Tag Archives: imaginative play

At the car wash šŸ§¼šŸ«§šŸš™šŸ«§

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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 carā€™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 Ā encouraged to cut along the lines. Then we stapled it onto the wooden frame.

ā€œlook at my track marksā€

Ā 

ā€œMy cars so dirty I need to give it a washā€

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,Ā  they soon got the hang of it!

All are cars a sparkly clean, but Iā€™m sure it wonā€™t be long before they get all muddy again. šŸ’¦

Article 31 – I have the right to relax and play

Story time šŸ“–šŸ“š

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.Ā  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.

Mud kitchen creations

Itā€™s been a very wet week at Cart Mill but that hasnā€™t stopped us getting out to the gardens to explore the rain and the mud in our mud kitchen.

ā€œLook itā€™s a pancakeā€

ā€I can make dinnerā€

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

ā€œMmm soupā€

ā€Iā€™m making macaroni ā€œ

With all this rain we couldnā€™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.

ā€œMy baby brother has a tiny bath like that, but it isnā€™t purpleā€

ā€œIā€™m going to be a big brother soonā€

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.

ā€œThe water canā€™t be too hot or it will be burnyā€

ā€œyou need to hold the babies head so it doesnā€™t fallā€

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.

ā€œMy baby even has hair, I need to brush itā€


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

ā€œFirst we need to put the babies nappy onā€

ā€œThe baby wonā€™t keep her socks onā€

I asked the children what they think babies eat.

ā€œThey drink milkā€

ā€œand when they get big they eat mushy food, my mum uses a blender for making my babyā€™s dinnerā€

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

ā€œMy babies eaten too much, it wants to go to the cot nowā€

Budding architects and construction engineers!

Itā€™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.

ā€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 iPadā€.

ā€We made a high chair for the teddy to sit in to eat his lunch, and a bed for the dolly cos she was tiredā€.

ā€I builded my house. These are the walls. I made a table and chairs and bunk beds to sleep inā€.

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. Ā 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! Ā  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 ā€œgo to the shops and the parkā€.


ā€œI builded a bridge. Thereā€™s crocodiles in the water!ā€
ā€œLook the people can cross the river to get to the park and the shopā€.

ā€This bit doesnā€™t fit. We need a longer bit. Why donā€™t we try this bit?ā€

It has been so much fun watching our children develop their design and creativity talents, we canā€™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 aĀ 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.

ā€œIā€™m making a super rocket! This bit makes it blast off!ā€

ā€Mine is a racing car, whoooooooosh!ā€

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

ā€œIā€™m making a robot and he is making a robot dog!ā€

What a fantastic robot and dog. The children used tin foil, milk bottle tops and pipe cleaners for the legs! ā€œRobots have little short legs!ā€

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!
ā€The teddy is hiding in there out the rain!ā€

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 landsšŸ™‚


Today the children decided they would like to make a story map using dinosaurs. Ā They had great fun creating different habitats for their dinosaurs to live in.ā€œ Iā€™m writing that itā€™s a dinosaur world we are makingā€ ā€œ I found my same stegosaurus in the bookā€ ā€œ Iā€™m drawing some grass for my diplodocus Ā to eat heā€™s hungry from walking for a long timeā€


ā€Iā€™m drawing around the triceratopsā€™s heā€™s quite bigā€ ā€œI drew a cave I wonder if my eight dinosaurs will fit in itā€ ā€œ My dinosaur is going for a swim in the pondā€

ā€œThis is my triceratops heā€™s going to eat the purple flower for his lunch.

ā€œOh no my dinosaur is on fireā€ ā€œThe volcano is to hotā€


ā€œItā€™s okay he can go to the pond heā€™s not hot nowā€ ā€œ Heā€™s going for a swimā€


ā€œThe pterodactyl is flying over his landā€ ā€œ He might fly down on his friends and eat them ā€œ The children were very imaginative with their story telling .

ā€œ I have a sonic dinosaur he is very fastā€ Ā We thought that next week we could move onto storyā€™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.Ā  First we had a chat about what we might eat at Christmas dinner and what weĀ need to cook it. . Below are some of the suggestions.

ā€œPotatoes, broccoli and cat food for my cat. We also have paper crowns.ā€

ā€œCake for puddingā€

ā€œChocolateā€

ā€œWe have carrots and chickenā€

ā€œWe need pans to cook the foodā€

ā€œChop it with knifeā€

ā€œDish to put the carrots inā€

ā€œPlate and spoonā€

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.Ā  We discussed our families and Christmas traditions that we do Iā€™m our homes .


ā€œChristmas dinner timeā€

ā€œMy gran comes for Christmas dinnerā€

ā€œChristmas crackers on the tableā€

ā€œYou tell a funny jokeā€

We even had a visitor come to our ChristmasĀ  dinner.Ā  It was ā€œbabies first Christmasā€

Well done everyone for creating a fabulous Christmas dinner.Ā  Derek really enjoyed his dinner in the home corner today šŸ˜€

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.


ā€œshe all coldā€

ā€bubble bathā€

Once our babies were dressed they had rumbley tummies and needed fed. We put some playdough into pots and carefully making sure we didnā€™t burn our fingers used our cooker to warm the babies food.

ā€œItā€™s burntā€

ā€hot, hotā€

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.

ā€œYummy ā€œ

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.

ā€œI am going for milkā€

ā€I get pastaā€

ā€I will get yummy biscuitsā€

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?

Ā  Ā  Ā  Ā  Ā  Ā  Ā  Ā  Ā  Ā  Ā  Ā  Ā  Ā  Ā  ”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”

Ā  Ā  Ā 

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