Tag Archives: Froebel

Baking, Creative movement, Creativity, Expressive Arts, Froebel, Imaginative thinking, Literacy, music, nature, Outdoor Learning, Snack, Social Studies

What have we been doing at Cart Mill this week?

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This week at Cart Mill we have been taking part in a wide variety of learning experiences across each of our playrooms and our garden.
In our Discovery room we have continued along our Jack and the Beanstalk learning journey by investigating “forces” and “travel”. Our mission was to find a way for Jack to get to and from the castle without the giant seeing!  To do this we decided to fill the balloon with air and let it go to see how far it would travel towards the castle. It’s been so much fun seeing how much air we need to make the balloon go fast or slow.

In our Studio we have shown an interest in diggers and have been using the water tray as our construction site. We used dried rice to represent the dirt and had great fun using the construction toys to fill, empty and transport the rice.  We used our technology skills to look at videos of real construction vehicles on our smart board. This experience had such a great level of engagement from all our children, especially our younger ones. We even found a Danny go video called “digging in the dirt” to all join in with, incorporating our health, well-being and movements skills.

In our Home room we have continued to develop our baking skills by researching recipes, measuring ingredients and making yummy vegan treats for our afternoon snack!  The best part was taste testing our baking!
In our playdough area  we have been experimenting by adding different scents to our playdough. We’ve tried peppermint, lemon and orange extracts. We even tried chocolate powder to make chocolate playdough. It smelt so good and looked just like chocolate. This week we decided to wander out to the the planting area to choose herbs and flowers to introduce some different scents. We picked basil, thyme, garlic and some flowers. As we grow in confidence, we are able to make our playdough independently using our self serve playdough station.  It has been lots of fun choosing loose parts to add to our playdough and creating  wonderful models.
Between the smells of playdough and daily home baking our home room smells delightful.

And finally our garden! The weather has been a little varied this week with showers of rain in between the sunshine.  As usual, we didn’t let that stop our fun!  We have used the gross motor rollers to mark make, played role play games using the play house and even took part in music and movement games such as head shoulders knees and toes. We extended our muddy movers skills by playing catch with the sticky ball and catching mitts. It was lots of fun taking turns with catching and throwing.

We all love learning through our play at Cart Mill! I wonder what we will do next week during our summer adventures?

UNCRC article 28- we have the right to play.

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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, Woodwork

Wonderful Woodwork

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It’s been a very creative few weeks in our woodwork area! We decided we would focus on independence and free choice and let our creativity and imagination flow!
By choosing which materials and tools we would like to use, we demonstrated the ability to make a choice.  Through discussions with others, we shared reasons for making our choices.

“I’m using the elastic bands.  I like to stretch them and I like the different colours.  I can show it to my brother”.

”I like this one.  We use it so we don’t hurt our fingers”.

”I like the beads.  I choosed rainbow colours”.

”I’m making a taxi like this one.  We need a big bit and a wee bit for the top.  And we need an orange light on the top like a real taxi.”

Working both independently and with others, we used our curiosity and imagination and shared our thoughts and ideas.

“I’m making a helicopter.  It has a big bit at the top that makes it fly.  You need to use the big nails cos the wee ones don’t go through the wood and it will fall off”.
“I’m making a plane.  What are you making?”  “A plane too. A red one”. “You need a big bit at the bottom and a wee bit on the top for the wings.  Look like me”.  “Ok this bit?” “Yes. And you need to put the big nails in.”
As we grow in confidence, we are sharing our knowledge and experience with our friends and supporting and encouraging them when they are making their models. We are beginning to assess risk when using the tools and can discuss how to use them safely.

“I want to make the same as you”. “Ok I’ll show you.  We use this, you need to watch you don’t squash your fingers!.  “Is this the right bit”. “Yes look it’s the same size”.  “Then you use this and put it on the end so it’s smooth and you don’t get a skelf”. “I got a skelf one time.  It was really sore and my mummy putted a plaster on it”. “You need to use this hammer for this bit.  You need to hit it hard. Like this”. “Ok. It’s noisy”. “Watch you don’t hit your fingers cos it will be sore”.

At Cart Mill we are very creative,  imaginative and love to plan, design, and construct fabulous models! We are able to apply our knowledge and experience across a wide range of learning experiences adding breadth, depth and challenge to our learning!

Some of us are able to plan our models in advance, while others prefer to use our models to draw afterwards.  We do this in our design book so that we can keep a record of what we have made and to share our ideas and fabulous models with our friends!   Aren’t we creative being able to plan, design and create our wonderful models!

Please come and have a look through our book anytime!

Block building

Block Play & Lose Parts exploration!

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This week in the block area, the children have been investigating various different ways to create models & use their problem solving skills, self expression and imagination to create their own models.

The most popular creation this week has been building bridges of various shapes, sizes, length and height. The children have been developing their social and emotional skills by learning to take turns and share materials with their peers.

Block play helps children to become more confident in social situations and create friendships through communication and taking turns. Some of our children used the blocks and included some of our lose parts to create a ”tea party” where they made ”chicken nuggets” for their friends and shared them out one at a time. Very imaginative!

In the lose parts area, some of the children have showed that they are able to confidently match and sort objects using their own criteria such as colour or shape. The children were able to collect specified groups of objects and are beginning to organise objects.

”All the circles together”

”Orange”

Article 28: You have the right to education

Article 31: You have the right to play

Block building, Social Studies

Welcome to our block play! 🧱

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Today in the block area the children have been exploring the first two stages of block play, carrying and stacking. These stages allow children to carry the blocks around and use their senses to feel different shapes and weights and begin to explore building by stacking blocks vertically to create towers and horizontally to form rows.

