Tag Archives: creativity

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Creative little minds 💡

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This week in the clay area, there have been lots of creative little minds busy at work!

The children have had lots of learning opportunities while exploring the clay, and have shared lots of imaginative ideas with their peers 💡

Some of the children liked using the tools to create little intricate flowers 🌺

 

some children enjoyed creating shapes and patterns with various equipment…

Other children even designed little small world creations too 👩🏼‍🎨

“it’s a little island for the ninja turtles. I used shells so the water can go through under the island”

“let’s make a little tunnel for the cars “

While clay has many benefits to children’s fine motor skills, it also engages many social skills through sharing ideas, solving problems or even encouraging each other through conversation as they play and learn.

It has been so thought provoking and interesting to see how many fantastic ideas the children have shared, and how each child’s experience of clay has been unique and individual to their little personalities. Keep up the good work everybody 😁👍

Creativity

Pop a little Pancake

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Today we were talking about Pancake Tuesday and decided we could make our own pancakes with the playdough. We got our bowls and measured each ingredient  and used our gross motor skills to stir all the ingredients together. We added some vanilla essence  to make them smell yummy too.

“My mum makes pancakes”

“ I have pancakes in my house”

We then began creating our own pancakes  using the rolling pins and cutters  of our choice.

“ mine is going to be round”

”I am using the circle one”

 

When  we were ready we popped them into the frying pan some of the children like using the cooker  to bake them. The children then flipped their pancakes . While we didt this we sang pop a little pancake into the pan.

We then used a variety of resources sequins, pom poms to decorate our pancakes pretending they were various toppings.

“Nutella”

”Jam”

“Bananas”

“Strawberry”

Look at our delicious pancakes.

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Gong hei fat choy

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This week at Cart Mill, the children have been celebrating the festival of Chinese New Year.

This year it’s the year of the Dragon and the children have been busy exploring different areas of the nursery, creating dragons in different ways such as junk modelling and playdough. We have even been practicing our Chinese writing using paint in the studio.

We have been making Chinese lanterns in the Studio, and I’m sure you’ll notice our new friend that is in our reception area in front of the discovery room door! The children have showed off their creative skills by working together and making the Chinese New Year Dragon!

At Cart Mill we celebrate and recognise different cultures which allows us to learn about what is important to different people. This fosters respect and open mindedness for other cultures. Celebrating our differences, as well as our common interests, helps unite and educate us.

If you are celebrating Chinese New Year this weekend, please feel free to send us your pictures into schoolmail@cartmill.e-renfrew.sch.uk or on Twitter at @cartmillcentre

Article 29 – I have a right to an education which develops my personality, respect for others rights and the environment

Article 30 – I have a right to speak my own language and follow my families way of life

Article 31 – I have a right to play

 

Expressive Arts, Snack, Special Event

Today we were Celebrating Burns day at Cart Mill family centre 😁

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Here are some of our Burns day activities. We enjoyed Vegetarian haggis neeps and tatties for our snack and asked the children what they thought of it thumbs up or thumbs down I’m pleased to say the majority of the children liked it.

” The haggis is a bit spicy, but I like it”

“ can I have some more , it’s so good”

“I don’t like it, it’s to bitty”

” The turnip is my favourite it’s a nice yellow colour “

We also enjoyed painting using a big box and cars to move the paint around to look like tartan.   The box was quite heavy and the children had to get it into the correct angle to move the cars. “ My car is super fast” “ Im making the green tartan”

After lunch the children decided they would like to try some highland dancing. They were twirling jumping and dancing in time to the Scottish music.

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Pinecone Christmas Decorations!

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Today in the Garden, the children have been creating their own Christmas decorations for the outdoor tree!

We had lots of pine cones so we decided to use some glue and some sparkly sand to create our very own Christmas baubles…

First we used the PVA glue and glue spreaders to make our pine cones all sticky!

Then we used some special Christmas sparkle to brighten up our pine cones and make them into our baubles for the tree.

”Shake shake shake so it comes out the top”

”It looks like snow on it”

Then we had to use our concentration and our fine motor skills to tie the ribbon around the tree so that our decorations would hang for everyone to see!

”Look at mine! I did it myself, I have a green ribbon on mine too”

Wouldn’t you agree that the children done a wonderful job of their decorations…have a look at our fabulous tree in our garden!

