Category Archives: nature

Creativity, Expressive Arts, French, Froebel, Imaginative thinking, nature, Outdoor Learning

Great Garden Adventures – fun the sun ☀️

Leave a comment

Bonjour every one. It’s been a great start to our new term in our garden. The sun has been shining and we have been taking part in lots of outdoor activities.

We are so pleased to see our returning children back again and also to meet lots of new friends who have joined us at Cart Mill. We had lots of happy faces this week.

In our garden this week we have been adapting some of our areas. We have our mud kitchen where we have added a table, chairs, jugs, pots and pans. We have also added in a water jug for children to self select some water to enhance their role play experience.

We haven’t got a name for our mud kitchen yet. I wonder what we will call it…..

In our gross motor art area we have been exploring pouring, filling and colour mixing using large apparatus and loose parts. We enjoyed using the watering cans to pour the coloured water down the guttering and watch the colours mixing together at the end. We kept fixing the guttering when we had a “leak in the system” we had to work fast to fix it.

We changed our story area to give us a cosy comfortable area to share stories with friends. We love choosing our stories and the most comfortable cushion to sit on.

In our Planting area we have been exploring the seeds of the sunflowers that we had grown. By dissecting the sunflowers and removing the seeds, it allows us to replant them again and grow more sunflowers.

We have loved our stage where we have been dressing up and putting on shows for our audience. We have had lots of renditions of “let it go”.

We have enjoyed our small world areas where we have had mini beasts, farm and sea animals to play with. The children liked the sea animals the best. We made our very own “aquarium”.

We have been mark making at our writing area. We have been making treasure maps and hunting for the X that marks the spot. We have been using our imagination to become pirates searching for the lost treasure, following the clues on our maps.

In our Water area we have continued our pouring and filling and used both large and small piplets to transport water. We’ve enjoyed water play in our warm weather.

In our construction area we have been using the polydron to build wonderful creations such as dens and houses. We added loose parts and material to bring our creations to life. We worked together to problem solve and share our design process.

At our Muddy movers area we have been building and creating our own obstacles course. We have been discussing how to stay safe and risk asses our play.  We have enjoyed balancing, climbing and jumping. The children are enjoying adding different challenge to our obstacle courses.

It’s been so much fun I wonder what will will get up to next week.
Au revior everyone

Creativity, Froebel, Imaginative thinking, Literacy, nature

Clay Play

Leave a comment

 

The children have been exploring the great benefits of clay since returning to nursery after the holidays.

Clay modelling helps to spark the brain’s creativity and problem solving skills.  The children have been expressing their thoughts and emotions through the clay modelling, boosting their imagination and creativity.

“

”The mermaids are stuck in the mud”

Some of the younger children begin by exploring the texture of the clay and quickly realised the imaginative aspects of clay play.

“Ice Cream”

The children squeeze and pinch the clay with their hands, helping to develop their fine motor skills.

“I’m making a snowman.”

The clay provides lots of play based learning, as the children count and sort materials when decorating their clay.

“1,2,3,4……..”

The children use a variety of tools when using clay such as rolling pins and wooden and metal clay tools, ensuring that they keep themselves and others safe when using the tools.

The tools allow the children to roll, cut and make patterns in the clay.

As the children develop their clay skills, they can roll clay into balls to make clay lollipops.

The clay provides a great opportunity for children to express detail in their artwork.

“This is my dog”.

We even created our own Cart Mill Forest!

The clay is a fantastic social activity as the children share ideas and learn from one another.

UNCRC Article 31 Every child has the right to relax and play.

 

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

Superworm at Book Week Scotland 2024

Leave a comment

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

Leave a comment

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

Leave a comment

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, nature

Autumn treasure in the Clay area

Leave a comment

Here at Cart Mill we know our children like to find little treasures when out and about. This week we have asked the children to collect some autumn treasure.  This could be from a local park, woods or simply in your garden.

Our children have not disappointed us and have come in with bags full of leaves, sticks and twigs. These will be used as we explore the changing seasons through a variety of different experiences.

Today at the clay area we started off using the sticks and conkers to make marks in the clay.   We discovered the conkers were smooth and some were very shiny. As we presses the conkers into the clay some of the children discovered that they looked like eyes. This naturally followed onto making some spooky faces.

