Category Archives: Outdoor Learning

Outdoor Learning

Sunflower seeds

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Here at Cart Mill we were very lucky to have received our good to grow package from Morrison’s, thank you to all the parents who supported us with this.

After having a look at the seeds the children asked to plant  the sunflower seeds.

We read about  the life cycle of a sunflower then  gathered together our plant pots, soil, trowels and seeds then set to work.

“we need to leave room for the seed”

”the seed got stripes”

After carefully planting our seeds we filled our watering can to give the seeds a drink before we very carefully carried them to the greenhouse.

“seeds need water and  sun to grow”

We are so lucky to have received a donation of sunflower seeds from Barrhead Garden Tidy team.  The team worked hard to harvest seeds from their own sunflowers which they have carefully packaged with sowing instructions on them.

We have used our excellent mark making skills to create some planting instructions and a lovely Sunflower display at our front door.  Please feel free to take a packet of seeds.


We would love you to share your photos of your sunflowers growing with us.  Why not ask the children to measure them and we can have  a competition to see who’s sunflower grows the tallest!

 

Outdoor Learning

Planting and growing 🌱

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Today in our lovely sunny garden we were super busy planting our potatoes. We had previously left our potatoes in our greenhouse in the sun to chit, so we looked to see if our potatoes were ready to be planted, they were so we got started. The children used their gross motor skills for digging, carrying and lifting the soil over to where we are growing our potatoes, they then placed them into the black bag and covered them in soil again.

The children will be taking responsibility for the care of our vegetables in Cart Mill’s garden and that we will need to make sure we are watering them regularly, especially when the weather is sunny. We discussed what things we needed to do to look after our vegetables and also that we will need to be patient while waiting for them to grow.

Expressive Arts, Outdoor Learning

Spring has Sprung at Cart Mill🐥

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Today we have been discussing Spring.  Some of the children were able to identify things we may see during Springtime.

“birds making nests”

“flowers on trees”

“Baby animals being born, Lambs”

“spring flowers in gardens and parks”

We have some lovely spring flowers in our playroom, the children decided they would like to paint them. We talked about the different types of spring flowers for example Crocus, Hyacinth and Bluebell.

” I seen bluebells in the woods”

“daffodils are my favourites because they are yellow and in my front garden ”

“I like tulips the best because my Mum has them at home”

We pegged our daffodils and tulips to a line and put mirrors underneath them. We noticed that we could see the spring flowers reflection in the mirror.

“I can see the purple tulip, I want to paint it on the mirror”

“I’m painting the yellow daffodils in the mirror”

The children enjoyed mixing different tones and shades for their spring flowers. They noticed the differences between the petals on the flowers.

“The shapes are different”

We discussed the different parts of the flower.

“that tulip has the longest stem”

At the end of the day the children didn’t want to throw away their creative work, so decided to print their mirror painting onto a big sheet of paper to make a spring freeze next week.

Well done, great team work everyone.

Outdoor Learning, Snack

Our own Rhubarb Scones

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Today we have picked our own rhubarb from the garden to use in our scones . We could easily spot the rhubarb in the garden because it has very big green leaves.  When the rhubarb is ready to use we discovered that you can easily pull it out the ground.

We then prepared the rhubarb . The children listened to some safety rules before using knives to cut it into smaller pieces. We then washed it clean and added a little sugar before stewing it in the microwave. Don’t touch the bowl now as it is very hot !

We put the rhubarb aside to cool. “Smells yummy”.  As the children are now very good at making scones they were able to prepare the scone mix themselves ready to add the rhubarb. We cut out the scones using our circular cutter (sometimes it’s flower shaped) today . It’s a bit sticky so we knew that the mixture need some more flour.

The scones were now ready for the oven.

The children have really enjoyed watching the rhubarb grow in the garden then being able to pick this themselves and use in our scone recipe. This is a great way to see where and how foods get from the garden to our table. We are looking forward to discovering some more recipes using our home grown fruits.

Outdoor Learning, Snack

Fun at Forest School

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We are always so excited when it’s a Forest School day! We have been observing the changes in the Forest over the last few sessions.  As it has been sunny and dry over the last week, it was safe enough for us to explore the river.  We collected our nets and set off!

The water was so clear we could see right to the bottom. Unfortunately we didn’t see or catch any fish! We used a stick to measure the depth of the water and then held it against our boots so that we could see where it was safe to stand.

We found our very own stoney beach where we could look for stones and throw them in the water.  As a group, we conducted a risk assessment and discussed safety rules we should follow when throwing our stones.  We had to be careful to look around us and stay a safe distance from each other before we threw our stones into the water. We had so much fun investigating who could throw their stone the furthest and make the biggest SPLASH! We found lots of different sizes and shapes of stone. We were able to identify which were bigger, smaller, heavier and flatter.  We found one that looked like a pizza and put two together to make a duck!


Of course we have to have snack when we’re at Forest School.  We enjoyed apple, hot chocolate to warm us up and a biscuit (to give us energy!)

There was just time for us to make a few trips up our favourite hill! It was hard work climbing to the top! We were able to feel our hearts beating really fast! Our favourite part was pulling Angela back down the hill with us. She was going really fast!

We can’t wait to see what we can discover and explore next week!

 

 

 

 

Expressive Arts, Outdoor Learning

Outdoor fun!!

