Category Archives: Imaginative thinking

Baking, Creative movement, Creativity, Expressive Arts, Froebel, Imaginative thinking, Literacy, music, nature, Outdoor Learning, Snack, Social Studies

What have we been doing at Cart Mill this week?

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This week at Cart Mill we have been taking part in a wide variety of learning experiences across each of our playrooms and our garden.
In our Discovery room we have continued along our Jack and the Beanstalk learning journey by investigating “forces” and “travel”. Our mission was to find a way for Jack to get to and from the castle without the giant seeing!  To do this we decided to fill the balloon with air and let it go to see how far it would travel towards the castle. It’s been so much fun seeing how much air we need to make the balloon go fast or slow.

In our Studio we have shown an interest in diggers and have been using the water tray as our construction site. We used dried rice to represent the dirt and had great fun using the construction toys to fill, empty and transport the rice.  We used our technology skills to look at videos of real construction vehicles on our smart board. This experience had such a great level of engagement from all our children, especially our younger ones. We even found a Danny go video called “digging in the dirt” to all join in with, incorporating our health, well-being and movements skills.

In our Home room we have continued to develop our baking skills by researching recipes, measuring ingredients and making yummy vegan treats for our afternoon snack!  The best part was taste testing our baking!
In our playdough area  we have been experimenting by adding different scents to our playdough. We’ve tried peppermint, lemon and orange extracts. We even tried chocolate powder to make chocolate playdough. It smelt so good and looked just like chocolate. This week we decided to wander out to the the planting area to choose herbs and flowers to introduce some different scents. We picked basil, thyme, garlic and some flowers. As we grow in confidence, we are able to make our playdough independently using our self serve playdough station.  It has been lots of fun choosing loose parts to add to our playdough and creating  wonderful models.
Between the smells of playdough and daily home baking our home room smells delightful.

And finally our garden! The weather has been a little varied this week with showers of rain in between the sunshine.  As usual, we didn’t let that stop our fun!  We have used the gross motor rollers to mark make, played role play games using the play house and even took part in music and movement games such as head shoulders knees and toes. We extended our muddy movers skills by playing catch with the sticky ball and catching mitts. It was lots of fun taking turns with catching and throwing.

We all love learning through our play at Cart Mill! I wonder what we will do next week during our summer adventures?

UNCRC article 28- we have the right to play.

Creative movement, Creativity, Expressive Arts, Imaginative thinking

Creative Painting

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Today in the studio we decided to have some fun with the paint using  our hands and feet! Firstly we laid down a clear shower curtain and chose colours of paint to “squirt” onto it.
How are we going to mix the colours together ?  Using our problem solving skills we came up with some good ideas.
“We can roll around ! And I can use my feet . Be careful it is a bit slippy!”

We have developed our tactile and sensory skills from touching the paint and feeling it on our skin and between our toes. This also helps  us develop gross motor skills and balance. We discussed colours and watched them mix together .

As we explore the paint, some of us enjoy fully covering ourselves as a form of self – exploration.
As we become more experienced artists, we demonstrated excellent gross motor skills by using our hands and feet to walk through the paint.


After all the fun we had with our body painting,  we were able to hang our art work outside and use the remaining paint to draw shapes and letters on it with brushes. “A pointy A for my name”.

“I made a circle ⭕️”.
We all had a great morning having the freedom to discover and choose ways to be creative.

Article13 – I have the right to find out and share information.

Creativity, Imaginative thinking

Puppet Play

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Over the last few weeks the children have been involved in activities relating to castles in the junk modelling area.  As we come to the end of this activity, the children realised that the castle had no people living in it, so they wanted to make some characters for the castle.

First, we searched to see how to make puppets and what resources we had available in junk modelling. We found some lolly sticks and colourful paper to make our characters.

Some of the children chose to use glue to make their puppet and others used cello tape.

Then they dressed the puppets using colourful paper before giving the puppets a face, which gave the puppets their own personality.

“That’s the bones, otherwise he will fall apart”

The children came up with the idea of using a second lolly stick to give their puppet arms.

Children  benefit from puppet making as it helps to develop their creative imagination.  Some of the children played with the puppets in the nursery through role play and creating personalities for their puppets.

One puppet even got his very own castle.

This fun activity also increases communication and social skills.

Cart Mill Castle.

Article 28 – I have the right to an education.

 

 

 

Creativity, Expressive Arts, Froebel, Imaginative thinking

Colour Mixing Playdough.

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We have been learning how to make playdough all by ourselves. The playdough area is a self-serve area designed to promote the independent skills of all our children.

We have been selecting our ingredients and we are learning about the different quantities of these ingredients that we will we need for our recipe. (Following on from the new government guidelines we have been using heat treated gluten free flour in our recipe).

All our children aged 2-5 have the opportunity to make their own playdough and enjoy doing so independently.

This week in our Playdough area we have been exploring and experimenting with colour mixing.
First we made our playdough, by each collecting the bowl, spoon and ingredients we needed. We each choose a primary colour to make our playdough to start with. We had red, yellow and blue.

We were able to see if our playdough was ready, by testing if it was too dry and needed more water or too wet and needed more flour.


