Category Archives: Literacy

Literacy

People who can help us

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We do love a story here at Cart Mill! Our favourite story today was about Emergency Services and people who could help us.  In particular, the children enjoyed hearing about fire engines.

We chatted about the colour of the fire engine and the sound it makes in an emergency!!!

We love to role play so we found some firemen puppets and used them to re-enact the story.  We were able to discuss what we think firemen do and what we would do if we were firemen!

We love to sing at Cart Mill. Gail taught us 5 little firefighters standing in a row. We were able to sing along and add in our own actions.

Why don’t you sing the song at home!

5 little firefighters standing in a row

1,2,3 swoosh swoosh they go

hop on the engine with a shout

quicker than a wink and the fire is out!!!!

We may have plenty of future fire fighters from Cartmill 🧑🏼‍🚒

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Expressive Arts, Literacy

Dough Disco!

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Welcome to the Dough Disco.

The dough disco is a fun way for our children to combine play dough and a series of hand and finger exercises designed to improve fine muscle control.  These exercises help prepare for writing  and pencil control.

Today the children chose Let It Go for our disco song.
Our first move was “squeeze”. We used each hand one at a time to warm up our hands.

Next move was “ball it” we had to use the palm of our hands to roll the playdough into a ball.

Next was “smack it”. We had to use our hands to smack the playdough flat into our other hand.

Up next was “single fingers” we had to take each of our fingers one by one and press them onto the playdough.

Lastly we made a “sausage” we had to roll the playdough  between our hands.

Each dough disco move was in time to our music and the experience lasts as long as the song does. It’s a quick fun way to strengthen our finger muscles. It’s harder than it looks!
Why don’t you have a go at your very own Dough Disco at home.

Expressive Arts, Literacy, Outdoor Learning

Nature walk between showers!!

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Today we had a very interesting nature walk! Our mission was to collect leaves and acorns of all different shapes and sizes.
However,  the first thing we spotted on our walk was was two little ducks! We thought this was very exciting as they were running around so close to our nursery!

The children noticed the ducks were different colours and spotted a duck pond for them! (A very large puddle!!)

“They are shouting quack, quack!”    “They are so cute!”
“I love the ducks!”     “They came to our nursery!”

We continued on our walk and the children managed to find lots of leaves and pine cones.  They found both green leaves and brown leaves. They climbed small hills to reach the leaves they wanted.

When we were walking back to nursery  the children spotted a big muddy puddle which, of course, they just had to jump in!! They had so much fun seeing how high they could jump and how big a splash they could make!

”I made a great big splash!”      “The water feels so cold on me!”

Once we got back to nursery we did some printing with our leaves using different coloured paint. The children noticed that the different leaves made different patterns on the paper! We also dipped our pine cones in paint and rolled them across the paper to create some nice patterns.

Whilst making some amazing pictures with the materials we gathered, the children were developing their gross motor skills and had great conversations about their outing! What a fun morning we had!

Literacy, Social Studies

Busy Builders

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All go this morning in the construction corner but safety first! We ensured we had our high viz jackets and goggles on and most importantly our checklist. We had a discussion on why we wear protective clothing and complete checklists to ensure our safety for ourselves and others around us…

The children took time to design what they would like to build using clipboards, paper, rulers and pens. Then we got to work, we looked around at different blocks shapes and sizes.

The children built their own creations from the variety of resources on offer to them and then worked together as a group expanding their ideas to create a big castle using their imagination. During this time the children were using mathematical language such as taller, smaller, long and short,  The children demonstrated good communication skills when sharing ideas. They also shared equipment and worked together, passing blocks to each other.

Digital Technology, Literacy, Technologies

Bee Bots Navigation

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Today  in the Discovery Room the children have been enjoying playing with the Bee Bots robots. They have been developing their technology and navigation skills by learning the positional terms on the Bee Bots e.g the symbols: up, down, left,  right and green for go.

The children were trying to direct the Bee Bots onto the first letter of their name on the alphabet mat. They used their numeracy skills to count how many times the Bee Bots moved after pressing each symbol.


   
“Its on e“

“ I got it on l”

“ Its going on e”              
 
“ I got it on c”
  

After becoming comfortable with the navigation systems, we decided to do a follow up activity. The children raced the Bee Bots to see if they could push a ball over the finishing line.
During this the children developed their problem-solving skills by navigating a route and implementing it by pressing the symbols on the Bee bot in order to push the ball over the finish-line.


