Category Archives: Literacy

Getting messy with the clay!

September 18, 2023 Mrs Barnes Leave a comment

In the clay area the children have been discussing how the clay feels to them when they touch it. They used some great adjectives like soft, cold, hard and good! We wrote out our words and put them in the clay area for everyone to see.

The children enjoyed rolling the clay using the rolling pins to make it flat like pancakes!

”It’s hard to get it flat!”

We decided to add water to our clay to see what happened! At first we put a few sprinkles of water on which the children thought did not make a difference! They wanted to pour out more water! When they did this they were excited to see how squishy and soft the clay got! They found it much easier to shape on the boards.

“It’s like a big mud pie!”

”It’s all sticky to my hands,”

The clay was very easy to roll when wet but the children did notice it made more mess on the boards which they liked! They decided to make food with their clay!

“It’s a yummy pizza!”

Playing with clay has many benefits for children. It is good for sensory development and expanding their imagination. Clay also promotes the development of children’s fine motor skills.

Expressive Arts, Literacy, Outdoor Learning

Exploring the Cart Mill Garden

September 1, 2023 Mr Edwards Leave a comment

This week in the garden we have had lots of learning experiences to take part in. Take a look at what we have been up to.

Duplo Rockets

We used Duplo blocks to build our own space rocket. First we planned out our rocket on paper and got ready to build. Once we had built it we used different lengths of rulers to measure how tall our rockets were. We have been learning different mathematical language such as centimetres, tall, short, tallest and shortest. We were also practicing counting up to and back from 10 ready for blast off!!

Sunflower Harvest

The sunflowers that the children have grown this summer have come to an end. We decided to harvest the seeds and dry them out ready to plant next week. We looked at different parts of the plant and studied the head. The children used the tweezers developing their fine motor skills to pull out the seeds from each head. We will place them somewhere safe to try and store them for next years planting.

Chalk Mark Making

The children have been using the chalk to write and draw on the ground. They have created everything form spiders webs to beetles with 10 legs! We even drew round our friends and looked to see who was the biggest and who was the smallest. Some of our children have also practiced writing their letters.

Obstacle Course

The children have helped to build different layouts using our loose parts this week. The obstacle courses help to challenge our gross motor skills. We have also been learning to manage our risk and ask for help on the more difficult parts.

What another fabulous week in the Cart Mill garden. I wonder what we will get up to next week?

Article 12 – Respect for the views of the child

Article 31 – Leisure, play and culture

Article 29 – Goals of education

Literacy

Bubbly fun washing our babies!

August 29, 2023 Mrs Barnes Leave a comment

Today in the Home room the children were asking to wash their babies and their babies’ clothes! We got basins of water and added lots of bubbles to make it fun for our babies. We got some sponges and towels ready! First, we had to take off the clothes that the babies were wearing!

Then it was time for the fun part! Using the sponges, we gave our babies a lovely clean!

We tried very hard to keep the babies faces out of the water.

”I have lots of bubbles in my bath!”

”I have a baby sister!”

The children loved the feeling of the water and the bubbles running through their fingers. This can be very relaxing for some children.

”My baby is all cleaned and sparkly now!”

Once the babies were washed the children dried them with the towels. They all took great care when doing this.

The children wanted to wash some of the babies clothes that looked dirty! They used soapy water and dipped the clothes in, they gave them a good squeeze at the end to get all the water out!

Some of the children wanted to put some clothes into the washing machine to get them clean!

”I have one of these in my kitchen!”

Now that we had a big pile of wet clothes the children hung them, on the washing line to dry! We enjoyed using our fine motor skills to squeeze the pegs!

“I help my Mummy with the pegs at home!”

The children left the washing to dry, put clean clothes on their babies and gave them lots of cuddles.

This is such a great activity which the children really enjoy doing. The role play helps the children to make sense of the world around them by re-enacting what they see their parents doing. This also helps to develop their social, emotional and verbal skills whilst having great fun!

Expressive Arts, Literacy

More than just a box………

August 11, 2023 Miss Campbell Leave a comment

What is a box? Is it just something to keep things in? Not according to our very clever creative children in the junk modelling area.

We have been so pleased with all your donations for our junk modelling area. We love turning an ordinary box into something completely different, creative and unique.

Today our children picked a box and I asked “what would you like to make?

We worked as a team to cut the box in half so we could share with our friend.

We discussed with our friends what we were designing.

One of our children was using his writing skills to paint their name on their box.

Another child was practicing his speed painting wondering how quickly he could paint the box.

One of our children seen a familiar face on one of the boxes. “Look it’s Bookbug can I paint it?”

Some of our children wanted to add things to their box. Using different boxes to create more detailed models.

Some children used the boxes to cut up and use parts of them to add to their masterpieces.

And of course we had to have a high speed chase in the police cars we made. It was the most fun in our studio room.

So as you can see, a box is not just a box.

Literacy, Outdoor Learning

Sewing the seeds… (of potatoes)

August 3, 2023 Mrs Johnston Leave a comment

Today we decided to grow some potatoes! We rolled two tyres from the top of the garden all the way to the bottom practising our hand to eye co-ordination and balance. We put some top soil into the tyres and covered up the potatoes.

