Tag Archives: role play

Mud kitchen creations

It’s been a very wet week at Cart Mill but that hasn’t stopped us getting out to the gardens to explore the rain and the mud in our mud kitchen.

“Look it’s a pancake”

”I can make dinner”

Playing in the mud kitchen gives the children the opportunity to experiment with language and develop their social skills while engaging in pretend play.

“Mmm soup”

”I’m making macaroni “

With all this rain we couldn’t resist jumping in some muddy puddles. This allows us to develop our gross motor skill and spatial awareness.

Looking after the babies

Over the past week the children have enjoyed playing with the babies In the home corner.

They decided that the babies needed a bath because they were all dirty so we looked out the little baby bath.

“My baby brother has a tiny bath like that, but it isn’t purple”

“I’m going to be a big brother soon”

We added warm water to the bath with a sponge for cleaning the babies and discussed how to keep the babies safe when in the bath.

“The water can’t be too hot or it will be burny”

“you need to hold the babies head so it doesn’t fall”

The children carefully lifted the baby out the bath when they were all clean and lay them on a towel to dry before getting ready.

“My baby even has hair, I need to brush it”


They picked out clothes for the babies and dressed them ready for the day.

“First we need to put the babies nappy on”

“The baby won’t keep her socks on”

I asked the children what they think babies eat.

“They drink milk”

“and when they get big they eat mushy food, my mum uses a blender for making my baby’s dinner”

They fed the babies and then put them down for a nap.

“My babies eaten too much, it wants to go to the cot now”

Muddy Masterpiece

Today in our mud kitchen we were busy using some new tools to aid us with our muddy masterpiece.
But first before we start, we used our independence skills to locate our welly boots from the shed and our puddle suit from the trolly. We put them on ourselves but Emma was on hand to help us if it got a bit tricky.

Now that we are suited and booted it was time for messy fun. We collected our mud and used some of our new tools. We used the rolling pin to roll out the mud to make mud pancakes.

We used the wooden masher, to mash up our mud and make it like mud pies.

We found a little worm who had sneaked into  in our mud, but we put him back home again. We didn’t think he would want to be in our mud pie.

We mixed it up and added in some leaves, water and grass and finally it was ready to be served.

We had such fun in the mud kitchen today, exploring our creative thinking, drama skills, and gross and fine motor skills.
After such a wet weekend it left lots of muddy puddles we couldn’t  pass by the opportunity to jump in them.

I wonder what we will create in our mud kitchen tomorrow?

Cart Mill School

The children have been very excitedly discussing starting school which sparked us to create a little school in our role play area. The children have been really enjoying playing the role of the teacher, taking the register and making sure everyone has ordered their lunch.

We are enjoying packing our bags, getting dressed up and practising writing letters.

We have even created our own school rules. We decided the most important one was ‘Listen to the teacher’!

A big thank you to the parents who donated bags, pencil cases and uniforms to make this possible for the children 👍

UNCRC- Article 29- You have the right to education which tries to develop your personality and abilities as much as possible.

Fun with Jack and the Beanstalk!

Recently in the block area the children have been enjoying reading the big books and building from the stories. Today they chose to read Jack and the Beanstalk.

We had great fun talking about the story and predicting what would happen.  The children particularly liked how the beanstalk kept getting bigger and bigger! They thought the giant was funny and enjoyed shouting ‘Fe Fi Fo Fum’ just like him.

We then looked at the story cards and the children very cleverly put them in the correct order of the story.

The children then got busy with the blocks building the giants castle. Some chose to build their own beanstalks! They put a lot of thought into their designs.

“I put these two together and got a circle door handle!”

”The giant is big so my castle is big!”

We then had lots of fun playing with the Jack and the Beanstalk toys in the castle.

“Look, Jack climbing the beanstalk!”

”The giant is hiding in the castle!”

The children had great fun retelling the story to each other whilst using their imaginations to add their own twists! This helps to promote brain development and imagination whilst developing language and emotions.

Some children wanted to read the story again to their friends whilst they acted it out.

Article 28 ~ I have the right to an Education

 

Welcome back to our Home Corner!

A very Happy New Year from the Cart Mill Home Corner!

Welcome back everyone! We have been enjoying various role play experiences within our home corner today.

