Tag Archives: fine motor skills

Terrific Threading!

We have been so busy in our sewing corner this week as we continue to focus on developing our fine motor skills and hand-eye co-ordination.
As we grow in confidence, we can use scissors safely to self select and prepare our own materials and we demonstrated fabulous concentration and perseverance when threading our own needles as “it can be a wee bit tricky!”.


“It’s a wee bit hard to cut the wool”

”I’ll hold it and you cut it”

“I’m choosing blue. My mummy likes blue”

To develop our threading skills further, we decided to see how many tubes of pasta we could thread onto our wool.
How did we do this?

”we putted the thread on the needle”.

”we had to tie a knot so it didn’t fall off”

”I putted the needle through the pasta and pulled it down. Then I did another one”

”you need to tie the bottom so the pasta doesn’t fall off”


It was a “a wee bit tricky” to push the needle through the pasta but we used our problem solving skills and discovered it was easier “if we hold it up cos it slides down”.

When we had finished our terrific threading we decided to work as a team and measure our creations to see which one was the longest, and practised our brilliant counting skills to see how many pasta tubes were on each “snake, wiggly worm and necklace”.

“Look I makes a wiggly worm”

”mine is a snake”

”mines a snake too!”

”my snake is bigger than yours. I’ve got 15 pastas”

”yours is the smallest and mines is the biggest”

Using our knowledge and experience, we have been able to demonstrate a good understanding of our safety rules and share this with our new friends, listen to and follow instructions and work both as a team and independently.

We have decided to have a meeting tomorrow to discuss what we would like to create next week!

Article 31~ I have the right to relax and play.

 

 

 

Summer fun🎈Afternoon Tea at Cart Mill 🍓


The children led this blog and narrated as they went – enjoy their own words!
On a nature walk the children noticed that the bushes across from the nursery have raspberries on them.  “ Can we pick some and make something with them” “ I love raspberries “ “ The strawberries in the garden are ready to we could make some jam and put it onto scones “

“These strawberries aren’t very big” “ Bet they still taste good though” “We need to wash our strawberries and raspberries “

” We need to mash the fruit up, I think a fork would be best for mashing “ “ The strawberries and raspberries smell really good” “ I’m going to mash up 5 strawberries and 3 raspberries because I like strawberries the best”


“ Lets carefully measure out the ingredients so our scones are tasty” “Don’t put to much baking powder in or it will taste horrible, I think half a teaspoon is fine “

is
“let’s cut our scones out,we need the special scone cutter and we need to use the rolling pin , to make it flat”” mine is a bit sticky” 

”I think 11 minutes will be enough “ ” I don’t want mine to burn”

” Mmmm my scone tastes yummy “ “ I’m only putting a little jam on mine”  “ we better wash our dishes”

Great team work the scones tasted amazing and you even washed the dishes. 🤩

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here at Cart Mill FC we 😍🧵 here’s some of this week’s amazing designs😁

Our children love to sew, learning through real first hand experiences.

“I would like to make a purse, first I need to measure it out and draw straight lines”

“Now I’m cutting out my pattern, I love this material because I like to eat apples”

”I can easily thread the needle “

”the sewing is a bit tricky for me”

“I’m sewing buttons on, two I think that will help to close my purse”

”My purse looks great, I think I will sew some ribbon onto it to make it extra special”

”I’m sewing a bag to put my things in” “I chose this nice material because I like it the best”

“Im choosing blue ribbon for my bag so I can carry it”

“I’m putting the wool through the needle”

Some of our younger children enjoy practicing their sewing on the hessian table.

”up and down up and down “

Well done girls can’t wait to see what other ideas you will have for our sewing area.

Creativity in the sewing area 😍 Meet Bob and Mouse 🐻🐭

Today in the studio we were developing our hand eye coordination finger dexterity and building our self confidence through our love of sewing.

“I want to sew on some buttons “ “Im choosing pink ones and pink material would look nice too” “It’s quite tricky for me to sew, but I can do it”


“I want to sew buttons on to” “I want to sew on four” “I’m choosing blue material, I like it best”

”I want to make a little teddy bear” “ I’m making him yellow” “ I think it would be easiest to draw him out first “ “He has a big head” “I think he looks like a Bob, “Yes Bob bear”

“I would like to make a cuddly mouse” “ I need to see what a mouse looks like first can I look on the I-pad? “ I’m going to copy the mouse from the I-pad” “ I need brownish material “”sewing takes quite a long time but I’m excited to see my finished mouse” “ The stuffing is soft and bouncy” “ I love my mouse he is very squeaky and small”

Well done everyone I can’t wait to see what fab ideas you have for the sewing area tomorrow.

 

 

Story Box!

The children have been very creative in the junk modelling area over the past couple of weeks designing and making their own story characters.