“more water”


“Too sticky,  need more flour”

”it’s ready”

Once our playdough was perfect we set up our playdough station and invited our friends to come and join us.

We each took a pinch of two or more colours and mixed them together to see what colours we could make.

We used our gross motor skills as we rolled the playdough together to mix up the colours.

We were amazed at the colours we were able to make.

“I’ve made so many”

“I’ve made pink and purple and orange”

We discovered that we got green by mixing red and yellow. Purple by mixing the red and blue. And a pinky orange if we mixed red and yellow. We even ended up with a rainbow playdough mix.

Once we made all our new colours we got to work creating playdough masterpieces using the loose parts.

“I made a unicorn”

“A birthday cake, blow out your candles”

We also used a variety of different tools to help us mould our playdough such as scissors

rolling pins

and even used the loose parts to make patterns

We have been so busy at our playdough station. I wonder what we will make tomorrow.
Here is some of our playdough creations so far….

Article 29 – I have the right to an education which develops my personality.

 

Creativity, Expressive Arts, Imaginative thinking

Colourful Creative Coos

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In the art area outdoors we have been learning about a Scottish artist called Steven Brown. We have explored some of his Mccoo pictures and a couple of his Mczoo animals.  We talked about how beautiful and colourful they were and that he uses lots of colours.
A few of the children were familiar with the Mccoo and had recognised it.

“ my granny has that in her house”

”I have seen that before”

Today we decided we would design our own Mccoo and work as  a team to make a big, huge one. We gathered our resources and had a discussion on how we were going to begin. Firstly we drew a big circle for its head and then some horns.

We had a variety of resources to choose from including pallet knifes which Steven Brown used for various of his  own pictures. The children used their fine motor skills to create different marks and shapes on the cow, we even managed to mix some of our colours together creating even more beautiful vibrant colours. The children took turns and shared the colours and utensils


“whats it going to be called.”

”can I think of a name”

The children then began rhyming off all there friends names.

Finally it was dry and we could cut our cow out and add some other details  to our own cow.

We were  then back to thinking  about a name .

Then we heard at the National Museum of Rural Life in East Kilbride there had been two calves born. We looked this up and we decided we would call our highland cow Ishbel.

Creative movement, Creativity, Expressive Arts, Imaginative thinking

Paint -Let’s Explore !!

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Today we decided to explore and have some fun with the paint through colour mixing and sensory experiences. We had a look at the colour charts and chose our colours and filled our pots.

We began to mix our colours together and were excited to see them change right before our eyes. “ Look you made pink”.  The children created peach, lime green, sky blue , yucky brown!

The children always enjoy some hand painting. Engaging with different colours, textures and materials stimulates the child’s senses, promoting integration and cognitive development.

We can even paint our nails and blow them dry like mummy does!

Some of the older children began to try different ways to use the cotton buds  “Look I can roll mine and it makes a bigger mark and it feels nice in my fingers “.  This helps develop the fine motor skills and enhancing hand eye coordination.

Producing their own artwork gives all our children a sense of accomplishment and pride, boosting their confidence and self-esteem. Plus it was just great fun!!

Article – 13  You have the right to play and learn through new experiences.

Creative movement, Creativity, Expressive Arts, Imaginative thinking, Literacy

Pikachu clay models

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The children wanted to make something different with the clay, but they were unsure of what. So last week we sat down together and discussed some ideas, I asked the children questions to get them to really think about their interests and how we could incorporate these in to our clay area.

Pokémon seemed to be a common theme so we used the iPad to search the internet for some Pokémon ideas. We came across a clay Pokémon figure, it was perfect! The children helped pick out some other clay model pictures including unicorns, garden gnomes, and even Elsa from Frozen . I printed these out and laminated them, leaving them on the table to inspire some ideas.

The children began to make their own models, squeezing, rolling, and manipulating the clay to their desired shape. They soon realised looking at the pictures that our clay was grey and the pictures used coloured clay, how would they make their own models colourful? They worked together using their problem solving skills to come up with some ideas. “I know, we could get paint!” “and paintbrushes and paint them and that’s how they will be colours”.


Once their models were finished we left them to dry out over the weekend, ready for painting this morning.

There was lots of great ideas.


“A bowl of soup with spoon”

“Pikachu”

“I made a snail”


They put their finished models on the shelf to let the paint dry, we can’t wait to see the end result.

 

Froebel, Imaginative thinking, Outdoor Learning

Forest fun

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It’s been a fun filled couple of weeks for our Wednesday forest schoolers!

As we are so experienced and have demonstrated we can play safely in our forest, we decided we would like to build our own rope swing! Luckily Val was on hand to find a nice strong tree and put our swing up for us. We had so much fun taking turns to see how far we could swing!

“look at me I’m going so high!”

Climbing trees has been our favourite thing to do.  After a wee bit of help and some practice, we are now able to assess our own risk and climb to a safe height by ourselves!

“Look at me, I’m swinging like a monkey”

”I’m split man because I can do the splits!”

