Category Archives: Expressive Arts

Splat painting

Today in the garden we have been splat painting.

The children wanted to use sponges but we couldn’t find any so they decided to search for something else to use. They decided on colourful balls and cotton wool balls.

They selected 4 colours of paint and squeezed them onto a tray and in the bowl of balls, developing their hand muscles.

“I want pink and yellow”

“ blue, orange”

We pegged an old table cloth up and took 5 steps back “1,2,3,4,5”.

The children took turns throwing the balls and cotton balls on to the table cloth, they watched the colours explode and create a lovely painting.

This experience allows us to develop our gross motor skills, improving our hand eye co-ordination, learning how to move our bodies carefully and building their confidence.

 

 

Creativity in the sewing area 😍 Meet Bob and Mouse 🐻🐭

Today in the studio we were developing our hand eye coordination finger dexterity and building our self confidence through our love of sewing.

“I want to sew on some buttons “ “Im choosing pink ones and pink material would look nice too” “It’s quite tricky for me to sew, but I can do it”


“I want to sew buttons on to” “I want to sew on four” “I’m choosing blue material, I like it best”

”I want to make a little teddy bear” “ I’m making him yellow” “ I think it would be easiest to draw him out first “ “He has a big head” “I think he looks like a Bob, “Yes Bob bear”

“I would like to make a cuddly mouse” “ I need to see what a mouse looks like first can I look on the I-pad? “ I’m going to copy the mouse from the I-pad” “ I need brownish material “”sewing takes quite a long time but I’m excited to see my finished mouse” “ The stuffing is soft and bouncy” “ I love my mouse he is very squeaky and small”

Well done everyone I can’t wait to see what fab ideas you have for the sewing area tomorrow.

 

 

Bookbug 😁

Today Bookbug came to visit, the children enjoy singing the welcome song ‘Hello Everyone’ and giving Bookbug a wee cuddle!

The children decided that they wanted to sing ‘Old Macdonald had a farm’ and they chose the animal they wanted to pick.

We had ducks, horses, pigs, sheep, sheepdogs  and cows 🦆🐴🐷🐑🐶🐄

We all enjoyed our story and joining in with all the animals.

If this looks like something you or your wee one would enjoy why don’t you come along to nursery  at 9.00 or 4.00 to join in the fun on Friday 5th May!🥰

 

Eid Mubarak 🎇

Today the children have had lots of fun making different Eid decorations! We have enjoyed drawing our own decorations…

Making special playdough cakes…

 

And some children even enjoyed sewing decorations too!

We even learned a little about what Eid means from Mr Tumble himself…

Eid is the Islamic festival that marks the end of Ramadan and the period of fasting. ‘Eid Mubarak’ is used by Muslims all over the world as a greeting at this special time.

Thank you to the parents who have handed in gifts or shared their time to explain about this occasion. We really value the knowledge you share with us.

If you are celebrating Eid we hope you have a lovely weekend sharing gifts, eating tasty food and making memories with your family, friends and community.

Eid Mubarak from all of us here at Cart Mill Family Centre 🤩 ☀️

Life feels better with colour !

In the studio we are continuing to study artists from around the world. We have chosen to look at the colourful art work of Scotlands Steven Brown. “ McCoo” being his most famous piece of art . The children used their knowledge gained to select material to begin our painting.

We had the most fun using our hands and feet to create some bright colours and lots of shapes.  The children also chose some rollers and bottle tops to enhance their work . It was slippy standing in the paint and we had to be very careful.

The girls and boys enjoyed the sensory feeling of the paint on their hands and feet. “My feet look like a rainbow”

The girls and boys waited till the paint was dry and then we were able to create more animals within our painting using a black pen . We now have a caterpillar 🐛, a tiger 🐅, rabbit 🐰, elephant 🐘,ladybird and whale 🐳.
We enjoyed working together to produce our own colourful painting and will be continuing on with this trying out different resources and media. As we do everyday we had to help tidy up . Well done .

Article 30: You have the right to play and relax by doing things like art.

Story Box!

