Category Archives: Snack

Promoting muffin and snack making, self serving and tidying up after ourselves 👍

February 28, 2024 Mrs Johnston Leave a comment

At Cart Mill we are promoting independence, responsibility through learning to be resilient and confident and to be able to do things for ourselves.

Today we made muffins to serve at snack for our friends, this is a very popular experience which we do daily to give everyone a turn. By making the same recipe everyday allows the children to become confident in making the muffins independently with only a little support needed for the oven.

The children are familiar with the receipe…3 scoops of gluten free flour, 1 scoop of sugar, xanthum gum, baking powder and some coconut milk to bind together.

We put the muffins in the cases ready for the oven, 180 degrees for 20mins.

Whilst waiting for the muffins we start preparing our snack. The children choose their snack in the morning and being very careful with the knife we start chopping…

Watermelon, green apples, pineapple to go along with our freshly made muffins….delicious!!!

The choice and amount are displayed on our wall so the 2-5 year olds can identify the snack and clearly see how many they can have in accordance with our guidance and learning that we are sharing with our friends.

We sit together at snack enjoying the social element of talking to our friends and scaffolding our learning by watching the example set by our peers.

Why not try to make these muffins easy muffins at home (I’m sure the children will help you 😀)

Article 31 Every child has the right to relax, play and take part in a wide range of cultural and artistic activities

Expressive Arts, Snack, Special Event

Today we were Celebrating Burns day at Cart Mill family centre 😁

January 25, 2024 Miss Mitchell Leave a comment

Here are some of our Burns day activities. We enjoyed Vegetarian haggis neeps and tatties for our snack and asked the children what they thought of it thumbs up or thumbs down I’m pleased to say the majority of the children liked it.

” The haggis is a bit spicy, but I like it”

“ can I have some more , it’s so good”

“I don’t like it, it’s to bitty”

” The turnip is my favourite it’s a nice yellow colour “

We also enjoyed painting using a big box and cars to move the paint around to look like tartan. The box was quite heavy and the children had to get it into the correct angle to move the cars. “ My car is super fast” “ Im making the green tartan”

After lunch the children decided they would like to try some highland dancing. They were twirling jumping and dancing in time to the Scottish music.

Snack, Social Studies

Scrumptious Snack

January 23, 2024 Miss Campbell Leave a comment

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.

Baking, Snack

December Round Up in the Baking Area

December 21, 2023 User deactivated Leave a comment

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.

Literacy, Snack, Special Event

Christmas at Cart Mill

December 14, 2023 Miss Mitchell Leave a comment

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!

Baking, Snack

Spiced apple cake for snack🍎

November 7, 2023 Mrs MacRae Leave a comment

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.

Baking, Block building, Creativity, Expressive Arts, Snack, Special Event

Happy Halloween 🎃

October 31, 2023 Miss Campbell Leave a comment

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. 👻🎃👻🎃

Digital Technology, Literacy, Snack

Berry nice smoothies 🍓🫐

October 19, 2023 Miss Brown Leave a comment

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”

Snack

Setting into life at Cart Mill

August 25, 2023 Mrs Hannah Leave a comment

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)