Category Archives: Expressive Arts

Expressive Arts, Literacy

Fun in the snow !!

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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

 

 

 

 

Expressive Arts, Literacy

Creative puppets

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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 😀

Expressive Arts

Creative thinking at the tinker table !

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Today we have been looking at some of the loose parts around the tinker table and what we could create with them. We placed our favourite pieces into a tray and decided we would use the hammer, nails and wood glue.

Tinkering is a playful way to explore or solve problems through the direct experience, experimentation and discovery with materials and tools.

The children decided what they would like to make “I am going to make a couch”  “mine will be a windmill”.  As with every activity, children’s ability and engagement can vary. Some of the children are confident to use the hammer and nails . We were also able to use the wood glue to add on some of the smaller loose parts.

The children were very engaged and worked well together discussing their ideas and sharing the tools and resources.
The children were very happy and proud of their creations. We look forward to adding in more loose parts and resources to expand our knowledge and building skills.

Article 12 – You have the right to be listened to and taken seriously.

Expressive Arts

Froebelian Fun with block play

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We have been continuing our exploration of our seven stages of block play in our Discovery room this month. This week, we have been looking at stage 5, “patterns and symmetry”. Some of our children have been observed creating wonderful block builds using this stage without any adult intervention. This stage of block play encourages the children to use more blocks, incorporating balance and pattern as they become more intentional in their selection of the kinds of blocks they want to use.

The children are so pleased with the creations they built. This was was a “zoo”.

We were able to make symmetrical builds and describe how they were the same. We were able to pick from our vast selection of wooden blocks which shape we required.


We all worked together today with our stage 5 builds. We created a “city centre.” We had fun discussing with each other what type of buildings we need as part of the city centre.
To further develop our stages of block play, we introduced the Froebel gifts. These were developed by a pioneer of early years from  the 1840s named Friedrich Froebel. Today in many nursery/schools we still follow the principles outlined in the Froebelian Approach.  His theory is still highly regarded in education.
We looked at gift 5 which was a selection of small wooden cubes and 3D triangles.

We were very curious about the shapes and sizes of the blocks. We discovered we could put two of the triangle blocks together to create a cube.

Our stages of block play were evident here as some of our children were using stage 2 “stacking” with the blocks.

We have seen more spontaneous  stage 5 builds. “Patterns and symmetry”.

 

As the children were showing high levels of engagement in this learning experience, we introduced another one of the Froebel gifts.

The children were able to use their own creative thinking to use each of the different sizes of coloured wooden sticks to make something. We made patterns, fireworks, shapes, aliens, and even 3D houses.

We even used our imagination to create “chopsticks”.

We really enjoyed exploring the Froebel gifts. We will continue to explore our stages of block play and introduce more of the Froebel gifts into our play.

Article 31 – “you have the right to play and relax by doing things such as sports, music and drama”.

Expressive Arts

Nature painting 🌹🌷🌸

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Yesterday in the studio we were talking about our gardens, today the children thought about what we had in the garden that we could use inside…

We had a look around the garden to discover things we could use as ‘nature’s paintbrushes’

We recycled our vegetables at snack and used our celery, cabbage and carrots to create patterns.


We chose the paint we wanted to use, making our own decisions and gaining confidence and ownership.

We recycled some old wallpaper and put it to great use giving us space to explore and create. Everyone came up with their own patterns and designs.

What different resources do you have at home. Why don’t you excitement and find things to create wonderful designs and patterns?

Article 31 You have the right to play and relax by doing things like sport, music and drama.

Expressive Arts

Sew much fun 🧵

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This week in the studio, we have been having lots of fun sewing and weaving. There were lots of volunteers to create DIY boards for us to practice our weaving skills.

We practiced our technique…

“you go over and under and over again! It’s tricky”

Some children enjoyed exploring different patterns while weaving…

 

”it’s like an M!”

Weaving is a great experience for children to develop little muscles as it is very intricate work, and these movements help  support the development of their fine motor skills.

After developing our little muscles, we put our creative hats on 👩🏼‍🎨

”I want to make a little cushion for my LOL doll”

This sparked some curiosity in the children, so we decided to explore it further.

“I want to chop my own stuffing for my little pillow.”