”I’m making my dinner, it’s pasta, tomato pasta is my favourite”

we have been pretending that we are at work…

”it’s a shop, I work in Asda”

We looked at the different numbers on the calculator and had to add up “how much you have to pay”

“what did you buy at the shop?”
“that’s 5 pounds please”

we have also enjoyed looking and talking about the pictures of our families that are displayed in the home corner. We would love to have more of the children’s families displayed as the children love to chat about who is in their family 😍

Tea party in our den!

Today in the home room the children wanted to make the cosy corner into a den using blankets. They picked some blankets and used the large pegs to secure them.

This created a great comfy space for reading books and it was lovely to watch the older children reading books to our younger children. They all joined in singing Hickory Dickory Dock whilst looking at the book.

Some of the children decided to bring the babies to their den and have a tea party. They brought the cups and plates over and set up a lovely party. They invited other children to come for some tea and cake too!

“I’m having chocolate cake and my baby wants her milk!”

”I don’t like chocolate cake, I want strawberry cake!”

Some of the children then decided to dress up “fancy” for their party.

“I’ve got a big hat and a special bag!”

”I want all the pretty jewellery on me!”

What great fun we all had using our den for lots of different fun things!

 

 

Dolly Day Care

Today in our home room we shared how we used our imaginations and skills we have observed from our families home.

We demonstrated how we are caring and nurturing using our dolls. We bathed our dolls and put clothes on them to keep warm.


“she all cold”

”bubble bath”

Once our babies were dressed they had rumbley tummies and needed fed. We put some playdough into pots and carefully making sure we didn’t burn our fingers used our cooker to warm the babies food.

“It’s burnt”

”hot, hot”

We placed our babies in the high chairs while their food was cooking. When it was ready we put some into a bowl and used a spoon to feed them.

“Yummy “

Once our babies had ate up all their food I was time to clean up, we washed our dishes in the sink.

Our next part of the day was as shopping trip. We got our handbags ready for going to the shops.

“I am going for milk”

”I get pasta”

”I will get yummy biscuits”

When we got home from our shopping trip we settled our babies down by reading them a lovely story before tucking them in.

Let us entertain you!

We have had a busy day in our Studio. We have explored our creativity and imagination through art and storytelling.
Using a selection of junk and art materials we  were able to build our own puppet theatre.


We shared and discussed what our favourite fairy tale stories were and who our favourite characters from popular stories were. We then listened to some stories before creating our own puppets. Using our great craft and motor skills when glueing, sticking, cutting and drawing  we made our very own puppets all ready for the premier of our puppet show performances.


“ I’m making a fairy for my story”

” Sleeping beauty is my favourite so I’m making Aurora “

Once our audience settled, we began our performances! We sat very patiently and demonstrated good listening skills while we all had a turn of being the puppeteer. For some stories we needed some  help from a friend to puppeteer alongside us as it got a bit tricky trying to hold all the characters at once!
We used our loud speaking voices to introduce our characters and the name of our stories we would be re-enacting. Some of us were a little shy and nervous to begin but when it came to our turn our confidence shone and we were able to re-tell familiar and popular stories using our own words such as ‘The Three Bears’, ‘Goldilocks’, ‘Sleeping Beauty’ and ‘Jack and the Beanstalk’. Some of us were able to make our own stories up using our puppets we created.

Well done boys and girls you have been great entertainers! We all enjoyed listening and watching your stories and had so much fun with our puppet theatre, why not give this a go at home? You could make up your own puppets and stories!

Fun time, Junk time 😊

Today in the Studio the children were inspired to be creative by some giant boxes kindly donated by one of our parents.

They decided to build a house complete with a back and front garden and even a chimney. The children worked well together planning how their house should look.


There was a lot of chat about what everyone had in their house and what they could use in the centre to replicate the items. Some of their ideas included;
“ look I have made the key to get into the house, I used a cotton bud and tissue paper” “I think I will make a table to have my dinner at” “ I think there should be two doors at the front “ “ The garden should have rainbow grass” “I’m going to make the grass with different colours of tissue paper” “ I want to make  a dinosaur room for my stegosaurus”  I think it’s snowing at our house” I have made a barricade to keep everyone in the back garden”
What wonderful, imaginative suggestions!

The children used team work and exercised their gross motor skills to move the big boxes to where they wanted them and working together, they were able to use their problem solving skills to keep the roof up.” Let’s put these supports into stop it falling down”  

The children loved using their imagination to make their house and spent many hours playing in it.  Great team work everybody, well done!