We wrote potatoes on our tyres practising our mark making skills.

We enjoyed planting the potatoes so we made a seed station, an area that the children could self select a pot and gardening tool and plant a seed to put into the green house to grow.

We made our own label so we could recognise our pot when we looked after our seeds, nurturing them to continue in their life cycle.

We hope our seeds will grow as well as our cucumber, tomatoes and peppers.

Article 28 You have the right to education.

Expressive Arts, Literacy, Outdoor Learning, Social Studies, Technologies

New and improved wormery

August 1, 2023 Miss Brown Leave a comment

Following on from our last up-cycling project, we can now say we have finished fixing our broken wormery.

The children have worked so hard over the past couple of weeks using the tools and their problem solving skills to put it back together. They worked as a team to decide what they would use and what tools would work best.

“This small bit is too small”

“ We could use this long piece of wood on the side”

“we need a little nail and a hammer to put it on we don’t want to break the wood in half”

“What does this do? it has a bubble in it”

We learned that the spirit level indicates whether a surface is ‘Level’ or ‘plumb’.

“What does plumb mean?” We researched it and found out that ”Plumb means that the surface is sitting straight, it is vertical” This meant that we could check the sides were running straight up and down. We also used the spirit level to check the wormery was level across the top and bottom. We found out this is horizontal!

Every tinker table experience is different, even if it seems the same. We learn new vocabulary every day and learn skills that we can transfer into our everyday life, especially as we get older.

Using a wormery for compost is an easy and environmentally-friendly way of turning food waste in to nutritious compost to feed your garden.

Now we just need find some worms to come and live in it and make up its bedding! 🐛

Literacy, Snack

Rhyme Time

July 21, 2023 Mrs Miles Leave a comment

The children have recently been enjoying reading rhyming stories and singing nursery rhymes during Bookbug so we have added some more rhyming resources to the story corner.

Our younger children are learning new nursery rhymes and playing instruments while singing along and our pre-school children are starting to learn to distinguish sounds. Nursery rhymes are a great way to learn early phonic skills and build a child’s vocabulary.

Today we have played rhyming pairs and the children were great at taking turns, helping each other to find the cards and even suggesting other words that rhyme.

We also played a game of rhyming partners where the children walk around the room with their picture card and find a friend that has the rhyming card.
We continued to rhyme while having snack, making up words that rhyme with what we were eating;

cucumber- boocumber

apple- snapple

melon- Ellon

After snack Gail decided to host a Bookbug session in the garden. Twinkle, twinkle chocolate bar definitely being the favourite song!

Please remember to check the annual calendar for dates you can attend Bookbug sessions at nursery with your child.

UNCRC Article 15- You have the right to be with friends.

Literacy, Outdoor Learning

We’re Going on a Book Hunt

July 7, 2023 Mrs Miles Leave a comment

Today we took a trip to the library to return some books and also to choose new ones. We are focusing on rhyming in the story corner this month so we chose a book full of nursery rhymes and also a story which rhymes. While at the library, Peter read us a story about a cat and we had to help choose the cat’s name by giving a thumbs up or a thumbs down. He ended up being called Tricky because he was tricky to name!

We also learned how to use the special machine to check in and check out books.

On the way back to nursery we decided to go through the forest to collect sticks for throwing over the bridge. We spotted a huge hole in the ground and thought maybe a bear would live in there! 🐻

We have decided to find books about bears on our next visit to the library.

Check out the website for your local library as they are running lots of family and special events during the school holidays.

Expressive Arts, Literacy, music, Special Event

Singing along with Grandpa.

July 6, 2023 Miss Campbell Leave a comment

Today at Cart Mill we had a very special visitor. We had Grandpa Tommy who came along with his guitar to sing songs with our children.

We sang lots of songs such as Twinkle, twinkle, 5 little ducks, 1,2,3,4,5, Baby shark and lots more. He even took requests we had Yellow submarine and How much is that doggy in the window.

We all joined in and sang along. We even remembered all the actions to our songs.
At the end of our singing session we each choose and instrument to play and chose twinkle twinkle again as our last song.

Singing is a great way for our children to engage with music and learn lots new skills and vocabulary.
A huge thank you to Grandpa Tommy for coming in as part of our intergenerational project.
We have another mummy who is coming in to play piano and sing with us. We are very excited about this.

My name is Emma and as part of my Froebel in Childhood Practice course I’ve been set a challenge to promote a Froebelian approach within Cart Mill.
My project is “a Froebel Approach to intergenerational links within the community.” As part of my project we will be reconnecting the link with Bonnyton house in the next few weeks to share stories etc with the older generation and continue our links with Williamwood High School after the summer.

We would love to invite any parents/carers/grandparents to come in to take part in any sessions or show case any talents within our nursery children. Are you good at baking? gardening? arts? Or can you spare half an hour to read a story with us? Thank you in advance and look forward to welcoming you in.

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