Tag Archives: imaginative play

Mud kitchen creations

It’s been a very wet week at Cart Mill but that hasn’t stopped us getting out to the gardens to explore the rain and the mud in our mud kitchen.

“Look it’s a pancake”

”I can make dinner”

Playing in the mud kitchen gives the children the opportunity to experiment with language and develop their social skills while engaging in pretend play.

“Mmm soup”

”I’m making macaroni “

With all this rain we couldn’t resist jumping in some muddy puddles. This allows us to develop our gross motor skill and spatial awareness.

Looking after the babies

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”

Budding architects and construction engineers!

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.

 

Imagination Boxes!

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.

 

Wednesdays are for visiting dinosaurs in far away lands🙂


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.

 

 

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 😀

Dolly Day Care

Today in our home room we shared how we used our imaginations and skills we have observed from our families home.

We demonstrated how we are caring and nurturing using our dolls. We bathed our dolls and put clothes on them to keep warm.


“she all cold”

”bubble bath”

Once our babies were dressed they had rumbley tummies and needed fed. We put some playdough into pots and carefully making sure we didn’t burn our fingers used our cooker to warm the babies food.

“It’s burnt”

”hot, hot”

We placed our babies in the high chairs while their food was cooking. When it was ready we put some into a bowl and used a spoon to feed them.

“Yummy “

Once our babies had ate up all their food I was time to clean up, we washed our dishes in the sink.

Our next part of the day was as shopping trip. We got our handbags ready for going to the shops.

“I am going for milk”

”I get pasta”

”I will get yummy biscuits”

When we got home from our shopping trip we settled our babies down by reading them a lovely story before tucking them in.

Garden fun at Cart Mill

We have been having lots of fun in our garden this week at Cart Mill. The children have been extremely busy and creative using their imagination in their play…

On Monday, we opened the ‘Cart Mill Cafe’ where macaroni cheese, chips and ice cream were the speciality! The children used various pots and pans, spoons and bowls and lots of mud to create their meals in the cafe. Throughout this experience the children were developing their role play and imagination skills and using real life experiences in their play.

What would you like from the ‘Cart Mill Cafe’ the next time you visit the nursery?

                              ”I’m making you some macaroni cheese”

”I need to mix the cake, you scoop up the cake and mix it together in the bowl, it needs to go in the oven”

” Here’s ice cream, it has a flake in the top and chocolate sauce”

Then, today, we got a special show performance on our stage in the garden! The children treated us to a performance of ”5 little monkey’s jumping on the bed”. We had to be patient and wait for the curtains to open and for the show to begin…

”It’s nearly time for the show to begin”

     

The children had so much fun putting on a show for their friends, we even had some music on to dance along to!

Let us entertain you!

We have had a busy day in our Studio. We have explored our creativity and imagination through art and storytelling.
Using a selection of junk and art materials we  were able to build our own puppet theatre.


We shared and discussed what our favourite fairy tale stories were and who our favourite characters from popular stories were. We then listened to some stories before creating our own puppets. Using our great craft and motor skills when glueing, sticking, cutting and drawing  we made our very own puppets all ready for the premier of our puppet show performances.


“ I’m making a fairy for my story”

” Sleeping beauty is my favourite so I’m making Aurora “

Once our audience settled, we began our performances! We sat very patiently and demonstrated good listening skills while we all had a turn of being the puppeteer. For some stories we needed some  help from a friend to puppeteer alongside us as it got a bit tricky trying to hold all the characters at once!
We used our loud speaking voices to introduce our characters and the name of our stories we would be re-enacting. Some of us were a little shy and nervous to begin but when it came to our turn our confidence shone and we were able to re-tell familiar and popular stories using our own words such as ‘The Three Bears’, ‘Goldilocks’, ‘Sleeping Beauty’ and ‘Jack and the Beanstalk’. Some of us were able to make our own stories up using our puppets we created.

Well done boys and girls you have been great entertainers! We all enjoyed listening and watching your stories and had so much fun with our puppet theatre, why not give this a go at home? You could make up your own puppets and stories!

The floor is lava

Today the children played  “The floor is lava” but with a twist…

They worked together to collect different materials including:

  • Paper/card
  • lollipop sticks
  • twigs
  • Small figures
  • building blocks
  • Cars
  • Bowls

They then used the materials to design and build a stable structure together that was suitable to save the little figures and cars from the lava without it falling over.

“It needs to be up high, what can we use?”

”we can use the blocks to get it high”


The children came up with a variety of ways to save the cars and people from the lava while developing their listening and teamwork skills.

They used their problem solving skills to organise the different shaped blocks by size so that the figure didn’t fall over.

”The big ones need to go to the bottom because they will fall if they are at the top, they won’t balance”

“The bowl can go under in case he falls”

The children had so much fun making a safe structure for the cars and people using materials around the nursery. Why don’t you try creating your own at home.