Tag Archives: Outdoor play

Outdoor Learning, Technologies

Splish Splash 💦

Leave a comment

Today we have been using what nature gives us for our outdoor play, we have been splashing in muddy puddles.

The children wanted to measure how high they could jump so we decided to bring some digital learning into our outdoor play to facilitate this. We used a slow motion video and then watched them back on the big screen so we could measure the size of the splashes.


“My splash is bigger then me!”

We paused the video when the splash was at its highest then the children took turns of standing next to the board to discover if it was bigger or smaller than them. The first one we looked at was bigger than all the children and came all the way up to my shoulders.

Another one was the same height as one of the boys on his top toes.

This experience has allowed us to use lots of comparative language, to measure using non standard units and best of all to have fun in the rain. There’s no such thing as bad weather at Cart Mill 🌧😄

UNCRC Article 29- education must develop every child’s personality, talents and abilities to the full.

Uncategorized

Fun Day Friday!

Leave a comment

As it was such a lovely sunny morning this morning we decided to take a walk over to the Spider Park… the children were so excited!!

There was lots of smiles as we played with our friends and had lots of fun on the equipment in the park. The children explored different ways to move their bodies whilst developing their gross motor skills and most importantly…having so much fun!

 

The children showed great confidence climbing up the ladders and getting to the top of the slide showing good use of their problem solving skills and risk assessment skills.

C, N & L all demonstrated how well they could balance by walking across the wooden beam in the park. A even showed us a different way of moving our body across the beam by crawling across it on his knees… well done!!

N – ”my favourite was the big swing that we could all fit on”

L – ”it went so high up”

R – ”I liked going round and round on the roundabout, it made me dizzy”

 

 

Outdoor Learning

Sports Super Stars!

Leave a comment

This week the children have been enjoying sports week. We have been participating in many different sports activities both in the garden and out on the grass! Thankfully the weather has been kind to us so far! The children have been showing their competitive sides and throwing themselves into the races!

One of their favourite races has definitely been the sack race! We are so impressed at how good the children have been at this showing off their fantastic balance and coordination skills!

The egg and spoon race (using bean bags) was great fun,  Some of the children managed the whole race without dropping it, especially the ones that were holding it on!!!  We also ran balancing the bean bags on our heads! This was tricky but the children showed great perseverance to get to the end!

Throwing the rings on to the cones proved to be very popular! The children enjoyed this game and really tried their best to get all the rings over!

We have some really good jumpers at Cart Mill so the long jump was very successful. The children ran up to the rope and jumped as far as they could landing on two feet! The action photos show how much fun this was!

The good old running race is definitely still a favourite! The children just love to run anywhere and everywhere! We had races in the garden and out on the grass and the children particularly enjoyed running down the hill!

Sports fun will continue for the rest of this week. I think we may have some future Olympians or maybe the next Usain Bolt here at Cart Mill!

Expressive Arts, Literacy, Outdoor Learning

Finger gym

Leave a comment

The boys and girls have recently enjoyed developing their fine motor skills by picking up seeds with tweezers to plant their sunflowers so we have decided to create a finger gym area dedicated to outdoor fine motor play. These experiences help to develop the muscles required for handwriting and also helps to develop independence in things such as buttoning jackets.

We started by digging out our log peg boards. Some of these hadn’t been used in a while so we had to assess their safety. We found a few nails were a little wobbly so we very carefully tapped them back in to place. Then we realised we only had three boards and four children wanted to play so we walked around the garden to find another small log and asked our janitor, Michelle, if she had some nails we could use and created a fourth peg board. We used our pincer grip to hold the nail in place then used great hand-eye coordination when using the hammer to make sure we didn’t hit our fingers.

We then enjoyed using our fine motor skills to wrap elastic bands around the nails to create some lovely artworks. Just look at our wonderful designs…