Tag Archives: #finemotorskills

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Let’s get baking 🥧

May 12, 2023 User deactivated Leave a comment

What an experience we had today making our very own vegan rhubarb scones from scratch with the rhubarb we’ve grown at nursery.

We went to our garden to see the rhubarb we previously planted that we have been taking care of by watering it regularly. It was now time to be picked and used.
“This one is very big.”

”I’m so strong, I can pull the rhubarb out.”

After picking the rhubarb we washed it and cut it into small pieces, adding some water and 2 teaspoons of sugar, the next step was to put it into the microwave which we discussed the safety rules for.

“I help my mum at home to cut up.”

“I’ll put one more little bit in.”

The children can independently select the ingredients needed as they follow our visual recipe. Firstly we measured out the amounts required using mathematical language of more and less. Once we made our ingredients into a dough we rolled it out developing our fine motor skills and lastly we put the scones in the oven taking great care with the times as we don’t want the firemen to visit 🫢.

“I’ll put all the butter in.”

”Its at number 10, we need more.”

“It smells like sweeties.”
“I’m going to roll it into a ball.”

The children take great pride in using the produce they have grown and are so proud to take these home and share with their families, why don’t you try this at home, discover the joy of watching your vegetables grow and create something you can all enjoy!!!😃

Here are the children’s delicious rhubarb vegan scones. Yum!!

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The Cart Mill Sewing Bee 🧵 🪡

March 28, 2023 User deactivated Leave a comment

We have been super busy today at the sewing area making a variety of fabulous creations. A group of children have now mastered using a needle after lots of practice, they are now able to join materials together and begin making their own creations. The children have been using technology for inspiration, drawing out their design, cutting and sewing together, further developing their fine motor and hand eye co ordination skills.

“I want to make a cuddly elephant.”

“I did it, can you take a picture to show my mum.”

“I’m making a love heart pillow for my mum.”

“I’m very good at drawing love hearts.”

A few of the children have been creating models at the tinker table and continuing on with their design at the sewing area, using their imagination and creativity.

“I’m going to measure it on the bed.”

“One pillow is a rectangle and the other is a square.”

“My toys at home now have a bunk bed.”

We have also been having lots of fun practicing our sewing techniques at the sewing table, Great job boys 👍

“I’m going to cut a big bit of wool.”

Our sewing area is a calming place for the children to sit and relax, plan, get creative and have discussions with each other, developing their communication skills.

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Let’s get creative 🛠

February 28, 2023 User deactivated Leave a comment

Today at the tinker table the children have been super busy, we have had so much fun creating using the tools, loose parts and blocks of wood.

To begin with the children were investigating and experimenting with the different tools to see which would work best.

“I’m going to need the saw and hammer.”

After choosing all the resources needed we then got started!

First the children wanted to measure out their fabric, so we used our measuring tapes.

“I’ll draw a line to help measure.”
“I’m going up to number 4.”

The children then carefully hammered the nails into the blocks of wood, joining the pieces together.

“I use the hammer with my dad to fix things in the house”

Next the children used the saw to cut the wood into smaller pieces and carefully sanded down the sharp edges, using our sandpaper tool that the children previously made themselves.

“It’s sharp we need to make it soft.”

”You need to saw very carefully, like this.”

Here is the children’s fantastic pieces of work! Great job everyone 👍🏻

“My giraffe has a very long neck, his name is Max.”

”My airplane goes all the way into the sky.”

”I have made a cheetah.”

The children demonstrated brilliant independence skills as they made their own choices and decisions. The children were encouraged to use the majority of the tools and resources independently while being supervised.

Snack

From farms to our tables 🥕🥔

February 22, 2023 Miss Brown Leave a comment

This week we set up our farm in the small world area. The children brushed the floor and made it all clean and tidy to start. They added artificial grass and blocks round it to make the fence so the animals couldn’t escape onto the road. We added some wooden people to act as the farmer and the families who live and work on the farm.

Then the animals came out to play.

We had a chat about what we already know about farms.

“What do you know about farms?”

“They have animals like cows and sheep, that eat grass”

“My horse eats carrots”

“Farms have vegetables”

“My daddy bought carrots from the shop I had them for dinner”

We explored the different vegetables, feeling and smelling them and peeled and chopped them.

“Big potato, small potato”

I asked the children if they knew how the vegetables get from the farm to the shop.

They seemed unsure so we watched a video called farm to fork.

After we watched the process of growing vegetables on the farm, then being transported to the shops before getting to our tables. The children used the vegetables they had peeled and chopped and “planted” them in the soil. They are very keen to grow their own vegetables in the garden when the weather is a little warmer so we can use them for snack.

The children used the carrots, celery, and cabbage to chop up for a lovely snack, they also added melon, blueberries and orange.

“snack is very yummy today”

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Little Investigators ⚒️

February 9, 2023 User deactivated Leave a comment

Today at the tinker table we have been very busy learning a new skill, deconstructing! We have been learning to use our tools to join things together, now we will be learning how to use our tools to take things apart!

We started by looking in our playrooms for items that we could take apart. We decided that if we broke down the appliances into parts, we could then investigate each component and discover how they work and were assembled together.