The children have been very creative in the junk modelling area over the past couple of weeks designing and making their own story characters.

They made a story box using recycled materials such as cardboard, bottle tops, bottles and cartons and decorated it adding some coloured tissue paper and more crafts.

Using their imaginations the children came up with some great ideas for characters, they created bunny rabbits, a hare, batman, a robot, a boat, a car, a monster, an octopus and so much more and added it all to the story box.

Next they selected some characters from the box and began to tell their story, writing it down as they went along.

“The mermaid kitty and the octopus went in the taxi to the shop.  They bought cheese and ice cream. Then they met hare and batman and then they went home. The End.”

Something as simple as a cereal box can spark so much conversation and lead on to so many amazing ideas where the children develop their problem solving skills , communication skills, and are able to express their thoughts and ideas.

We are so grateful to you all for bringing in your recycling it has so many benefits for your children.

Nail Designs and Patterns

As the children enjoy hammering in nails we had a think about what we could do with the nails when they were in the wood.  The children  thought about shapes and patterns they could make with the nails and then use wool to weave round them . Firstly they made their pattern or character on the wood providing them a opportunity to develop their mark making skills.

When the pattern was ready we then got the hammer and nails out. We have learnt that if we use the pliers to hold the nail it helps protect our fingers. We then placed the nails round the edge of our design and carefully hammered them in.

When the nails were in place we started to wind our wool round the nails . This part was quite tricky and definitely helped develop our hand-eye co-ordination skills, increasing our manipulative skills and dexterity. All the children made a great effort with this part of the task.

The children began to notice shapes within their designs “ look there is a triangle in my cherry pie”. “ I have a circle in my unicorn”.

Other children made the choice to use different colours of wool to wind round their designs. Look mine is a Easter bunny. This looks very pretty. The children worked very hard on their designs. Well done this was fun !

Inspirational Artists 👩‍🎨🧑‍🎨

This week in the Studio Room the children have been investigating the art styles of the Spanish artist, Antoni Gaudi. He had an ostentatious style of mosaics called “Trencar”. This means “to break”. Gaudi  created mosaic forms by putting together broken ceramic tiles, plates and cups.

We used some different types and textures of materials such as felt, foam, tissue paper and shiny paper. We started with some pre-cut shapes to start us off. But we soon got adventurous and used our scissor skills to create our own shapes.

We created our own “trencar” using these shapes to bring our creations to life.


Some of our older children could write their name on their finished art works.


Then pop them into the drying rack, to dry the glue.

We had a cup that was made in the style of Gaudi in our curiosity cube this week to show our children some 3D Art.

We were able to look at the mosaics pattern on the cup. We looked at how the lizard was made up of different shapes and colours.
We used the cup for inspiration to create our own still life drawings.

We have had a very creative, inspirational week in our Studio, learning about Gaudi and his “Trencar” art style.
here is some of our own interpretations.
    

I wonder what artist will inspire us next week……

Fun in the snow !!

What a week to spend in the garden and to finish on a Friday with SNOW!!!!!

Snow angels, using our gross motor muscles to make marks  and patterns in the snow…what fun!

Rolling the tyres to watch the marks and patterns we could make in the snow.

Making a fabulous ice slide…it goes really fast!

Mark making in the snow using different resources helping our fine motor skills and creativity.

The children love being outdoors in all weathers, lets all put on our jumpers and jackets and enjoy being outside having fun together x

 

 

 

 

Creative puppets

Our children have shown a keen interest in making puppets. Today the children have been working hard in the studio creating some characters for a puppet show.  We watched the puppet show The 3 little pigs before starting our own.

We discussed our characters and what they would look like then picked some resources to make them.

“I’m going to use these of his eyes”

Some of the children have chosen there favourite characters from books and some have created there own.

“I’m making a unicorn”

“I want to make a mouse. I’m going to use a small stick for my mouse, he’s little”

“this is the big bad wolf he has a big nose and ears”

“I like Pip and Posy books I’m making Pip”

Once our characters were made we wrote a story about then to act out.

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We made our stage and found some friends to come and see our show.

Everyone enjoyed the show 😀