Category Archives: Outdoor Learning

Framing Winter

As our weather is crisp and cold we have been looking and discovering more about winter in the world around us and how we keep ourself warm during this chilly time. We asked the children what they knew about winter weather and got some lovely responses;

“It’s Cold” “

“I wear snow boots”

“My fingers go red”

“Frost makes beautiful patterns”


We decided together that we would enjoy exploring our local environment to see what effect the colder weather had on our world around us.

First we dressed appropriately for our walk, we put our warm jackets, hats, boots and some of us had cosy gloves to keep us extra warm .

We looked at how the trees looked a bit sad and cold as their beautiful big leaves have left them bare, some of the leaves were lying on the ground.

During our walk we collected some of the leaves, some sticks, twigs and stones to take back to Cart Mill

“Leaves are wet”

“ I have found the biggest stick”

On our travels we also spotted a deer and its family through the bare trees. We walked a little further and saw lots of sheep.
“Are there any baby ones?”
We discussed that baby lambs can be seen in the spring and that’s the next season after winter, so not long to wait now.

When we arrived back at the nursery we decided to create our own winter pictures using the resources we found. The children were very creative designing their own trees and snowflakes. A lovely way for us to show our fun winter walk time.

 

Nature Walk Fun!

This week is Children’s Mental Health Week, with the aim of making a difference to the lives of children and young people across the UK. It has been highlighted how beneficial nature can be for a child’s well-being and for them to learn outside and connect to the environment around them.
At Cart Mill the children have opportunities every day to play and learn outside. Today we decided to go for a walk to find out more about the natural world around our nursery!
We challenged ourselves to collect some sticks for an activity.

“Wow!! Look at how big this stick is!”

”it’s a stick man!”

Some of the children noticed that some of the sticks they tried to collect could not be picked up! They cleverly spotted that it was because it was actually the roots from the trees nearby and we should leave them alone!

We carried on walking down to the bridge. We could hear birds chirping, an aeroplane in the sky and the river running. The children guessed the river was running fast today!  We played our favourite game, Pooh sticks! This involved collecting sticks, throwing them in the river and running to the other side to watch them!

We all threw our sticks in at the same time and they had a race!
“I can see mine! It’s winning!”

Walking back to nursery we came across some big piles of bark! The children absolutely loved running up and jumping off the bark! It was a nice soft landing!

”Look how high I can jump!”

We all enjoyed our nature walk and talked about all the things we could hear and see! We were definitely ready for lunch when we got back to nursery!

Tremendous Truck🚍 painting 😁


Today in the gross motor painting area the children self selected the trucks to paint  on the shower curtain  .“ I think we need some yellow paint “ “ I chose green paint, it’s a lovely colour. I don’t have any green cars at home just two grey ones “


“I’m mixing green and yellow, it’s turning blue” “ My car is painting fast” “ My cars tyres are painting yellow” “ look I’m making a circle shape with my truck”” My truck is going forwards and backwards , it’s making tracks”

The children are developing their gross motor skills, hand eye coordination as well as learning about colour mixing.
The children were happy with the end result of their art work. Well done everyone your art work looks amazing 🤩

Languages Week Scotland 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

This week is Languages Week Scotland 2023 where we celebrate language learning and multilingualism in Scotland. This years theme is “Languages for a peaceful world”.

This morning the children came across some stories and we discovered they were in different languages. This got us chatting about what language we speak in and how not everyone speaks the same language.

“What does this say”

“That is the title of the story, “The tortoise and the Hare” written in Mandarin, Chinese”

”When I went to Italy I hear a different language”

“Can you say any words in Italian”

”No”

“What language is the Elmer book in?”

“The Elmer book is in English and Polish”

“ how do you speak to someone if they don’t speak the same language?”

“Say Hello”

We used the internet to find out how to say Hello 👋  in other languages and wrote them down so we could practice how to say them.

The children were developing their mark making and writing  skills as they wanted to copy the words so they can practice.

We can now say Hello in different languages to welcome our friends who speak English as an additional language.

Big Garden Birdwatch

This week we have been preparing for the RSPB Big Garden Birdwatch. We discussed why birds might come into the garden. “It’s for seeds, we have some in my garden”. We then decided to to make our own bird feeders and hang them up on a branch.

The birds might need a drink as it’s been very cold and all the puddles are icy, so we made the birds their own drinking bowl “Let’s put sticks near it so they can stand on them”.

We then did some research by looking at some of the information sent to us by the RSPB which showed us lots of pictures of the birds that might visit our garden.  “ I have seen some of these birds, that’s a magpie”.

It was very exciting watching for the birds. Some were far away so we used our binoculars. Then we could see some birds sitting in the trees and on top of the houses. We then thought about where else we could see the birds so we went for a bird watch walk.

We collected our bird watch recording sheet and set off.  I will hide in the trees like a bird watcher and see if the birds come near me we have to be very quiet 🤫. Look I saw a blackbird let’s mark it on the sheet .

We managed to spot magpies, blackbirds, crows and blue tits. We all had a turn of recording the bird we had seen on our RSPB sheet, it was great fun!