The children found a selection of items that we then took over to our tinker table to investigate.

“I wonder what is inside of this one?”

“What else can we find”

Once at the tinker table we had a discussion on what tools we thought would be best to use to open up our appliances.

“I think the screwdriver”

We chose to deconstruct the keyboard first. Once opened we discovered that the soft plastic inside is what makes the keys move.

“This has lots of screws”

“There’s so many buttons on this”

“It’s all squishy inside”

We then opened up a computer mouse to see what was inside.

“It has a wheel”

“It goes click click”

We had so much fun today learning a new skill. The children explored how each of the appliances were assembled and learned about how the different elements all interact. We also discussed with each other the purpose of each component.

We are excited to explore what else we can find to deconstruct at our tinker table next!

Literacy, Outdoor Learning, Social Studies

Languages Week Scotland 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

February 1, 2023 Miss Brown Leave a comment

This week is Languages Week Scotland 2023 where we celebrate language learning and multilingualism in Scotland. This years theme is “Languages for a peaceful world”.

This morning the children came across some stories and we discovered they were in different languages. This got us chatting about what language we speak in and how not everyone speaks the same language.

“What does this say”

“That is the title of the story, “The tortoise and the Hare” written in Mandarin, Chinese”

”When I went to Italy I hear a different language”

“Can you say any words in Italian”

”No”

“What language is the Elmer book in?”

“The Elmer book is in English and Polish”

“ how do you speak to someone if they don’t speak the same language?”

“Say Hello”

We used the internet to find out how to say Hello 👋 in other languages and wrote them down so we could practice how to say them.

The children were developing their mark making and writing skills as they wanted to copy the words so they can practice.

We can now say Hello in different languages to welcome our friends who speak English as an additional language.

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The holidays are coming ⛄️

December 19, 2022 User deactivated Leave a comment

Today in the studio the children have been super busy decorating the ginger bread house they had made the previous week, writing letters to Santa to send off to the North Pole and making baubles at the clay table.

The children had been talking about sending letters to Santa, so we created our own Santa’s station were the children cut, collaged and mark made their letters.

”Will this go to the North Pole”

”I’m going to write merry Christmas”

Everyone was working together to decorate our ginger bread house with loads of loose parts.

“It’s all finished”

Over at the clay table the children were making their own baubles to hang on their Christmas trees, they were squeezing rolling and cutting. After they had made their baubles they decorated them with paint and coloured sand.

Here are the children’s fabulous work!

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My Christmas Tree 🎄

December 6, 2022 Miss Simms Leave a comment

Today the children were talking about the Christmas trees throughout the nursery. We talked about the different sizes of trees and decorations.

“I have one in my house

“Granny has one”

“Mine is so big”

“ we have lights that change colours”

“I helped to put the baubles on”

During our discussion we decided we would like to make our own Christmas trees, so we looked a few ideas up on the Promethean board.

We talked about what we could use to decorate our trees and went on the hunt to find a variety of materials e.g. buttons, sequence, wool, thread and pipe cleaners.

The children began by painting their trees using their fine motor skills and talking about decorations they were going to put on theirs.

”it will be so colourful”

”I put a star on mine”

” mine will look pretty in my bedroom”

They then waited patiently for their trees to dry and finally it was time to decorate their trees. The were all picked the different materials.

Here is a selection of the children’s fabulous works of art!

Expressive Arts

Patchwork houses

November 23, 2022 Mrs Hannah Leave a comment

Thank you so much for all the kind donations of boxes and cardboard for our junk modelling area. We decided to have a look in our Cardboard Creations book for some inspiration! We loved the patchwork houses in our book and decided we would make some of our own!

We discussed what resources we would need and decided on:

“glue to stick things on”

“cardboard or boxes to make the house”

”scissors to cut things”.

”pens to draw windows and a door to get in”

”material, coloured paper and buttons to stick on”

We worked together to collect our resources and shared our thoughts on why we had chosen them.

”I’m choosing pink, it’s my favourite colour”.

”My favourite is red”.

”my favourite is red too”.

It was a bit tricky to cut the cardboard so we decided it would be safer if an adult used bigger scissors to cut it for us. Using our smaller scissors helped us develop our fine motor skills, through cutting our paper, ribbon and wool.

Next it was time to design our house! We demonstrated excellent mark making and writing skills by adding our own features to our houses.

“I’m drawing windows. We need them up at the top, and at the bottom”.

”I’m drawing a door so we can get in and out”.

”I need a chimney, it goes on the top on the roof”.

”I’m writing number 23, that’s the same as my house”.

It was lots of fun choosing different materials to glue onto our houses. We used our knowledge to describe our materials and explain why we had chosen them.

“I like this one, it looks like a picnic blanket!”

”I like the pink one. It’s shiny and smooth”.

”The green one is like a tree, it’s fluffy”.

”The ribbon looks like a tractor wheel”.

”This one is black and white and it has flowers on it”.

”I love the blue one, it’s bumpy and has sparkles on it”.

”I’m putting buttons on. I like the colours”.

The glue on our houses was still a bit wet, so we decided to put them up to dry. When we put all our houses together, we decided it looked like “a wee village!”

It was so much fun making our houses and we can’t wait to see what else we can create!

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