Category Archives: Expressive Arts

Expressive Arts

3D Paper Sculpture Techniques

Leave a comment

Today in the Studio Room we are learning a new skill. We are learning to make 3D paper sculptures. Today was all about creating a “fringe”

We each picked a piece of paper and a pair of scissors.
We learned that to create a fringe we needed to cut the paper half in strips, but only half way up the page, leaving a band. The higher we cut the longer the strip we created. We were very careful when using our scissors to cut.

It was a bit tricky at first to keep the band at the top and not cut the paper in half. But we soon got the hang of it and made of fringe snips in lots of different sizes of paper.

We made big ones

Middle size

and even tiny ones.
Once we mastered the technique of fringing we moved on to a new technique of rolling and folding.

We used our fringed paper to create, fringe people, robots, lions, octopus, and funny faces.

We drew on our designs then folded the paper and used glue to keep the edges together.

We were proud of our finished results. It was fun engaging with a new learning experience and seeing where our imagination would take us today.
Next week we will be learning a new 3D paper sculpture technique.

 

Expressive Arts, Literacy

Let’s have fun with Syllables!

Leave a comment

Today in  our new ‘noisy and quiet’ room the children have been busy exploring the noisy side using musical instruments and their voices. We all joined together and  slowly clapped out the number of syllables in each of our names and counted how many there were. We found that most  of us had two,  and some of us only had one, so we decided to clap to our second names too. We discovered that most of us had three syllables in our second name’s. The children were able to recognise and clap out the number of syllables in their own names and were able to count out their  friends names.
“my name has two”


“ I have three  syllables  in my name “


“ I have more in my second name”

We then decided we would choose our favourite musical instruments and use them to develop our skills further.

“ I am going to choose the drum”

 
We had lots of instrument to choose from.

“I  am going to count my name using the maracas”

The children were learning to develop their vocabulary,  pre -phonics skills, and understanding of sounds and patterns within words through play. They were able to listen and respond to instructions whilst showing respect for each other through sharing and taking turns.



“ I can count out my syllables  on the wooden sound maker”

“ I am going to use the big drum”

“I am enjoying playing on the big  drum and making sounds”.



We even found out we can count out syllables on the piano. WOW!

Why not try it at home! You could use compound words that form two words such as: sunset , hotdog,  snowman or postman. To start with children just need to be able to recognise syllables by clapping, stamping or jumping for each syllable.  We had lots of fun dividing words into syllables. Why not give it a try at home and let us know how you got on. Have fun playing with words!

 

 

 

 

Expressive Arts

Play-dough fun!

Leave a comment

Today in the home room, the children have enjoyed making different textures of playdough and exploring their fine motor skills in different ways. Some children enjoyed using the stampers to create different shapes and imprints in the playdough, like a “Seahorse. Look, he’s got a big long tail!”

We made different colours, using our manipulative skills to mix and squish all the ingredients together to form the dough.

Some children even explored some role playing with their peers, sharing the playdough and had a little ‘cupcake’ and ‘tea party!’

“I’m making a strawberry pie”


“Cupcakes are ready!”

‘Too burny. Need to blow it!’

”Tea! Hot hot.’

Playdough is great for developing many skills, and it is super easy to make. You’ll probably have all the ingredients in your home! All you need is; Flour, salt, oil, and water. You can make it more fun by adding paints/food colouring/scents etc. You could even brave glitter!! Have fun everyone!

Expressive Arts

Shape and colour hunt!

Leave a comment

This week, the children have had so much fun collecting and displaying different objects around our nursery for our ‘shape hunt’. They enjoyed investigating different rooms in the nursery, getting really creative finding different shapes in a variety of forms!

“I have so many rectangles. There’s no more space!”

“Look, we’ve got big ones AND littles ones!”

 

“Look at all my circles. It’s like all the planets in the solar system”

Some children even used their imagination to extend their learning further, and turned their shapes into something completely different!

Other children suggested we went a ‘colour hunt next’ which was really fun! We hunted in different rooms and in the garden and found some really interesting things to sort into our colours.

 

“I’m going to find lots of purple because it’s my favourite colour. It matches my dress!”

“I want to draw my pink things.”

The children loved exploring, collecting and sorting all different shapes and colours throughout the playroom and displaying their findings to their friends. They really engaged their imaginations and creative skills, well done boys and girls!

 

 

 

 

Expressive Arts, Literacy, Outdoor Learning

Making Suncatchers!

Leave a comment

The children have been really enjoying learning about the weather whilst in the garden. With the season changing we have seen lots of different weather recently! We decided to make suncatchers and hoped this would bring the sunshine back! Instead of just using coloured paper, we wanted to add some natural materials.  We went on a walk to collect pretty blossom that had fallen off the trees and any other materials we could find!

“I’ve found some pink blossom and white!”

We used sticky clear paper to stick all our flowers and coloured tissue paper to. We then folded it over and it stuck the edges together!

“I want yellow paper like the sun!”

“Ah, it’s so sticky my fingers are all stuck!”

We cut them into a nice shapes and then used all our strength to punch a hole in the suncatchers using the hole punch.

“Look, I got it, I’m so strong!”

Finally we threaded some ribbon through the hole and hung them up in the garden!  The children had great fun making these whilst developing their gross and fine motor skills.

“They look so pretty!”

Now we are just waiting for the sun to come back to see what lovely colours and shapes our suncatchers make dancing in the sun!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Expressive Arts

Fun time, Junk time 😊

Leave a comment

Today in the Studio the children were inspired to be creative by some giant boxes kindly donated by one of our parents.

