Category Archives: Expressive Arts

Winter Crafts

It was lovely to have our families visit the centre to take part in our family winter craft sessions.


The children really enjoyed taking part in the winter themed activities alongside the special people in their lives. There were lots of different crafts to make, each with a different theme. We won’t tell you what they all are as we would love you to come and see for yourself!

Remember that the crafts are running all week and we have 3 sessions a day. So, please sign up via the sheets in reception and come in out of the cold and join us for a coffee and some wintery fun with your wee one!

Exploring our Senses

This week in the garden we have been exploring our sense of smell by using the herbs growing in our garden in different ways.

Today we explored our senses further by using teabags to create our own art in the studio.

We started by using our sense of smell to make observations about the different kinds of tea. We discussed the different kind of scents and what they smelled like.

“It’s mint”

“It smells like toothpaste”

“Like strawberry”

“We have mint in the garden”

To create our masterpiece we placed the tea bags on paper and used spray bottles with water to wet the tea bags. This is an excellent way to developing our fine motor skills. As the teabags absorbed the water we squeezed them, painted with them and explored the mixing of the colours.  We also talked about the texture of the tea as the bags started to break apart.

“It feels like sand”

“Little bits stick to me”

“It’s soft”

“I like mud in the garden”

The studio is now smelling very lovely, We all had lots of fun exploring our senses and creative skills.

The final masterpiece. Well done everyone!

Patchwork houses

Thank you so much for all the kind donations of boxes and cardboard  for our junk modelling area. We decided to have a look in our Cardboard Creations book for some inspiration!   We loved the patchwork houses in our book and decided we would make some of our own!

We discussed what resources we would need and decided on:

“glue to stick things on”

“cardboard or boxes to make the house”

”scissors to cut things”.

”pens to draw windows and a door to get in”

”material, coloured paper and buttons to stick on”

We worked together to collect our resources and shared our thoughts on why we had chosen them.

”I’m choosing pink, it’s my favourite colour”.

”My favourite is red”.

”my favourite is red too”.

It was a bit tricky to cut the cardboard so we decided it would be safer if an adult used bigger scissors to cut it for us.  Using our smaller scissors helped us develop our fine motor skills, through cutting our paper, ribbon and wool.

Next it was time to design our house! We demonstrated excellent mark making and writing skills by adding our own features to our houses.

“I’m drawing windows. We need them up at the top, and at the bottom”.

”I’m drawing a door so we can get in and out”.

”I need a chimney, it goes on the top on the roof”.

”I’m writing number 23, that’s the same as my house”.

It was lots of fun choosing different materials to glue onto our houses. We used our knowledge to describe our materials and explain why we had chosen them.

“I like this one, it looks like a picnic blanket!”

”I like the pink one. It’s shiny and smooth”.

”The green one is like a tree, it’s fluffy”.

”The ribbon looks like a tractor wheel”.

”This one is black and white and it has flowers on it”.

”I love the blue one, it’s bumpy and has sparkles on it”.

”I’m putting buttons on. I like the colours”.

The glue on our houses was still a bit wet, so we decided to put them up to dry. When we put all our houses together, we decided it looked like “a wee village!”

It was so much fun making our houses and we can’t wait to see what else we can create!

 

 

 

 

Counting animals on the Farm

Today in the Noisy/Quiet room the children continued to develop their learning of “farms”. The children had been showing an interest in farms and we choose this as the learning focus of our floorbook.


So far, we have been learning to use the animals and farm to create drama and role play scenarios.

We found a book that showed us sign language for some animal names. We could copy some of the signs for cow, horse and pig.
 


We also enjoyed perfecting our fine manipulative and problem solving skills with jigsaws that are in the theme of farms.

 

One of the children noticed we had a lot of animals on our farm. We decided to try our hand at some data analysis.
First, we got some large paper, then wrote the name of the animal at the top.

Next, we filled a box full of mystery animals and we took it in turns to select one from the box and matched it to the paper with that animal on it, making a 3D graph to record our findings.

We sorted and categorised each animal and, at the end, we counted up how many of each animal we had and wrote our findings.
 

We had lots of fun extending our Maths skills during this learning experience.
We recorded this learning experience in the floor book, with the children taking ownership by cutting the photos and writing their own comments. The children enjoy looking through the floorbooks to reflect on their past learning.
Next time you visit the centre why not take a look at our wonderful floorbooks.

No Such Thing As Nessie!!!