Throughout this experience, the children have been developing their creativity skills, imagination and their ability to work with different materials to create a piece of artwork.

Article 29: I have the right to an education which develops my personality, respect for others and the environment

Article 31: I have the right to an education

 

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🐷 “I’ll huff and I’ll puff and I’ll blow your house down.”

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This week in the studio the children have loved reading ‘The Three Little Pigs.’ The children came up with a brilliant idea that they’d like to make their own ‘house’ out of the junk modelling and see if the ‘big bad Wolf’ could blow it over.


“Horace has the strongest house.”

We got started and looked out what junk modelling and resources we could use. “These look like bricks.” The children confidently worked both in a group and independently making their fabulous houses.


“I’m making my house out of bricks. The Woolf can’t get in.”
“ My house is made of sticks, it’s very strong.”

Here is the children’s finished  work! Now it’s time to see if the “big bag Wolf” can blow them down.


“My house is pink.”

The children had lots of fun taking turns of trying to blow down each other’s houses.


“I’ll huff and I’ll puff and I’ll blow your house down.”
”I nearly got it.”

 

 

Expressive Arts

Let’s get creative🎃

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From all the excitement of halloween last night the children were chatting with one another saying what they dressed up as. They had a brilliant idea and decided to use the junk modelling to create what they had dressed up as.


“I’m going to cover the box all orange.”
“Hedwig needs feathers and glue.”

Here is the children’s fantastic work!


“I dressed up as a pumpkin last night, like this.”
“I made Hedwig  because I was Hermione.”
“I dressed up as a train driver, this is my train.”

Through the week the children have also been super busy working together creating “halloween houses”.

“This looks like my house.” 
“I’m going to put my handprints on it.”

The children absolutely love spending time in the studio, it is an essential part of every child’s  learning, it allows them to think creatively, problem solve, explore, work independently or as a group and develop their fine motor skills as well as many more.

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Spooktacular clay creations!

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Over the last week in the clay area, the children have been making their own spooky models. Using various techniques such as rolling, pressing and moulding to make their pumpkins and spiders.

The children used their curiosity and imagination skills throughout whilst exploring texture and manipulation.

The children used their hands to roll a ball to make the spiders body and to roll the spiders legs into ”sausage shapes”.

The children then decided they wanted to make their own clay model pumpkins for Halloween! We even created a whole family of pumpkins and some pumpkin lollypops for trick-or-treating!

Clay modelling allows children to develop their fine motor skills in their hands and fingers and hand eye co-ordination. This helps with children colouring, cutting and starts off the skills needed for emergent writing.

I wonder what wonderful techniques & creations our children will come up with next week..

Article 31: I have the right to play

Article 29: I have the right to an education

 

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Cornflour Creations

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Throughout the week the children have been getting very excited about Halloween so today we decided to incorporate this in to the sensory area. We put some cornflour on the trays and selected a variety of mark making tools. Then we set about making our creepy creations…


“I’m making triangle eyes.”

“I’m making a spooky pumpkin with one circle eye and one triangle eye.”

“I’m making a spider and he’s coming after you!”

 


One of the boys experimented with moving the flour with the stick and realised he had made a bat wing! We experimented some more and worked out how to make two wings. He then took his time looking at the bat toy and added more features like a head and feet. Excellent work!


Some of the other children experimented with tracing around the Halloween toys and created some excellent pictures.

“I’m making a spider with only two legs and a pumpkin on his head.”

“My pumpkin has a silly face.”

Fantastic mark making and creativity skills from the children today!

Article 31- Every child has the right to take part in a wide range of cultural and artistic activities.

 

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Clay creativity

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Today in the clay area we set up an invitation to play using leaves, sticks, feathers and pine cones to encourage creativity, individualism and independence and the children did not disappoint.

As you can see the children have been very busy…

“I’ve made a pumpkin”

“I made a forest, no it’s a bird flying in the forest, no it’s the same as the picture a forest and the water”

“I done tree”  “ me too”  “I made a sun”

Playing with clay is a multi-sensory experience as children get the chance to refine their senses as they touch the clay, feel it’s weight and texture, smell and squish it.

When our unique works of art are dried we will decorate them before taking them home.