Tag Archives: communication and language

Fun in the Pond šŸ¦¢šŸ¦†

This week in the Pond the children have been exploring and learning through a variety of different experiences inside and out.

We celebrated Robert Burns day by introducing Scottish traditions in a fun and age appropriate way including the children’s interests to engage them. They made their own tartan using paint and added in cars to create different patterns and prints. We played matching games which sparked conversations about the Scottish pictures and what they are. ā€œ it’s a mouseā€ šŸ“ó §ó ¢ó ³ó £ó “ó æ

The children have been developing their independence with simple activities such as preparing healthy snacks and following the Child smile practice to brush our teeth, learning how to use the utensils in a safe way and the importance of choosing healthier options for our overall health.

The children had fun lying on their tummies rolling the small ball along the floor to each other, they had fun while developing their core strength, hand eye coordination, arm and shoulder muscles which are all important for later skills such as balance, early writing skills and dressing independently. In the garden we used spray bottles with paint Ā to create colourful patterns on the shower curtain and strengthen our hand muscles.

Slime recipe

I’m sure you are all aware that the children have been making slime. We have been learning the recipe and would love to share it with you so maybe you could try it at home.


In the mornings the children have been disagreeing about what to make at our malleable area. Some want to make play dough and others want to make slime. So we came up with a Ā way to vote to make it fair for everyone. Ā Everyone who wants to will vote by putting a tally mark in the box using the pictures to help. The box with the majority wins for the day.

ā€œ4 people want to make slime alreadyā€

ā€œOnly 1 choose playdoughā€

ā€œSlime wonā€


They start by independently collecting all the equipment and ingredients Ā needed.

~ First step is to fill the jug with water

~ Add one cup of Pva glue to the bowl

~ Add equal parts water to the bowl

~Add 1 level tsp of Bicarbonate of soda

~Food colouring of your choice (optional)

~Add small amounts of contact lense solution (Asda one seems to work best) at a time.

~Mix until all ingredients combine and start to pull away from the bowl

~Knead until it not sticky. (This part is messy, the best way to get it off your hands is to roll the palm of your hand on a flat surface, it will gather and become stretchy like rubber rather than sticky.
The children learn so much from such a simple experience. Their fine motor skills are developing as they use their hand muscles to squeeze, roll and stretch the slime in different ways.

They are expanding their vocabulary as they describe the slime, what colour it is, what it feels like etc.

They are following instructions/recipes, measuring ingredients, colours, shapes…

…The list goes on.

ā€œThis is the best day everā€

Garden roundup

It’s been a busy week for us in the garden. We are developing our motor skills in a variety of ways.


This simple but effective experience enabled the children to experiment with colour mixing as well as developing their fine motor and early writing skills as they made marks on the foil using different Ā tools.

ā€œ The blue got on the yellow and now the yellow looks a bit greenā€.

ā€œI making fireworksā€


The fireworks have really grabbed the children’s attention and been the topic of conversation. Throwing the powder paint on the ground sparked an idea. ā€œThe ground is black like the sky at nightā€

They threw lots of different colours on the ground and used small and large items to move and redirect the paint in different shapes and patterns.


Learning how to move our bodies in different ways to develop our gross motor skills and mark making skills has been so much fun.

We filled some tights with different materials such as sponges, pasta, pom poms and balls and used them to create a piece of art. This allowed the children to explore descriptive language as they figured out how to make marks on the foil.

ā€œThe pasta is spikeyā€

ā€œ This one is really heavy I had to spin round and round to get the paint up thereā€

ā€œ I want to get it to the top so I have to stretch my legs and stand on my tiptoes and do a big jumpā€

To end the week we thought it would be a good idea to begin learning about Remembrance Day and why we mark this as a special day. We watched a short child friendly video about the Poppy and decided to create our own.
The children used cut up potatoes and loose parts to make marks on the paper to create a lovely picture.

ā€œ My dad wears a poppy for all the soldiersā€

ā€œ We can put purple on it too to remember the Animalsā€

Halloween splat painting

Some of the children were chatting about Halloween this morning. Following their interest,Ā  we thought it would be a good idea to search the internet to look for some activities that we could do in our Gross motor art/mark making area in the garden.

