Tag Archives: role play

Welcome to our hairdressers ✂️

A conversation sparked between the children when some members of staff came to nursery last week after having their hair done in preparation for Derek’s Big Day.

“I went to the hairdressers last week”

” Can I do your hair?”

“My mum gets her hair cut in my kitchen, the hairdresser comes to my house”

“I go to the barbers with daddy”

The children used imaginary brushes and “honey spray” to do each others hair until it was “nice and soft”.  This morning I left a box of hair styling and barber tools in the home corner to see what the children did with them.

They tried out some of the tools, brought some chairs over and then went searching for new customers to get their hair done.

“My mum has one of these, she uses it before work In the morning”

“The baby doesn’t have lots of hair”

“Next! What number do you want, a 1 or a 2 or a 3?”

“Look at me, do you like my new hair?”

The children loved being hairdressers and barbers for the day, they were so excited to share and re-enact  their own experiences of hair cuts, at home, at the barbers or at the salon. They can’t wait to do it all again tomorrow.

“Can we do it again tomorrow?”

At the car wash 🧼🫧🚙🫧

 

Our children have been showing an interest in washing the cars in the water tray. We set up a tray to drive the cars through the mud. The children had great fun running their car’s though the shaving foam, exploring the different track marks their car made before dipping it into the water to wash with soap and sponges. We discussed if anyone had been though a car wash and decided to watch a short video of a car going though one.

After some of the children helped to make a car wash for the cars to drive though. Marking some lines on the wash cloth, the children were  encouraged to cut along the lines. Then we stapled it onto the wooden frame.

“look at my track marks”

 

“My cars so dirty I need to give it a wash”

With the use of the sponges and soap dispensers, the children are developing all their muscle and co ordinations in their hand. The soap dispenser was tricky to use at first, but after a quick demonstration,  they soon got the hang of it!

All are cars a sparkly clean, but I’m sure it won’t be long before they get all muddy again. 💦

Article 31 – I have the right to relax and play

Story time 📖📚

This morning the children had transferred some of our stories and story puppets to the home corner.

They brought some of our dolls over and pretended they were going to read them a story.  First of all they picked out “A squash and a squeeze” then showed the ‘babies’ the matching puppets and named them.

“This one is the pig, the pig says oink”

” This is cow, he says Moooo!”

” The hen goes cluck, cluck”

Using the pictures the children showed their understanding of what was happening in the story and ‘read’ to the babies, using the puppets as they went along and imitating the ways that adults round about them would read a story.

“The hen knocked the jug over”

“Lady pushes pig in house”

“and the cow, its getting too busy in there”

The children had so much fun using their imagination to re-enact real life situations in the home corner.

Article 31 (leisure, play and culture) Every child has the right to relax, play and take part in a wide range of cultural and artistic activities.

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!