Tag Archives: nature

Fun at Forest School!

We were so excited at Cart Mill today as it was our first day back at Forest School! It was time for us to put on our special Forest School suits and wellies and head off on our adventure!
It was so important to listen to Val and Fiona and we knew to “stop, listen and look for cars” before we crossed the road.

As we walked along the path, we could see and hear the river! Val told us it goes all the way past our Forest School and that it’s called the River Cart, “same as Cart Mill!”.

There are lots of hazards we need to look out for when we are at the Forest. We learned that hazards might be “dangerous if we touch them”. We spotted nettles, barred wire, an old fire pit and some glass, so we made sure we were very careful!

It was so “so exciting” to arrive at our site.  There was a huge mountain, so we decided to challenge ourselves to see if we could “race up to the top”. It was “a wee bit tricky”, but we were soon expert “mountain climbers!” The river looked so far away from the top and it was “so fun” to “run really fast” and “roly poly” back down.

Being a mountain climber is such hard work, so it was time for us to “have a wee rest” and a snack!

There was just enough time to explore the river before we headed back to Cart Mill for lunch!

It was difficult to decide what our favourite part of Forest School was today..

”I liked climbing the mountain”, “I like throwing stones in the river”, we ran really fast down the hill, it was fun”, “I liked everything”.

Phew, what a busy, fun, exciting first day in the Forest, “when can we come back!”

“The best classroom and the richest cupboard is roofed only by the sky” . (McMillan, 1925).

Article 31 – Every child has the right to relax, play and take part in a wide range of activities.

Exploring in the garden☘️🌱🌼

Today we had lots of little helpers in the garden. The children have been helping to pull up some of the weeds in our planting area. There were some jaggy nettles growing in our garden. We quickly identify these and let the grown-ups get those ones, so they didn’t hurt our fingers.

“I’ve been stung by a nettle before it hurt.”

Using the gardening tools, we used our gross motor skills for digging, carrying and lifting the weeds.  We had to dig deep into the soil to get the roots of the weeds or the weeds would just start to grow back.

We discussed how the roots soak up all the water from the soil and that helps the plants to grow.

“A bit like you having a big drink of water.”

“Look at the size of this root, it’s been growing a long time”.

As we were digging, we came across some insects that live in the soil and mud, so we made sure that we were extra careful.

“Look! lots of spiders.”

“I’ve found a worm.”

We made up some rules to look after our worms.

  • We do not hurt the worms.
  • We pick them up very carefully.
  • We put them back into a safe place in the garden.

We love to spend time in the garden exploring and learning about our environment.

Article 29

You have the right to education which tries to develop your personality and abilities as much as possible and encourage you to respect other people’s rights and values and to respect the environment.

🌻Sunflowers🌻

Now the sun has appeared, it time to get planting our sunflower seeds

“what do we need to grow a sunflowers?”

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“soil is like food”

“water helps it grow”

“seeds”

“sunshine”

First we filled our pots with compost

“This is flower food”

“how long will it take to grow?

The children poked a small hole for the sunflower seed. Once the seed was in we covered it with a little soil.

“mine is going to be so tall. Can I take it home”

Now our seeds need a drink of water to help them grow.

“can I help water them”

Nature Walk Fun!

This week is Children’s Mental Health Week, with the aim of making a difference to the lives of children and young people across the UK. It has been highlighted how beneficial nature can be for a child’s well-being and for them to learn outside and connect to the environment around them.
At Cart Mill the children have opportunities every day to play and learn outside. Today we decided to go for a walk to find out more about the natural world around our nursery!
We challenged ourselves to collect some sticks for an activity.

“Wow!! Look at how big this stick is!”

”it’s a stick man!”

Some of the children noticed that some of the sticks they tried to collect could not be picked up! They cleverly spotted that it was because it was actually the roots from the trees nearby and we should leave them alone!

We carried on walking down to the bridge. We could hear birds chirping, an aeroplane in the sky and the river running. The children guessed the river was running fast today!  We played our favourite game, Pooh sticks! This involved collecting sticks, throwing them in the river and running to the other side to watch them!

We all threw our sticks in at the same time and they had a race!
“I can see mine! It’s winning!”

Walking back to nursery we came across some big piles of bark! The children absolutely loved running up and jumping off the bark! It was a nice soft landing!

”Look how high I can jump!”

We all enjoyed our nature walk and talked about all the things we could hear and see! We were definitely ready for lunch when we got back to nursery!

Big Garden Birdwatch

This week we have been preparing for the RSPB Big Garden Birdwatch. We discussed why birds might come into the garden. “It’s for seeds, we have some in my garden”. We then decided to to make our own bird feeders and hang them up on a branch.

The birds might need a drink as it’s been very cold and all the puddles are icy, so we made the birds their own drinking bowl “Let’s put sticks near it so they can stand on them”.

We then did some research by looking at some of the information sent to us by the RSPB which showed us lots of pictures of the birds that might visit our garden.  “ I have seen some of these birds, that’s a magpie”.

It was very exciting watching for the birds. Some were far away so we used our binoculars. Then we could see some birds sitting in the trees and on top of the houses. We then thought about where else we could see the birds so we went for a bird watch walk.

We collected our bird watch recording sheet and set off.  I will hide in the trees like a bird watcher and see if the birds come near me we have to be very quiet 🤫. Look I saw a blackbird let’s mark it on the sheet .

