Category Archives: Literacy

Block building, Creativity, Digital Technology, Imaginative thinking, Literacy

Ship Ahoy!!

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Last week in the Discovery Room the children were fascinated with Aeroplanes! This stemmed from one child talking about his Daddy being an engineer for an Airline! The children watched clips of planes landing and then designed and built their own aeroplane using the blocks!

Following on from this, we had a discussion about different modes of transport and today the children decided to design and build their own boat! We looked at clips of different types of boats on the screen and got to work creating our masterpiece!

“This boat needs big sides!”
“Don’t forget a steering wheel!”

Once the Cartmill Cruise Ship was complete the children wasted no time jumping on board and playing in it!

“There’s too many people, it might sink!”

The children used their imaginations and went on holiday to many places from Glasgow to as far away as Canada!

”My Gran goes on a cruise ship!”

When we were in bed sleeping the sea got a bit choppy which the children thought was scary!

”Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh!”

The children then used the iPad to scan the QR code for our five little boats song which they enjoyed singing along to!

Once we had travelled the world in our boat the children decided they wanted to make their own little boats to race in the water tray! It was agreed that tinfoil would create the best boats.

“Tinfoil is light, because it’s light it stays on top of the water!”

“The sides are going up to stop the water going in!”

”Mine is a big boat with a little boat inside!”

The children had great fun racing their boats, they also decided to use empty butter tubs which they discovered also floated and they covered the lids in tinfoil to make a life raft!

“Ah, mine has sunk, my floating bits have come off!”

”Oh no, I have a leak, it’s sprung a leak!”

”There’s been a Tsunami which caused a whirlpool!”

We explained to the children their boats had capsized! They had not heard this expression before so we looked it up on the iPad to show them images of what it meant!

A lot of fun was had by the children starting with them being so imaginative in the block area. Block play encourages the children’s creativity whilst learning to take turns and share materials. They are learning to cooperate whilst playing and communicating with their friends!

Well done to the Cartmill designers and builders!

Article  31 – Children have the right to play.

Family learning, Froebel, Literacy, Special Event

Family Learning Event

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A huge thank you to our families who attended our Family Learning event.   Within East Renfrewshire schools and nurseries, there is a campaign to encourage more family learning in both early years centres and primary schools.  Many parents engage in their child’s education through stay and play sessions or meet the teacher, but we want to encourage you to join in their learning with us.

  • family learning helps extend teaching outside of the nursery and can improve educational outcomes for children
  • It is an effective way for parents to engage with their child’s nursery and can improve communication between practitioners and parents
  • it can also open new communication between parents and children and make learning fun for both

Our staff follow Curriculum For Excellence which is the curriculum for children from the age of 3-18.  All staff are qualified to deliver this and our event was a great opportunity to share the fantastic work they do.  Our  teacher Helen helps staff to plan learning activities in each area, which is then shared on our planning wall in the playroom, along with ideas of how you can continue this learning at home.

Eilidh, our STEM Ambassador, shared some of the fantastic experiments she helps our children create. Snowstorm in a jar and monster in a cup are amongst our favourites!

Helen helps support our children to develop their literacy and numeracy skills by creating fabulous learning activities.  She has created some really useful information on phonological awareness which is the foundation for helping our children develop their early reading skills and showcased some examples of how this could be reinforced at home.

Fiona recently attended the Hanen ABC and beyond training which supports children to develop and build their language, reading and writing skills.  She shared the wonderful work Iona has done with our children to develop their knowledge of environmental print such as familiar logos on packaging, signs and creating their own posters and helping with labelling their playroom.

Angela and Val were on hand to answer any questions, share information on transitions to Primary 1 or for families who may wish to defer their entry.
Our event was a wonderful opportunity to share information with families and to ask for ideas of how we can work together to help you join in your child’s learning.  Your thoughts and opinions are so important to us and we would love your feedback on times that would suit you best for us to hold future events and whether you would be interested in learning bags, information leaflets or any ideas you have.

 

 

Creativity, emotional literacy, Expressive Arts, Froebel, Imaginative thinking, Literacy, nature

Superworm at Book Week Scotland 2024

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Last week in our playdough area we were celebrating Book Week Scotland by reading “Superworm”.

