Category Archives: Social Studies

Expressive Arts, Social Studies

Remembrance day

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This week some of the children have noticed Angela’s poppy badge and have been asking why she is wearing it. In honour of Remembrance Day we decided to make our own poppies and discuss the importance of Remembrance Day. This can be a difficult subject for children to understand, so we talk about remembering the soldiers who help to keep us safe and focus on the importance of kindness and celebrating each other’s differences.

The making of the poppies has been a two part process. We started yesterday by looking at pictures of poppies and discussing the different parts of the flower. We dyed pasta red for the petals, rice black for the seeds and coloured lollipop sticks green for the stems. We then left that to dry to use the next day and made red playdough to make poppies with that day.

Today we observed a two minute silence while watching a CBeebies video about Remembrance Day. The children sat beautifully and we reminded them about the importance of being kind to each other after the video.


“We need to remember the soldiers that fought in the fight.”

The video shows the poppies growing in the fields after the war has ended so we then went to make our own poppies.

“I’m making a poppy field. These are the seeds so more can grow.”

“Look at my poppy man.”

Just look at our beautiful designs…

Social Studies

This week in the noisy/quiet room

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Following on from recent interests, this week in the noisy quiet room the children have enjoyed exploring the farm animals in the small world area.

The children have been using their imagination and role play skills to create their own stories and play using the small world equipment.

”its Old MacDonald’s farm, there is sheep and pigs and cows”

”There is little cows and big cows, small goats too”

”My favourite animal is the pig”

The children have also recently enjoyed building with our wooden train track and talking about all the different places you could go on a train…

   

”You could go to the shops or to a restaurant”

”I go on holidays”

”Trains go so fast”

Small world play is a great way for children to explore their imagination and develop their role play skills. It could represent a real life place like a farm or it could be a completely imaginary world.

 

Why don’t you try some small world play at home?

Expressive Arts, Literacy, Outdoor Learning, Social Studies, Special Event

Firework Splat Painting!

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Today In the garden we created some firework pictures in preparation for bonfire night this weekend.

The children selected some paint and resources that they could spray and splat. We picked a selection of different spray bottles and pipettes to spray at the large plastic sheet and create our firework picture.

The spray bottles and pipettes helped us to develop our fine motor skills. We demonstrated good skill when filling them up and spaying them.

We then used the paint and sponges to throw the paint at the ground to make splats that resembled fireworks. This was a good way to get our bodies moving and develop our gross motor skills while being creative.


While we were painting we talking about fireworks and how we can stay safe.  These are some of the children’s comments. 😊

“You don’t touch the fire”

“Fireworks and very hot so you need to stay away”

“They go in the sky”

“Only adults do the fireworks”

Expressive Arts, Social Studies

Building fun 👷🏻‍♂️

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Today the children loved engaging their imaginations in the construction area. We had a variety of building materials for the children to use, and they enjoyed creating different types of role playing scenarios.

“I want to make a hotel for spider man”

“We’re making a tunnel for the train”

”eyes!”

The children worked great as part of a team, helping each other and using their problem solving skills to build their creations. Some children loved making rocket ships…

Other children enjoyed making busses and dens…

”beep beep!”

And we even had a Spider Man fire engine!

The children really loved showing off their creativity through role playing with the blocks, and sharing the fun with all their friends. Great work everybody 👍🤩

Outdoor Learning, Social Studies

Big Wild Walk 2022

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This week is the Big Wild Walk week organised by the wildlife trust. It is used to raise money and awareness of the importance of protecting our wildlife. Adults are encouraged to walk 30 km over the week and children are to walk 3km as this is the same distance a hedgehog can walk in a night. We have used this as an opportunity to highlight the importance of caring for our natural world.
We started by discussing what we know about wildlife, what animals live in the forest and how to look after them.

“We can build wee homes.”
“We can make beds with leaves.”
“We can go a walk to check on them.”

Then we spoke specifically about hedgehogs and what we know about them. We also made our own hedgehogs using pine cones.

“Hedgehogs have little feet.”
“They’re really spiky”
“Hedgehogs like chestnuts.”

Then we went for a walk to see if we could find any hedgehogs having a sleep and decided to collect leaves while we were there.

When we got back we used our Autumn leaf spotter sheet to identify the leaves and discover which types of trees are in our forests.

If you like to join in you can find more information here;

https://www.wildlifetrusts.org/bigwildwalk

Happy walking 🚶‍♀️ 😀

Social Studies

Dolly Day Care

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Today in our home room we shared how we used our imaginations and skills we have observed from our families home.

We demonstrated how we are caring and nurturing using our dolls. We bathed our dolls and put clothes on them to keep warm.


