Category Archives: Literacy

Digital Technology, Literacy, Snack

Berry nice smoothies 🍓🫐

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Today in the home room the children decided they wanted to make fruit smoothies.

We used the internet to search for a recipe to make delicious fruit smoothies. We then collected the ingredients we needed from the kitchen to begin making our very nice smoothies.

To begin the children took turns to  scoop a spoonful of frozen berries into the bowl. Next they safely used a knife to cut up a banana to add to the bowl.

“I put strawberries and blueberries in they were stuck together with ice”

Using the measuring jug the children measured out 240ml of milk, they worked as a team to measure one tsp of honey before adding all the ingredients into the blender. We also made a water based fruit smoothie as an alternative.

“it’s so noisy”

When the ingredients were all blended together the children poured the smoothie into an jug and shared with their friends for snack.

“It tastes yummy”

“ I can taste banana, I like banana for snack”

 


 

Expressive Arts, Literacy, music

The three little pigs 🐷 ….

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In the story corner this week our focus has been the story book The three little pigs 🐷

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We all listened to the story . We huffed and puffed with the wolf !!

Earlier  in the week we had collected loose parts and resources that we thought might help us recreate the straw house, stick house and brick house.  Today after reading the story  we used our problem solving and building skills and were able to make some great houses for our pigs.

After re creating our story some of the children remembered that we had a jigsaw of the  3 little pigs they wanted to try.  The boys and girls worked well together to complete the jigsaw and were very happy when they finished . Well done .

After so much building and problem solving we decided to use our story spoons to create stories and sing some songs and rhymes. The children took turns choosing and helped each other learn some new words and actions.
A very busy morning in the story corner ……

Article 12 – You have the right to give your option and for people to listen.

Expressive Arts, Literacy, Outdoor Learning

Muddy Masterpiece

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Today in our mud kitchen we were busy using some new tools to aid us with our muddy masterpiece.
But first before we start, we used our independence skills to locate our welly boots from the shed and our puddle suit from the trolly. We put them on ourselves but Emma was on hand to help us if it got a bit tricky.

Now that we are suited and booted it was time for messy fun. We collected our mud and used some of our new tools. We used the rolling pin to roll out the mud to make mud pancakes.

We used the wooden masher, to mash up our mud and make it like mud pies.

We found a little worm who had sneaked into  in our mud, but we put him back home again. We didn’t think he would want to be in our mud pie.

We mixed it up and added in some leaves, water and grass and finally it was ready to be served.

We had such fun in the mud kitchen today, exploring our creative thinking, drama skills, and gross and fine motor skills.
After such a wet weekend it left lots of muddy puddles we couldn’t  pass by the opportunity to jump in them.

I wonder what we will create in our mud kitchen tomorrow?

Expressive Arts, Literacy

Space week with Bookbug 👨‍🚀👨‍🚀👨‍🚀

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Anyone want to come to Bookbug? The girls went round the whole nursery inviting everyone to join us….

As this week is space week this was our theme, we investigated our space mat with the children identifying ‘the moon’ We sang “Hallo” to Bookbug and had a little cuddle

We sang, danced and joined in with the song 5 little people in a flying saucer which went on for a little while as we had 15 people in our flying saucer…


We bounced twinkle twinkle little star on our Lycra and tried to bounce them into space, working together singing as we went.

We finished off  by enjoying our story ‘Goodnight Spaceman’ before singing goodbye to Bookbug.

We investigated numeracy, developed our literacy skills, worked together with our friends and enjoyed our visit from Bookbug!

If this is something you would enjoy with your child, Bookbug will be visiting us again tomorrow at 9.00 and 4.30 you would be very welcome to come along 😁

Article 28 You have the right to a good quality education.

Literacy

Shapes in the clay!

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Following on from Maths Week Scotland last week the children have continued to show an interest in shapes! Today in the clay area we were identifying 2D and 3D shapes.

“That’s a square and that’s a triangle!”

The children were using the 3D shapes as stampers in the clay. They were developing their shape knowledge and understood that one side of a 3D shape made a 2D shape in the clay when they stamped it!

“I’ve made a square, tap, tap on the top!”

Some children chose to wrap their shapes in the clay which turned the clay into 3D shapes! They enjoyed getting their friends to unwrap the shapes to find out what was hiding in the clay!

Having already rolled out the clay, using the rolling pin handle as a stamper, some children noticed it made circles in the clay! Great shape detectives!

“Look, lots of little circles!”

Some of our younger children just really enjoyed building with the clay and the 3D shapes whilst developing their fine motor skills.

“It’s a castle for a Princess!”

