Category Archives: Social Studies

The great Cart Mill bake off🧁

Today the children wanted to make muffins for snack. They each washed their hands and put aprons on before starting as we spoke about the importance of hand hygiene especially before and after preparing food. We looked out all the ingredients and pre heated the oven.

Ingredients:

  • 3 scoops of gluten free flour
  • 1/2 scoop of sugar
  • 1 teaspoon of Xanthan gum
  • 1/2 teaspoon of baking powder
  • 100 ml Soya milk

“Can I add raisins?”

“me too”

The children measured all the ingredients out and carefully added them to their bowl, giving them a good mix using their gross motor skills.



“it’s so hard to mix now, it’s not soft”

Now they are ready for the oven. We discussed our rules about using the oven.

“It’s very hot, only adults allowed”

“You need oven gloves, so you don’t burn yourself”


When they were ready we let them cool down in the kitchen. Next we gathered chopping boards and knifes to cut up the muffins and we cut them up and shared them equally between 3 plates to have for our afternoon snack. They even had a wee sneaky taste test for all their hard work.

“hmmm yummy our friends are going to love these”

Article 29 – I have the right to an education which develops my personality, talents and abilities. 

 

Looking after the babies

Over the past week the children have enjoyed playing with the babies In the home corner.

They decided that the babies needed a bath because they were all dirty so we looked out the little baby bath.

“My baby brother has a tiny bath like that, but it isn’t purple”

“I’m going to be a big brother soon”

We added warm water to the bath with a sponge for cleaning the babies and discussed how to keep the babies safe when in the bath.

“The water can’t be too hot or it will be burny”

“you need to hold the babies head so it doesn’t fall”

The children carefully lifted the baby out the bath when they were all clean and lay them on a towel to dry before getting ready.

“My baby even has hair, I need to brush it”


They picked out clothes for the babies and dressed them ready for the day.

“First we need to put the babies nappy on”

“The baby won’t keep her socks on”

I asked the children what they think babies eat.

“They drink milk”

“and when they get big they eat mushy food, my mum uses a blender for making my baby’s dinner”

They fed the babies and then put them down for a nap.

“My babies eaten too much, it wants to go to the cot now”

Scrumptious Snack

Here at Cart Mill Family Centre our children are very independent when having their snacks. Our children are encouraged to show their independence skills from start to finish during the duration of the snack experience.

First the children choose what they would like to have for snack. Today we chose apples, bananas and cucumbers.
Our children are very clever and they help to prepare the snack for everyone by cutting it up.

We are very careful of our fingers when using the knife to cut the fruit.

Our children from 2-5 all have the opportunity to help prepare snack. By encouraging independence and using our fine manipulative skills to cut the snack is a great learning opportunity for our children to gain confidence from a young age.

We used different tools to help us prepare snack such as the apple corer. We had to push down hard. It was quite tricky at first.


We filled up the water and milk jugs and set up our table ready to invite our friends to join us for snack. We know the importance of washing our hands before we eat.

We collect our own cups and plates from the trolley before choosing our seat.

Our snack table is all self service and is a free flow snack which allows children to come as they please and have a leisurely snack experience which develops our social skills as we sit together having conversations with our peers.

Using the tongs helps our fine manipulative skills while saving on the germs.


We pour our own drinks and choose what we want. If some our younger children need help our older ones are always on hand to help. Once we finish our snack we take our plate and cup over to the skink to rinse it and pop it in the dish rack for the staff to help with the washing dishes.


We are very clever here at Cart Mill. The children have picked this routine up very quickly with our younger children now showing these skills and are enjoying the chance to become independent.

“Let’s make the biggest train track in the world”

We have been reading lots of stories this week and this has sparked some great ideas for the block area.

“I want to make a big office like that, I will need lots of blocks. My  mum goes to the office”

The children decided to choose their favourite book first and then make something from the book. We made a chart where each child ticked the side of their favourite book.

Fergus’s Scary night was the favourite! They decided on making a dogs bed for ‘Fergus’ to hide when he is scared.

“It’s triangle and square beds, Fergus not scared in here”. The children worked well together to build the dogs beds.


