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Marvellous Monday experiments 🥰

April 8, 2024 Miss Mitchell Leave a comment

Today some of our little scientists decided they would like to do a soap experiment.

We started off with our soap moulds, a plastic bag, a beaker, transparent soap base, food colouring and of course some scent. The children thought the soap base looked like crystals and noticed it was colourless with no smell “ We talked about what the main function of soap is, the children know it is used for cleaning and how they use it – “I wash all my germs off at night with soap, so I’m clean”
Next we opened up the bag and placed the transparent soap base into it. The children chose what colour and scent to put into their soap. Some wanted the peach scent in it “Mmm I like fruity smells” I explained that all hand soap starts the same and then the scents and colours are added. We popped the bag with the soap scent and colour into the hot water. The children were excited to see the soap base melt and combine with the scent and colouring. “Look it’s gone slimey it’s melted”
The children were able to follow a set of instructions and used our pipettes to fill their chosen mould.

“

What shape would you pick – we had lots of choices: I want a dolphin soap for my bath” “ No I think penguins are the best sea animal so I want that soap” The children are excited to take their soaps home and try them out. I wonder if the soap will make the bath water smell like 🍑 ?

Block building, Creativity

Creative Cement Constructions

March 19, 2024 Miss Simms Leave a comment

Today we had a discussion how we could ensure our towers did not fall down.

“Don’t move from it”

”cellotape”

“Glue”

What do you think builders use to keep bricks together.

“Cement”

We deceived to make our own cement so we got a bowl and added our two ingredients sand and shaving foam. We used our gross motor skills to stir and combine them together.

”it looks crunchy”

”it looks sticky”

”it looks like real cement”

We then began making our creations using a variety of tools to spread the cement on the blocks. The children used their fine motor skills and hand and eye coordinating to help secure the blocks together. The children had great imaginations and communication skills sharing their thoughts, ideas and creations.The children used mathematical language.while building their structures

“Mine is so high”

“ it have lots of bricks

“mine is big an getting bigger and bigger”

”mine is going to be very tall”

” I have made a castle”

“Look at my bridge, the troll lives under it”

” I have made a big tower”

” I have made a big house”

Baking, Creativity, Snack, Social Studies

The great Cart Mill bake off🧁

March 8, 2024 Miss Brown Leave a comment

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.

Creative movement, Creativity, Outdoor Learning

Gross motor fun

January 31, 2024 Miss Brown Leave a comment

This week in the garden we have revisited the balance and coordination skills we have been practicing but also now introducing games to develop our hand/feet/eye coordination.

The children set up their own obstacle course using tyres and crates after talking about the football class they attended at the weekend.

“I was at football and made an obstacle course like nursery but we kicked a ball”

“Let’s get a ball and add X marks the spot”

They made a starting point by adding ‘X’ and drew a trail round the obstacles with chalk. They began by rolling the ball round with their hands. “It’s tricky to kick”

Then when they felt confident they began practicing kicking the ball round the objects developing their concentration as they tried to stick to the line keeping the ball under control.

“Dont go too fast or the ball will go far away”

They marked another ‘X’ at the end of the course so they knew where to stop and added a tyre “ 3 Large steps away “I’m going to throw the ball in to the tyre”.

The younger children enjoyed kicking the ball about the garden “football” so set up their goals and practiced kicking the ball.

Today we had to Improvise because of the change in weather so the children suggested we make an obstacle course inside. We practiced our balance and coordination on the balance beam, Hand/feet eye coordination by dribbling the ball and a throwing the ball in the baskets and using our large muscles to jump over obstacles.

“That was so easy, we need to make it harder next time”. The children are setting their own challenges and making new goals and targets for their learning. The next job is to sit together and make a plan on how we will make it more challenging.

Block building

Ready…Steady…Go

January 29, 2024 Miss Simms Leave a comment

The children have shown lots of interest in cars and have started exploring how they move on the car mat and in the garage. They have all used their imagination to create a variety of scenarios. Some of the children then decided to created their own garage, bridges and roads using the wooden blocks. It was like the Cart Mill city!

Afterwards, we decided to make ramps which we angled so that we could measure how far each of our cars could go. The children waited patiently for their turn and made predictions of how far they though their car would go. We experimented with different ways to measure. We used a variety of different tools such as a measuring tapes and pine cones to measure how far our cars went.