The children really enjoyed learning about different shapes whilst having great fun with the clay!

Literacy, Social Studies

DIY sensory emotion bags😀

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Today the children have been exploring emotions through their very own sensory bags.

We began by having a discussion about what kind of things we could put in our sensory bags while making the jelly mix.

“We could put beans in, they are squidgy”

“and cornflakes, my brother likes cornflakes they feel crunchy”

We collected a variety of different things to put in such as oats, cornflakes, shaving foam,beans, rice ,custard and jelly. The children helped to make up the custard by adding 200 ml of warm water (which we measured using a measuring jug) to the custard powder.

We used ziplock bags and stuck faces on them showing different emotions. The children then added each thing to each of the bags and closed the bag over.

Using their hands to feel and move the contents of each bag they were able to see the different emotions through the bag. They guessed what each one was and how it felt.

“It’s an angry face, it’s crunchy”

“ it’s happy face, it feels gooey”

”what’s that one I don’t know that”

As well as simple emotions we are beginning to look at more complex emotions.

”that is a surprised face, when might you feel surprised”

“ When someone pops a balloon  ”

The children have enjoyed learning about emotions in different ways. During this sensory experience they have been developing their fine motor skills when using their hand muscles and learning some new vocabulary to describe what they feel.

Expressive Arts, Literacy

The Joy of Story Telling

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In our story corner we have been enjoying listening to and creating our own stories. In this area we can relax and look at books either alone or with our friends.

We enjoy sharing information,  we point out familiar places, animals and everyday items and ask questions .

We have story bags in this area which are very popular with the children .This enables the girls and boys to help tell the story and interact with the characters.

The children enjoy self selecting their own story and are able to use the characters within the context of the story. This will also help them recognise the stories have a beginning, middle and end.

This week we have been using our hand puppets to tell stories, the children have added in other items to enhance their story telling which will help develop their imagination and language skills.

Our own stories  : “ My puppets are going to the swimming and we have to go in the car on the motorway we have to be careful because it’s fast driving”.  “ When we were out we found a sick teddy bear and he couldn’t swallow his medicine so we gave him a drink to help”.
“ When we take my baby out she needs a drink and we use a bottle because she is too wee for a cup”.

We have a variety of books and some of the younger  children enjoy  books that they can help turn the pages, lift up the flaps to reveal a surprise this also helps their fine motor skills and adds to the excitement of story telling.

Article 13 – You have a right to find out things and share with others.

Expressive Arts, Literacy, Outdoor Learning

Marvellous Mud

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The mud kitchen in our Cart Mill garden has recently been reinvented. We have added in a new work top to make all our delicious mud recipes on.  We have also introduced a seperate mud digging area. This provides a fantastic opportunity for our children to practice their digging skills and also somewhere for them to collect all the mud they need as part of their mud kitchen experience.

A huge thank you to everyone who helped change our area. The children have loved having more space to play and dig. I wonder what muddy creations will be made in our new mud kitchen?
During stay and play why not come and join us in our mud kitchen but don’t forget your welly boots it can get a little messy. Mud has so many benefits including building strong connections with nature. It also holds microscopic bacteria which scientific studies have shown make you happier. It helps develop a strong immune system and encourages a highly stimulated and active brain function but most of all mud is FUN!

In our new mud kitchen this week we have been exploring puddles.  The rain came and made quite a few large puddles in our garden. We got on our puddle suits and wellies and went to play.

We have been jumping and splashing in the puddles. We have been using new language such “squelchy” “sticky” “splash” “jump” and “mucky” to describe the muddy puddles.

We enjoyed the sounds the splashing made as we jumped into the puddles.

Some of the children were inspired by the puddles to work together to make scrumptious “chocolate mud soup”

It was hard work collecting all the ingredients to make the soup and stir it all together. Let’s hope it tastes as good as it looks…..

We were also using the mud kitchen to make and investigate more objects. Such as pouring and filling from the tea pots.

We also used the kitchen to cook our creations in the microwave or in the pots and pans….

Can I also ask as a polite reminder if you haven’t brought in a puddle suit or welly boots please do so with your child’s name clearly labelled on them. We have storage for both welly boots and puddle suits if you wish to leave them here. This just ensures your child is always ready and appropriately dressed for our muddy play.
Thank you.
Please  feel free to  check out our mud kitchen floor book for more messy fun experiences. It’s been so much fun in our muddy mud kitchen so far this week. We even have a chance to find a stick to go fishing in the puddle. I wonder what adventurers we will have in our mud kitchen next….

Expressive Arts, Literacy

Getting messy with the clay!

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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

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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