough all by ourselves. The playdough area is a self-serve area designed to promote the independent skills of all our children.

We have been selecting our ingredients and we are learning about the different quantities of these ingredients that we will we need for our recipe. (Following on from the new government guidelines we have been using heat treated gluten free flour in our recipe).

All our children aged 2-5 have the opportunity to make their own playdough and enjoy doing so independently.

This week in our Playdough area we have been exploring and experimenting with colour mixing.
First we made our playdough, by each collecting the bowl, spoon and ingredients we needed. We each choose a primary colour to make our playdough to start with. We had red, yellow and blue.

We were able to see if our playdough was ready, by testing if it was too dry and needed more water or too wet and needed more flour.

“more water”

“Too sticky, need more flour”

”it’s ready”

Once our playdough was perfect we set up our playdough station and invited our friends to come and join us.

We each took a pinch of two or more colours and mixed them together to see what colours we could make.

We used our gross motor skills as we rolled the playdough together to mix up the colours.

We were amazed at the colours we were able to make.

“I’ve made so many”

“I’ve made pink and purple and orange”

We discovered that we got green by mixing red and yellow. Purple by mixing the red and blue. And a pinky orange if we mixed red and yellow. We even ended up with a rainbow playdough mix.