They made a story box using recycled materials such as cardboard, bottle tops, bottles and cartons and decorated it adding some coloured tissue paper and more crafts.

Using their imaginations the children came up with some great ideas for characters, they created bunny rabbits, a hare, batman, a robot, a boat, a car, a monster, an octopus and so much more and added it all to the story box.

Next they selected some characters from the box and began to tell their story, writing it down as they went along.

“The mermaid kitty and the octopus went in the taxi to the shop.  They bought cheese and ice cream. Then they met hare and batman and then they went home. The End.”

Something as simple as a cereal box can spark so much conversation and lead on to so many amazing ideas where the children develop their problem solving skills , communication skills, and are able to express their thoughts and ideas.

We are so grateful to you all for bringing in your recycling it has so many benefits for your children.

What can you SEE👀?

It’s STEM  week! (Science, Technology,Engineering, Mathematics)

Following on from learning about the sense of hearing in the science area we have been talking about how many senses there are and what they all are. We found out there are 5 senses. Today we discussed which of our senses we would like to focus on, we chose sight.

The children looked through the microscope to SEE the different specimens on the micro slides.

“I can see it, it looks like a little bit of grass from the garden”

“It’s tiny stones”  “Now it is BIG”

Next we did an experiment to SEE if the items we chose would Sink or Float. We discussed each item before it went in the water. We predicted whether each individual item  would float or sink, developing our critical thinking skills.

“The golf ball will sink”

“Why do you think it will sink?”

“Because it’s heavy”

“The pom pom will float”

“i know, it’s not heavy, it’s light”

”I can see it sinking all the way to the bottom”

We used our mark making skills to record our findings. The children made tally marks for each item and recorded them on a table.

“3 floated and 2 sinked”

For our final experiment, the children used pipettes (developing their fine motor skills and hand- eye co-ordination) to add different coloured food colouring to individual glases and then filled them up with water.

In each glass they added a paper towel so that half was in one glass and half in the one beside.

We watched as the coloured water transferred from one glass to another causing some of the colours to mix creating different colours in the empty glass.

“Look i can SEE it moving, the blue and yellow have turned green”

“They mix together”

The children have had lots of fun exploring their sight while being mini scientists.

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.

 

Even junk can look beautiful with a little creativity 😁

In the junk modelling area today, we were making bottle sculptures. First, we got some inspiration from a video to help spark our imagination.  We then chose our bottle and thought about what our inspiration was.

“I think mine should look like a rocket with red fire” “I want mine to be sparkly like a fairy” “I’m making mine blue like the sky”

We then used a paper plate for the base and then secured the plate to the bottle with masking tape. “
The children then gathered the resources they needed to make their amazing creations. They explored the resources and problem solved which type of adhesives would work best. “I’m using this tape as it’s the best to stick the bottle onto the plate” “I will tie my sparkly blue ribbon around the bottle“. “I’m using the plasticine to stick the tissue paper on”.


The children used lots of descriptive language to describe what they were doing “I’m scrunching the tissue paper up small to fit on the top of my bottle“. “ I’m using the hole puncher the heart one to make my plate pretty”
When the children were finished making their creations, they wanted to display them in the studio. Good job everyone what beautiful sculptures you have made.

Today at Cart Mill family centre we are feeling happy😁


Today the children were feeling happy and wanted to bake smilie scones made with yummy strawberry dairy free yogurt.

”We need flour first” “I remember it’s four scoops”

“Three tablespoons of yogurt need to go in to make it extra strawberryish” “ I love strawberry yogurt””It smells so good”

We added some coconut milk “ we need to measure it in the jug”vanilla essence and baking powder. The children used their fine motor skills to measure and stir.

.“ I think we should make the face with cherries and raisins “ “We need to make the cherries smaller, we could cut them in half” “I need 8 cherries for the smile” “I only need one cherry for the nose” “I’m making a big nose out of 4 cherries, some people have a big nose” “They go into the oven for 12 minutes “The children used lots of mathematical language during their baking.

The children were very excited to see how well their scones turned out hopefully they are as tasty as they look. Well done everyone 🤩

 

 

 

Pretty Pinecones

Today  the children were interested exploring the pine cones, sticks and wooden trees. We had a discussion about what we could do with them and decided we could give them some colour by weaving and twirling using ribbon, pipe cleaners, wool and felt.

It was lovely watching the children explore different weaving options and discover different methods and techniques. The children loved mixing up the wool, pipe cleaners and felt to weave and twirl round their chosen object.

“mine is like a rainbow”

“Look it’s pretty now”

“I love pink”

”I am making one for all my family”

The children used  both their hands to grasp the pine cone and using pincer grip to weave the material. They manipulated the different materials in lots of different ways building their muscle strength and dexterity  and developing their hand and eye co-ordination.

There was lots of patience and concentration and the children shared their ideas throughout and spoke about what they were doing.