As the children explore the clay they discussed their own experiences and shared their knowledge of autumn.

“My mummy and I went on a autumn hunt and I found an acorn it had a little top on it”

“It’s autumn today and all the leaves are falling off, falling down, falling down”

”There’s a seedling in the ground”

”it’s smooth”

The conker shell and the pine cone made lot of little holes when we rolled it over the clay. We also discovered some of the branches of the tree had little spikes. One child decided to use as vampire teeth.

“I’m using the stick to mark the blood on his face”

“My monster’s got 5 eyes”

We hope you like our spooky faces. There are still plenty of time to collect some autumn treasure. So please collect a bag from the main door before you come into the playroom. We would love to see you treasure. 🍁🍂

Creativity, Expressive Arts, Imaginative thinking, nature

The wonder of Wood 🪵

Leave a comment

As our new term begins we are introducing our tinker table and tools to our new children . To help develop fine motor skills and hand/eye coordination we are starting with hammers, pool noodles and golf tees this gives the children a opportunity to hammer 🔨 successfully and improve their cofidence

We also explore different types of wooden resources such as pegs,cork, craft sticks,wood shavings and many more. This gives our children the chance to be creative using nails or glue to make their own models.

The tinker table loose parts can be used to help plan what our older children can make using wood,nails,screws,hammers. “ I am going to make a house “

Our “big girls and boys” enjoy the challenge of creating their own recognisable model, they are confident to explore and experiment with a variety of materials,  demonstrate  problem solving skills and complete tasks.  They have made boats,ferries, spider man cars,houses the list goes on……..

The children are very keen to continue with their wood work projects and” wood “be very grateful if we have or know of anyone who could donate them some wood off cuts. Thank you.

Article 13 – you have the right to explore and share new experiences.

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?

Leave a comment

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.

life cycles, nature

Magic beans at Cartmill 🌱

Leave a comment

It the science area we have been learning how to record our findings in different ways.

To do this we have planted some magic beans (broad beans) in a jar to watch how it begins to grow. We noticed that after only a few days our beans started to sprout and change daily.

“Mine starting to pop out”

Using a Calendar we marked on the date of when we planted the beans and have been marking it everyday to show how long it takes to grow our beanstalk.

“why does it have that tooth?”

The children are super excited to grow a gigantic beanstalk. This got us talking more about how long it would take to grow the beanstalk.

Here are some of the predictions we marked on the Calendar

“30days”

“45days”

“48days”

“60days”

As the children observed the beans growing daily we have been talking about which part of the plant they can see?, what helps the plant stand up? and what do we think the roots do to help the plant.?

“it’s growing”

”what is the white bit?”

“It’s going to be gigantic “

Article 13 – I have the right to find out and share information

Article 28 – I have the right to an education

 

life cycles, nature, Outdoor Learning

Mondays garden fun including Releasing our beautiful butterflies🐛🦋

Leave a comment


Today the children decided it was time to release our butterflies. The species we have are called Painted Ladies. We made sure the weather conditions were suitable for example the temperature was above 12 degrees and it wasn’t to windy. The children measured out a nectar solution of one teaspoon sugar to 100mls of water  cut up some tangerines and mashed a small slice of banana to put outside in case the butterflies needed energy to look for flowers.  I explained that the butterflies mouth functions like a straw to sip up the nutritious liquids and that they should live two to five weeks. Then the children unzipped the habitat and patiently waited for the butterflies to fly away.

 

The children were delighted to see the butterflies so close up. “ It’s got a very furry body” “It’s tickling my nose” “I think butterflies have a nice pattern on them, I like the colours on them”


In the garden today we also did a little weeding  and planted some herbs to make our mud kitchen concoctions a bit more interesting. The children planted parsley coriander and basil they thought the basil had the nicest  scent.


The children were very gentle while planting their herbs and knew that they would need sunshine and water to grow. It has been such a busy day, planting and releasing our butterflies. Maybe you could have a look and see what other species of butterflies you have in your garden or in the local community when you are out and about. We would love to see any pictures!

Article 28 Every Child has the right to an education.