Tag Archives: Health and Wellbeing

Today we were Celebrating Burns day at Cart Mill family centre 😁

Here are some of our Burns day activities. We enjoyed Vegetarian haggis neeps and tatties for our snack and asked the children what they thought of it thumbs up or thumbs down I’m pleased to say the majority of the children liked it.

” The haggis is a bit spicy, but I like it”

“ can I have some more , it’s so good”

“I don’t like it, it’s to bitty”

” The turnip is my favourite it’s a nice yellow colour “

We also enjoyed painting using a big box and cars to move the paint around to look like tartan.   The box was quite heavy and the children had to get it into the correct angle to move the cars. “ My car is super fast” “ Im making the green tartan”

After lunch the children decided they would like to try some highland dancing. They were twirling jumping and dancing in time to the Scottish music.

Countdown to Christmas!

It’s been another busy day as we continue our Cart Mill countdown to Christmas!

After a busy couple of weeks, it was lovely to relax in our cozy Christmas pyjamas and watch some of our favourite Christmas and winter cartoons with our friends.  And of course you can’t have a movie day without snacks!

We had so much energy left after our movie, what better way to burn it off than a few games of musical statues and musical bumps! Of course in true Cart Mill style we included a wee impromptu singalong to our favourite Frozen songs! (A good wee warm up before our Christmas Concert tomorrow!).

All of a sudden we heard a sound! We thought it sounded like bells! It was a surprise visit from Santa!!

It was very exciting to meet Santa who had a big sack full of gifts!  (Santa was very kind and left gifts for all our children not at nursery today).


What better way to round off our day than  with a fabulous dance session with our friend Colette from Blizzard Dancing.  We really are marvellous movers at Cart Mill.

Only 6 more sleeps to go!

 

Creative Art inspired by famous artists 🥰

Today we studied some artists that use repetition and pattern in their art work.  For example Gustav Klimt, The tree of life,  Andy Warhol, and his Marilyn Monroe print. Yayoi Kusama is one of the most famous pattern artists of today she used semi circle brushstrokes to create  lace like patterns  to cover her canvas and imply an expansion into infinity. Looking and talking about these amazing artists inspired  some of the children to create their very own works of art using pattern.  The children self selected their own paint and resources we even tried acrylic paint which  we found out can be very messy. 😂

“I know the names of all these shapes, Im going to put the colours and shapes into the pattern” ”Mine is like a lace pattern “ “ I think the colours on my painting are lovely “


“I’m going to make a shape pattern “ “ I’m choosing a star to start “ I’m going to paint with the pom-poms” “ They make circle marks”

Some of the children chose to stick their shapes down to make a pattern and then paint over the top others did free style patterns and prints.

“ The string is tricky to get off” “ I’m cutting the ribbon to make stripes on my canvas” “I love my painting “

“ I’m wrapping string around mine to make it stripy” “ I’m putting lots of different sized circles on my canvas, like Kandinsky “
The children’s canvas paintings are beautiful well done everyone I think they are so good that we should display them in the studio.

Exploring the Cart Mill Garden

This week in the garden we have had lots of learning experiences to take part in. Take a look at what we have been up to.

Duplo Rockets

We used Duplo blocks to build our own space rocket.  First we planned out our rocket on paper and got ready to build. Once we had built it we used different lengths of rulers to measure how tall our rockets were.  We have been learning different mathematical language such as centimetres, tall, short, tallest and shortest.  We were also practicing counting up to and back from 10 ready for blast off!!

Sunflower Harvest

The sunflowers that the children have grown this summer have come to an end. We decided to harvest the seeds and dry them out ready to plant next week. We looked at different parts of the plant and studied the head.  The children used the tweezers developing their fine motor skills to pull out the seeds from each head.  We will place them somewhere safe to try and store them for next years planting.

Chalk Mark Making

The children have been using the chalk to write and draw on the ground. They have created everything form spiders webs to beetles with 10 legs!  We even drew round our friends and looked to see who was the biggest and who was the smallest. Some of our children have also practiced writing their letters.

Obstacle Course

The children have helped to build different layouts using our loose parts this week. The obstacle courses help to challenge our gross motor skills. We have also been learning to manage our risk and ask for help on the more difficult parts.

What another fabulous week in the Cart Mill garden. I wonder what we will get up to next week?

 

Article 12 – Respect for the views of the child

Article 31 – Leisure, play and culture

Article 29 – Goals of education

 

 

Celebrating world book day we went on a literacy adventure to Busby library


Today at Cart Mill family centre, we took an exciting trip to Busby library. It was quite a long walk but the children really enjoyed talking about the sights we saw along the way. We noticed some signs of spring, snow drops and the beginnings of daffodils starting to poke through the soil. We also spotted a boat a cat and we waved at a lady who was sat at her window. When we got to the library, we met Peter the librarian who very kindly let us choose some interesting books to explore together. We also got to select some books to take back for our friends at nursery. Peter read us a special story called Oi Goat especially for world book day with lots of laugh out loud rhymes which we loved! We remembered that we have a sister book Oi Frog back at the nursery.


