Tag Archives: #grossmotorskills

Outdoor Learning

Brilliant Balancing

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We have had lots of fun in our garden this week exploring body movement in creative and imaginative ways.

Using various loose parts, we created our own Muddy Movers obstacle course. This gave us the opportunity to demonstrate we could use apparatus safely, take turns, and share space and equipment safely.  Through lots of discussion and problem solving, we decided to use the crates and a plank of wood to create a beam to walk along.  To challenge ourselves further, we chose to add in some steps and a second longer beam. It was a wee bit tricky to hold our balance, but with practice and perseverance we did it!


“I can go really fast now”

”It’s a bit wobbly”

Some of us have been chatting about gymnastics classes we go to when we are not at Cart Mill. It was lots of fun to share our knowledge and expertise of different gymnastic movements and balances we have learned with our friends. We are able to create different shapes with our bodies, control our movements by holding our balances and teach new techniques to our friends!

“Look at me, I can put my leg up”

”I  can balance on one hand “

Our very own Cart Mill gymnastics class was so much fun!


“This is called a table”

”Look I can  do one arm and one leg”

”I can touch my head with my feet!”

”You put your hands on the ground and your leg in the air, like this”

At Cart Mill we love to take part in lots of different kind of energetic activities and challenge our friends to a competition! The egg  and spoon race is a firm favourite. We found our spoons, but after much discussion, decided it might be best not to use real eggs as it might be a bit messy! Putting our thinking caps on, we decided to use some of our smaller balls instead. It was time to begin our race. Ready, steady, go!

It was a bit tricky to walk and balance our “eggs” at the same time! With encouragement from our friends, some of us were able to walk really fast, while some of us took it slow and steady.

Balancing has been so much fun.  We’re sure you’ll agree we really are brilliant balancers!

Article 13 sharing thoughts freely

Article 31 right to play

 

 

 

Expressive Arts, Outdoor Learning

Staying safe in the sun☀️

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What a wonderful day it is☀️.The children have been out enjoying the sunshine, but learning how to stay safe when the temperature is high. I asked the children if they knew what we can do to stay safe in the sun. They gave some great answers.

”Sun cream, my mum put some on me before I came to nursery”
“Wear my sun hat”

We discussed staying hydrated by drinking lots of water and taking regular breaks from the sun in the shade.

This is some of their favourite shaded areas to play in.


“We like to have pretend picnics on the bench”

”and read stories in the den”


We have been developing our fine motor skills through this mark making experience in the shade. The children are exploring letters and writing/ drawing in the sand.

We added 4 golf balls and powder paint with a splash of water to the tuff tray. The children used their strong muscles to lift the tray up and worked as a team to move the golf balls around in the tray to mix the colours and create patterns.

As some of the children went to play somewhere else, they noticed that the tray got heavier and tipped to one side.

“uh oh it fell, how do we get it back up?”

The children used their problem solving skills to figure out how to balance the tray and keep the golf balls from rolling off.

Who said you can’t have fun in the shade, the kids have had great fun outside while staying safe.

While this hot weather is due to continue, please make sure the children stay safe in the sun by putting sun cream on before they come to nursery, wearing a sun hat or cap and ensuring we have sun cream for them in the centre. We want to enjoy it while is lasts!

Expressive Arts, Outdoor Learning

Splat painting

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Today in the garden we have been splat painting.

The children wanted to use sponges but we couldn’t find any so they decided to search for something else to use. They decided on colourful balls and cotton wool balls.

They selected 4 colours of paint and squeezed them onto a tray and in the bowl of balls, developing their hand muscles.

“I want pink and yellow”

“ blue, orange”

We pegged an old table cloth up and took 5 steps back “1,2,3,4,5”.

The children took turns throwing the balls and cotton balls on to the table cloth, they watched the colours explode and create a lovely painting.

This experience allows us to develop our gross motor skills, improving our hand eye co-ordination, learning how to move our bodies carefully and building their confidence.

 

 

Outdoor Learning

Jump, Jump, Jump!

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In the garden, we have been developing the skill of jumping! Jumping requires power and balance and children can develop this skill by showing they can bend their knees when landing, having their head up looking straight forward and using their arms to balance if they need to.

The children have been demonstrating their jumping skills from a height over a low beam.

They then increased the difficulty and the height of the beam and assessed whether they felt safe or not and as their confidence grew, the children were encouraged to jump from a greater height.

The children were able to guide their learning and decide how high they were able to feel comfortable and felt safe to jump over.

Some children then decided to use their problem solving skills and different materials to create a seesaw with equipment from the obstacle course. The children have decided that the next steps they want to take is practicing balancing and jumping on one foot.