We came across splat painting and thought this looked like it would be lots of fun.Ā  We chose some Halloween characters andĀ  printed them out and stuck them on to a large piece of card.Ā  Then it was time to choose our favourite colours of paint!
ā€œI like the pumpkin, my mum said I can get one at the shop.ā€

ā€œCan I choose the paint?ā€
ā€œI like red paint.ā€

ā€œ This is so heavy.ā€

ā€œI’m using my big muscles to push the blue paint out.ā€

Next we went outside to the garden and found a good spot to hang our pictures up. Using different sized paint brushes, we dipped them into the paint and tried out lots of large movements to splat the card until it was covered in lots of different colours of paint.Ā  Forming a queue, we were able to take turns to move our bodies in different ways andĀ  splat the paint in different directions.

ā€œI’m going to run so fast like Sonic.ā€

ā€œMe too!ā€

When the card was covered in paint, we peeled the Halloween pictures off to see what we had created.

ā€œLook, I can see the witches cat.ā€

ā€œThe witches cat is wearing a hat, oh that rhymes!ā€

ā€œand the pumpkin.ā€

We had so much fun usingĀ  large body movements to create a piece of art, while developing our gross motor skills.

Hands up Scotland

It’s that time of year again! Hands up Scotland collect data every year on how children in Scotland travel to School and nursery, so the children have been working hard today to help carry out a survey to find out the ways in which we travel.

We discussed all the different ways we can travel,

ā€œFlying on aeroplanesā€

ā€œMotorbikes and Fire Enginesā€

ā€œOn my scooterā€

The children came up with fantastic answers and we decided to make a chart to display how everyone travels to nursery.


They choose blue and purple paint, they each took turns to put some paint on their fingers and put their fingerprints in the column that answered how they travel to Cart Mill.

The older children used clipboards with paper and pens and asked all their friends how they travelled to nursery, they then ticked which column suited their answers.

This is a fun way to develop our numeracy skills in early level data analysis as the children count up all the information they have gathered. Ā We noticed that most of the children travelled by car to Cart Mill.

Number Stones

Over the past week we have been developing a range of skills at our play area. From counting to recognising numbers, shapes and patterns, Gross motor skills and writing stories we have experienced it all. The children have been so creative.

I observed the children playing a game at the clay table, they were drawing pictures in the clay with different clay tools and asking their friends to guess what they had made. One child wrote the number 4 in clay.

ā€œGuess what I’m drawing it has a shell on itā€ – A snail

ā€œI draw happy faceā€

ā€œI did number 4, cause Ā I’m 4ā€

This lead us on to writing numbers in the clay, we made number stones and decided to paint them lots of different colours. When the paint was dry we brushed over them with Pva glue and left them to dry. Finally using a black marker to make numbers stand out.


The children have used these number stones to lead their own learning. We have used our counting skills and number recognition to rearrange the numbers in order from 1-10.
They have played lots of different games with the number stones, one game involves the children laying the numbers out in order and closing their eyes šŸ‘€ Ā I take one number stone away and they have to guess what number is missing. To make it more challenging we mixed the numbers up and before removing one.

ā€œIt’s number 4ā€ Next we added in numbers 10-20 to add fun challenge to their learning.


ā€œI’m doing it upside down and the wrong way round šŸ˜‚ā€

Pikachu clay models

The children wanted to make something different with the clay, but they were unsure of what. So last week we sat down together and discussed some ideas, I asked the children questions to get them to really think about their interests and how we could incorporate these in to our clay area.

PokƩmon seemed to be a common theme so we used the iPad to search the internet for some PokƩmon ideas. We came across a clay PokƩmon figure, it was perfect! The children helped pick out some other clay model pictures including unicorns, garden gnomes, and even Elsa from Frozen . I printed these out and laminated them, leaving them on the table to inspire some ideas.

The children began to make their own models, squeezing, rolling, and manipulating the clay to their desired shape. They soon realised looking at the pictures that our clay was grey and the pictures used coloured clay, how would they make their own models colourful? They worked together using their problem solving skills to come up with some ideas. ā€œI know, we could get paint!ā€ ā€œand paintbrushes and paint them and that’s how they will be coloursā€.


Once their models were finished we left them to dry out over the weekend, ready for painting this morning.

There was lots of great ideas.


