Category Archives: Expressive Arts

Expressive Arts

Playdough Experts!

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In the home room the children have been particularly enjoying using the playdough in different ways.


They have been following our playdough recipe and are now very confident at making it themselves.

Once the children had made the playdough they used their imagination and turned the playdough into space rockets.

”3..2..1.. blast off”

“My rocket is going to the sky”

What else could we do with our playdough? Well some of the children even decided to open their own sweet shop and sell the best chocolates!

“ Here’s your chocolate, that’s five pounds please “

 

Expressive Arts

Colourful Fingers

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The children in the Toddler Room are always very expressive and creative so when we found some very colourful finger paints in one of the cupboards in the playroom they were keen to try them out.

At first they were very careful, using only one finger, testing out each colour.

They experimented with different colours, making swirls on their paper.

Very quickly they started to use their whole hands, feeling the paint between their fingers.

Its cold and squishy
Blue paint.

Small swirls with one finger became huge swirls and mark making with a whole hand.

Oh look at my colourful hands too
Pink hands

All the children had loads of fun painting with their fingers and hands and were very excited to see their finished artwork hanging up drying ready to take home.

Expressive Arts

Painting with Magnets

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Today in the studio we decided to paint using magnets.  We moved metal objects around the paper and over the paint to make patterns. The children chose the colours of paint they would like to use and practised their pouring skills to fill the paint trays.

The children were creative and used the magnets to draw paper clips and screws across the paint and make some lovely designs. This then expanded to making paint patterns on the spoons which were very effective. The children combined different colours to make different shades “This looks like a river” and “I have a pond for ducks”. The children also enjoyed discussing there techniques which improves their language and social skills.

We are looking forward to exploring lots of different methods of using paint in the new term.

Expressive Arts, Outdoor Learning

Let’s get Creative!

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At Cart Mill we love to explore our creativity in many ways.

We explored with paints on the ground and logs creating different patterns and pictures.

Then we mixed the paint to create our own colours and painted our hands!

Rainbow puddles! Using chalk and water we made lovely rainbows 🌈

When we finished painting we got the hose and scrubbing brushes to clean up the logs and the rain helped wash the rest away.

During this the children learned different ways to be creative, explored making their own colours and becoming more confident in their mark making skills.

How do you be creative?

Expressive Arts

Some of Marvellous Monday’s toddler learning experiences 🥰

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Today some of the toddlers decided to explore mark making and colour. They used their fingers to push the paint around and make patterns. “I made orange with red and yellow” “This is squashy and squishy” “I can make purple with blue and red”

We also engaged our five senses playing in our very own orange sensory water scooping, pouring, mixing stirring filling and emptying.  The toddlers were able to answer my open ended questions exposing them to new vocabulary.  “The flesh feels soft, but the skin is bumpy” ”Orange juice, I like it” They were all able to take turns and play cooperatively.

Expressive Arts

Where is Mr Golden Sun?

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The boys and girls have been discussing the change in the weather. We all had so much fun playing in the sun but now the grey clouds are out and we think a thunder storm is coming for a visit!

The children decided to have a look at our weather board and pick out their favourite weather and what the weather was doing today.

 

“ the grey clouds mean rain “

”  I eat ice cream when it is sunny “

“ I love snow the best “

After discussing the different weather, the children decided to create their own weather pictures of their favourite weather!

Expressive Arts

Our future Artists.

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Today in the Studio Room we were using our creative skills to make our massive art piece.
First we selected the colours we wanted to use.

Then we picked our paper and used the floor as our canvas.

We picked the tools we wanted to experiment with and got our paint ready to use.

All the children had so much fun having the large space to express their creative arts, we used our mark making skills to make unique and wonderful marks. We used both our fine and gross motor skills to complete our masterpiece.

The children decided to use their hands and feet to gain a whole sensory experience.
We have very happy children in our Studio Room, engaging fully in their learning.
Maybe we have some future artists here in our Studio.

 

Expressive Arts, Literacy, Outdoor Learning

Transient Art

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This week the children in the Home Room have been creating their own fabulous pictures with transient art.

‘Transient art is simply moveable art’. The children are getting creative using loose parts such as stones, shells, buttons etc, to create pictures using their imagination.

Transient art allows children to make a picture 100 different ways, rather than having 1 end product when gluing and sticking.

The children added blue playdough to their pictures and pretended they were at the seaside and the playdough was the sea.

“Look at the waves in the sea, they are very big”

They even made 3D pictures. “Look the bird is sticking out of the picture”

This experience can be explored indoors and outdoors and can often lead from collecting sticks, stones, leaves etc. when out a local walk.

The children had lots of fun creating their own pictures, why dont you have a turn at home, when at the park or out a walk?

Expressive Arts, Literacy, Outdoor Learning

Ice cream parlour🍦

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What a beautiful day it is🌞

After discussions last week on how to keep cool in the sun, the children decided they wanted to open their own ice cream parlour.

we used:

  • Shaving foam
  • Food Colouring
  • Chocolate powder
  • Sprinkles


The children used different sized spoons and bowls to mix the foam and chocolate power to make chocolate ice cream. They then mixed red food colouring to make strawberry ice cream.

“We need to add more chocolate powder, I cant smell it properly”

“I’m going to have a pink cone”

”I’m scooping the ice cream, it’s very slippy”

” I made a unicorn Ice cream, it’s gooey”

We made our ice cream cones in the shade while we had a break from the sun.

The children used their senses to smell and touch the foam with their hands.

They used their counting skills to count how many scoops of ice cream it took to fill the cone.

Expressive Arts

Letters to Santa.

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This Week in the Home Room we have been writing our letters to Santa.

We have been spending time at our writing station practicing our mark-making skills and looking at magazines with pictures of toys in them discussing what we would like for our Christmas presents from Santa this year.

The children have had great enjoyment at making their Santa List and getting to share their ideas with their friends.

Even our Elf was writing his list for Santa. The children wonder if the Elf will take some of our Santa Lists back to the North Pole.

We developed lots of skills during this activity such as mark-making, early writing skills, fine manipulative skills, and letter recognition.


Merry Christmas everyone from all in the Home Room, hope Santa brings you everything on your list.