“she all cold”

”bubble bath”

Once our babies were dressed they had rumbley tummies and needed fed. We put some playdough into pots and carefully making sure we didn’t burn our fingers used our cooker to warm the babies food.

“It’s burnt”

”hot, hot”

We placed our babies in the high chairs while their food was cooking. When it was ready we put some into a bowl and used a spoon to feed them.

“Yummy “

Once our babies had ate up all their food I was time to clean up, we washed our dishes in the sink.

Our next part of the day was as shopping trip. We got our handbags ready for going to the shops.

“I am going for milk”

”I get pasta”

”I will get yummy biscuits”

When we got home from our shopping trip we settled our babies down by reading them a lovely story before tucking them in.

Outdoor Learning, Social Studies, Trips and Outings

Local walk to Bonnyton House

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We have been growing some lovely Rhubarb in our nursery garden over the last couple of months, and they were now ready to be harvested.

Yesterday we picked our fresh, home grown Rhubarb. We wondered what we could do with it?

   

We had to use both hands to pull out the Rhubarb as the roots had grown deep into the soil.

    

”Look, this one has a really big leaf”

We decided that we would go for a walk to the local Residential Care Home and drop some off to them as a nice Friday treat. Working with the local community is something we love to do here at Cart Mill and starting back our Intergenerational work is what we are looking to do now that Covid-19 restrictions have eased.

The children were super excited to take a walk over…

 

Intergenerational learning has many benefits and is where people of all ages can learn together and from each other. Intergenerational care is all about providing opportunities for senior adults and young children to come together in the same space and work together to gain new skills and knowledge.

   

 

 

 

 

Expressive Arts, Social Studies

Ready Steady Sew

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Today the children in the home room have been exploring the sewing area. We had a discussion about threading a needle and how it can be really difficult to do but once it is done we are able to create stitches on the sewing table. Together the children shared their thoughts and ideas on what to do next, as a group we decided they would like to try sewing something onto the hessian.


The children searched the sewing area and found a variety of different materials in different shapes, sizes, colours and patterns and they were able to choose what they would like to use.
Firstly they drew patterns on the material that they chose to sew on and, with a little support with they cut out shapes using the large scissors. We then used the hole punch to cut out holes in our material to make it easier to thread the two bits together, this needed a lot of concentration. The children used their hand and eye co- ordination while completing this task. At the end they talked to each other about their own creations.

“can we cut out love hearts?”

”I can thread my needle?”
We decided using the Hessain table was easier than an individual piece.


”I liked doing both”
“I cut mine all by myself”
“mine is stuck together”

The younger children have enjoyed threading the large buttons, they spend a lot of time doing this so we added some pine cones, sticks, pipe cleaners, ribbon and wool for them. The children needed a little guidance of what to do and before we knew it they were confidently picking materials to wrap, weave and twirl, all the time developing their fine motor skills and concentration.

Social Studies, Technologies

The floor is lava

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Today the children played  “The floor is lava” but with a twist…

They worked together to collect different materials including:

  • Paper/card
  • lollipop sticks
  • twigs
  • Small figures
  • building blocks
  • Cars
  • Bowls

They then used the materials to design and build a stable structure together that was suitable to save the little figures and cars from the lava without it falling over.

“It needs to be up high, what can we use?”

”we can use the blocks to get it high”


The children came up with a variety of ways to save the cars and people from the lava while developing their listening and teamwork skills.

They used their problem solving skills to organise the different shaped blocks by size so that the figure didn’t fall over.

”The big ones need to go to the bottom because they will fall if they are at the top, they won’t balance”

“The bowl can go under in case he falls”

The children had so much fun making a safe structure for the cars and people using materials around the nursery. Why don’t you try creating your own at home.

Digital Technology, Literacy, Social Studies, Technologies

Local Landmarks

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Today in the discovery room we looked at some different landmarks in and around Glasgow. We used the tablet, lap top and promethean board to search and look at popular landmarks we may have visited.

We demonstrated good listening when we sat together and discussed what we knew about the places we looked at. We were able to share stories of places we had visited with our families. Two of the most recognisable were the Clyde Arc which a few children recognised as the Squinty Bridge and one child shared with the group his own name for it – ‘The Scotland Bridge’. The other one being Kelvingrove Art Museum -“that is where you see a big dinosaur, but it only has bones”.

We took our findings and landmarks to our block area where we showed great team work when we re-created Kelvin Grove Art Museum using a variety of blocks of different shapes and sizes.

The children were extremely creative with their design and creation of the Cart Mill Kelvingrove! Perhaps they can display some of their own works of art in it!