Category Archives: Literacy

Fun with Force!

The children have been continuing their learning through with the cars and trains at the moment. In the Science area we have been focusing our learning on ‘force’. The children decided they wanted to make their own cars! We looked out some cardboard tubes, sticks, bottle tops, straws and got to work.

We used glue, scissors and tape! We created some great cars to play with!

The children wanted to race their cars down the ramps. We have ramps with different surfaces to see if that affects the speed of the cars. We have bubble wrap, carpet and sponge on our ramps.  We set the ramps up and started sending our cars down them.

We started giving the cars a little push, a small amount of force, to send them down the ramps. We talked about how far the cars went and what would happen if we added more force when we pushed them.  We guessed what would happen  and tried using more force to see if our predictions were correct! The children thought the cars would go faster and travel further using more force. We decided to check our predictions by measuring how far the cars travelled using different amounts of force! The children wanted to record their answers!

The children tried the nursery cars on the ramps to see if they travelled faster than their made cars! They made observations about what the same amount of force on bigger, heavier cars would result in!  We discovered the heavier cars needed a bigger push to go the same distance!

The children had great fun making the ramps higher using blocks which made them steeper! They had races to see whose car was the fastest! They had great fun learning about ‘force’ through playing with cars!

Article  28 / Every child has the right to an education.

Helicopter Stories 🚁

Today in the story corner the children have been creating their own stories! We sat together as a group and went  round the circle, each child adding onto the story, there was lots of fun and giggles. 

“There was a dinosaur then a bumble bee.”

After creating the fabulous story the children had lots of fun being illustrators. ✍️


“I’m drawing the fire engine.”
“I’m going to draw the dinosaur, he is a giant.”
“Look at my bumble bee.”

Here is a look at the children’s fantastic imaginative story and drawings.

Taking part in helicopter stories gives the children the freedom to create the story in the way they want too. It’s a great way to build literacy skills, develop emotional and social skills, explore and extend the children’s learning all while having lots of fun. 

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!

Holidays are coming 🌲

Yesterday in the studio the children explored marbling ink. They selected different colours to create their own unique art.


Adding the marbling ink to the water and swirling it around to make cool patterns, the children added their paper to the water and we all counted to 10.  After 10 we lifted the paper out and looked at patterns that had transferred onto the paper.

“ Wow! That’s so cool , my colours pink and yellow are on the paper now”

“ Can I make a Christmas card on mine”

“ Me too can I make one?”

We put our pictures over to the drying rack and left them to dry over night.


Today the children collected different things to create their Christmas cards.

Jewels, sequins, pom-poms etc were glued on to create lovely Christmas cards, the children cut out their marbling ink pictures and added to red card.


The children practiced their writing skills as they wrote out their cards. Some for Santa, aunties, uncles, mums,dads, brothers and sisters.

We hope everyone  has a lovely Christmas and a Happy New Year🎅 🌲

 

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

Article 12 – I have the right to be listened to

Oh no, it’s a Gruffalo!

In our story corner today we have been discussing  books we have  at home and took great delight in sharing our favourites with our friends.  We couldn’t decide which was our overall favourite, so we voted by raising our hands and then counting to see which story had the most votes.

Our winner was ……. The Gruffalo!

Lots of exciting discussion followed and we were able to name the Mouse and the Gruffalo as the main characters, and remember which animals the mouse met on his walk through “the deep, dark wood!”.  We decided we wouldn’t like to walk in the “deep, dark wood cos it might be a wee bit scary”, but “maybe we could take a torch and it wouldn’t be scary anymore!”

It was so exciting to choose which character we would like to be.  Listening very carefully, we were able to take turns and use our story  spoons to predict which character the Mouse would meet next!  Some of us demonstrated we know the Gruffalo really well by joining in with repeated phrases, “oh help, oh no, it’s a Gruffalo!” being a firm favourite! To challenge ourselves further, we even added in some sound effects and actions!

“The snake goes sssssssss”

”Owl goes toowittoowoo”

”look I’ve got terrible teeth and I’ve got big claws”

”his prickles were purple”

”his eyes are orange, mines are brown.”

Using a thumbs up, thumbs to the side and thumbs down, we shared our likes and dislikes of each character and then decided we would like to swap our spoons and read the story again! (Repeated at least 5 times!)

Article 12 – you have the right to give your opinion
Article 29 – Your education should help you use and develop your talents and abilities.

Let me tell you a story…….