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The children had great fun in the garden today. They were stacking the crates to see how high they could jump from! This enabled the children to push themselves physically whilst developing their gross motor skills.


“I can do it myself!”     “Look how high I can jump!”    “1,2,3 JUMP!”

The children really enjoyed climbing, jumping and challenging themselves!

We then got the parachute out for some fun and singing! We put our little star on the parachute and sang twinkle twinkle little star! We tried hard to keep the star from jumping off!

We then lifted the parachute high in the air and took turns to run under it.  “It looks like a big balloon in the sky!”

The children wanted to put a bouncy ball on the parachute and roll it around fast to see how long we could keep it on for! We practiced our counting and kept it on till we got to twenty! Great job!

Finally, the children needed a rest so we sang sleeping bunnies whilst they lay under the parachute. We threw it up in the air and the children loved bouncing around under it like bunnies!

We had so much fun in the garden today.

 

Outdoor Learning

The water cycle 🌦

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This morning the children have enjoyed revisiting the ice gardens that they made last week. They could see the different layers within the ice and noticed that the ice was starting to melt in the sun.
“The sun is hot today.”
”The ice is melting!”
We discussed the different properties of water and this led to a discussion about where water comes from. I explained to the children that all the water on our planet continuously moves in a cycle. The sun dries up the rain and sends the vapour up to the sky where the cold air turns it in to clouds. Then once the clouds are full the water comes back to earth as rain.
We then created our own rain clouds.

We used shaving foam to represent the clouds then dropped food colouring on top to represent the rain. This is a great visual for the children to see the cloud filling up before it starts to rain. The children then  experimented with adding more drops and also used different colours to see what would happen.

“It’s raining!”
“It looks like an explosion!”

“I mixed them together and now it looks like coffee.”
”Look, the orange is falling!”

The children had a great time taking part in our science experiment to learn about the water cycle. I’m sure we will be repeating this experience again in the near future.
Why don’t you try this with your budding scientists at home and share your experience on our twitter page @cartmillcentre

Expressive Arts, Literacy, Outdoor Learning

A Day at the Beach!

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The recent sunny weather made the children think of summer days at the beach! They set up an area of the garden and made their very own beach! They used the big blue blanket as the sea and the yellow blanket was the sand!

First the children went for a swim in the sea and they gave me the very important job of being the lifeguard!

“I can swim so fast!”      “Ah, a shark is coming!”

The children then collected shells from the sea and took them to the beach for a closer look!

“My shell is so soft!”    “Look, I can hear the sea in mine!”

The children then decided it would be good fun to jump into the sea!
“Look how high I jump!”
We made big splash noises when we landed in the sea!

Using the crates the children pretended they were in pirate ships bouncing on the sea! “Ahoy captain!” They had someone standing on lookout! “Watch out for the tornado!!”, “It’s coming!!”

The children could see pirates coming so decided to build a bigger boat for themselves!   “We can hide in this!”,  “This boat is awesome!”

What great imaginations the children at Cart Mill have. They had great fun through role play and made up a whole story about their time at the beach! They really had great fun whilst developing their communication and  language skills. Role play allows the children to act out and make sense of real life situations which they really enjoyed doing.

Outdoor Learning

Frozen gardens

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It’s science week at Cart Mill and we have been discussing the properties of water and the effect of the cold. We found out during our visit from Williamwood that water is a liquid and that it can move about in a container.

We gathered some containers and used scissors to cut up some foliage to add before we poured the water in, then off to the freezer we went.

The next day we were surprised by the appearance of the water “it’s gone hard” “it’s cold” The water had changed from a liquid – something that can move about in the container, to a solid – something that doesn’t move in the container. When the temperature of the water becomes very cold (below freezing) it turns to ice.

The children decided to add colour to the water, so, very carefully we used droppers to add some dye “it’s getting  darker”

 

The children wondered what would happen if we added more water to our ice. We added another layer of foliage and coloured water on top of our ice. The water sat like a different layer on top of the ice, it was very strange, the water moved but the ice didn’t! We all wondered what would happen if we put the container back in the freezer so off to the kitchen we went with our containers. What will happen? Watch this space…

Digital Technology, Outdoor Learning

Hot and Cold “what happens ?”

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What happens to water when it’s freezing cold?
Freezing happens when molecules of liquid get so cold that they slow down enough to hook onto each other to form a solid crystal. We watched this happen in slow motion on our iPads.  It thought it looked like crocodiles, birds or leaves. We then made our own ice cubes, we poured the water into the trays and placed it in the freezer.

The ice cubes are sticky and cold. I see patterns inside them . They melt in my hand but they are still cold ..

That was something cold but what about hot things? What happens when you add heat to popcorn?

Popcorn pops because each kernel has a tiny bit of water inside it. When the kernels are heated up to the point where it exerts enough pressure, the kernel bursts open. The soft material inside puffs up as it explodes. This then cools and forms the odd shapes we know and love to eat.

The shapes got the children discussing some safety rules; “it is very hot”, “we wouldn’t touch it”. Then they started to chat about what shapes and textures had been produced. “Mine looks like a horse.”  “I found the seed, it is hard.” “My popcorn is crispy.”

As the popcorn comes from seeds we have decided to plant them and grow our own popcorn plant! We have put the seeds in the green house. Let’s see what happens next!

We have had a lot of fun today trying out our experiments for science week and learnt lots of new information. We have lots of different experiments to try out throughout the week and we cannot wait!