Tag Archives: #creativityskills

Clay Play

 

The children have been exploring the great benefits of clay since returning to nursery after the holidays.

Clay modelling helps to spark the brain’s creativity and problem solving skills.  The children have been expressing their thoughts and emotions through the clay modelling, boosting their imagination and creativity.

”The mermaids are stuck in the mud”

Some of the younger children begin by exploring the texture of the clay and quickly realised the imaginative aspects of clay play.

“Ice Cream”

The children squeeze and pinch the clay with their hands, helping to develop their fine motor skills.

“I’m making a snowman.”

The clay provides lots of play based learning, as the children count and sort materials when decorating their clay.

“1,2,3,4……..”

The children use a variety of tools when using clay such as rolling pins and wooden and metal clay tools, ensuring that they keep themselves and others safe when using the tools.

The tools allow the children to roll, cut and make patterns in the clay.

As the children develop their clay skills, they can roll clay into balls to make clay lollipops.

The clay provides a great opportunity for children to express detail in their artwork.

“This is my dog”.

We even created our own Cart Mill Forest!

The clay is a fantastic social activity as the children share ideas and learn from one another.

UNCRC Article 31 Every child has the right to relax and play.

 

Colourful Mondays in the studio 🥰

Today in the studio some of the children enjoyed a mark making
sensory activity involving lots of cling film and colourful paint.
The older children took pleasure in writing their names and drawing shapes in the squishy paint they also realised by  mixing the colours together they could make secondary ones.  The younger children made patterns with their fingers and delighted in feeling the squishiness of the paint beneath their hands. Some of the children thought that next time they would like to use their feet to see how that felt.

 

Later on a few of the children took part in some alphabet printing and  searching for the first letter of their name. We also did a letter hunt in some play foam.  G found a v for her Mums name .

What a lovely busy day we all had today at Cart Mill . I can’t wait to see what exciting activities we get up to over the rest of the week .

 

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  tools.

“ The blue got on the yellow and now the yellow looks a bit green”.

“I making fireworks”


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. “The ground is black like the sky at night”

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.

“The pasta is spikey”

“ This one is really heavy I had to spin round and round to get the paint up there”

“ I want to get it to the top so I have to stretch my legs and stand on my tiptoes and do a big jump”

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.

“ My dad wears a poppy for all the soldiers”

“ We can put purple on it too to remember the Animals”

Halloween splat painting

Some of the children were chatting about Halloween this morning. Following their interest,  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.  We chose some Halloween characters and  printed them out and stuck them on to a large piece of card.  Then it was time to choose our favourite colours of paint!
“I like the pumpkin, my mum said I can get one at the shop.”

“Can I choose the paint?”
“I like red paint.”

“ This is so heavy.”

“I’m using my big muscles to push the blue paint out.”

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.  Forming a queue, we were able to take turns to move our bodies in different ways and  splat the paint in different directions.

“I’m going to run so fast like Sonic.”

“Me too!”

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

“Look, I can see the witches cat.”

“The witches cat is wearing a hat, oh that rhymes!”

“and the pumpkin.”

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

This weeks summer learning at a Cart Mill!

This week at Cart Mill, we explored a wide variety of activities across all our rooms. Take a look at what we’ve been up to!

In the discovery room it’s been an exciting week exploring forces. We were highly engaged with an activity using balloons attached to cars. It was lots of fun using our observation skills to identify if the air coming out of the balloon was strong enough to move the car back and forth, enhancing our understanding of motion and forces.

In the garden the weather has been kinder this week, allowing us to enjoy the outdoors more. With Wimbledon underway, we decided to have our own tennis tournament and learn all about this exciting racket game. Exploring our technology skills we watched a game of tennis on the smart board, discussed the rules, and then took turns playing on our makeshift court. This fantastic activity kept our bodies active and helped develop our motor skills and hand-eye co-ordination. No Wimbledon experience is complete without strawberries! Our children in the Home Room were busy chopping them up for us to enjoy. Yum!

Lots of fun was had creating enormous bubbles in our garden! Everyone enjoyed this sensory experience immensely. Using washing-up liquid and water, we mixed our own bubble solution and used our fine and gross motor skills to create fantastic bubbles. We then explored cause and effect by blowing the bubbles and popping them with our fingers.

In the home room at the playdough table, we have been experimenting with our playdough recipe and created some delightful chocolate playdough. By adding vegan drinking chocolate to the playdough mixture, we crafted a fantastic sensory experience to explore. The rich scent and smooth texture of the chocolate playdough added an extra layer of excitement to our play. Using loose parts, we created imaginative models, enhancing our creativity and fine motor skills. We also enjoyed spreading the playdough to see how thin we could get it.

