Tag Archives: Science

Expressive Arts, Outdoor Learning

Exploding Paint Rockets 🚀

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Today we have continued celebrating space week in nursery. Space week runs from the 4th of October, the date that Sputnik was launched in 1957, until the 10th of October, the date of the signing of the Outer Space Treaty in 1967.

In the garden we have been creating the constellations using the gem blocks,

enjoying lots of space related stories,

and, the most exciting part, making exploding space rockets!

Using old photo spool canisters, we filled them with powder paint, water and a piece of alka seltzer tablet. (Only the adults touched the tablets!) Then we gave them a shake and waited, at a safe distance, to watch them explode.

We made up three cannisters at a time with different coloured paints and made predictions about which one we thought would explode first.

Each pop, bang and whizz brought great excitement. Just look at the faces!

UNCRC article 31- Each child has the right to play and take part in a wide range of artistic abilities.

Expressive Arts, Literacy, Outdoor Learning

Exploring the Cart Mill Garden

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This week in the garden we have had lots of learning experiences to take part in. Take a look at what we have been up to.

Duplo Rockets

We used Duplo blocks to build our own space rocket.  First we planned out our rocket on paper and got ready to build. Once we had built it we used different lengths of rulers to measure how tall our rockets were.  We have been learning different mathematical language such as centimetres, tall, short, tallest and shortest.  We were also practicing counting up to and back from 10 ready for blast off!!

Sunflower Harvest

The sunflowers that the children have grown this summer have come to an end. We decided to harvest the seeds and dry them out ready to plant next week. We looked at different parts of the plant and studied the head.  The children used the tweezers developing their fine motor skills to pull out the seeds from each head.  We will place them somewhere safe to try and store them for next years planting.

Chalk Mark Making

The children have been using the chalk to write and draw on the ground. They have created everything form spiders webs to beetles with 10 legs!  We even drew round our friends and looked to see who was the biggest and who was the smallest. Some of our children have also practiced writing their letters.

Obstacle Course

The children have helped to build different layouts using our loose parts this week. The obstacle courses help to challenge our gross motor skills. We have also been learning to manage our risk and ask for help on the more difficult parts.

What another fabulous week in the Cart Mill garden. I wonder what we will get up to next week?

 

Article 12 – Respect for the views of the child

Article 31 – Leisure, play and culture

Article 29 – Goals of education

 

 

Expressive Arts

Creating movement in the science area

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Today in the science area we tried out a new experiment. How do we make our caterpillars 🐛 move. Firstly we had some small pieces of paper roll and drew on our caterpillar 🐛.

The best way to make a caterpillar shape was to roll the paper round a pencil this was quite tricky to manage !  ( we had a little help). And then with a squish and a squeeze we pushed our caterpillar off the pencil.

We were now ready to create the magic movement. We used our pipettes to drop a few drops of water onto them and they grew bigger, wiggled around and it just “growed so fast”.

The boys and girls noticed they were different sizes and wanted to make their own caterpillar families. They discovered using different sizes of paper towel made mummy,daddy,baby caterpillars. “This looks like the big one”.

Some of the children enjoyed putting colours on the paper towels , then adding water then watched as the shapes and patterns appeared. “ Mine is like the sunset in the sky “.

Who new a piece of kitchen roll could be so much fun . We used our fine motor skills also  named shapes and colours and even did some measuring . Well Done.

Article 13 – You have the right to share and explore through learning experiences.

Expressive Arts, Literacy, Outdoor Learning, Social Studies, Technologies

New and improved wormery

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Following on from our last up-cycling project, we can now say we have finished fixing our broken wormery.

The children have worked so hard over the past couple of weeks using the tools and their problem solving skills to put it back together. They worked as a team to decide what they would use and what tools would work best.

“This small bit is too small”

“ We could use this long piece of wood on the side”

“we need a little nail and a hammer to put it on we don’t want to break the wood in half”

“What does this do? it has a bubble in it”

We learned that the spirit level indicates whether a surface is ‘Level’ or ‘plumb’.

“What does plumb mean?” We researched it and found out that ”Plumb means that the surface is sitting straight, it is vertical” This meant that we could check the sides were running straight up and down. We also used the spirit level to check the wormery was level across the top and bottom. We found out this is horizontal!

Every tinker table experience is different, even if it seems the same. We learn new vocabulary every day and learn skills that we can transfer into our everyday life, especially as we get older.

Using a wormery for compost is an easy and environmentally-friendly way of turning food waste in to nutritious compost to feed your garden.