Engaging with our favourite stories and finding joy in reading helps to strengthen our children’s literacy skills and comprehension abilities whilst having fun. Reading books with our children also helps them to enhance their cognitive abilities such as memory retention, critical thinking and problem solving.

Today we had the curiosity cube in our playdough area and who was inside? Our very own Superworm!

We made pink playdough and had a go at creating our very own Superworm. We used some of our dough disco moves we have been practicing to help us roll the playdough into a sausage to make our Superworm .

We found some googly eyes and some sticky stickers to add to our Playdough just like the real Superworm .

We enjoyed making our Superworm and some of our children even wanted to make lots of friends for Superworm.

We counted them as we made them, promoting our numeracy learning through our play experiences.

Our older children wanted to make different characters from the story. Some children chose their favourite baby toad to create.

We decided to retell the story of Superworm using our playdough creations.  Some of us decided to change the story and create their own.

We had Super worm with his friends, Superworm saving the princess in the castle, Superworm with the zoo animals and Superworm the flying worm.

We shared our ideas with our friends and discussed different characters and events in our story. Storytelling provokes conversations between our children of different ages and stages of development.

Here is a look at some of our own Superworms.

We read the story of Superworm and used Superworm and one of our playdough toads to help retell the story.

“Superworm is super long.”

”Superworm is super strong.”

“watch him wiggle.”

”see him squirm.”

”Hip hip hooray for Superworm.”

I wonder what characters from our favourite stories will be in our curiosity cube tomorrow?  Don’t forget to help yourself to a book at our front door to share with your children at home as part of our Book week Scotland.

Creativity, Imaginative thinking, Literacy, nature, Snack

Super Soup

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As part of celebrating all things autumnal, the children have been experimenting in making soup using seasonal vegetables.

During this activity the children were developing their gross motor skills when peeling and chopping the vegetables.

Firstly, the children peeled the carrots and parsnips.  The children are using their problem solving skills when using the peeler.

“This is white and this orange”

Then they chopped the vegetables into small chunks, so that we could cook them.  The children are developing their confidence when using the knife.

“I did it!”

Once the vegetable mix was chopped and washed, we added it to the soup pot with stock cubes and boiling water to cook.

The children were able to sample the soup at snack time and we discussed the taste, temperature, and texture of the soup.  Children learn with their senses and during this activity, they were able to enhance their communication, language and social skills.


“It’s good”.  “It’s hot”. “Yummy”.  “I don’t like it”

This cooking activity allowed the children to develop a healthy relationship with food and be more adventurous by sampling different tastes.

The children were able to feel competent and were proud of their ability to get involved in preparing the soup mix.  This also benefits the children from a nutrition, growth and development perspective.

The soup making allowed the children to explore their curiosity about the vegetables they were preparing (carrots, parsnips, butternut squash) and ask questions.

UNCRC Article 27 children have the right to food.

 

 

Creative movement, Creativity, Digital Technology, Expressive Arts, Literacy, Mindful moments, nature, Outdoor Learning, Social Studies, Special Event

Garden roundup

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It’s been a busy week for us in the garden. We are developing our motor skills in a variety of ways.


This simple but effective experience enabled the children to experiment with colour mixing as well as developing their fine motor and early writing skills as they made marks on the foil using different  tools.

“ The blue got on the yellow and now the yellow looks a bit green”.

“I making fireworks”


The fireworks have really grabbed the children’s attention and been the topic of conversation. Throwing the powder paint on the ground sparked an idea. “The ground is black like the sky at night”

They threw lots of different colours on the ground and used small and large items to move and redirect the paint in different shapes and patterns.


Learning how to move our bodies in different ways to develop our gross motor skills and mark making skills has been so much fun.

We filled some tights with different materials such as sponges, pasta, pom poms and balls and used them to create a piece of art. This allowed the children to explore descriptive language as they figured out how to make marks on the foil.

“The pasta is spikey”

“ This one is really heavy I had to spin round and round to get the paint up there”

“ I want to get it to the top so I have to stretch my legs and stand on my tiptoes and do a big jump”

To end the week we thought it would be a good idea to begin learning about Remembrance Day and why we mark this as a special day. We watched a short child friendly video about the Poppy and decided to create our own.
The children used cut up potatoes and loose parts to make marks on the paper to create a lovely picture.