On the way home, we stopped on the bridge to look for the ducks but unfortunately they weren’t there this time . We got back to Cart Mill just in time for our lunch which was just as well as all that walking had made us extra hungry! Later, we handed the books from the library out to our friends to have a look at. What a busy fun day we had today at nursery. Maybe you could visit a different library over the weekend and let us know what it was like.

 

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.

 

Burns day at Cart Mill

Happy Burns Day!

Today at Cart Mill we have been celebrating all things Scottish…

We have been making Scotland flags in the playdough area with Emma using blue and white playdough…

We have had so much fun helping Fiona to make Haggis, Neeps and Tatties, we helped to peel the potatoes 🥔 and then we got to taste it at snack time!

We also had a try at some Scottish dancing today in the discovery room… We listened to Scottish ceilidh music and practiced some traditional dance moves with the help of Gails expertise!

In the studio, we have used different coloured ribbons to create our own tartan pictures. The children were able to select their own colours and create their own patterns inspired by pictures of various tartan…

As you can see the children have had so much fun exploring a variety of experiences throughout the day at nursery! We have had a fabulous burns day  🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

 

Christmas dinner in our home corner

Today in the home room we used the kitchen to cook up a delicious Christmas dinner.  First we had a chat about what we might eat at Christmas dinner and what we need to cook it. . Below are some of the suggestions.

“Potatoes, broccoli and cat food for my cat. We also have paper crowns.”

“Cake for pudding”

“Chocolate”

“We have carrots and chicken”

“We need pans to cook the food”

“Chop it with knife”

“Dish to put the carrots in”

“Plate and spoon”

The children chopped up potatoes and carrots developing their fine and gross motor skills. We also talked about how to chop safely keeping ourselves and others safe when using knives. Developing our understanding of managing risk.

Then we started cooking everything and getting it ready to serve.

Once the Christmas dinner was ready we set the table for our Christmas dinner. With a table cloth, plates, cups, cutlery and we even made some paper crowns.

Then everyone enjoyed sitting at the table to eat our delicious dinner and chat with our peers. This helps to develop our social skills while exploring imaginative play skills.  We discussed our families and Christmas traditions that we do I’m our homes .


“Christmas dinner time”

“My gran comes for Christmas dinner”

“Christmas crackers on the table”

“You tell a funny joke”

We even had a visitor come to our Christmas  dinner.  It was “babies first Christmas”

Well done everyone for creating a fabulous Christmas dinner.  Derek really enjoyed his dinner in the home corner today 😀

Today we had fun painting in the style of Kandinsky😁


Kandinsky was a pioneer of abstract art he is known for his inventive use of of colour and one of his most well-known images was a colour study with concentric circles. The children decided to recreate this famous piece of art work putting their own unique spin on it. First
We went on a circle hunt around the nursery to find objects we could use for our outdoor Kandinsky painting. “There’s lots of different shapes in here look here are two circles we can use” “ Look this would make a good circle shape it could also be for a robots eye” “I have shapes we could use to paint circles on my tower” “ cardboard tubes would make good circles”

We had great fun using the objects we found to make our circle designs developing our gross motor skills. The children were very creative making their painting. “ I want to use the plunger” “ I think the cardboard tube makes the best circles” “


“Im using the blue paint and the tube to make a big circle then I’m putting a smaller one inside it” “Circles, everywhere big ones small ones and tiny ones too”


The children were excited about their finished art work and we all think it looks amazing. Well done everyone great team work 🤩

Fun day Monday baking Scones 😃

The Children are learning how to make their own scones .  Firstly we talked about what kind of scones we would make.

“I want to make cherry scones because cherries are my favourite fruit” “ I don’t like cherries so I don’t want any in my scones” “ I just like plain scones”

We then discussed the ingredients we would need.
“ I think we need flour and sugar” “ lots of coconut milk to make the mixture wet” “Baking powder for the scones to rise”
Then we used lots of mathematical language to talk about the quantity’s of the ingredients.

“It’s four scoops of flour and one small scoop of sugar” “ We need to measure out the milk in the glass jug it’s 100 ml”  “It’s only one teaspoonful of vanilla essence and one teaspoonful of baking powder that makes the scones grow” “ mm coconut milk smells yummy”
Everyone loved rolling out their scone mix, it was a bit sticky and stretchy!


Then it was time to cut them out and count how many scones we had.


The children did great turn taking and knew that the scones went into the oven for 10 minutes. “ I’m excited to see what my scone tastes like” “ The cherries look tasty”

Well done children your scones look amazing 😁