“I want to sew a button”

The children had lots of fantastic ideas to share…

“I’m going to make a bow”

“mine is like a little butterfly”

Sewing with children is great for many reasons, but most importantly it’s a really fun way to express ourselves. The children have been talking about making “purses” for “all their pennies”! I wonder what other wonderful role playing ideas we could come up with next week for the sewing area? We can’t wait to find out! Have a fabulous weekend everyone ☀️

Expressive Arts, Outdoor Learning, Trips and Outings

Framing Winter

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As our weather is crisp and cold we have been looking and discovering more about winter in the world around us and how we keep ourself warm during this chilly time. We asked the children what they knew about winter weather and got some lovely responses;

“It’s Cold” “

“I wear snow boots”

“My fingers go red”

“Frost makes beautiful patterns”


We decided together that we would enjoy exploring our local environment to see what effect the colder weather had on our world around us.

First we dressed appropriately for our walk, we put our warm jackets, hats, boots and some of us had cosy gloves to keep us extra warm .

We looked at how the trees looked a bit sad and cold as their beautiful big leaves have left them bare, some of the leaves were lying on the ground.

During our walk we collected some of the leaves, some sticks, twigs and stones to take back to Cart Mill

“Leaves are wet”

“ I have found the biggest stick”

On our travels we also spotted a deer and its family through the bare trees. We walked a little further and saw lots of sheep.
“Are there any baby ones?”
We discussed that baby lambs can be seen in the spring and that’s the next season after winter, so not long to wait now.

When we arrived back at the nursery we decided to create our own winter pictures using the resources we found. The children were very creative designing their own trees and snowflakes. A lovely way for us to show our fun winter walk time.

 

Expressive Arts

Really wild in the block area.

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This week in the discovery room we have been exploring the seven stages of block play. A lot of our children are at different stages of block play. This becomes evident during their spontaneous play when using the blocks.
Stage 1 is carrying. This this is the initial stage where children show interest in carrying the blocks or using them to hit together or make sound.

Stage 2 is Stacking. This is where the children begin to stack the blocks in a variety of ways. This is when the building begins.

This week the children have been showing a lot of interest in jungle animals. We decided to incorporate the animals into our block play.
This takes us to Stage 4, enclosures.
The children have been using the blocks to make homes, zoos and animal enclosures. The children have been working hard to create wonderfully exciting enclosures for their animals.

We have made small enclosures that animals can fit inside or on top.

We have made large 3D enclosures that fit different animals in different sections.

We worked on our own and together to create our builds.

We are very proud of the enclosure builds we created

Not only have we enclosed the animals, we enclosed ourselves. We built massive enclosures for us to play with the animals inside.


It’s been lots of fun this week. We put on some relaxing music to listen to on the iPad which had images of animals. Our children got very excited at seeing the animals they were playing with on the big screen.


We had lots of spontaneous learning opportunities through our week. We will continue to record our learning in our block area floorbook where we will be showcasing each of our stages of block play.

Expressive Arts, Outdoor Learning

Tremendous Truck🚍 painting 😁

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Today in the gross motor painting area the children self selected the trucks to paint  on the shower curtain  .“ I think we need some yellow paint “ “ I chose green paint, it’s a lovely colour. I don’t have any green cars at home just two grey ones “


“I’m mixing green and yellow, it’s turning blue” “ My car is painting fast” “ My cars tyres are painting yellow” “ look I’m making a circle shape with my truck”” My truck is going forwards and backwards , it’s making tracks”

The children are developing their gross motor skills, hand eye coordination as well as learning about colour mixing.
The children were happy with the end result of their art work. Well done everyone your art work looks amazing 🤩

Expressive Arts, Literacy

The Three Billy Goats Gruff

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This month in the clay area we have been creating characters from our favourite stories and this week we chose The Three Billy Goats Gruff. We started by reading the story and discussing the different characters then we set to work making them with the clay. We chose whether to make a 2D or a 3D model and discussed the best way to make the different features.


“My goat has huge horns!” “Look at my troll’s legs.”

Once the clay had dried we painted them then left them to dry again ready for telling the story.

Before starting our re-enactment of the story, we worked cooperatively to decide who would play each character and also compared the goats to determine which was the biggest and which the smallest. Then we were ready to get going….

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”Who’s that trip trapping over my bridge?”

”I’m coming to eat you!”

We had a great time telling the story and acting out each part with our models. We told the story many, many times, each time swapping which role we played and taking turns with our friends. By the end of the experience we could act out each part independently without an adult reading the story for us!

A wonderfully creative and expressive experience 🐐