Today Bookbug came to visit as it is Scottish Book week and we decided to  sing some songs…

We started with Ally Bally Bee, we were singing and clapping much to our neighbours delight

We sang Wee Willie Winkie and were laughing to think of a wee boy chapping at the windaes and crying through the locks in his nightgown!!!

A decision to be made what story would we like Skye the Puffling or No Such Thing as Nessie…..the story of Nessie won and we had lots of discussions  about monsters scaffolding our  learning from each other by sharing all the interesting facts we knew.

Can you believe we even sang about shoving our grannies aff the bus……but please nobody worry as all our children assured me they would never do this! 😉

 

What a lot of fun we had enjoying stories and songs together 😀

Legends in the Studio

As it is Scotland book week we have continued to develop the childrens interest in the studio. We have been doing some research about the Loch Ness monster. We have had a look at some Scottish books and watched a short film.

 

The children discovered that the monster lives in Loch Ness and the water is very deep and dark as the water is full of peat from the surrounding hills. We then decided to recreate our our own Loch Ness monsters using the clay.

Our clay is a great way to strengthen the muscles in our fingers and hands whilst developing our fine motor skills and imagination. The children discussed how they would like their own monsters to look, “mine has flippers”   “mine is going to be so big” some of the children enjoyed using the clay tools to make the eyes and patterns on the skin.

We have loved bringing our legends to life and look forward to our next book.

Nessie

Today the children were ready to get to work at the Tinker Table . We read our new safety rule book which we all helped to create last week. This is to ensure we are keeping ourselves and others safe.

“ I can get the goggles on myself”

”Safety First”

” I helped make this book”

The children took turns and selected different types of wood in all shapes and sizes. They discussed what they were going to do  and as we had been reading No Such Things as Nessie for Scotland book week all the children were excited to create their own Loch Ness Monster . We then  looked out the nails and hammer. They held the hammer firmly and using their hand and eye co-ordination to gentle hit the nail several times.

“I am making Nessie”

”It’s a nice monster”

When the wood was nailed together the children then chose a variety of materials e.g.   buttons, corks, ribbon and sequence they could add to their creations.

“ the buttons are  it’s eyes”

”This its tail”

”I am going to make a funny one”

The children followed the safety rules well and had great concentration skills.

They then proudly sat them on the display table

Remembrance day

This week some of the children have noticed Angela’s poppy badge and have been asking why she is wearing it. In honour of Remembrance Day we decided to make our own poppies and discuss the importance of Remembrance Day. This can be a difficult subject for children to understand, so we talk about remembering the soldiers who help to keep us safe and focus on the importance of kindness and celebrating each other’s differences.

The making of the poppies has been a two part process. We started yesterday by looking at pictures of poppies and discussing the different parts of the flower. We dyed pasta red for the petals, rice black for the seeds and coloured lollipop sticks green for the stems. We then left that to dry to use the next day and made red playdough to make poppies with that day.

Today we observed a two minute silence while watching a CBeebies video about Remembrance Day. The children sat beautifully and we reminded them about the importance of being kind to each other after the video.


“We need to remember the soldiers that fought in the fight.”

The video shows the poppies growing in the fields after the war has ended so we then went to make our own poppies.

“I’m making a poppy field. These are the seeds so more can grow.”

“Look at my poppy man.”

Just look at our beautiful designs…

Firework Splat Painting!

Today In the garden we created some firework pictures in preparation for bonfire night this weekend.

The children selected some paint and resources that they could spray and splat. We picked a selection of different spray bottles and pipettes to spray at the large plastic sheet and create our firework picture.

The spray bottles and pipettes helped us to develop our fine motor skills. We demonstrated good skill when filling them up and spaying them.

We then used the paint and sponges to throw the paint at the ground to make splats that resembled fireworks. This was a good way to get our bodies moving and develop our gross motor skills while being creative.


While we were painting we talking about fireworks and how we can stay safe.  These are some of the children’s comments.
😊

“You don’t touch the fire”

“Fireworks and very hot so you need to stay away”

“They go in the sky”

“Only adults do the fireworks”

Building fun 👷🏻‍♂️

Today the children loved engaging their imaginations in the construction area. We had a variety of building materials for the children to use, and they enjoyed creating different types of role playing scenarios.

“I want to make a hotel for spider man”

“We’re making a tunnel for the train”

”eyes!”

The children worked great as part of a team, helping each other and using their problem solving skills to build their creations. Some children loved making rocket ships…

Other children enjoyed making busses and dens…

”beep beep!”

And we even had a Spider Man fire engine!

The children really loved showing off their creativity through role playing with the blocks, and sharing the fun with all their friends. Great work everybody 👍🤩