Tag Archives: garden

Terrific tyre treads and painty patterns in the puddles

In our gross motor art area in the garden we have been exploring art on a large scale.  So far we have used large brushes, mops, spray bottles and plungers. Today however we decided to make our art even bigger.

We decided to use the tyres to roll in the paint and see the patterns it made. We popped on our wellies and puddlesuits due to the rain showers we had this morning, and got to work creating our massive masterpiece.

It was interesting to see the different patterns the tyre made depending on where it rolled.

We had long tread marks and circles prints where it landed.

Because of the rain our patterns washed away quickly so we just had to make more.

It was a bit tricky at first to roll the tyre all the way across on our own ,we problem solved and thought,  how about making it a team effort.

So we worked together to roll the tyres back and forward to each other.  Team work made the art work!

We investigated who could push it the furthest and what kind of patterns did we make if we pushed it faster or slower.

We had so much fun with this large scale art outdoor experience. It was funny when the tyre splatted in the paint in the middle.

We tried different colours of powder paint to see which colours made the best pattern.

The rain got a little heavy at one point, but it mixed in with the powder paint and made our paint mix together and create much more paint puddles to roll our tyre into.

This was a great experience for our children of all ages to expand and inspire their creative designs, while also developing their gross motor skills.

We had our gross motor art tools beside us incase any one wanted to choose a different way to create art, but the tyre was the winner today.

Muddy Masterpiece

Today in our mud kitchen we were busy using some new tools to aid us with our muddy masterpiece.
But first before we start, we used our independence skills to locate our welly boots from the shed and our puddle suit from the trolly. We put them on ourselves but Emma was on hand to help us if it got a bit tricky.

Now that we are suited and booted it was time for messy fun. We collected our mud and used some of our new tools. We used the rolling pin to roll out the mud to make mud pancakes.

We used the wooden masher, to mash up our mud and make it like mud pies.

We found a little worm who had sneaked into  in our mud, but we put him back home again. We didn’t think he would want to be in our mud pie.

We mixed it up and added in some leaves, water and grass and finally it was ready to be served.

We had such fun in the mud kitchen today, exploring our creative thinking, drama skills, and gross and fine motor skills.
After such a wet weekend it left lots of muddy puddles we couldn’t  pass by the opportunity to jump in them.

I wonder what we will create in our mud kitchen tomorrow?

Marvellous Mud

The mud kitchen in our Cart Mill garden has recently been reinvented. We have added in a new work top to make all our delicious mud recipes on.  We have also introduced a seperate mud digging area. This provides a fantastic opportunity for our children to practice their digging skills and also somewhere for them to collect all the mud they need as part of their mud kitchen experience.

A huge thank you to everyone who helped change our area. The children have loved having more space to play and dig. I wonder what muddy creations will be made in our new mud kitchen?
During stay and play why not come and join us in our mud kitchen but don’t forget your welly boots it can get a little messy. Mud has so many benefits including building strong connections with nature. It also holds microscopic bacteria which scientific studies have shown make you happier. It helps develop a strong immune system and encourages a highly stimulated and active brain function but most of all mud is FUN!

In our new mud kitchen this week we have been exploring puddles.  The rain came and made quite a few large puddles in our garden. We got on our puddle suits and wellies and went to play.

We have been jumping and splashing in the puddles. We have been using new language such “squelchy” “sticky” “splash” “jump” and “mucky” to describe the muddy puddles.

We enjoyed the sounds the splashing made as we jumped into the puddles.

Some of the children were inspired by the puddles to work together to make scrumptious “chocolate mud soup”

It was hard work collecting all the ingredients to make the soup and stir it all together. Let’s hope it tastes as good as it looks…..

We were also using the mud kitchen to make and investigate more objects. Such as pouring and filling from the tea pots.

We also used the kitchen to cook our creations in the microwave or in the pots and pans….

Can I also ask as a polite reminder if you haven’t brought in a puddle suit or welly boots please do so with your child’s name clearly labelled on them. We have storage for both welly boots and puddle suits if you wish to leave them here. This just ensures your child is always ready and appropriately dressed for our muddy play.
Thank you.
Please  feel free to  check out our mud kitchen floor book for more messy fun experiences. It’s been so much fun in our muddy mud kitchen so far this week. We even have a chance to find a stick to go fishing in the puddle. I wonder what adventurers we will have in our mud kitchen next….

Frosty Fun ❄️

It’s been a cold and frosty morning in our garden this week. We have wrapped up warm and have been taking a winter walk around our garden exploring the frost and ice in our garden.

We have seen some frozen spiderwebs on our play house and enjoyed looking at the patterns the spider had created in his web.

We found icicles on our bike wheel they were very cold to touch but looked really interesting with different sizes and shapes of icicles .

We listened to the sound of the ice and grit crunch under our feet as we walked.
We discovered our obstacle course was all covered in frost and had to be extra careful. We learned how to risk asses our own play.

Our water tub was full of ice chunks we could pick up and investigate.

Today we decided we wanted to play In the snow. So we made our own. We used a mixture of shaving foam and cornflour to create snow.
 
It was fun mixing the shaving foam and cornflour together but it was a little messy but we love getting messy.


When we made our snow some of our children were mark making in it, creating shapes, patterns or even making letters.

“ I can make a snowman”

”Its’s cold like real snow”

“You can make a snow storm”

Some of our children used paint brushes to create marks and patterns.

Some of our children wanted to use different shape and sized containers to try pouring and filling the snow and transporting them to different places.
It’s been a different week in our garden this week but we still had the best kind of fun.
I wonder what the weather will look like in our garden next week? Will there be real snow for us to play in?