Tag Archives: Cart Mill Family

Super Sports Day!

Today was Sports Day here at Cart Mill! Excitement has been building over the last couple of weeks and we have all been practicing our favourite races!

It was very exciting to arrive at our sports area and see all our races set up by Chris, our Active Schools Co-ordinator.  Off we set to our first race.  After a quick run down of what we needed to do it was time to ready, steady, GO!!!

We ran and jumped over the hurdles and then ran back to the start to see who could finish first! It was so much fun that our families wanted to join in too! (Well done mums!)

Next up was our obstacle course.  We had to run up to the hula hoop, hop or star jump and then see if we could walk balancing a beanbag on our heads! It was a wee bit tricky but we took our time and demonstrated some fabulous balancing skills!

It was time for our flat race next! Some of us were a wee bit excited and forgot to wait for the ready, steady Go.  With a bit of practice, we soon got the hang of it! Who do you think was fastest!

Our final race was the egg and spoon race.  We are very imaginative here at Cart Mill, so we decided to have our own version, the tangerine and spoon race!

Of course what better way to round up sports day than  our super duper water slide!

It was so much fun to take turns sliding super fast down our slide.  We discovered if Val gave us a wee helping hand, we went even faster! And more bubbles appeared the faster we went (there’s definitely a science experiment in there somewhere!).
After all the fun it was time to head back inside for a quick change, ice pole and to receive our certificates.  We truly are sporting super stars!

A huge thank you to staff, Chris from Active Schools and to our fabulous families and children for making it such a memorable event.

Article 31 – the right to engage in play and recreational activities.

Super Spring Crafts!

It has been lovely to see the first signs of spring arriving at Cart Mill through our beautiful crocuses and daffodils blooming in our garden, which inspired some fabulous art artwork!

What better way to celebrate the arrival of Spring than to welcome our families to join us at our Spring Craft Event!   As ever, our children brought their creativity and enthusiasm and created some wonderful transient art, spring wreaths and some amazing artwork using their foot and handprints to display on our wall!


Of course we can’t forget decorating our biscuits, which were a firm favourite!

“I putted lots of sprinkles on mine”

”I love jam”

Family is so important to us at Cart Mill, please feel free to pop in anytime for a coffee, chat or to stay and play.

Article 31 – I have the right to relax and play.

 

Welcome to Cart Mill 🐥

We would like to send a warm welcome to all our new families, all our returning term time families and also to everyone who has returned after the weekend!

As it is the first day of the new term we thought it would be good to show everyone what happens within each playroom of the centre.

Starting in the noisy/quiet room, we have our mark making area to encourage the children’s pre-writing skills, the numeracy area where the children can use loose parts to make shapes and count how many pieces they have used and we have the sewing area for the children to get creative and develop their fine motor skills.

Moving next door, we have the studio. Within this room the children are encouraged to access the resources independently. The children love to self select junk modelling materials from the shelf and get creative with their designs, learning to reduce, reuse and recycle while having fun. The staff will provide a provocation at the art area and on the clay pallet then the children can select additional resources to extend their creativity. Please remember that clothes are likely to get some paint on them in this room!

Moving through again, we have the discovery room which is the room the children enter in the morning. There is a large area dedicated to block play where the children work collaboratively to design wonderful buildings and structures. They are taught to assess their risk while building and develop their mathematical language while doing so. We have the science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) areas within this room as well. Today’s STEM challenge was to build a bridge to help the people cross the river. The boys were thinking outside of the box and decided to build boats for the people instead. We also have an area where the children can self select the resources and today they were playing with the magnets, learning about forces and cause and effect.

In the home room we have a large area where the children can role play looking after babies, dress up and ‘cook’ for their friends. We have a story corner with puppets and story sacks for the children to access independently and we also have the sensory table. Here the children will play with gloop, pasta, shaving foam, play dough, the list is endless. They have even created their own recipe book so they can make the playdough without adult help. Today the children were making cupcakes with the play dough, yummy! We have a baking area within the room where the children can learn to measure and mix while making scones or muffins, for example, and this area is also used to serve snack. The children are encouraged to serve themselves at snack and lunch to promote independence and will develop their social skills as well.

The garden is always hugely popular with the children. At the top end of the garden we have a planting area and the children are responsible for looking after the various plants and vegetables we are growing. There is a small obstacle course where the boys were playing ‘The floor is lava’ and then we have the mud kitchen and the sand pit where the children today were serving each other soup and ice cream 🍦

At the other end of the garden the children can build their own obstacle course using the crates, tyres and wooden beams. They are taught to risk assess their design and make sure the course safe is for everyone to use. We also have a loose parts area for the children to create transient art and a large construction area where, today, the children built houses, castles and ball ramps.

You can let us know which experiences your child liked best by replying to this post or on twitter @cartmillcentre.

It has been so lovely to have all the returning children back and to welcome so many new faces too. We hope everyone has had a great day.

Moving on up!!

It’s a day of mixed emotions today at Cart Mill as our fabulous Class of 2023 head off towards their new adventures in Primary One and some of our younger children prepare to embark on their new journeys at other nurseries.

Looking back over the last year it has been fantastic to see our children grow, develop their confidence and independence, embrace new opportunities and see wonderful new relationships form.   We thought we’d share a few of our favourite adventures with you!

Our Cart Mill children are so talented.  It has been amazing to see them share this with their friends and encourage and support one another through reading stories, riding our balance bikes, leading a gymnastics class and having a go at knitting!

“Teamwork makes the dreamwork” as some of our children like to say!  They’ve certainly achieved this through teaching each other how to make playdough, looking after our babies and each other at Cart Mill A&E, helping each other to climb a tree at forest school, and taking time to chat and share a cheers at snack time.

We’re sure you’ll agree it’s been a such a busy, fun-filled year it has been so far and we’re so excited for the wonderful adventures that lie ahead,

Family really is at the heart of everything we do at Cart Mill and we feel honoured to have made such amazing memories with you and are so proud of our fabulous children.

We don’t like to say goodbye, so it’s a good luck, have fun and please come back and visit us soon!  To our children returning in August, we look forward to new adventures and finally to our children we are lucky enough to hold on to for a little longer, we look forward to seeing you next week for more fun filled adventures!

 

 

 

Winter Crafts

It was lovely to have our families visit the centre to take part in our family winter craft sessions.


The children really enjoyed taking part in the winter themed activities alongside the special people in their lives. There were lots of different crafts to make, each with a different theme. We won’t tell you what they all are as we would love you to come and see for yourself!

Remember that the crafts are running all week and we have 3 sessions a day. So, please sign up via the sheets in reception and come in out of the cold and join us for a coffee and some wintery fun with your wee one!