Tag Archives: measuring

Outdoor Learning

A peek at what’s been happening in our Cart Mill garden this week 😍

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Whilst helping to water the plants in the greenhouse the children noticed that some of the plants were getting tall.  We decided to repot the peas and the sunflowers and put them outside.

“ I’m helping the peas to grow by watering them”

“ I don’t want the peas to fall down with the wind so I’m tying a cane onto the pea plant, but I might need some help to tie a knot”

The children noticed that the sunflowers were all different heights and  asked to measure them. “That one’s really tall it’s bigger than all the rest”


“That’s two number 4s 44 “

After a few days our pea plants had some nasty looking holes in their leaves the children quickly realised that slugs were the culprit. They researched human slug traps online and found out that slugs love citrus fruit so we promptly cut some orange up and arranged them around the peas.

The children seen that the spring onions had also grown and looked ready to pull out. The salad leaves in the greenhouse were around the same stage and looked ready to sample to. The children thought they could make a nice salad with the leaves spring onion and we could add some parsley from our herb garden.  We set about making our salad cutting chopping washing and we even managed to make a little dressing using orange juice a squeeze of lemon and lime.


“ It’s really hard to pull the spring onions out”

” I don’t think these leaves will taste nice” “ they smell yucky”

“ I like the taste of the parsley and the onions but not the lettuce “ The lettuce was the least popular ingredient of our salad. We can’t wait to try our peppers and tomatoes when they are ripe. Do you grow any fruit and vegetables in your garden? Do you have any suggestions to what other tasty things  we could grow in our garden? probably not salad 😂

Article 28 Every child has the right to an education

 

life cycles, nature, Outdoor Learning

Mondays garden fun including Releasing our beautiful butterflies🐛🦋

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Today the children decided it was time to release our butterflies. The species we have are called Painted Ladies. We made sure the weather conditions were suitable for example the temperature was above 12 degrees and it wasn’t to windy. The children measured out a nectar solution of one teaspoon sugar to 100mls of water  cut up some tangerines and mashed a small slice of banana to put outside in case the butterflies needed energy to look for flowers.  I explained that the butterflies mouth functions like a straw to sip up the nutritious liquids and that they should live two to five weeks. Then the children unzipped the habitat and patiently waited for the butterflies to fly away.

 

The children were delighted to see the butterflies so close up. “ It’s got a very furry body” “It’s tickling my nose” “I think butterflies have a nice pattern on them, I like the colours on them”


In the garden today we also did a little weeding  and planted some herbs to make our mud kitchen concoctions a bit more interesting. The children planted parsley coriander and basil they thought the basil had the nicest  scent.


The children were very gentle while planting their herbs and knew that they would need sunshine and water to grow. It has been such a busy day, planting and releasing our butterflies. Maybe you could have a look and see what other species of butterflies you have in your garden or in the local community when you are out and about. We would love to see any pictures!

Article 28 Every Child has the right to an education.

 

Uncategorized

Marvellous Monday experiments 🥰

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Today some of our little scientists decided they would like to do a soap experiment.


We started off with our soap moulds, a plastic bag, a beaker, transparent soap base, food colouring and of course some scent. The children thought the soap base looked like crystals and noticed it was colourless with no smell  “ We talked about what the main function of soap is, the children know it is used for cleaning and how they use it – “I wash all my germs off at night with soap, so I’m clean”
Next we opened up the bag and placed the transparent soap base into it. The children chose what colour and scent to put into their soap. Some wanted the peach scent in it “Mmm I like fruity smells” I explained that all hand soap starts the same and then the scents and colours are added. We popped the bag with the soap scent and colour into the hot water. The children were excited to see the soap base melt and combine with the scent and colouring. “Look it’s gone slimey it’s melted”
The children were able to follow a set of instructions and used our pipettes to  fill their chosen mould.

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What shape would you pick – we had lots of choices: I want a dolphin soap for my bath” “ No I think penguins are the best sea animal so I want that soap” The children are excited to take their soaps home and try them out. I wonder if the soap will make the bath water smell like 🍑 ?