In our story area this month our children have been having fun using the puppets to tell stories.
We went to the Studio room to get a box to repurpose and turn it into a puppet theatre. We picked the perfect box and got to work designing in.

We have used our imagination to create stories using the puppets and put on a show for our audience.

The children have had so much fun putting on these puppet shows and have made up some wonderful stories using their imaginative story telling skills.
We even added in some teddies who wanted to be one of the characters of our show.

We used finger puppets, teddies and hand puppets as part of our show.

Puppets are a great way to bring our stories to life. Our younger children also have great enjoyment using the puppets while In the story area.

We can use the puppets to help us re tell the story and help us with our literacy adding new words to our vocabulary.

Using puppets is a great way for our youngest children to get the most of of the story and help them build on their concentration skills.

Using the puppet story sacks is great way to help our children of all ages become familiar with the story and help them develop an awareness of characters and build on their recall and retell skills. One of our favourite story sacks is currently “Dear Zoo”. We enjoy matching which animal the zoo sent us.

Our story area is a fantastic place for our children to develop their literacy skills and go on a story adventure. We can  choose our own books…..

We can choose fiction books…..

or factual  books

We can read and listen to stories with the adults…..

or read them alongside our friends.

Next time you are here for stay and play why don’t you come and visit our lovely literacy story area.

“Let’s make the biggest train track in the world”

We have been reading lots of stories this week and this has sparked some great ideas for the block area.

“I want to make a big office like that, I will need lots of blocks. My  mum goes to the office”

The children decided to choose their favourite book first and then make something from the book. We made a chart where each child ticked the side of their favourite book.

Fergus’s Scary night was the favourite! They decided on making a dogs bed for ‘Fergus’ to hide when he is scared.

“It’s triangle and square beds, Fergus not scared in here”. The children worked well together to build the dogs beds.


“We are building the biggest train track like Thomas, and a bridge look we can go under too”

Finally, the children built some of the buildings and structures from the story ‘All through the night’. “I’m building  the digger with a snow shovel that can lift snow and rocks, it has a train track under it”.

“This ones mummy’s office”

The children have loved creating things from their favour stories this week, using their imagination and problem solving to fit the pieces together.

Puddle Play!

For most children puddles have a magnetic effect! Today in the garden the children were delighted to find so many big puddles had appeared after all the rain. They were desperate to get their wellies on and start jumping! We wanted to see who could splash the most water out of the puddles!

We used one of the crates to jump off to see if that created a bigger splash! The children very cleverly observed that the higher they jumped from, the bigger the splash!

”Wow, that was big, I got more wet!”

After all their jumping, the children decided to roll the tyres through the puddles to see if they made big splashes.

“1, 2, 3 Push!!!”

I asked the children if they could see anything else in the garden that could make a splash in the puddles! They found the football and had great fun kicking it and throwing it to make big splashes!

The children found a puddle in our big tray and decided to throw the ball to each other across the tray! This created big splashes which caused great hilarity when they got their faces splashed!

“Ah, it’s very cold on my face!”

“When  life gives you a rainy day, play in the puddles!”

Article 31 ~ You have the right to play

Experimenting – sinking & floating 🤔🤔🤔

Today we decided to problem solve and discover the objects that sunk and floated in the nursery…

We all worked together to fill a box with water, when children are  involved they are much more engaged!

The children wrote the words float and sink so we could record our results.

We searched the playrooms for items to use……we had lots of different ideas!

We recorded our results to share with others

Look at all the different loose parts we investigated in our box!!!

The children had a great time exploring and investigating different objects to experiment with …you could try this at home,  learning through fun!

Article 28 Every child has the right to an education.

Exploring, investigating and being creative with the pumpkins!🎃

Today in the discovery room we put some pumpkins down with some tools and gave the children time and space to decide, explore what and how they wanted to do with the pumpkins.

We cut the top of the pumpkins to investigate inside and the children guestimated there were “50 million seeds in the large one”

We looked inside and discovered the seeds, we used some spoons but was much more fun  with our hands, enjoying the sensory experience of feeling different textures.


“let’s use our hands”

“I’m mixing it”

The children then decided to make some ‘potions’

We needed some green water, white water and then put some magic cornflower to mix it all together using the pumpkin as a bowl!

The children enjoyed mixing the potion adding the slime of the pumpkin and seeds.


Now the potions were made, our friends could enjoy them too!!!

Article 31 You have the right to play and rest