Category Archives: Snack

Scrumptious Snack

Here at Cart Mill Family Centre our children are very independent when having their snacks. Our children are encouraged to show their independence skills from start to finish during the duration of the snack experience.

First the children choose what they would like to have for snack. Today we chose apples, bananas and cucumbers.
Our children are very clever and they help to prepare the snack for everyone by cutting it up.

We are very careful of our fingers when using the knife to cut the fruit.

Our children from 2-5 all have the opportunity to help prepare snack. By encouraging independence and using our fine manipulative skills to cut the snack is a great learning opportunity for our children to gain confidence from a young age.

We used different tools to help us prepare snack such as the apple corer. We had to push down hard. It was quite tricky at first.


We filled up the water and milk jugs and set up our table ready to invite our friends to join us for snack. We know the importance of washing our hands before we eat.

We collect our own cups and plates from the trolley before choosing our seat.

Our snack table is all self service and is a free flow snack which allows children to come as they please and have a leisurely snack experience which develops our social skills as we sit together having conversations with our peers.

Using the tongs helps our fine manipulative skills while saving on the germs.


We pour our own drinks and choose what we want. If some our younger children need help our older ones are always on hand to help. Once we finish our snack we take our plate and cup over to the skink to rinse it and pop it in the dish rack for the staff to help with the washing dishes.


We are very clever here at Cart Mill. The children have picked this routine up very quickly with our younger children now showing these skills and are enjoying the chance to become independent.

December Round Up in the Baking Area

Over the last few weeks in the baking  area the children have enjoyed lots of different experiences starting with making our own potato scones for St Andrews day, they worked so hard peeling, chopping, mashing and shaping before practicing their spreading skills buttering and of course enjoying the taste.

They have also been busy making a variety of different muffins for snack time, we’ve had blueberry, raisin and banana.

The children have been working on developing their fine motor skills at snack time having a go at spreading butter onto crackers, cheese onto bread and jam onto bread which has been voted the best.

We enjoyed the process of making fruit kebabs, peeling, chopping and carefully pushing them onto a skewer we introduced a wee bit of maths by recognising and following a simple pattern or making up their own.

We ended by making some delicious gingerbread cookies and decorating our “ home made” empire biscuits.

Christmas at Cart Mill

As we said yesterday, this week at Cart Mill is full on festive. Today we enjoyed a special Christmas lunch with turkey and all the trimmings, followed by ice cream. We have also been busy writing letters to Santa and this afternoon we baked gingerbread biscuits.

When writing their letters, the children talked about all the gifts they were hoping for. We hope you know what they are hoping for too!

‘ I Would like a unicorn’ ‘Its quite hard to cut out the stamps because they are so small’

‘I’m posting my letter i have written lots in it’ ‘ I would like a diplodocus for for Christmas and a big T-Rex also a giraffe’

There has also been requests for a coffee machine for the bath, bubble machines, dolls and Spiderman. Let’s hope Santa is listening!

We then made our gingerbread men or angels. After seeing the play, we thought it would be so good to make our very own gingerbread! The centre was full of festive smells as the biscuits baked.


‘I measured out three table spoons of sugar’ ‘I think these will be tasty’ ‘I’m rolling it out flat’


Every day seems so busy at Cart Mill, it will be Christmas before we know it!

Spiced apple cake for snack🍎

The children at Cart Mill love to bake. For our afternoon snack we have been introducing some homemade baking.

Today we have been busy making some spiced apple cake. Baking helps to develop the children independence skills. The children are able to following instructions, carrying out small tasks independently.

First we chopped our apple into small pieces. Our children know how to keep ourself safe while using the knifes.

“We need to sit on the chair”

“We are need to be careful, we don’t  want to chop our fingers”

Chopping the apple not only promotes independence but help develop fine motor skills and co ordination.

Next we use the measuring spoons to measure out the ingredients helping develop our numeracy skills.

1..2 scoops of flour

1 scoop of sugar…

       

Once we added all our ingredients and gave it a big stir. It was hard work, we had to use lots of muscles.

“It’s all sticky”

”It’s going to taste yummy”

Here are all our children enjoy sharing the snack with their friends.

 

Article 27 – You have the right to food, clothing a safe place to live and to have your basic needs met.

 

 

 

 

 

Happy Halloween 🎃

It’s a Hallowe’en fangtastic day here at Cart Mill. We have taken part in a variety of autumn learning experiences across each of our play rooms and garden.

We made spooky mud pie potions in our mud kitchen.

We also turned our water tray into a witches and wizards’ caldron using food colouring, shaving foam and different sized containers to create more potions.

We had opportunities to create Hallowe’en coloured crafts in our gross motor art area

In our Home Room we sang Hallowe’en songs and made Frankenstein’s green and purple sparkle playdough. We used our fine motor skills and imagination to mould our playdough into different shapes.

In the baking area we made witches fingers for snack (breadsticks with pumpkin seeds) it sounds like a yummy spooky snack.

In our Discovery Room we made a spooky block castle, using our creative and problem solving skills.

We also had our pumpkin potion experiment in our science area using our investigation and discovery skills.

And finally, in our Studio Room we were making Halloween houses, painting with our hands and creating wonderful pictures.

Some of our children came to nursery dressed up, here is a showcase of some of our many spooktacular costumes…..

Happy Halloween to all our families. 👻🎃👻🎃

Berry nice smoothies 🍓🫐

Today in the home room the children decided they wanted to make fruit smoothies.

