Tag Archives: imaginative play

Block building, Creative movement, Creativity, Imaginative thinking

All aboard the Cart Mill train!

July 19, 2024 Mrs Hannah Leave a comment

“All aboard the Cart Mill train”, has been the cry throughout another fun filled week! Holidays have been a hot topic of conversation, with much discussion over where we are going on holiday and how we are going to get there! This has led to a natural progression of our interest in forces through using personal experiences to explore different ways of travelling from one place to another!

In our garden “the floor is lava!”. Using our problem solving skills we worked together to design our own obstacle course so that we could travel across the “lava without getting on fire” by climbing, balancing and jumping! It was lots of fun to explore balance further through using our “wobble” board to move from sided to side and up and down! Using our knowledge of forces, we explored different ways to transport water to “put out the lava” using hoses, pipes and funnels!

In our discovery room and studio we have demonstrated wonderful creativity through designing our own mode of transport on our interactive board and constructing planes, trains, cars and boats using junk modelling and a fabulous kit donated by one of our families.

“It’s a boat. I’m going on holiday to Ireland on a boat with my family”. “I maked a train. I love trains. I go’d on a train”.

Trains have been a firm favourite and we have been so busy in our block area constructing our own “Cart Mill station” and “trains”which have been picking up passengers and dropping them at exciting destinations! “The train leaving platform 3 is for Spain”.

“I maked a bridge for the trains to go under”. “My train is East Kilbride”.

Role play is another favourite activity! This week we have made our very own “bus” which took us on a journey full of fun, laughter and much excitement “to school”.

“I drived the bus. To school”. “I readed a book”. “Beep beep”.

Of course one of our favourite ways to travel around Cart Mill is by bike! Lots of us have bikes and scooters at home. Gail very kindly brought us some bikes in and we had so much fun investigating how they work and using real tools to take them apart and using our problem skills to try and put them back together again!

Of course we had to bring out our Cart Mill bikes so that we could race each other round our garden! What a fun filled, action packed week! We can’t wait for more adventures next week.

Article 13 – Freedom of expression

Artice 28 – Right to an education

Article 31 – Leisure, play and culture

Creativity

At the car wash 🧼🫧🚙🫧

April 2, 2024 Mrs MacRae Leave a comment

Our children have been showing an interest in washing the cars in the water tray. We set up a tray to drive the cars through the mud. The children had great fun running their car’s though the shaving foam, exploring the different track marks their car made before dipping it into the water to wash with soap and sponges. We discussed if anyone had been though a car wash and decided to watch a short video of a car going though one.

After some of the children helped to make a car wash for the cars to drive though. Marking some lines on the wash cloth, the children were encouraged to cut along the lines. Then we stapled it onto the wooden frame.

“look at my track marks”

“My cars so dirty I need to give it a wash”

With the use of the sponges and soap dispensers, the children are developing all their muscle and co ordinations in their hand. The soap dispenser was tricky to use at first, but after a quick demonstration, they soon got the hang of it!

All are cars a sparkly clean, but I’m sure it won’t be long before they get all muddy again. 💦

Article 31 – I have the right to relax and play

Creativity, Expressive Arts, Literacy, Social Studies

Story time 📖📚

March 26, 2024 Miss Brown Leave a comment

This morning the children had transferred some of our stories and story puppets to the home corner.

They brought some of our dolls over and pretended they were going to read them a story. First of all they picked out “A squash and a squeeze” then showed the ‘babies’ the matching puppets and named them.

“This one is the pig, the pig says oink”

” This is cow, he says Moooo!”

” The hen goes cluck, cluck”

Using the pictures the children showed their understanding of what was happening in the story and ‘read’ to the babies, using the puppets as they went along and imitating the ways that adults round about them would read a story.

“The hen knocked the jug over”

“Lady pushes pig in house”

“and the cow, its getting too busy in there”

The children had so much fun using their imagination to re-enact real life situations in the home corner.

Article 31 (leisure, play and culture) Every child has the right to relax, play and take part in a wide range of cultural and artistic activities.

Creative movement, Creativity, Social Studies

Looking after the babies

February 20, 2024 Miss Brown Leave a comment

Over the past week the children have enjoyed playing with the babies In the home corner.

They decided that the babies needed a bath because they were all dirty so we looked out the little baby bath.

“My baby brother has a tiny bath like that, but it isn’t purple”

“I’m going to be a big brother soon”

We added warm water to the bath with a sponge for cleaning the babies and discussed how to keep the babies safe when in the bath.