“We are building the biggest train track like Thomas, and a bridge look we can go under too”

Finally, the children built some of the buildings and structures from the story ‘All through the night’. “I’m building  the digger with a snow shovel that can lift snow and rocks, it has a train track under it”.

“This ones mummy’s office”

The children have loved creating things from their favour stories this week, using their imagination and problem solving to fit the pieces together.

Diwali Celebrations!

Diwali is a Hindu festival celebrated with much excitement and light. It usually involves the lighting of lamps or diyas, symbolizing the triumph of light over darkness and good over evil. People also exchange gifts, clean and decorate their homes, and participate in various cultural and religious activities during this festival.

Take a look at some of the activities we have been doing as we learn about Diwali.

Today in the garden we used power paint to create our own rangoli patterns. It was a great gross motor art activity that got our bodies moving.  Using bright colours the children selected their painting tools and got busy. Rangoli patterns are traditional Indian art created on the ground usually during festivals and special occasions. Rangoli involves using coloured powders, rice, flour, or flower petals to make intricate and vibrant designs. Rangoli is believed to bring good luck and positive energy to the surroundings.

 

On Friday we had a camp fire in the garden with Val. We helped to make some pakora and cooked them on the fire.  Outdoor cooking with a fire is great fun and our children at Cart Mill love to take part. The crackling flames create an exciting setting as the children prepare simple recipes connecting them with nature and basic cooking methods. Whether it’s toasting marshmallows, baking bread on sticks, or cooking pakora the open fire becomes an engaging tool for learning teamwork, patience, safety and an appreciation for the environment.

UNCRC

ARTICLE 2 – Non- discrimination.

ARTICLE 31 – Leisure, play and culture

 

DIY sensory emotion bags😀

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.

Our emotions😀😱đŸ€ȘđŸ˜±đŸ«ŁđŸ„±đŸ˜ĄđŸ˜ł

This week at the malleable area the children have been using their creative imaginations to mould our play dough into different things.

“I made a big worm, I rolled it with my hands”
“look I made my ear in the play dough, I lied down like this”

”I made a smiley face”

The smiley face sparked a conversation about the different faces we could make.

”can I show you my silly face”

The children used the iPad to take a picture of the different faces they could make, they even took a picture of Carly’s silly face but we won’t bore you with that.

Each child made a different face and we discussed what they were and why we might feel these ways. Using facial expressions we can begin to learn and recognise different feelings and emotions that we can feel and find solutions to understanding and dealing with them.

”some of the new boys and girls get sad faces when they just come to nursery, now they have happy faces”

We will continue exploring emotions in different ways at the malleable table, it is a very important way of communication especially for children as they don’t often understand their feelings.

Welcome to our block play! đŸ§±

Today in the block area the children have been exploring the first two stages of block play, carrying and stacking. These stages allow children to carry the blocks around and use their senses to feel different shapes and weights and begin to explore building by stacking blocks vertically to create towers and horizontally to form rows.

Froebel block play has 7 stages, the children are starting at the beginning as for some of our children we are exploring the block area for the first time. For our older children, this gives us the opportunity to become role models and share our previous knowledge and skills.

The children worked together to carry the blocks to where they wanted to go, great teamwork everyone!

Then we used our knowledge and problem solving skills to create our stacking towers, some children used large blocks, some used small blocks. We remembered our safety rules and didn’t build our towers any higher than our necks.

  

Block play helps children to learn to take turns and share materials, develop new friendships and co operate with others. It also allows children to develop their special awareness and develop their risk assessment skills.

New and improved wormery

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! 🐛

Creative clay ⚒

In the clay area today the children have been super creative and using their design skills and imagination to create models. We have also been exploring and using different tools and techniques to create patterns and prints on the clay…

we used lots of different loose parts to create some “birthday cakes” and sang happy birthday to our friends.

then we used different tools to copy and create patterns and textures on the clay, we practiced hammering, rolling and creating prints showing how creative and imaginative we can be!


Exploring with clay helps to develop our hand eye co-ordination and fine motor manipulating skills. It gives the children the opportunity to socialise with their friends through talking and listening to each other’s ideas and also work independently.

i wonder what creations we will make over the next few weeks! đŸ€©