We managed to spot magpies, blackbirds, crows and blue tits. We all had a turn of recording the bird we had seen on our RSPB sheet, it was great fun!

The children are continuing to watch for birds in our garden and are independently recording them in our nature corner.
If you would like to join in this weekend the RSPB ask that you record the birds that visit your garden within 1 hour and then you can upload your results at rspb.org.uk/Birdwatch using the code BH35.

Everyone has worked very hard recording the information and have had great fun developing their skills of mark making, data collection, fine motor skills, health and well being and lots more. Happy bird watching everyone!

Let it snow ❄️

Today in The Studio we had a discussion about the change in weather over the weekend as we noticed our garden was very icy.

“ it’s very icy and slippy, you need to be careful not to fall”

“it was snowing in my garden yesterday”

”there wasn’t enough snow to make a snowman, it was just little snow flakes”

After speaking about the snow the children decided they wanted to make their own snow flakes, so they collected the materials they needed and got started.


While we waited on our snowflakes drying we got wrapped up in our jackets, hats and scarves to go outside and explore the ice in the garden. We spoke about how slippy the ice was and how to stay safe.

”don’t run because you will fall and bump yourself”

”don’t throw the ice, it is jaggy”

We only stayed out for a short time because it was so cold 🥶 the children had a great time exploring the ice. “It sounds crunchy” “it’s freeze” They described the sounds the ice made when they walked on it and how it felt to touch.

Halloween sensory play

Today we were exploring our senses and developing our motor skills in our Autumn/Halloween sensory tray. We are getting in the Halloween spirit. 👻🎃

This is a great experience for our youngest children to get in and explore different sensations on their hands and develop their hand muscles . For our older children it’s a great way to develop their fine motor skills and writing skills as they can use their fingers or a tool such as a pencil, paint brush, or other item to draw, write letters, or form numbers in the sensory tray.


“I’m drawing a pumpkin in the orange rice”

We added some cornflakes, pasta, leaves, conkers and some spooky halloween characters. We then added paintbrushes and tweezers to see what we could do with them.

”see I can pick the conker up”

“I can get the skeleton”


“it feels hard and crunchy”

”It sounds like rain at night time”

The children then used the buckets as cauldrons and made their own  witches brew while telling spooky halloween jokes.

Colours walk

Today we have been learning about our senses and specifically talking about our sense of sight. We decided to go for a walk round the local area to discover what colours we could see. We started by creating a colours board we could take with us and made sure we could name each colour.

As soon as we left the nursery we noticed the green grass and there was a yellow buttercup too. Then we saw the yellow gate and the purple climbing frame at the park.

Continuing on our walk we noticed all the beautiful colours of the flowers.


“I see yellow flowers, they’re like sunflowers.”
“I can see purple! And there’s red inside them !”
“There’s lots of flowers in this garden! Look, different coloured tubs!”


But…. the best thing we noticed today was the big blue sky and the yellow sun ☀️

 

Harvesting our vegetables

We noticed something about our planters in the garden today… they had vegetables in them! We looked deep down to the roots to make sure that they were able to be harvested.

We noticed that we had different varieties and colours of turnips and baby potatoes that were ready to be picked.

       

Some of them were a little bit tricky to pull out of the ground so we had to work together as a team to make sure we could do it.

”I am an expert at digging for potatoes”

”That one is so big, I need help with this turnip”

Look at all of these potatoes and turnips that we grew!

We then decided to offer our turnips to the parents at Cart Mill, so displayed them at our front door, please feel free to help yourself to one!

We decided that our potatoes looked far too yummy to give away, so we cooked them and tasted them for ourselves…

Introducing Cart Mill’s butterfly family 🐛🦋

On the 1st of June our caterpillars arrived at the centre and we have been doing a great job of helping to care for them each day since. We started by investigating the caterpillars 🐛 we watched how they wiggled when they walked and counted how many feet they have; can you believe they have fourteen?!
We watched as they ate their food and got bigger and bigger. They have to shed their exoskeleton in order to grow and we got to feel it, it was very fluffy! Then when we came back after the weekend they had formed their chrysalides! We learned that butterflies come from a chrysalis and it is moths that come from a cocoon.

“They’re so hairy.” “I have caterpillars in my garden.” “Argh, they’re wobbling!”

The chrysalides shook as we transferred them to the butterfly net and we found out that they do this to scare off predators. Next we had to prepare for the butterflies emerging.

“I think they like the nectar.”

When the first butterfly came out from his chrysalis we prepared sugar water for him to drink and put it on some flowers. We also cut juicy oranges and placed them in the net. We learned that butterflies use their feet to taste their food and their mouth is like a curly straw; they unfurl it to drink and then curl it back up again when finished. We now have five butterflies and we have named them Ozar, Mo, Flutter, Anna and Ruby.

“It goes round and round and round.” “I’m colouring my butterfly’s wings.”

After watching the process of the caterpillars changing to butterflies, we were inspired to create our own version of the lifecycle.

Then this morning it was time to let them go….

We started by putting sugar water and oranges on the butterfly table we had previously made with Lauren. Then we opened the butterfly net and waited. And waited 😆 The butterflies were a little hesitant to come out but when they made an appearance they wanted to get up close and personal. One of them landed on the jacket to get a quick cuddle before flying off and the other let us have a turn of holding him.