Baking, Creativity, Snack, Social Studies

The great Cart Mill bake off🧁

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Today the children wanted to make muffins for snack. They each washed their hands and put aprons on before starting as we spoke about the importance of hand hygiene especially before and after preparing food. We looked out all the ingredients and pre heated the oven.

Ingredients:

  • 3 scoops of gluten free flour
  • 1/2 scoop of sugar
  • 1 teaspoon of Xanthan gum
  • 1/2 teaspoon of baking powder
  • 100 ml Soya milk

“Can I add raisins?”

“me too”

The children measured all the ingredients out and carefully added them to their bowl, giving them a good mix using their gross motor skills.



“it’s so hard to mix now, it’s not soft”

Now they are ready for the oven. We discussed our rules about using the oven.

“It’s very hot, only adults allowed”

“You need oven gloves, so you don’t burn yourself”


When they were ready we let them cool down in the kitchen. Next we gathered chopping boards and knifes to cut up the muffins and we cut them up and shared them equally between 3 plates to have for our afternoon snack. They even had a wee sneaky taste test for all their hard work.

“hmmm yummy our friends are going to love these”

Article 29 – I have the right to an education which develops my personality, talents and abilities. 

 

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Today in the discovery room we were Little scientist’s 🧑🏼‍🔬

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Today the children chose to do two different science experiments. The first one was called The underwater volcano experiment. For the first experience we used water, food colouring oil and an effervescent tablet. The children were able to follow my step by step instructions and used their critical thinking and problem solving skills to guess what was going to happen in the experiment. We measured out the exact amounts off water and oil using our measuring beakers and counted five drops of food colouring into the measuring beaker.

I explained how the effervescent tablet produced a large amount of carbon dioxide when it met the water the carbon dioxide then takes the coloured water out of the oil and water layer and creates an explosion.

”That’s cool, it’s gone bubbly” “ The oil and the water haven’t mixed” “I wonder what will happen when I shake it, oh the bubbles go away”

The second experiment we did was called sugar water rainbows. It didn’t go quite to plan as we didn’t really have a rainbow at the end though the children still enjoyed doing it and we can always try it again.

For this experiment we used sugar, water and food colouring again the children measured out their ingredients, the idea behind this experiment is to learn a little about different densities the colours that have more sugar in them will sink to the bottom of the beaker.


“ I’m measuring 40 ml of sugar into my cup”

” I have only to put 10ml of sugar in mine”

“ I’m squirting in one drop of colouring, I want red, I like using the dropper”

“ I need blue for mine it’s my favourite colour, I have blue in my hoodie”

“look the sugar has sank to the bottom, it’s blue at the top”

Great team work everyone.

I wonder what experiments we will choose to do next maybe colour mixing? If anyone has any other suggestions, we would love to hear them!

Baking, Snack

Spiced apple cake for snack🍎

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The children at Cart Mill love to bake. For our afternoon snack we have been introducing some homemade baking.

Today we have been busy making some spiced apple cake. Baking helps to develop the children independence skills. The children are able to following instructions, carrying out small tasks independently.

First we chopped our apple into small pieces. Our children know how to keep ourself safe while using the knifes.

“We need to sit on the chair”

“We are need to be careful, we don’t  want to chop our fingers”

Chopping the apple not only promotes independence but help develop fine motor skills and co ordination.

Next we use the measuring spoons to measure out the ingredients helping develop our numeracy skills.

1..2 scoops of flour

1 scoop of sugar…

       

Once we added all our ingredients and gave it a big stir. It was hard work, we had to use lots of muscles.

“It’s all sticky”

”It’s going to taste yummy”

Here are all our children enjoy sharing the snack with their friends.

 

Article 27 – You have the right to food, clothing a safe place to live and to have your basic needs met.

 

 

 

 

 

Digital Technology, Literacy, Snack

Berry nice smoothies 🍓🫐

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Today in the home room the children decided they wanted to make fruit smoothies.

We used the internet to search for a recipe to make delicious fruit smoothies. We then collected the ingredients we needed from the kitchen to begin making our very nice smoothies.