The children are continuing to watch for birds in our garden and are independently recording them in our nature corner.
If you would like to join in this weekend the RSPB ask that you record the birds that visit your garden within 1 hour and then you can upload your results at rspb.org.uk/Birdwatch using the code BH35.

Everyone has worked very hard recording the information and have had great fun developing their skills of mark making, data collection, fine motor skills, health and well being and lots more. Happy bird watching everyone!

Let it Rain ☔️

Today in the garden we spotted a rainbow in the sky. It sparked a conversation about the weather as it began to fade behind the big grey  clouds.

“It looks like it is going to rain, the rainbow is hiding behind the clouds”

”it rained lots and lots ands lots last night, there was big puddles in my garden I splashed in them”

“It rained so much I catched it in my hands, it was loads”

“How much rain was there?”

”I don’t know,just lots”

We decided to make a rain gauge to see if we could measure the rainfall throughout the week.

We wrote down all the resources we need and made a plan then got to  work.

Cutting off the top of the bottle to use as a funnel we placed it inside the bottle and taped off the jaggy bits to make it safe.
We then added the tip of an old felt tip pen to the bottles to make it easier to see how much rain has fallen. We used red, purple and blue.


We split the bottle in to 4 sections numbering it 1-4 so when it fills up with rain we can measure it. We then stapled the bottles to the fence and are now waiting patiently for it to rain to see how much water we collect. Typically  it stopped raining as soon as we were finished making the gauge.

We will be keeping an eye over the next few days and recording our findings.

Rainbow 🌈 Puddles

Today in the garden we had lots of puddles and yesterday we had seen a lovely rainbow in the sky. So, we decided to try and make our own rainbow using chalk and the puddles. We had to put wellies on for this! We chose the colour we wanted, dropped them in the puddles and squashed the chalk with our feet.

We had to practise our jumping and balancing skills for this. “I made a violet colour in my rainbow”. The girls and boys wanted to add more water, developing their filling and pouring skills and making different patterns with the chalk. “Mine looks like a unicorn”.

We also added in other resources to create different patterns. This helped the children to practice their mark making. I can use the brush and I can use the paint brush (mop).

Now we have discovered what happens when you mix water and chalk . We look forward to our next mixing with water experiment!

Frosty Fun ❄️

It’s been a cold and frosty morning in our garden this week. We have wrapped up warm and have been taking a winter walk around our garden exploring the frost and ice in our garden.

We have seen some frozen spiderwebs on our play house and enjoyed looking at the patterns the spider had created in his web.

We found icicles on our bike wheel they were very cold to touch but looked really interesting with different sizes and shapes of icicles .

We listened to the sound of the ice and grit crunch under our feet as we walked.
We discovered our obstacle course was all covered in frost and had to be extra careful. We learned how to risk asses our own play.

Our water tub was full of ice chunks we could pick up and investigate.

Today we decided we wanted to play In the snow. So we made our own. We used a mixture of shaving foam and cornflour to create snow.
 
It was fun mixing the shaving foam and cornflour together but it was a little messy but we love getting messy.


When we made our snow some of our children were mark making in it, creating shapes, patterns or even making letters.

“ I can make a snowman”

”Its’s cold like real snow”

“You can make a snow storm”

Some of our children used paint brushes to create marks and patterns.

Some of our children wanted to use different shape and sized containers to try pouring and filling the snow and transporting them to different places.
It’s been a different week in our garden this week but we still had the best kind of fun.
I wonder what the weather will look like in our garden next week? Will there be real snow for us to play in?

 

Let it snow ❄️

Today in The Studio we had a discussion about the change in weather over the weekend as we noticed our garden was very icy.

“ it’s very icy and slippy, you need to be careful not to fall”

“it was snowing in my garden yesterday”

”there wasn’t enough snow to make a snowman, it was just little snow flakes”

After speaking about the snow the children decided they wanted to make their own snow flakes, so they collected the materials they needed and got started.


While we waited on our snowflakes drying we got wrapped up in our jackets, hats and scarves to go outside and explore the ice in the garden. We spoke about how slippy the ice was and how to stay safe.

”don’t run because you will fall and bump yourself”

”don’t throw the ice, it is jaggy”

We only stayed out for a short time because it was so cold 🥶 the children had a great time exploring the ice. “It sounds crunchy” “it’s freeze” They described the sounds the ice made when they walked on it and how it felt to touch.

We have Snow !

With the frosty mornings the children have been discussing how cold it has been when they arrive at nursery . Maybe it will snow today and there was a few flakes of snow today in the garden.  So let’s make our own snow !

We had some magic powder which we poured into a bowl and then gradually added cold water and stirred well and “Wow” look what’s happening the powder got bigger and bigger and turned into snow.

Our snow feels like fluff and smells like coconut and is very squishy . It feels a bit warm but real snow is cold !

I can make handprints in the snow it’s like real snow  !

The children had great fun discussing what they could make with their snow.  “ Mine is a snowball it’s like a circle” , we had some snow volcanos, snow cakes and some snow porridge.  The children took turns using the different sized scoops to help them create their snow structures.

When it was tidy up time we decided to put our tray of snow outside in the garden to discover what happens to it overnight . “ l think it will be snowy ice crystals” or  maybe turn into a snowman”. . Can’t wait for tomorrow!!