Tag Archives: Literacy

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

 

 

Home Corner Fun

This week in the home corner the children have been really busy enjoying role play acting out real world scenarios so far we have been:

Cooking, baking and cleaning in the kitchen

“ I’m the chef”

Putting on the washing before hanging it on the line to dry

“it needs to get dry”

Taking care of the babies

“I made breakfast “

Working from home

Some matching and sorting


“there’s lots of this one”

We even had a handyman in to fix the high chair

What a busy week we have had.

Role play is very popular in the nursery and all of theses activities help to encourage communication and language skills, it also helps to develop self esteem, creativity, social and problem solving skills as they collaborate with their peers.

Cart Mill School

The children have been very excitedly discussing starting school which sparked us to create a little school in our role play area. The children have been really enjoying playing the role of the teacher, taking the register and making sure everyone has ordered their lunch.

We are enjoying packing our bags, getting dressed up and practising writing letters.

We have even created our own school rules. We decided the most important one was ‘Listen to the teacher’!

A big thank you to the parents who donated bags, pencil cases and uniforms to make this possible for the children 👍

UNCRC- Article 29- You have the right to education which tries to develop your personality and abilities as much as possible.

Rhyme Time

The children have recently been enjoying reading rhyming stories and singing nursery rhymes during Bookbug so we have added some more rhyming resources to the story corner.

Our younger children are learning new nursery rhymes and playing instruments while singing along and our pre-school children are starting to learn to distinguish sounds. Nursery rhymes are a great way to learn early phonic skills and build a child’s vocabulary.

Today we have played rhyming pairs and the children were great at taking turns, helping each other to find the cards and even suggesting other words that rhyme.


We also played a game of rhyming partners where the children walk around the room with their picture card and find a friend that has the rhyming card.
We continued to rhyme while having  snack, making up words that rhyme with what we were eating;

cucumber- boocumber

apple- snapple

melon- Ellon

After snack Gail decided to host a Bookbug session in the garden. Twinkle, twinkle chocolate bar definitely being the favourite song!

Please remember to check the annual calendar for dates you can attend Bookbug sessions at nursery with your child.

UNCRC Article 15- You have the right to be with friends.

Muffin Mania 🧁😋😁


Today the children decided that the rhubarb looked in the garden looked ready to eat. “Look it’s grown so big , “We could make yummy muffins with it” “first we need to pull it out of the ground” “ It’s so hard to pull out “ “let’s wash the dirt off before we cook it”

”chop,chop”

We cooked the rhubarb in the microwave till it was soft. “ It smells lovely”

“ We need to put in two scoops of flour and measure out 100 milligrams of soya milk”” Don’t forget the sugar, just one scoop” “To much sugar isn’t good for your teeth”” If your mixture is to wet you need to add more flour”

“We need to cook our muffins in the oven, set the timer for 11 minutes .  “ Let’s write our names on labels so we know what muffins are ours” “ I’m excited to eat mine, I wonder if I will be able to taste the rhubarb, “I haven’t had rhubarb before”

Well done children,  Maybe we could make something tasty with our strawberry’s next time.

 

 

 

Staying safe in the sun☀️

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!

Story Box!

The children have been very creative in the junk modelling area over the past couple of weeks designing and making their own story characters.

They made a story box using recycled materials such as cardboard, bottle tops, bottles and cartons and decorated it adding some coloured tissue paper and more crafts.

Using their imaginations the children came up with some great ideas for characters, they created bunny rabbits, a hare, batman, a robot, a boat, a car, a monster, an octopus and so much more and added it all to the story box.

Next they selected some characters from the box and began to tell their story, writing it down as they went along.

“The mermaid kitty and the octopus went in the taxi to the shop.  They bought cheese and ice cream. Then they met hare and batman and then they went home. The End.”

Something as simple as a cereal box can spark so much conversation and lead on to so many amazing ideas where the children develop their problem solving skills , communication skills, and are able to express their thoughts and ideas.

We are so grateful to you all for bringing in your recycling it has so many benefits for your children.

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.

 

 

Fragrant Fruits

The children have continued to use their favourite fruits chart and have been taking turns asking their friends what fruit tastes the best.

We had a discussion about what our five senses are and what body part you use for each one.

Taste “- your mouth”, tongue”, “ I lick my lips and taste”
Touch –  “with your hands”
Smell – “My nose”
See – “eyes”
Hear –  “Ears”

We decided we could use another one of our senses to gather information using our chart. The children chose their sense of smell to try and guess what fruit was in the cup.
We prepared the fruit and put them in our paper cups and covered it with a paper towel sealed on with an elastic band.

Everyone gathered their cups and charts and went to ask their friends to smell the fruit and say what their favourite smell and what they thought it was, before making a mark on the chart to record their answer. The children all had different favourites but were very good at identifying the correct fruit just from its smell.

We then all came back to the table and counted up all the marks we had gathered to see which one was the most popular.

“Apple has 9 it is the favourite”

” Orange has the most on my chart”

“ watermelon had none but I like watermelon”

We discussed our favourite smells before making a plan to use a different sense for our next fruit identification, what sense do you think we chose?

Creative puppets

Our children have shown a keen interest in making puppets. Today the children have been working hard in the studio creating some characters for a puppet show.  We watched the puppet show The 3 little pigs before starting our own.

We discussed our characters and what they would look like then picked some resources to make them.

“I’m going to use these of his eyes”

Some of the children have chosen there favourite characters from books and some have created there own.

“I’m making a unicorn”

“I want to make a mouse. I’m going to use a small stick for my mouse, he’s little”

“this is the big bad wolf he has a big nose and ears”

“I like Pip and Posy books I’m making Pip”

Once our characters were made we wrote a story about then to act out.

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We made our stage and found some friends to come and see our show.

Everyone enjoyed the show 😀