They decided to build a house complete with a back and front garden and even a chimney. The children worked well together planning how their house should look.


There was a lot of chat about what everyone had in their house and what they could use in the centre to replicate the items. Some of their ideas included;
“ look I have made the key to get into the house, I used a cotton bud and tissue paper” “I think I will make a table to have my dinner at” “ I think there should be two doors at the front “ “ The garden should have rainbow grass” “I’m going to make the grass with different colours of tissue paper” “ I want to make  a dinosaur room for my stegosaurus”  I think it’s snowing at our house” I have made a barricade to keep everyone in the back garden”
What wonderful, imaginative suggestions!

The children used team work and exercised their gross motor skills to move the big boxes to where they wanted them and working together, they were able to use their problem solving skills to keep the roof up.” Let’s put these supports into stop it falling down”  

The children loved using their imagination to make their house and spent many hours playing in it.  Great team work everybody, well done!

Expressive Arts, Outdoor Learning

Spring has Sprung at Cart Mill🐥

Leave a comment

Today we have been discussing Spring.  Some of the children were able to identify things we may see during Springtime.

“birds making nests”

“flowers on trees”

“Baby animals being born, Lambs”

“spring flowers in gardens and parks”

We have some lovely spring flowers in our playroom, the children decided they would like to paint them. We talked about the different types of spring flowers for example Crocus, Hyacinth and Bluebell.

” I seen bluebells in the woods”

“daffodils are my favourites because they are yellow and in my front garden ”

“I like tulips the best because my Mum has them at home”

We pegged our daffodils and tulips to a line and put mirrors underneath them. We noticed that we could see the spring flowers reflection in the mirror.

“I can see the purple tulip, I want to paint it on the mirror”

“I’m painting the yellow daffodils in the mirror”

The children enjoyed mixing different tones and shades for their spring flowers. They noticed the differences between the petals on the flowers.

“The shapes are different”

We discussed the different parts of the flower.

“that tulip has the longest stem”

At the end of the day the children didn’t want to throw away their creative work, so decided to print their mirror painting onto a big sheet of paper to make a spring freeze next week.

Well done, great team work everyone.

Expressive Arts, Literacy

Sharing stories in spring

Leave a comment

Today in the Home room was all about stories. We enjoy exploring stories together in our story area.
We like sharing stories together in different ways. We can share stories as part of a group, listening to a story being read by an adult.

When we read stories together, we are learning about taking turns, when to talk and when to listen, learning new vocabulary and sharing our thoughts and feelings as part of a group.
Today we discussed all things Spring during our story. We read about big and little nut brown hare sharing their ideas about Spring. We discussed our ideas and found out it’s “when the sun gets a little warmer” and “I know it’s Spring because it’s my mummy’s birthday in Spring”.
We can also explore stories with our friends, forming our own ideas about what the story can be about from looking at the pictures. If we recognise the book we can use our recall skills to retell the story.

Sometimes we can use visual aids to help us read a story. Visual aids such as puppets are a great way for our visual learners to interact with the story. Today the Gruffalo was helping read the story all about his adventures in the deep dark wood.

Sometimes we don’t even need a book to tell a story. We can use our imagination with different visual aids to bring our own stories to life, such as puppet shows.

We can also use role play to act out as characters from familiar stories, our become our own characters.
Story telling has so many learning opportunities for our children, it’s great to tell these stories in a way that captures the interests of our individual children.

What way do you like to share stories together at home?

Expressive Arts, Outdoor Learning

Outdoor fun!!

Leave a comment

The children had great fun in the garden today. They were stacking the crates to see how high they could jump from! This enabled the children to push themselves physically whilst developing their gross motor skills.


“I can do it myself!”     “Look how high I can jump!”    “1,2,3 JUMP!”

The children really enjoyed climbing, jumping and challenging themselves!

We then got the parachute out for some fun and singing! We put our little star on the parachute and sang twinkle twinkle little star! We tried hard to keep the star from jumping off!

We then lifted the parachute high in the air and took turns to run under it.  “It looks like a big balloon in the sky!”

The children wanted to put a bouncy ball on the parachute and roll it around fast to see how long we could keep it on for! We practiced our counting and kept it on till we got to twenty! Great job!

Finally, the children needed a rest so we sang sleeping bunnies whilst they lay under the parachute. We threw it up in the air and the children loved bouncing around under it like bunnies!

We had so much fun in the garden today.

 

Expressive Arts

Colour mixing creativity in the studio😊

Leave a comment

Today some of the children chose to do some colour mixing learning experiences. They decided to use shaving foam and food colouring and see what happened when the colours mixed the children thought they would mix the colours using marbles.

First they found some big trays added some foam and then used the pipettes to add different colours of food colouring. “ Its turning brown” “ Its hard to mix the colours with all of the shaving foam” “ I need more red” “ We need to add lots of different colours for a rainbow effect“

The children then got some paper and pressed it down on the foam. “ It looks lovely like a butterfly “ The younger children particularly enjoyed the sensory aspect of the experience.

Next the children decided to mix some different shades of green, orange and purple using paint. They used problem solving to decide what to do if the colour they mixed didn’t turn out how they expected, they also took turns guessing about what colour they were going to make. There was lots of opportunities to use mathematical language, such as more and less.
This activity allowed the children to have great fun experimenting with cause and effect.  What a fabulous, busy day in the studio.