To begin the children took turns to  scoop a spoonful of frozen berries into the bowl. Next they safely used a knife to cut up a banana to add to the bowl.

“I put strawberries and blueberries in they were stuck together with ice”

Using the measuring jug the children measured out 240ml of milk, they worked as a team to measure one tsp of honey before adding all the ingredients into the blender. We also made a water based fruit smoothie as an alternative.

“it’s so noisy”

When the ingredients were all blended together the children poured the smoothie into an jug and shared with their friends for snack.

“It tastes yummy”

“ I can taste banana, I like banana for snack”

 


 

Literacy, Social Studies

DIY sensory emotion bags😀

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Today the children have been exploring emotions through their very own sensory bags.

We began by having a discussion about what kind of things we could put in our sensory bags while making the jelly mix.

“We could put beans in, they are squidgy”

“and cornflakes, my brother likes cornflakes they feel crunchy”

We collected a variety of different things to put in such as oats, cornflakes, shaving foam,beans, rice ,custard and jelly. The children helped to make up the custard by adding 200 ml of warm water (which we measured using a measuring jug) to the custard powder.

We used ziplock bags and stuck faces on them showing different emotions. The children then added each thing to each of the bags and closed the bag over.

Using their hands to feel and move the contents of each bag they were able to see the different emotions through the bag. They guessed what each one was and how it felt.

“It’s an angry face, it’s crunchy”

“ it’s happy face, it feels gooey”

”what’s that one I don’t know that”

As well as simple emotions we are beginning to look at more complex emotions.

”that is a surprised face, when might you feel surprised”

“ When someone pops a balloon  ”

The children have enjoyed learning about emotions in different ways. During this sensory experience they have been developing their fine motor skills when using their hand muscles and learning some new vocabulary to describe what they feel.

Expressive Arts

Let’s get sewing 🧵 🪡

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Welcome to our sewing area in the noisy quiet room, let’s have a look and see what the children have been up to today.

Some of the children spent time at the threading station, here we have been focusing on developing our fine motor and hand eye co-ordination.

“ I made a knot”
“I did it.”
“I’m using pink, my favourite colour.”

Over at our sewing table the children have loved being able to self select the different colours and types of wool they’d like and independently cutting it.

”I’m going to use a very long bit of wool.”
”I can do it all by myself.”

The children have been practicing super hard at threading the wool through the needle, the children demonstrated brilliant concentration and hand eye co-ordination, great job! We have been learning to assess and manage risk when using sewing needles.

Now it’s time to get creative! The children had lots of fun working as a pair and independently, creating their own patterns on our sewing table.


“I made a cross.”
”It goes up and down.”
“It looks like a rainbow.”

Sewing is such a valuable skill for children, it is a key way that they can express their creativity, as well developing their concentration, fine manipulative skills and building their self-confidence.

Expressive Arts, Literacy, Outdoor Learning, Social Studies, Technologies

New and improved wormery

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Following on from our last up-cycling project, we can now say we have finished fixing our broken wormery.

The children have worked so hard over the past couple of weeks using the tools and their problem solving skills to put it back together. They worked as a team to decide what they would use and what tools would work best.

“This small bit is too small”

“ We could use this long piece of wood on the side”

“we need a little nail and a hammer to put it on we don’t want to break the wood in half”

“What does this do? it has a bubble in it”

We learned that the spirit level indicates whether a surface is ‘Level’ or ‘plumb’.

“What does plumb mean?” We researched it and found out that ”Plumb means that the surface is sitting straight, it is vertical” This meant that we could check the sides were running straight up and down. We also used the spirit level to check the wormery was level across the top and bottom. We found out this is horizontal!

Every tinker table experience is different, even if it seems the same. We learn new vocabulary every day and learn skills that we can transfer into our everyday life, especially as we get older.

Using a wormery for compost is an easy and environmentally-friendly way of turning food waste in to nutritious compost to feed your garden.

Now we just need find some worms to come and live in it and make up its bedding! 🐛