Froebel block play has 7 stages, the children are starting at the beginning as for some of our children we are exploring the block area for the first time. For our older children, this gives us the opportunity to become role models and share our previous knowledge and skills.

The children worked together to carry the blocks to where they wanted to go, great teamwork everyone!

Then we used our knowledge and problem solving skills to create our stacking towers, some children used large blocks, some used small blocks. We remembered our safety rules and didn’t build our towers any higher than our necks.

  

Block play helps children to learn to take turns and share materials, develop new friendships and co operate with others. It also allows children to develop their special awareness and develop their risk assessment skills.

Expressive Arts, Literacy, music, Special Event

Singing along with Grandpa.

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Today at Cart Mill we had a very special visitor. We had Grandpa Tommy who came along with his guitar to sing songs with our children.

We sang lots of songs such as Twinkle, twinkle, 5 little ducks, 1,2,3,4,5, Baby shark and lots more. He even took requests we had Yellow submarine and How much is that doggy in the window.

We all joined in and sang along. We even remembered all the actions to our songs.
At the end of our singing session we each choose and instrument to play and chose twinkle twinkle again as our last song.

Singing is a great way for our children to engage with music and learn lots new skills and vocabulary.
A huge thank you to Grandpa Tommy for coming in as part of our intergenerational project.
We have another mummy who is coming in to play piano and sing with us. We are very excited about this.

My name is Emma and as part of my Froebel in Childhood Practice course I’ve been set a challenge to promote a Froebelian approach within Cart Mill.
My project is “a Froebel Approach to intergenerational links within the community.”  As part of my project we will be reconnecting the link with Bonnyton house in the next few weeks to share stories etc with the older generation and continue our links with Williamwood High School after the summer.

We would love to invite any parents/carers/grandparents to come in to take part in any sessions or show case any talents within our nursery children. Are you good at baking? gardening? arts? Or can you spare half an hour to read a story with us? Thank you in advance and look forward to welcoming you in.

 

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Busy at the workbench!

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Today at the woodwork bench we have been creating new furniture for our dolls house. In a small group we talked about the different rooms we have in our homes. We discussed different kinds of houses, what makes them different and introduced The UN convention on the rights of the child (UNCRC) article 27 ‘I have the right to a home’.

We used the computer and magazines to look at different rooms and furniture and decided we would start to create some bedroom furniture. We talked about what we have in our bedrooms at home.

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“I have a bed in my room with pillows”

“I have a cupboard that mummy keeps my clothes in”

“I have a little table next to my bed”

Once we had decided what we were going to make we set about selecting our wood and tools for the job.

First one of the children decided they would like to make a bed. He looked in the wood bag and decided to use 3 pieces to make his bed. He used “one big bit and 2 little bits”. Next he decided he was going to use “nails to stick it together”. He put on his safety glasses “to keep safe” and set about using the hammer to make his creation. He then selected 4 screws to use as the feet. “I need 4” pointing to all for corners. Using the screwdriver with support he attached the screws.  Then using sandpaper he made sure it was nice and smooth ready to finish his design by decorating it with pens.

The second visitor at the workbench today decided to make “the cupboard for my clothes” He selected 3 pieces of wood. One for the cupboard and 2 more to use “for the bottom. He placed on his safety goggles to “stop the dust getting in my eyes”. Next he used the hammer and “2 nails” to attach the feet and added “a screw for the handle” The final step was to use sandpaper to sand it down so it was smooth ready to use pens to draw on the door.

What a fantastic start to creating some bedroom furniture to use during small word play.

Article 27 – The right to a safe home

Article 28 – The right to education

Article 31 – The right to play

Expressive Arts

Froebelian Fun with block play

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We have been continuing our exploration of our seven stages of block play in our Discovery room this month. This week, we have been looking at stage 5, “patterns and symmetry”. Some of our children have been observed creating wonderful block builds using this stage without any adult intervention. This stage of block play encourages the children to use more blocks, incorporating balance and pattern as they become more intentional in their selection of the kinds of blocks they want to use.

The children are so pleased with the creations they built. This was was a “zoo”.

We were able to make symmetrical builds and describe how they were the same. We were able to pick from our vast selection of wooden blocks which shape we required.


We all worked together today with our stage 5 builds. We created a “city centre.” We had fun discussing with each other what type of buildings we need as part of the city centre.
To further develop our stages of block play, we introduced the Froebel gifts. These were developed by a pioneer of early years from  the 1840s named Friedrich Froebel. Today in many nursery/schools we still follow the principles outlined in the Froebelian Approach.  His theory is still highly regarded in education.
We looked at gift 5 which was a selection of small wooden cubes and 3D triangles.

We were very curious about the shapes and sizes of the blocks. We discovered we could put two of the triangle blocks together to create a cube.

Our stages of block play were evident here as some of our children were using stage 2 “stacking” with the blocks.

We have seen more spontaneous  stage 5 builds. “Patterns and symmetry”.

 

As the children were showing high levels of engagement in this learning experience, we introduced another one of the Froebel gifts.

The children were able to use their own creative thinking to use each of the different sizes of coloured wooden sticks to make something. We made patterns, fireworks, shapes, aliens, and even 3D houses.

We even used our imagination to create “chopsticks”.

We really enjoyed exploring the Froebel gifts. We will continue to explore our stages of block play and introduce more of the Froebel gifts into our play.

Article 31 – “you have the right to play and relax by doing things such as sports, music and drama”.