Tag Archives: creativity skills

All aboard the Cart Mill train!

“All aboard the Cart Mill train”, has been the cry throughout another fun filled week!  Holidays have been a hot topic of conversation, with much discussion over where we are going on holiday and how we are going to get there! This has led to a natural progression of our interest in forces through using personal experiences to explore different ways of travelling from one place to another!

In our garden “the floor is lava!”.  Using our problem solving skills we worked together to design our own obstacle course so that we could travel across the “lava without getting on fire” by climbing, balancing and jumping! It was lots of fun to explore balance further through using our “wobble” board to move from sided to side and up and down! Using our knowledge of forces, we explored different ways to transport water to “put out the lava” using hoses, pipes and funnels!

In our discovery room and studio we have demonstrated wonderful creativity through designing our own mode of transport on our interactive board and constructing  planes, trains, cars and boats using junk modelling and a fabulous kit donated by one of our families.

“It’s a boat.  I’m going on holiday to Ireland on a boat with my family”. “I maked a train. I love trains. I go’d on a train”.

Trains have been a firm favourite and we have been so busy in our block area constructing our own “Cart Mill station”  and “trains”which have been picking up passengers and dropping them at exciting destinations! “The train leaving platform 3 is for Spain”.


“I maked a bridge for the trains to go under”.  “My train is East Kilbride”.

Role play is another favourite activity! This week we have made our very own “bus” which took us on a journey full of fun, laughter and much excitement “to school”.

“I drived the bus. To school”. “I readed  a book”. “Beep beep”.

Of course one of our favourite ways to travel around Cart Mill is by bike! Lots of us have bikes and scooters at home. Gail very kindly brought us some bikes in and we had so much fun investigating how they work and using real tools to take them apart and using our problem skills to try and put them back together again!

Of course we had to bring out our Cart Mill bikes so that we could race each other round our garden!  What a fun filled, action packed week! We can’t wait for more adventures next week.

Article 13 – Freedom of expression

Artice 28 – Right to an education

Article 31 – Leisure, play and culture

 

Exploring Emotional Literacy

Emotional literacy is the ability to recognise, understand and express our emotions, which isn’t always easy to do!   At Cart Mill we’re always thinking of creative ways we can explore our feelings and emotions and ways to share them with each other.

A very special visitor came to see us today!

We decided “Roary” looked  “a wee bit sad cause he didn’t have anyone to play with.” And “he Roars because he’s sad and a wee bit angry”.  Roary asked us “How are you feeling today?”
“I’m happy cause I’m playing with my friends”.

”I’m happy too”.

”I’m tired”.

“I’m a wee bit sad because I miss my mummy”.

Chatting to Roary sparked the idea of  making our own puppets. Having a wee look around our Studio, we found lots of interesting things we could use!

“I’m using the bottle”.  “I cutted it’s hair”. “Mines needs long hair like me”. “I maked eyebrows on mine and a nose”. “I drawed a smiley face cos I’m happy”.

“Angry face. I want goggley eyes on mine. He’s a wee bit angry”.
“I want goggley eyes too. Mine is angry. He’s in bed cos he’s tired”.

“Sad face”

”happy”


“I think he’s a wee bit sad. Maybe he’s tired”

”happy”.
Some of our puppets were very friendly and decided to sing, chat and dance with each other, sometimes we even used a special silly voice!


If we’re feeling a little shy, puppets are a fantastic vehicle to express our feelings and emotions, develop our language, social and emotional skills, explore creativity and build our self confidence. It encouraged us to communicate with each other, share our thoughts and ideas, lose our inhibitions and build on our relationships.  As we created our puppets, we entered into our “flow state”, meaning we were so engrossed in our activity that we lost track of everything else around us! This can be very therapeutic and calming and an excellent way to regulate and reset.

Isn’t it amazing how popping on some “goggley, wiggly eyes” can make any object and our creations come to life!

Article 12 – you have the right to an opinion and for it to be listened to and taken seriously.

Article 29 – you have the right to an education that tries to develop your personality and ability.

Framing Winter

As our weather is crisp and cold we have been looking and discovering more about winter in the world around us and how we keep ourself warm during this chilly time. We asked the children what they knew about winter weather and got some lovely responses;

“It’s Cold” “

“I wear snow boots”

“My fingers go red”

“Frost makes beautiful patterns”


We decided together that we would enjoy exploring our local environment to see what effect the colder weather had on our world around us.

First we dressed appropriately for our walk, we put our warm jackets, hats, boots and some of us had cosy gloves to keep us extra warm .

We looked at how the trees looked a bit sad and cold as their beautiful big leaves have left them bare, some of the leaves were lying on the ground.

During our walk we collected some of the leaves, some sticks, twigs and stones to take back to Cart Mill

“Leaves are wet”

“ I have found the biggest stick”

On our travels we also spotted a deer and its family through the bare trees. We walked a little further and saw lots of sheep.
“Are there any baby ones?”
We discussed that baby lambs can be seen in the spring and that’s the next season after winter, so not long to wait now.

When we arrived back at the nursery we decided to create our own winter pictures using the resources we found. The children were very creative designing their own trees and snowflakes. A lovely way for us to show our fun winter walk time.

 

3D number fun!

Today we had lots of fun exploring the loose parts and creating our own 3D numbers. The children loved using resources throughout the room to help them write our number board out, and help with numbers that were a little tricky.

 

The children were very creative, using different loose parts to express their own interpretation of numbers. We spoke about the different shapes in numbers, and how we could display it on our board.

“I need two lines for number 11”

”I need a circle shape for number 10”

Some of the children then extended their learning even further by suggesting finding the corresponding  numbers to match their 3D creations. What a fabulous idea 💡

Have a look at some of our creations we made. Well done everyone!!

The children loved using their imagination and being creative with the loose parts, I wonder what we can create next?

Kung Hey Fat Choi

Today at Cart Mil we have been celebrating Lunar New Year 2022 by participating in various activities both indoors and outdoors! 2022 is the year of the tiger. We discussed the features of a tiger then decided to look for stripes while out for a walk. Look at all the stripes we found….

We also enjoyed having a race through the woods and a play in the spider park on the way back to nursery.

For snack today we sampled different foods that might be eaten during Lunar New Year celebrations.

We enjoyed tasting noodles, rice and lychees!

In the Home room we decided to make our own fortune cookies which were delicious!

We decided to make our playdough the same colours as a tiger and had lots of fun creating our own Lunar New Year tigers!

In the Discovery room we used our interactive board to research  the history of Lunar New Year.

We used our creativity and imagination in the Studio today to make celebration ribbons and streamers. We then used them to recreate our own Lunar New Year celebration dance.

We have had so much fun celebrating and learning the history of Lunar New Year.

Kung Hey Fat Choi!

 

 

Sensory Christmas Playdough

This morning the children were making chocolate cookies with the play dough. They have been showing an interest in role play, so this lead us to a discussion about different senses we could explore .

The children used their sense of smell to test and compare the various flavours. We tested cocoa powder, peppermint, salted caramel, ginger, orange and lemon.

 Ginger –  “gingerbread man  , Nannas house”

Peppermint – “mint choc chip”

Cocoa powder – “Christmas pudding  and cookies

The children then independently made their own playdough using their favourite scent.

The children then explored with their playdough and decided to make lots of different  shaped cookies and candy canes for Santa. They used the home corner to put them in the oven to bake.