We used the internet to search for a recipe to make delicious fruit smoothies. We then collected the ingredients we needed from the kitchen to begin making our very nice smoothies.

To begin the children took turns to  scoop a spoonful of frozen berries into the bowl. Next they safely used a knife to cut up a banana to add to the bowl.

“I put strawberries and blueberries in they were stuck together with ice”

Using the measuring jug the children measured out 240ml of milk, they worked as a team to measure one tsp of honey before adding all the ingredients into the blender. We also made a water based fruit smoothie as an alternative.

“it’s so noisy”

When the ingredients were all blended together the children poured the smoothie into an jug and shared with their friends for snack.

“It tastes yummy”

“ I can taste banana, I like banana for snack”

 


 

Homemade banana muffins for snack 😋😋😋

Today the children made banana muffins for snack to share with their friends. This is helping develop their sense of responsibility and the pride they feel in looking after others.

First aprons on and hands washed, table cleaned ready to start..

Then we mashed up the bananas helping develop our fine motor muscles

Then we measured our ingredients helping develop our numeracy and problem solving skills..3 scoops of gluten free flour

We carefully put our mixture into the cases

Then we shared the muffins with all our friends….delicious 😋😋😋

Article 28 I have the right to an education.

Setting into life at Cart Mill

As we come to the end of the first week of our new term, we thought we would share our fun filled week with you!  It has been lovely to welcome our new children and families and see our children returning from holiday.  We are so proud of how well you have settled  and become part of our Cart Mill family.  Of course we can’t forget our experienced Cart Millers who have taken great pride in being tour guides, sharing their experience and lending a helping hand.

Our Cart Mill Cafe has been a highlight this week! We are super proud of our children who have taken our lunch and snack routine in their stride.  They have demonstrated fabulous independence by helping prepare snack, serving themselves, clearing away their dishes afterwards, having the confidence to try new foods and share their likes and dislikes with us.

A new beginning and change of routine can be exciting but also a little daunting and overwhelming at times! This week we’ve taken the time to focus on our health and well-being by thinking about fun activities we would like to do to “make us feel happy” and take time to make connections with our new environment and each other. It has been lovely to observe new friendships forming and established friendships reigniting.

A firm favourite has been to spend time outdoors where we have had lots of fun creating our own “running and hopping” game and exploring sensory play in our mud kitchen and water area.

“Look the bubbles are blue. I’m pouring the water”.

”Look you go this way. I’ll help you”.

Singing and dancing is always good for the soul, uplifting spirits and bringing us together.  There have been plenty choruses of rain, rain go away come again another day this week! In usual Cart Mill style this didn’t dampen our spirits but instigated some fabulous outfits, dance moves and dance shows!

“”I’ve got my sun hat and my cat ears on”

We have taken time to ensure we have created some lovely cozy corners where we can  relax, share our favourite stories and chat with our friends and shared precious mindful moments during group time.

Our noisy/quiet room has been very popular.  We embraced the opportunity to unwind by sewing and creating our own fabulous songs on our piano, as well as spending some time in our studio listening to relaxing music and painting our masterpieces!

It’s been a wonderful week full of cuddles, fun, stories, songs and laughter.  We can’t wait to share the next chapter of our journey with you!

You have the right to give your opinion, and for an adult to listen and take it seriously. (Right 12)

You have the right to rest and play. (Right 31)

 

It’s a strawberry muffin kinda day at Cart Mill 🍓😁

The Children decided today that they would like to bake strawberry muffins.


They were able to follow my instructions to make their yummy muffins. “ 1,2,3 I have put my three scoops of flour in” “ flour is quite messy it goes everywhere “

” The strawberry (dairy free) yogurt smells lovely, It’s my favourite “ “ Im putting in 4 tablespoons so it’s extra strawberryish”


The children looked to see what other ingredients they could add to their muffins and found some cherries in the fridge. “These cherries will make our muffins extra tasty “  They used their fantastic hand eye coordination and fine motor skills to slice them up. “Im slicing mine in half”


They helped each other to spoon the mixture into cases. “ We made 12 muffins”  “ I think we could share our strawberry muffins at snack

““

Good job everyone they were super tasty 😋

 

Summer fun🎈Afternoon Tea at Cart Mill 🍓


The children led this blog and narrated as they went – enjoy their own words!
On a nature walk the children noticed that the bushes across from the nursery have raspberries on them.  “ Can we pick some and make something with them” “ I love raspberries “ “ The strawberries in the garden are ready to we could make some jam and put it onto scones “

“These strawberries aren’t very big” “ Bet they still taste good though” “We need to wash our strawberries and raspberries “

” We need to mash the fruit up, I think a fork would be best for mashing “ “ The strawberries and raspberries smell really good” “ I’m going to mash up 5 strawberries and 3 raspberries because I like strawberries the best”


“ Lets carefully measure out the ingredients so our scones are tasty” “Don’t put to much baking powder in or it will taste horrible, I think half a teaspoon is fine “

is
“let’s cut our scones out,we need the special scone cutter and we need to use the rolling pin , to make it flat”” mine is a bit sticky” 

”I think 11 minutes will be enough “ ” I don’t want mine to burn”

” Mmmm my scone tastes yummy “ “ I’m only putting a little jam on mine”  “ we better wash our dishes”

Great team work the scones tasted amazing and you even washed the dishes. 🤩