“The water can’t be too hot or it will be burny”

“you need to hold the babies head so it doesn’t fall”

The children carefully lifted the baby out the bath when they were all clean and lay them on a towel to dry before getting ready.

“My baby even has hair, I need to brush it”

They picked out clothes for the babies and dressed them ready for the day.

“First we need to put the babies nappy on”

“The baby won’t keep her socks on”

I asked the children what they think babies eat.

“They drink milk”

“and when they get big they eat mushy food, my mum uses a blender for making my baby’s dinner”

They fed the babies and then put them down for a nap.

“My babies eaten too much, it wants to go to the cot now”

Block building, Technologies

Budding architects and construction engineers!

August 9, 2023 Mrs Hannah Leave a comment

It’s been a brilliant few weeks in our busy block area! A number of our 4&5 year olds have become expert architects and construction engineers! They are able to describe what they are going to build before they start, draw their own plan, demonstrate excellent problem solving skills when creating their fabulous models and then use our iPads to capture images to create a fabulous display of their work.

”I used lots of blocks. I did it like symmetry, the same on each side. We found a picture that looks like it on the iPad”.

”We made a high chair for the teddy to sit in to eat his lunch, and a bed for the dolly cos she was tired”.

”I builded my house. These are the walls. I made a table and chairs and bunk beds to sleep in”.

Our 2 & 3 year olds have had lots of fun exploring stacking, demonstrating excellent problem solving skills by investigating how the blocks turn, fit on top of each other and different sizes, shapes and weights.

It was so much fun to see how many we could put on top of each other before they fell over!

Through observing and learning from our more experienced children, our 2&3 year olds are at the early stages of creating their own bridges. Although they much prefer using their friends creations for their cars and trucks!

To add further challenge and depth to their learning, our children were set a challenge to see if they could build a bridge to help our small world people cross the river safely! This sparked some wonderful conversation, problem solving, creativity and teamwork! Our children designed their own village with a school, park, shops and lots of houses and constructed some wonderful bridges to allow our people to cross the river safely to “go to the shops and the park”.

“I builded a bridge. There’s crocodiles in the water!”
“Look the people can cross the river to get to the park and the shop”.

”This bit doesn’t fit. We need a longer bit. Why don’t we try this bit?”

It has been so much fun watching our children develop their design and creativity talents, we can’t wait to share our future creations with you!

Articles 28 & 29 – children have the right to an education, children have the right to an education which tries to develop your talents and abilities.

Expressive Arts, Literacy

Imagination Boxes!

May 22, 2023 Mrs Barnes Leave a comment

Today in the Studio the children were having great fun in the junk area. They were creating from imagination boxes! The children get a large empty box filled with smaller boxes and a variety of materials to use. This allows them to create without limitations.

The children quickly got to work and had some amazing ideas of what they wanted to make.

“I’m making a super rocket! This bit makes it blast off!”

”Mine is a racing car, whoooooooosh!”

The children used scissors, glue and cellotape confidently to attach parts to their models.

“I’m making a robot and he is making a robot dog!”

What a fantastic robot and dog. The children used tin foil, milk bottle tops and pipe cleaners for the legs! “Robots have little short legs!”

Some of the children worked together and made a house for their teddies! They decorated the top of the house beautifully and cut out a door for the toys to get in and out! They borrowed cuddly toys from the Home room to put in their house!

The children had great fun playing with the toys in the house and showing it to their friends!
”The teddy is hiding in there out the rain!”

What great fun we had with all the recycled junk! The children were left to explore and experiment allowing them, to make bold choices and try new ideas!

Article 31 ~ you have the right to play.

Literacy

Wednesdays are for visiting dinosaurs in far away lands🙂

March 23, 2023 Miss Mitchell Leave a comment

Today the children decided they would like to make a story map using dinosaurs. They had great fun creating different habitats for their dinosaurs to live in.“ I’m writing that it’s a dinosaur world we are making” “ I found my same stegosaurus in the book” “ I’m drawing some grass for my diplodocus to eat he’s hungry from walking for a long time”

”I’m drawing around the triceratops’s he’s quite big” “I drew a cave I wonder if my eight dinosaurs will fit in it” “ My dinosaur is going for a swim in the pond”

“This is my triceratops he’s going to eat the purple flower for his lunch.

“Oh no my dinosaur is on fire” “The volcano is to hot”

“It’s okay he can go to the pond he’s not hot now” “ He’s going for a swim”

“The pterodactyl is flying over his land” “ He might fly down on his friends and eat them “ The children were very imaginative with their story telling .

“ I have a sonic dinosaur he is very fast” We thought that next week we could move onto story’s about woodland animals.

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