Our imaginative thinking has shone through in our forest.  With sticks as our inspiration we have built campfires to go camping, been doctors helping look after our friends, been old people using a walking stick, and have created our own X marks the spot and an equals sign!

Our Forest truly is a magical place! We wished “we could live here” “can we go camping”.  We can’t wait to come back next week!

Article 12 – (respect for the views of the child)

Article 28 – (right to education)

Article 29 – (goals of education)

Article 31 – (leisure, play and culture)

 

 

Creative movement, Expressive Arts, Froebel, Imaginative thinking, Literacy, Outdoor Learning, Social Studies

Dandelion tea in our mud kitchen cafe

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We have really been enjoying our mud kitchen area in our nursery garden. The children have particularly enjoyed the role play aspect of our mud kitchen.


We have been using the mud, water and utensils to create lots of wonderful muddy meals.  The children have turned our mud kitchen into the “mud kitchen cafe”. The children have been taking it in turns to  see who will be the cook and who will be the customer.  This has been especially enjoyed by our 3-5 year old children.

This week in our mud kitchen cafe some of our children noticed there were some dandelions growing in our garden and wanted to use them as part of the ingredients for their muddy meals.

The cooks got to work mixing, whisking and cooking the delicious muddy meals and daffodil tea.

We were using so many skills during our role play, such as gross and fine motor skills, creative thinking, imaginative play, problem solving and learning new vocabulary.

Once the food was cooked at the kitchen it was time to take it to the table to serve the customer

and pour the dandelion tea.

We also used our early writing and mark making skills to create our menu board to tell the customers what they could buy and how much it was going to cost them.

Our older children have been great role models for our younger children helping them to develop new skills and guiding them how to play.

Within our mud kitchen we have noticed the enjoyment the 2-3 year old children have gained from pouring and filling using the mud kitchen utensils. We set up a pouring and filling station on our tough tray in the mud kitchen to engage our younger children and follow their interests.

The children had so much fun using the water to fill up the different sized utensils and containers pouring them from one to the other or down the plastic gutter.

Our younger children were using their pouring and filling skills while developing their curiosity.

We had so much fun mixing and whisking the water just as if we were cooking in the mud kitchen cafe as well.

We loved pouring and filling the water so much we even made a puddle to splash in.

If our hands got too muddy and we didn’t like it we used our water jugs to wash away all the mud from our hands if we wanted to continue to play before going inside to wash our hands with soap.

I wonder what we will be serving in our mud kitchen cafe tomorrow?

Article 31 – I have the right to relax and play. 

Creativity, Froebel, Imaginative thinking, Mindful moments

When Harry Potter came to Forest School!

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It was a dull and wet start to forest school today, but in true Cart Mill style we didn’t let that dampen our enthusiasm! We popped on our waterproofs and off we set!  As we are such experienced explorers, we were able to navigate our way there, remembering the busy roads we had to cross and to look our for “the white house with the rainbow flower in the garden we saw last week!” so that we knew where to turn to find our forest.   Being our usual inquisitive self’s, we spotted some signs along the way.  At Field Grove we were able to spot “that’s an L for my mummy’s name.” “My mummy has an L too, and my brother has a r”.

When we arrived at our site we remembered all the hazards we had chatted about last week and were able to carry out our own risk assessment and set our boundaries.

Bug hunting has been a real area of interest and we have been doing lots of research on bugs.  What better place to search for “real” bugs than in our forest!  Off we set with our magnifying glasses 🔍.  It was so much fun to search under logs, on trees and even in the mud to see what we could find!


We were amazed to find “sammy snail”,  “super slug”, “colin” who was a millipede and a whole family of woodlouse! Who knew we would find a baby worm that “looks like an angry eyeball”. Dr Doolittle had better watch out! 🐛

“It’s a C for my name”.

“Look it’s crawling on my arm!”

Of course as it was so wet we decided our bugs would need a bug house! After lots of discussion we collected our building materials. Working together we built a “super special” house for our bug family.

“This can be the roof.”

“This stone is big.  They can sit or sleep on it.”

“This can be the food. They might be hungry.  I’m hungry, when can we have snack?”

After a quick snack and a wee recharge we noticed the sun had appeared! Off we set to find some sticks! This sparked an impromptu game of forest “freeze” and “unfreeze” using our “Harry Potter wands” while “Harry Potter” himself flew above us on his “broomstick” along with “a flying car that goes invisible”.

“I’m Harry Potter flying on my broomstick”.

”I’m flying.  I’m in a flying car. I can spread my wings and fly over you”.

Before we left we had a wonderful mindful moment, sparked entirely by a cry of “stop talking and listen”. “I can hear the birds.  They’re making a woo hoo sound”.  “I can hear the wind blowing through the trees”.  We even spotted a pigeons nest high up in the trees.

Our tired legs got us back to Cart Mill safely, even spotting a number sign along the way.

“It says 20”.

This week we have been navigators, explorers, bug hunters, builders, flying cars and our favourite of all, Harry Potter! We truly do have fabulous forest schoolers at Cart Mill and we can’t wait for another amazing adventure next week!

Article 29 – I have the right to an education which develops my personality, respect for others’ rights and the environment.