Tag Archives: measuring

DIY sensory emotion bags😀

September 27, 2023 Miss Brown Leave a comment

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 🧵 🪡

August 22, 2023 User deactivated Leave a comment

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

August 1, 2023 Miss Brown Leave a comment

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! 🐛

Uncategorized

Muffin Mania 🧁😋😁

July 10, 2023 Miss Mitchell Leave a comment

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.

Uncategorized

Banana and raisin muffins

June 30, 2023 Miss Brown Leave a comment

This week our little chefs have been baking delicious muffins, following recipes from our ‘Tickle fingers, toddler cookbook’. We have been making Dairy and Gluten free Blueberry Yoghurt muffins but we ran out of blueberry yoghurt (Plant based Alpro- soya) and blueberries so had to improvise this morning.

We followed the same recipe but adapted the ingredients to suit what we had available. We had a discussion on what ingredients we would use. “We could use bananas” “and raisins”.

We washed our hands and put our aprons on ready to begin baking.

Working their larger arm muscles, the children began by using a potato masher to mash the banana until it was all mushy. They helped each other as it was so tough.

“It’s so tricky” “ I’m using my big muscles”

Next we added all the liquids to the banana mix including oil, honey, soya milk and gave it a good mix using the whisk.

They added the raisins then used their measuring skills to weigh out the gluten free self raising flour using the scales, each child took turns to add a scoop to the bowl and watched as the measurements got higher.

”it’s got a 3 and 4”

“Now it’s got two 6’s that number is sixty six”

Next they added the flour to the mix and gave it a good mix till it was the right consistency for our muffins. We filled up our muffin cases and popped them in the oven at 180 degrees for 20 minutes. We discussed how to use the oven safely using oven gloves and letting an adult put them in.

The muffins turned out great and are now ready to go home.

”they smell like banana”

Outdoor Learning, Special Event

Keep Scotland Beautiful

February 16, 2023 User deactivated Leave a comment

At Cart Mill we have entered into the Keep Scotland Beautiful Pocket Garden competition. So, today the children got busy planting a variety of different seeds, bulbs and cuttings.

We started by gathering our tools, pots, seed trays, compost and watering can.

Before we opened the seed packet we had a guess at the size, shape and colour of the seeds, with some great guesses” I think they are small” “ I think they are pink” “ I think they are round” and I think that some of the boys and girls have done this before.

After making a hole with our finger we planted the “tiny” seeds and we filled the watering can because we know that plants need the “sun and water” to grow.

Next we went on to plant some daffodil bulbs, this time we used a bigger pot and had a go at lining them up from smallest to biggest.

We planted two pots of daffodils and decided to try an experiment by placing one pot in the greenhouse and the other outside. We want to see if there will be any differences, maybe one will grow bigger than the other!

Finally we potted the cuttings we were kindly given by Ben’s Mum and gave them to Derek to brighten up the studio.

A lovely addition to our Family Centre, thank you!

Here is a link to the competition if you would like to find out more about what we are doing in the garden- https://www.keepscotlandbeautiful.org/media/1570993/opp-pocket-garden-comp-guide-2023-final-211222.pdf

Uncategorized

Scone tastic🥯

January 18, 2023 Mrs MacRae Leave a comment

The children are learning to make Scones independently.

First the children wash their hands and help to collect the ingredients and resources we need to make the scones. Today the children have chosen to make plain scones.

The children have been having a guess at how much ingredients we need.

”we need 1 scoop of flour”

We looked at our recipe “oh our recipe says we need 2 cups so we need more”

“I can measure the milk” ok can you pour the milk to the number 6?

The children have had so much fun making the scones and can’t wait to take them home to try them. 😋

Maths Week Scotland, Special Event

The Beauty of Maths

September 29, 2022 Miss Brown Leave a comment

In our Home Room this week we have been celebrating Maths Week Scotland. We have been using the different learning areas In our Home Room to explore this years‘ Maths Week Scotland theme of ‘finding the beauty in maths’, learning how we use maths in all different ways.

In our Baking and Sewing Areas….
As part of Maths Week have been exploring pattern through making some yummy fruit kebabs! We talked about the different colours, shapes and sizes of the fruit and then used our favourites to create a fruity pattern.

Some of the children were able to copy and continue a simple pattern using their favourite two fruits.

Some children were able to create their own more complex patterns with three different kinds of their favourite fruit.

“I am doing the same again.”

In our sewing area we made patterns threading our different coloured beads, and sewing patterns onto the leaves we collected. We had to concentrate hard as it was very tricky!

In our Playdough Area…

In our playdough area we have been learning how to make our playdough more independently. We have been using measuring, pouring and filling skills to correctly follow the recipe . We decided to record our recipe and display it to help our friends make their own.

In our Home Corner………
Stories are a great way to engage children in mathematical conversations. Stories help children to see the relevance of maths to their own lives and develop their understanding of mathematical concepts and language in meaningful contexts.

We explored the story of Simon the Sock. Simon is an odd stripey sock. He lives in the sock drawer with all the other socks. Every sock in the drawer has a pair…except for Simon. Will he ever find his match?

Through exploring the story the children were able to use and develop mathematical skills such as sorting, matching, reasoning and comparing. We loved looking through Simon’s sock drawer. We used our matchIng skills to help Simon find all the matching pairs!

We then used our observation skills to look at the different patterns. We described all the patterns we could see, spots, stripes, stars and some of us even spotted that we had patterns on our own socks on our feet! Simon the sock challenged us to use our sorting skills to each decide a different way we could sort our socks. We even used our mark making skills to record how we were going to sort them each time!

When we had completed our challenge we matched all the socks together again in their pairs, well all apart from Simon!
We wonder if any of you have an odd socks like Simon in your home?!