In the studio we engaged in mark-making using a variety of paints and tools, providing a rich and creative environment for us to express ourselves artistically. Lots of fun was had through exploring patterns using rollers, discovering how different pressures and movements could create a wide range of textures and designs. Using sponges, we experimented with shapes, learning how to manipulate the tools to form circles and squares. Paintbrushes allowed us to delve into our own unique styles, mixing colours and creating beautiful creations. This activity not only enhanced our fine motor skills but also encouraged us to think creatively and express our emotions and ideas through art.

We ventured outside the nursery to visit the park and explore the large field behind us. At the park, we enjoyed playing on the swings, developing our balance on the wooden beams, and building our confidence on the large slide. The field provided ample space for running and playing games. We participated in running and crawling races with our peers, promoting physical fitness and teamwork. These outdoor activities were fantastic opportunities for us to develop our motor skills and enhance our social interactions whilst enjoying the fresh air and sunshine.

Come back next Friday to see what fun learning activities we get up to next week!

UNCRC Articles: Our activities this week align with several articles from the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC):

  • Article 13: Freedom of expression
  • Article 31: Leisure, play, and culture
  • Article 28: Right to education

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.

“Guess what I’m drawing it has a shell on it” – A snail

“I draw happy face”

“I did number 4, cause  I’m 4”

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 👀  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.

“It’s number 4” Next we added in numbers 10-20 to add fun challenge to their learning.


“I’m doing it upside down and the wrong way round 😂”

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.

Pokémon seemed to be a common theme so we used the iPad to search the internet for some Pokémon ideas. We came across a clay Pokémon 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. “I know, we could get paint!” “and paintbrushes and paint them and that’s how they will be colours”.


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.


“A bowl of soup with spoon”

“Pikachu”

“I made a snail”


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

 

Outer Space

As you may remember the children had a great time creating their robot alien a few weeks ago.  To continue along that theme, we decided to  make our own spaceship! Luckily we had a huge box that was exactly what we needed.  After much discussion, it was decided how it should look, that it was to be painted red, and off to work we went displaying great teamwork.

It was great fun imagining where to go and we chatted about what planet would be the best.  This led us on to learning all about the planets in our solar system.  We learned a great way to remember the planets by saying this sentence My Very Excellent Mom Just Served Us Noodles

We decided that we would like to make some planets using balloons, newspaper and wallpaper paste. Everyone really enjoyed the texture of the paste and spreading the paper with their hands.  We are still in the process of painting them before we hang them up for all to admire.

“the paste feels slimy and cold”

“it’s very gooey”

”I like how it feels slimy”

“This is where we live on planet earth”

Who knows where our imagination will take us next!

World Earth Day Painting

In Cart Mill, the children enjoy painting and exploring the use of different textures and materials.

As part of World Earth Day the children  were creating their very own planet earth by painting on tin foil using cotton buds as a painting tool.  This activity helps to promote the childrens’ creativity, whilst enhancing their fine motor skills.

First, we covered the paper plates with tin foil to create our earth.

Next, the children chose colours that represented the earth.  Blue for the sea, green for the land and white for the clouds.

Water
They described what they were painting and how it looked and sounded.

Water!


“Shiny”

“Noisy”

“Ta da”

Some of the children also created amazing artwork using the tin foil as a printing tool.  This method produced a lovely textured painting.

The children showed great enthusiasm when painting their planet earth and demonstrated excellent focus and poise.

Lovely work everyone.

We then learned some new World Earth Day songs to familiar rhymes that we already know.

Article 31 (leisure, play and culture).  Every child has the right to relax, play and take part in a wide range of cultural and artistic activities.

Blasting off to Planet Mars!

The children are still really focused on learning about space in the Discovery Room. This morning we revisited the solar system. The children counted confidently that there are eight planets. Looking at pictures we tried to remember the names of all these planets.

“I know that’s Mercury because it’s the grey one!”

”Mars is the big red dot!!!”

The children decided Mars looked like the most exciting planet and got busy making a spaceship that would take them there!

”We can all sit in this big box!”

The children used their cutting, gluing and sticking skills to prepare parts of their spaceship! They had great conversations with each other about what they needed to make a super fast spaceship.

”I’m cutting the buttons for the front!”

We decided to decorate the ship with bright colours so that it would be seen in the sky! The children choose to use pom poms, sparkles and coloured paper.

“The spaceship needs fire to make it fly!”

The children added red coloured paper cut like flames to the back so that the spaceship would blast off!

”It needs to fly super fast, wooooooooooosh!”

We added some finishing touches and then jumped in to set off on our journey!  3,2,1 blast off!!!!

”I can go from side to side!”

Some of the children decided they wanted to cut holes in the bottom of the spaceship so that they could actually move it around!

”Weeeeeeeeee look we can fly to Space! Let’s go to Mars!”

What a fantastic idea that was, how inventive and imaginative! What  great fun everyone had taking turns to steer the spaceship around Cartmill!

Article 28 – You have the right to Education