Tag Archives: #outdoorlearning

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.

Gardening fun in the Greenhouse!

The children at Cart Mill are very excited that we have entered the Pocket Garden Design Competition. They have been busy last week planting seeds and learning how to look after them. The children have remembered that, for the seeds to grow, they need watered regularly, especially after the weekend!

”The seeds are getting a drink of water!”

We were so delighted to see that some of our seeds had started to sprout already. “Look! I can see some green leaves!”

After watering our seeds we talked about the life cycle of plants again and I was super impressed with how much the children remembered. We also looked at a chart showing us some of the seeds and bulbs that will flower in Spring!

The children decided they wanted to plant more seeds which will hopefully grow in our nursery greenhouse. They looked at the chart and chose to plant some dwarf daffodil bulbs instead of seeds.

”I like them because they are pretty and yellow!”

As we opened the packet, we guessed what we thought they would look like!

”I think they will be rectangle!”

“I think they are soft and a circle shape!”

The children knew exactly what to do and set about planting the bulbs. First they filled the tray with some compost. Some of the children liked to use a trowel but some preferred to get stuck in with their hands!

One child remembered that we use our finger to make a hole in the soil to put the bulb in! They showed the rest how to do it! Then the bulbs got covered with compost and patted down with our hands!

We collected some water in our watering cans to give our new bulbs a drink.


We then put our new tray on the shelf in the greenhouse, beside all our other planters.

Finally we had to write on a lollipop stick so we could remember what bulbs we had planted in our tray!

We stuck the lollipop stick in and covered the new tray of buLbs!

”The cover will keep them warm at night!”

We are excited to keep watering all our seeds and bulbs and can’t wait to see them grow. Once they have grown enough we will be planting them in our own pocket garden, designed by the children.

Article 28
You have the right to education

Framing Winter

As our weather is crisp and cold we have been looking and discovering more about winter in the world around us and how we keep ourself warm during this chilly time. We asked the children what they knew about winter weather and got some lovely responses;

“It’s Cold” “

“I wear snow boots”

“My fingers go red”

“Frost makes beautiful patterns”


We decided together that we would enjoy exploring our local environment to see what effect the colder weather had on our world around us.

First we dressed appropriately for our walk, we put our warm jackets, hats, boots and some of us had cosy gloves to keep us extra warm .

We looked at how the trees looked a bit sad and cold as their beautiful big leaves have left them bare, some of the leaves were lying on the ground.

During our walk we collected some of the leaves, some sticks, twigs and stones to take back to Cart Mill

“Leaves are wet”

“ I have found the biggest stick”

On our travels we also spotted a deer and its family through the bare trees. We walked a little further and saw lots of sheep.
“Are there any baby ones?”
We discussed that baby lambs can be seen in the spring and that’s the next season after winter, so not long to wait now.

When we arrived back at the nursery we decided to create our own winter pictures using the resources we found. The children were very creative designing their own trees and snowflakes. A lovely way for us to show our fun winter walk time.

 

Languages Week Scotland 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

This week is Languages Week Scotland 2023 where we celebrate language learning and multilingualism in Scotland. This years theme is “Languages for a peaceful world”.

This morning the children came across some stories and we discovered they were in different languages. This got us chatting about what language we speak in and how not everyone speaks the same language.

“What does this say”

“That is the title of the story, “The tortoise and the Hare” written in Mandarin, Chinese”

”When I went to Italy I hear a different language”

“Can you say any words in Italian”

”No”

“What language is the Elmer book in?”

“The Elmer book is in English and Polish”

“ how do you speak to someone if they don’t speak the same language?”

“Say Hello”

We used the internet to find out how to say Hello 👋  in other languages and wrote them down so we could practice how to say them.

The children were developing their mark making and writing  skills as they wanted to copy the words so they can practice.

We can now say Hello in different languages to welcome our friends who speak English as an additional language.

Let it Rain ☔️

Today in the garden we spotted a rainbow in the sky. It sparked a conversation about the weather as it began to fade behind the big grey  clouds.

“It looks like it is going to rain, the rainbow is hiding behind the clouds”

”it rained lots and lots ands lots last night, there was big puddles in my garden I splashed in them”

“It rained so much I catched it in my hands, it was loads”

“How much rain was there?”

”I don’t know,just lots”

We decided to make a rain gauge to see if we could measure the rainfall throughout the week.