We had lots of fun taking turns racing each other to see which car went the furthest. We had a group discussion of whose was the furthest, developing our awareness of distance as well as some negotiation techniques!

“mine went the furthest”

” I won”

” look how far mine went”
” mine was super speedy”

We were also able to recognise some familiar numbers on the measuring tape and use these numbers to determine whose car ACTUALLY went the furthest.

We were able to use our mathematical language in discussions about distance such as length, distance and measure. “My car went to the 2 and the 3”

“7 pine cones” 2 and 3

This was a fun measuring experience for all children, regardless of age, which developed an awareness of measurement using non – standards of measurement as well as introducing standard measurement during play.

Literacy

Oh no, it’s a Gruffalo!

November 27, 2023 Mrs Hannah Leave a comment

In our story corner today we have been discussing books we have at home and took great delight in sharing our favourites with our friends. We couldn’t decide which was our overall favourite, so we voted by raising our hands and then counting to see which story had the most votes.

Our winner was ……. The Gruffalo!

Lots of exciting discussion followed and we were able to name the Mouse and the Gruffalo as the main characters, and remember which animals the mouse met on his walk through “the deep, dark wood!”. We decided we wouldn’t like to walk in the “deep, dark wood cos it might be a wee bit scary”, but “maybe we could take a torch and it wouldn’t be scary anymore!”

It was so exciting to choose which character we would like to be. Listening very carefully, we were able to take turns and use our story spoons to predict which character the Mouse would meet next! Some of us demonstrated we know the Gruffalo really well by joining in with repeated phrases, “oh help, oh no, it’s a Gruffalo!” being a firm favourite! To challenge ourselves further, we even added in some sound effects and actions!

“The snake goes sssssssss”

”Owl goes toowittoowoo”

”look I’ve got terrible teeth and I’ve got big claws”

”his prickles were purple”

”his eyes are orange, mines are brown.”

Using a thumbs up, thumbs to the side and thumbs down, we shared our likes and dislikes of each character and then decided we would like to swap our spoons and read the story again! (Repeated at least 5 times!)

Article 12 – you have the right to give your opinion
Article 29 – Your education should help you use and develop your talents and abilities.

Baking, Expressive Arts, Outdoor Learning

Welcome to the Cart Mill kitchen 😀🥤🎂

November 20, 2023 Miss Simms Leave a comment

Today in the mud kitchen the children were pretending to work at Cartmill Cafe. They discussed with each other what they going to make.
” I love tomato soup” “I like the colour of it, Red is my favourite colour “

”I am making a birthday cake, a chocolate flavoured one”

“Hot chocolate, but you need to be careful it’s not too hot when you drink it, I like it with marshmallows “

”spaghetti bolognaise, with wiggly spaghetti “

The children then wrote their ideas on the menu

The children gathered their utensils and began filling and pouring their ingredients. They used gross motor skills to mix and stir added natural resources such as leaves, stick, stones and pine cones to their recipes.

“It needs to cook in the oven for 10minutes”

”I need more water in the soup”

”It’s still too hot, it needs a little water to cool it down”

We then showed each other our creations and had a little pretend nibble.

“ Here’s a drink with a straw”

”My birthday cake has lots of candles”

” I have the bestest chocolate cake”

Block building, Creativity, Expressive Arts, Literacy, Social Studies

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

November 15, 2023 Miss Brown Leave a comment

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.

Digital Technology, Literacy, Snack

Berry nice smoothies 🍓🫐

October 19, 2023 Miss Brown Leave a comment

Today in the home room the children decided they wanted to make fruit smoothies.

We used the internet to search for a recipe to make delicious fruit smoothies. We then collected the ingredients we needed from the kitchen to begin making our very nice smoothies.

To begin the children took turns to scoop a spoonful of frozen berries into the bowl. Next they safely used a knife to cut up a banana to add to the bowl.

“I put strawberries and blueberries in they were stuck together with ice”

Using the measuring jug the children measured out 240ml of milk, they worked as a team to measure one tsp of honey before adding all the ingredients into the blender. We also made a water based fruit smoothie as an alternative.

“it’s so noisy”

When the ingredients were all blended together the children poured the smoothie into an jug and shared with their friends for snack.

“It tastes yummy”

“ I can taste banana, I like banana for snack”

Digital Technology, Social Studies, Technologies

Our emotions😀😢🤪😱🫣🥱😡😳

September 6, 2023 Miss Brown Leave a comment

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.

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