ā€œA bowl of soup with spoonā€

ā€œPikachuā€

ā€œI made a snailā€


They put their finished models on the shelf to let the paint dry, we can’t wait to see the end result.

 

Building Bridges

This week we decided we would use small blocks and loose parts to build our bridges.

The children began exploring the different materials providedĀ  and using their fine motor skill and hand and eye coordinationĀ  to connect the pieces together.

ā€œ this is too heavy, it’s going to fall.ā€

ā€œThis is really hardā€

ā€œMine is a bit wobblyā€

The children used problem solving skills while exploring a variety of ways to ensure the creations did not fall apart. The children shared their thoughts and ideas with each other.

ā€œ I think the clips are too big and they bendā€

ā€œ glue would be goodā€

ā€mine are staying togetherā€

ā€I like the pegs the bestā€

While building the children were discussing what they were creating and continued to share their thoughts and ideas.Ā  They used mathematical language to describe their creations and had great concentration skills.

ā€œMine is strong and longā€

ā€œI am building a bridge which Ā is going going to be so longā€

ā€œI am going to build a big one for carsā€

ā€mine is for cars tooā€

We then decided we would check how strong our bridges were. and chose a car or person to put on it.


ā€œ I have 3 cars onā€

ā€I have 3 peopleā€

ā€I have 3 cars and 8 peopleā€

The children were delighted at how strong their bridges were and that they were able to hold cars, figures or both.

Welcome to our hairdressers āœ‚ļø

A conversation sparked between the children when some members of staff came to nursery last week after having their hair done in preparation for Derek’s Big Day.

“I went to the hairdressers last week”

” Can I do your hair?”

“My mum gets her hair cut in my kitchen, the hairdresser comes to my house”

ā€œI go to the barbers with daddyā€

The children used imaginary brushes and “honey spray” to do each others hair until it was “nice and soft”.Ā  This morning I left a box of hair styling and barber tools in the home corner to see what the children did with them.

They tried out some of the tools, brought some chairs over and then went searching for new customers to get their hair done.

ā€œMy mum has one of these, she uses it before work In the morningā€

ā€œThe baby doesn’t have lots of hairā€

ā€œNext! What number do you want, a 1 or a 2 or a 3?ā€

ā€œLook at me, do you like my new hair?ā€

The children loved being hairdressers and barbers for the day, they were so excited to share and re-enact Ā their own experiences of hair cuts, at home, at the barbers or at the salon. They can’t wait to do it all again tomorrow.

ā€œCan we do it again tomorrow?ā€

Our Local Landmarks

Last week the children were creating bridges and castles. We looked up the squinty bridge ( Clyde Arc) and Stirling Castle. Quite a few of the children recognised the bridge.


So this week we decided we would go and explore our own local environment.
We had a think about what we needed to do to keep us safe when we are out a walk.

ā€œ we need to hold hand & listenā€

ā€watch the roadsā€

ā€ walk niceā€

ā€ have funā€
First of all we passed the spider park and continued towards the forest where we could hear the water so we went to explore and we found our very own bridge! ā€œcan we pick up sticks and watch them go under bridge?ā€

The children had fun playing Pooh sticks – throwing their sticks and running to the other side to watch for their stick coming. We then walked further along and found an even bigger bridge.

ā€œ it’s so big I can’t see overā€

ā€œThe cars go over this oneā€

ā€œI can hear the trainā€

ā€œMy house is up there and there’s another bridgeā€

It was now getting close to lunch time and it was time to head back the children were using great listening skills and road safety andĀ  we spotted lsome more familiar landmarks Williamwood high schoolĀ  andĀ  Bonnyton House. They were also intrigued by the black and white cat.

Today the children have been busy using their gross motor skills and imaginations to build bridges similar to those they have seen in our local Ā environment. Ā The children shared their thoughts and ideas, and used mathematical language to describe how their towers were going to look. They had great concentration and problem solving skills Ā to ensure they would stay up and connect.

children working together as a team


ā€œWe are making the one we were on yesterday, Lots of people can walk over it .ā€

ā€mine is going to be so longā€

Some of the children chose to create their own bridge.

ā€œI am going to make a bridge for carsā€

ā€Look how high it isā€

ā€œI have 6 cars on mineā€

ā€ā€œI will make one for peopleā€

ā€ I am putting signs on my bridgeā€