“ My dad wears a poppy for all the soldiers”

“ We can put purple on it too to remember the Animals”

Creativity, Literacy, Outdoor Learning

Welcome to our potion station today 🎃🎃🎃

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Today in the garden we welcomed all the witches and wizards to our potion station …..

This developed our pouring and measuring skills, filling and emptying containers or cauldrons. Encouraging mathematical language how much do we need, do we need more or less?

Decision making….creating their own potions and deciding what they choose to go in.

Enjoying the outdoor sensory experience,  the different smells and textures.

Working together and supporting each other’s learning.

Potions were for lions and unicorns fingers crossed some of these come true…. What potions can you make at home?

Article 28  Children have the right to an education

Literacy

Marvellous Monday fun 👻🎃

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As it’s Halloween next week we have a few themed learning experiences around the nursery. The children asked for a Halloween story and they chose Room on the Broom. “ It’s my favourite story” “ I wish I could fly on a broom in the sky.“ “I like the dog best in this story.”

The children used shapes to make spooky patterns  and enjoyed mixing potions to use for magic spells. “ It’s fancy orange water I, wonder if the water will change to green If I put a green potion into it”


We made up a letter hunt game using familiar Halloween packaging.  The children looked for a letter on the packaging then were encouraged to sound it out and mark it off their pumpkin worksheet.

“I can see a v that’s my Mums name begins with” “pumpkin starts with a p”

“Monster begins with an m look I have found it on my sheet” “ I have found lots of letters “ “ S for sweets, mmmmmm I do like sweets!”

Maybe you could think of some more fun Halloween  activities we could do?

Creative movement, Creativity, Digital Technology, Expressive Arts, Literacy, Outdoor Learning

Halloween splat painting

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Some of the children were chatting about Halloween this morning. Following their interest,  we thought it would be a good idea to search the internet to look for some activities that we could do in our Gross motor art/mark making area in the garden.

We came across splat painting and thought this looked like it would be lots of fun.  We chose some Halloween characters and  printed them out and stuck them on to a large piece of card.  Then it was time to choose our favourite colours of paint!
“I like the pumpkin, my mum said I can get one at the shop.”

“Can I choose the paint?”
“I like red paint.”

“ This is so heavy.”

“I’m using my big muscles to push the blue paint out.”

Next we went outside to the garden and found a good spot to hang our pictures up. Using different sized paint brushes, we dipped them into the paint and tried out lots of large movements to splat the card until it was covered in lots of different colours of paint.  Forming a queue, we were able to take turns to move our bodies in different ways and  splat the paint in different directions.

“I’m going to run so fast like Sonic.”

“Me too!”

When the card was covered in paint, we peeled the Halloween pictures off to see what we had created.

“Look, I can see the witches cat.”

“The witches cat is wearing a hat, oh that rhymes!”

“and the pumpkin.”

We had so much fun using  large body movements to create a piece of art, while developing our gross motor skills.

Block building, Literacy

Mega Measuring!

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This week the children have been making the most of the sunshine out in the garden. Some of our children were having great fun exploring measurement through their play!  They decided to use the decking boards to measure their friends. They wanted to find out who was taller than the different sized boards!

“Yip! You are taller than the wood so you can go on our rollercoaster!”

”Sorry, you are not tall enough for the rollercoaster!”

We decided to develop the children’s interest in measurement in the block area. The children helped to attach a large tape measure to the wall! They then used different sized blocks to build their own tower and measure how tall it was. They used a pen to mark on a piece of tape how tall they could actually build their towers!

“My tower is the biggest, it’s away up here!”

Some of the children wanted to estimate and point to where they thought they could build their tower to before it fell down!

“Yay look I got it that big, to that number!”

Next the children decided to measure each other and mark on the tape to see who was the tallest!

“You are tallest but let’s  see with your hair sticking up if you can be tallest!”

”If I put on my high heels on  I’ll be tallest! Try with your high heels!
(Tip Toes of course!!)

Other children were building towers with sticky bricks and decided to come over and measure their designs!

“I added more bricks and it’s in the higher numbers!”

”This tower is even taller than me!!”          “Wow, that’s big!”

What great fun we had with measurement this week and what great imaginations our children have!

 

Article 31 ~ The right to play

 

 

 

 

 

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.