 
“ I got the football”
 

” my one crossed over the line ”

We had so much fun developing our navigation, fine motor, numeracy and literacy skills.
Why not give it a try at home with any electronic games, remote control, or a programmable toy.

Literacy

How measurement can help us !

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Today in our baking area we decided to investigate how measurement helps us with our recipes. We had a look at our measuring cups . They were all different sizes so firstly we put them in a line biggest to smallest. We discovered that the biggest cup can hold lots of smaller ones.
We counted as we filled up the bowls with water. “Oh this is getting heavy” . “This bowl is full now” . “We cannot pour it back into a smaller bowl now as it will spill”. “I think it sounds like a waterfall when it goes over the sides “.

We then has a look at our scales and how we use them. We filled different sizes of cups and put them on the scales. We discovered the bigger the cup the higher number on the scale.

“Look mine is lots of numbers !”  We had a look at our recipes and matched the cups to the quantity we would require.

We had lots of fun with the flour creating shapes using the cups and bowls. The girls and boys were very creative making hand prints and creating shapes.

“ look I made a diamond”

We made different size spheres using the measuring cups. We enjoyed a little bit of a “snow storm”  and then a bit of clearing up, which all the boys and girls helped with.

Well done everyone!

Literacy, Outdoor Learning, Trips and Outings

Outdoor Sensory Area

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We have decided to create a sensory area in our garden. We made a list of all natural resources that we could collect when on our local walk. We all helped to collect stones, sticks, leaves and pinecones.
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“I found a big stone, let’s put it in the bag.”

Once back from our walk we made labels so that we could sort the loose parts into a section each.

The children then had fun working together to match and sort.

“We’re almost finished.”

”We need to collect more stones.”

Our sensory area is beginning to take shape and we have lots of great ideas for different natural resources we could collect to add to it.

Literacy

Bookbug, stories, puppets and fun!

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Today Bookbug came to nursery to share some rhymes, stories and songs with the children.

We stretched, pulled and moved the lycra to make our toys bounce up so high in the air! We had lots of fun singing 1,2,3,4,5, Humpty Dumpty and Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. We had to be very careful not to let them fall off the Lycra (we’ll need to practice this 😀)

We enjoyed reading the story of Little Red Riding Hood. We had so much fun using puppets to retell the story ourselves.

Bookbug supports the development of children’s language and vocabulary, turn taking, being with our friends and being involved by choosing the songs and story.

It’s always fun when Bookbug comes to nursery!😀

Literacy

Let’s make Scones

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Today in the Home Room we had a look at some recipes and chose to make scones. We gathered up the ingredients, some were in the cupboards and some in the fridge.

We then washed our hands and put our aprons on.

We carefully measured out the flour, sugar, baking powder and salt. We checked the numbers on the scales to see when the spoonfuls of flour reached 300g . We talked about the different sizes of spoons as we needed  2 tablespoons of sugar, but only one teaspoon of baking powder. Then we added the oat milk .

Today we added cherries to our scones.  We discussed our safety rules when using a knife and then carefully cut up lots of cherries to add to our mixture.

We developed our fine motor skills by using the rolling pins and cutters to make the scones. We counted out the number of scones we had each made and put them on the oven tray ready to bake.

We took the scones to the oven.  We discussed the oven being very hot and this part has to be done by a adult. Our scones need to be in the  oven for 15 minutes, so let’s check the clock!⏰ Our scones are ready and they look very tasty.

Now it’s tidy up time! We worked together to put our ingredients back in the cupboards and fridge, swept the floor and wiped the table.
We are looking forward to trying out our scone recipe again!

Expressive Arts, Literacy

Bookbug came to visit today🥰

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Bookbug came to visit the boys and girls today, one of our favourite songs is ‘Hello everyone’

We chose our special friends from the magic bag and sang Incey Wincey Spider, Twinkle twinkle Little Star and Humpty Dumpty. Bookbug was so pleased with the lovely singing, he joined the rest of the toys with a bounce on the Lycra… Thanks everyone!

We then enjoyed a lovely story called Good Manners and we chatted about our own good manners we have.

To finish we all had a little dance to Christmas songs our very favourite was Jingle Bells 🔔
What a fun Friday we had!