What ways can you develop your jumping and balancing skills at home? Feel free to share your learning with us via twitter @cartmillcentre and email at schoolmail@cartmill.e-renfrew.sch.uk

Article 31: every child has the right to play and take part in a wide range of activities.

Outdoor Learning

Pendulum Painting 🎨

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Today in the garden we have been having lots of fun creating very cool patterns using our gross motor skills and learning about the forces of motion and gravity with a painting technique called pendulum painting.

We started off by looking for resources with holes in them, once collected from around our nursery we started tying string onto the handles and hanging them from the rope. We filled them up with paint, pushing the pendulums watching the paint fall through the holes, each one creating a different pattern.

“This has lots of holes in it.”

”I’m choosing purple because it’s my favourite colour.”

We looked at the patterns made by the paint, we noticed that by swinging the pendulum harder or softer, in different directions and tying the string at different lengths it would create different patterns.

“My one is going super high”

“It’s like a swing.”

“I did a big push and it swings all by itself.”

The children enjoyed pushing the pendulums back and forth to one another and seeing how high they could push them. What a great excuse for some messy play!

Outdoor Learning

Different ways to move our bodies 🤸🏻 🏃‍♂️

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Today in the garden we had lots of fun moving our bodies in different ways and developing our gross motor skills! Gross motor skills are the skills which children develop using their whole body movements.

By increasing movements of their whole bodies, children become more flexible, confident and agile.

The children discovered a different way to cross the beam and move in and out the tyres… on their knees!!

R ” I can jump in and out the tyres”

M, R and P all practiced their balancing skills and demonstrated confidence when crossing the balancing beam on the obstacle course.. well done!!

Balancing helps children to understand concepts such as gravity and helps children to develop better concentration skills.

 

M demonstrated good use of her gross motor skills by balancing on the side of the tyres whilst crossing them. ”If I hold out my arms it helps me to balance”.

G showed confidence, strength and determination to climb up the climbing wall in the garden. She was able to use her hands to help her balance at the top whilst climbing onto the bars at the top with her knees. Well done G! Climbing plays a key role in early childhood gross motor skill development.

 

What ways can you develop your gross motor skills at home or out in the community? Share your pictures with us!

Article 6 : I have the right to live and grow. Article 31: I have a right to relax and play 

 

Outdoor Learning

Outdoors fun!

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This week in the garden, we have been thinking of ways to develop our physical area. We have been working as a team to come up with some suggestions to make it more challenging and interesting.

While doing this, we realised we could add some more things into our obstacle course to focus more on our balancing skills. We talked about what balancing is…

“You freeze, That helps you stay still”

“Put your arms out. That helps you not fall on your face.”

“I can balance like a statue, look!”

“I’m like a flamingo”

This sparked some conversation about being “statues” and how they don’t move because they can “balance”. Think about statues, can they move? Can the wind move a statue?

As the children were becoming more confident with their balancing skills, we explored more tricky ways to practice.

The children found many uses for the tyres in the garden, and ways we could incorporate them into our play to challenge ourselves physically using them.

“Look how super fast I can go”

“I can balance if I lift my feet up!”

“If I put these 2 in front, then that will stop it from toppling over. Look, it worked! I’m a giant!”

Great problem solving everybody!

The children also showed an interest in making their own little chalk obstacle courses too…

“I want to hop! That helps me balance”

“I’m going to do a zig zag. I want to run on it”

Then, to top off a super busy week of physical fun, we played musical statues!

I wonder what we could add into the garden next? Great work everybody!!

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Let’s get creative 🛠

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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.

Outdoor Learning

Ball play

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This morning in the garden we have been practising our balls skills.

We started by setting up the baskets in the tyres and playing some basketball. We tried throwing the ball in to the basket and also bouncing it in.

We had great fun trying but some of us found this a little tricky so we decided to practise our throwing skills a bit more.

We practised throwing and catching and also bouncing and catching.  We learned that we need to make sure the other person is ready to catch before throwing and we need to have hands out and keep our eyes on the ball to catch it.

After this we put our skills to use and played cooperatively by making a circle and passing the ball to the person next to us.

We learned that we should throw under arm when passing to a person and we need to alter how hard we throw depending on how far away the other person is.

Brilliant ball work boys and girls ⚽️🏀⛹️‍♂️

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Indoor bug hotel

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This morning the children were exploring the mini beasts in the Discovery room.

They used magnifying glasses to inspect the bugs closer and commented on the different colours, shapes and sizes they could see and then they compared them to the pictures of the bugs.

” This bug is that one because its green and has 4 wings”

The children came up with the idea to build a bug hotel with small and large blocks from our block/construction area.  They worked together as a team to pass each block down the production line until the bug hotel was finished.

They tried to fit inside the bug hotel with the bugs but it was too small, so they decided to build a big house for them to fit in.

” this is a big house it fit us in”