We wrote down all the resources we need and made a plan then got to  work.

Cutting off the top of the bottle to use as a funnel we placed it inside the bottle and taped off the jaggy bits to make it safe.
We then added the tip of an old felt tip pen to the bottles to make it easier to see how much rain has fallen. We used red, purple and blue.


We split the bottle in to 4 sections numbering it 1-4 so when it fills up with rain we can measure it. We then stapled the bottles to the fence and are now waiting patiently for it to rain to see how much water we collect. Typically  it stopped raining as soon as we were finished making the gauge.

We will be keeping an eye over the next few days and recording our findings.

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.

Firework Splat Painting!

Today In the garden we created some firework pictures in preparation for bonfire night this weekend.

The children selected some paint and resources that they could spray and splat. We picked a selection of different spray bottles and pipettes to spray at the large plastic sheet and create our firework picture.

The spray bottles and pipettes helped us to develop our fine motor skills. We demonstrated good skill when filling them up and spaying them.

We then used the paint and sponges to throw the paint at the ground to make splats that resembled fireworks. This was a good way to get our bodies moving and develop our gross motor skills while being creative.


While we were painting we talking about fireworks and how we can stay safe.  These are some of the children’s comments.
😊

“You don’t touch the fire”

“Fireworks and very hot so you need to stay away”

“They go in the sky”

“Only adults do the fireworks”

Garden fun at Cart Mill

We have been having lots of fun in our garden this week at Cart Mill. The children have been extremely busy and creative using their imagination in their play…

On Monday, we opened the ‘Cart Mill Cafe’ where macaroni cheese, chips and ice cream were the speciality! The children used various pots and pans, spoons and bowls and lots of mud to create their meals in the cafe. Throughout this experience the children were developing their role play and imagination skills and using real life experiences in their play.

What would you like from the ‘Cart Mill Cafe’ the next time you visit the nursery?

                              ”I’m making you some macaroni cheese”

”I need to mix the cake, you scoop up the cake and mix it together in the bowl, it needs to go in the oven”

” Here’s ice cream, it has a flake in the top and chocolate sauce”

Then, today, we got a special show performance on our stage in the garden! The children treated us to a performance of ”5 little monkey’s jumping on the bed”. We had to be patient and wait for the curtains to open and for the show to begin…

”It’s nearly time for the show to begin”

     

The children had so much fun putting on a show for their friends, we even had some music on to dance along to!

Balancing skills

This morning in the garden we have been working on our balancing skills. We used loose parts to create our Muddy Movers course which helps us strengthen and improve our gross motor skills. We are becoming very confident in our balancing skills, so we decided it was time to make the course a little more challenging! We had a look in our cupboard and found some bean bags and some egg and spoons! We decided to challenge ourselves and see if we could balance the beanbags on our heads and the egg on the spoon as we walked around the course.

We started by discussing what it means to be balanced;

“It means you don’t wobble.”

“You need to practice.”

”You put your hands out to help.”

The course is designed in a way that helps us to assess our own risk and abilities.

We like to use our loose parts to make changes to our course every day. We can choose to walk along the plank on the ground or if we are feeling confident, we can step up and walk along the bridge.


By keeping a beanbag on our heads, this encourages us to keep our heads up, or the beanbag will fall off! This helps us improve our balancing skills.

We had to walk really carefully to make sure the egg didn’t fall off the spoon!

We demonstrated excellent balancing today! We were getting faster and more confident each time we competed the course.

We had so much fun!

Ice cream parlour🍦

What a beautiful day it is🌞

After discussions last week on how to keep cool in the sun, the children decided they wanted to open their own ice cream parlour.

we used:

  • Shaving foam
  • Food Colouring
  • Chocolate powder
  • Sprinkles


The children used different sized spoons and bowls to mix the foam and chocolate power to make chocolate ice cream. They then mixed red food colouring to make strawberry ice cream.

“We need to add more chocolate powder, I cant smell it properly”

“I’m going to have a pink cone”

”I’m scooping the ice cream, it’s very slippy”

” I made a unicorn Ice cream, it’s gooey”

We made our ice cream cones in the shade while we had a break from the sun.

The children used their senses to smell and touch the foam with their hands.

They used their counting skills to count how many scoops of ice cream it took to fill the cone.