Category Archives: Expressive Arts

Expressive Arts, Literacy, Outdoor Learning, Social Studies, Special Event

Firework Splat Painting!

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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”

Expressive Arts, Social Studies

Building fun 👷🏻‍♂️

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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 👍🤩

Expressive Arts

Hammer Time

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Today at the tinker table we investigated a few of the tools including the hammer, screwdriver and saw. The children named each one and decided they would like to explore the hammer first.

“Hammer nail”

“hammer things in wood”

“My daddy uses a hammer”

I demonstrated to the children how to hold the hammer correctly.

Hold the hammer at the end of the handle to allow the weight at the head to help it drop down

Gently tap the  hammer on the top of the nail.

Always make sure you look at what you are doing.

The children all took turns holding the hammer

“It’s heavy”

“It’s small”

We talked about how to keep ourselves  and others while using tools. We thought it was a great idea to make a rule book or oyster so our friends know how to stay safe.

What will we put in  our book

Only with an adult

Safe try goggles

Not 2 people

Keep hands away from tools

Always look at what you are doing

We then each took a turn of hammering a nail into the wood  following all our safety procedures.

Expressive Arts

Hallowe’en Art🎃

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Inspired by everyone’s Halloween costumes, the children decided they would like to create their own Hallowe’en art.

First of all the children picked their own materials to make their art, varying from black and orange coloured ribbon to Hallowe’en sequins and craft tissue paper in different shapes and sizes.

They then used scissors to cut the card to their preferred size and selected glue and glue spreaders.

“ I want black and orange card, they’re Hallowe’en colours”

”mines looks like a spooky Hallowe’en spider” 🕷

“I’m going to hang mine up like decorations”

The children have been very creative and have made fabulous pieces of Hallowe’en art.  Happy Hallowe’en everyone🎃


Expressive Arts, Special Event

Diwali Festival of Light

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Today in the noisy quiet room we had a chat about Diwali and learned about the festival of lights. We watched some videos of traditional dancing and decided to give it a go ourselves since we love to dance.

We used a selection of materials and musical instruments to take part in the Diwali celebrations.

First we selected some brightly coloured material to make our own outfits ready to dance.

Then we put on some traditional music and enjoyed some dancing with our friends.

Happy Diwali celebrations to you and your family

Expressive Arts

Tinker table tools

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Today in the Discovery room we have been learning what we can do with our tools. We have different stages of development and have experimented with resources that give the children their own challenges which helps them all build their confidence and self-esteem.

The children have worked well together as they discussed the different ways they could use the tools. “I am very strong “. While using the tools the children are developing their fine motor skills and hand and eye co-ordination skills.

We had fun finding out which resource was the hardest and which one was easier to hammer or screw in nails . “ I can hammer in nails they look like a face”

With a little help we were able to saw the cardboard tube into pieces this was a bit tricky. We did remember our safety rules  “ I will keep my fingers over here”

 

As always at Cartmill we like to recycle as many materials as possible and after removing all the nails from our pumpkins we chopped them into pieces and decided to give them to birds for lunch.

We look forward to our next introduction to new tools and equipment and what we can build.

 

 

Expressive Arts

Rangoli Patterns

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Today in the Discovery Room we have been talking about Diwali, in particular Rangoli patterns.

We learned that Rangoli patterns are traditionally made using coloured rice or dry flour which was mixed with turmeric and other natural colours. They can be created using different geometric shapes in the form of flowers, petals, stars or lanterns.

Families celebrating Diwali create beautiful Rangoli patterns and place them near the entrance of their homes to welcome Lakshmi, the Hindu goddess of wealth, in the hope this will bring them good luck and prosperity.

We decided we would use our fabulous knowledge of shapes, patterns and positioning to create our very own Rangoli patterns.  We had a look to find some Rangoli patterns to give us some inspiration!

It was lots of fun choosing which loose parts we would use to create our patterns.  Of course we had to make sure we  chose lots of different colours and the shiny shapes and coloured gems were definitely our favourites!

Using the patterns as a guide, we carefully chose which loose part would fit best and carefully positioned them on our patterns.


“I’m using the gem. It’s a circle.”

”I like the shiny shapes. That’s one’s a diamond.”

”I put the button in the middle. It’s a big circle.”

“I like the buttons the best.”

”I found a shiny one.”

It was a bit tricky to fit some of the loose parts in as they were the shape! Working together, we were able to solve the problem and use some of our triangles to make a diamond!

Don’t our Rangoli patterns look beautiful.  Next time we are going to draw and create our own!

 

 

Expressive Arts, Outdoor Learning

Today we had fun painting in the style of Kandinsky😁

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Kandinsky was a pioneer of abstract art he is known for his inventive use of of colour and one of his most well-known images was a colour study with concentric circles. The children decided to recreate this famous piece of art work putting their own unique spin on it. First
We went on a circle hunt around the nursery to find objects we could use for our outdoor Kandinsky painting. “There’s lots of different shapes in here look here are two circles we can use” “ Look this would make a good circle shape it could also be for a robots eye” “I have shapes we could use to paint circles on my tower” “ cardboard tubes would make good circles”

We had great fun using the objects we found to make our circle designs developing our gross motor skills. The children were very creative making their painting. “ I want to use the plunger” “ I think the cardboard tube makes the best circles” “


“Im using the blue paint and the tube to make a big circle then I’m putting a smaller one inside it” “Circles, everywhere big ones small ones and tiny ones too”


The children were excited about their finished art work and we all think it looks amazing. Well done everyone great team work 🤩

Expressive Arts

It’s all about the Monet

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We have enjoyed learning about kandinskys abstract art the last few weeks at our art provocation area.
Today we introduced a new artist and art style.  We will now be learning about Claude Monet.
Monet was a French painter who was the founder of impressionist painting.
We used our technology skills to research who Monet was and look at a picture of him.

We decided to use water colours to recreate one of his famous paintings. The water Lilly Pond that he painted in 1899.

We found a picture of the painting and we each talked about what we seen within the painting. We seen “trees,” “a bridge,” “lily  pads”


We discussed the colours that Monet used. We used our thin brushes, paint pallets and water to create our own  representation of the Water Lily Pond.

We used our colour mixing skills to make our purples and greens we needed.

We used the picture as inspiration for our art work.

We enjoyed using a variety of skills such as fine manipulative skills when controlling our paint brushes. We were communicating and sharing learning with each other.

We worked really hard to create our pictures and enjoyed sharing them with each other.

“I made mine a card”

“I used purple”

“I mixed together the colours”

“Look at mine”

I wonder what Monet painting we will look at next.

Expressive Arts, Literacy

Let’s have a shake shake shaking Friday🎉

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This morning the children got creative, designing their own shakers!

We looked around the nursery for some noisy and quiet resources choosing for ourselves  the shakers we wanted to make.


We used Pom poms, shells, sprinkles, beads (as we have lots of different allergies at nursery)

We had a try out to discover if we had to change our quantities, if we were happy with the volume of our shakers


We had a sing song to practice our shakers singing Baa baa Black Sheep and Twinkle twinkle Little Star, we were so noisy that Bookbug decided to join us 🥰

You can make your own shakers at home with anything noisy and anything that can be sealed so you can shake shake shake it all day😁