Now we just need find some worms to come and live in it and make up its bedding! 🐛

Outdoor Learning, Trips and Outings

Wild walks

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Today we decided to go for a walk and one of the children suggested we go to see if the river has been flooded by the rain. As soon as we crossed over to the wooded area we noticed how much the plants had grown and we had to walk like penguins with our hands by our sides to avoid touching the jaggy nettles and thistles. We found lots of secret paths but some of them were too overgrown to get through. One of the children found a secret path to the river but we decided it would not be a good idea to follow it in case we slipped into the water!

Once we found a safe way to access the river we had a great time watching it flow over the rocks, pretending to be pirates and jumping in muddy puddles.

On the way back to nursery the children noticed an area where some one had set a fire and the ground had hardened. They told me that there is lava and magma under the ground and we decided to make some volcanoes when we got back to nursery.

We had lots of fun watching the fizzing of the  baking soda and vinegar reacting!

Article 13- You have the right to find out things and share what you  think with others.

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The very hungry butterfly 🦋

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From looking after and caring for our butterflies in nursery to saying goodbye and letting them go in our garden. We had discussions on where they flew away too and wondered if they would come visit us again. So the children decided they wanted to make our very own butterfly feeding table.

“Do you think the butterflies will come back.”

We gathered all materials needed and got started. The children showed brilliant fine manipulative skills when cutting and gluing.

”I’m making my flower all rainbow and the butterfly will see it.”

Once it was all glued down and ready to go we filled up the jam jar lids with sugar and water and looked around the garden for the best place to put it.

“It needs to be super high.”

The children decided it would be best to hang it up high so the butterflies can find it, so with a little help we tied it to a branch.

Now time to wait and see if our butterflies come and visit us 🦋

Expressive Arts, Outdoor Learning

How do we make paint move?

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Today we have been combining gross motor art with science to learn how to make paint move without using a brush.

“We can pour it.” “It needs to be high up.”

The children had some great ideas so got straight to work! We mixed up the paint and found some pipes to roll it down. One of the children noticed his pipe was sitting further out so he was sure his paint would go further.


The blue paint went further than the yellow! On examination we found the yellow paint was thicker than the blue so we then tried adding more water to the paint. It went much further than the first attempt!

The next pair decided to experiment with altering the height of the pipes to see if that would make the paint travel further.

“I’m putting it on the highest one!”

We found that the paint travelled faster down the pipe when it was higher and it did make it go further.

The next challenge was to direct the paint on to the paper to create a long distance artwork. We had to use all of the prior learning to make sure we mixed the paint to the right consistency, we had to make sure the pipes were at the right height and we had to aim in the right direction. Very tricky!

The children all enjoyed predicting what would happen each time we changed a variable and then testing the theory. A beautiful crossover of science and art!

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

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Our beautiful butterflies 🦋

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What a wonderful surprise we got today walking into nursery to see our butterflies had emerged  from their chrysalises.

The children were super excited “we can now feed the butterflies”. We had a discussion about what the butterflies can eat.

“We need to feed the butterflies so they grow.”
“Then we can let them out to fly away.”

“The butterflies need sugar water.”
“Can we give them fruit.”

We read the guidance instructions and it was suggested that we feed the butterflies slices of citrus fruit and sugar water. So the children cut up pieces of oranges and filled cup lids with sugar water. Next we gently placed the fruit and water into the butterflies net and watched to see what happened.

“We need to be so careful so we don’t scare them.”

“They are going to eat all the oranges.

“That one is going over to the water.”

We will continue to look after our butterflies until they are ready to be released into our garden. The children have enjoyed watching every step as they grow. 🦋

Special Event

The life cycle of a butterfly 🦋

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Today we had a very exciting delivery in our nursery! The children were very excited to see what was inside the special box. It’s time to learn about… the life cycle of a butterfly 🦋

First we had a little look at our new caterpillar friends, which sparked some interesting and thought provoking questions.

“It’s like a teeny wee baby worm. Is it a caterpillar?”

“Why does it have a web around it?”

We talked about all the different stages the caterpillar goes through…

“They go into a cocoon first. That helps them get all cosy and grow big and strong”

“When they hang upside down, that’s when they are a chrysalis. They’re nearly ready to pop out then!”

The children showed great curiosity, and came up with some interesting suggestions on what we thought might happen next, using the pictures as clues.

“Maybe the big box is for when they’re butterflies. Because they will need lots of space”

“They might want some snacks too”

“What do butterflies eat?”

Seeing how living things grow and develop over time with proper care in our very own playrooms is a great opportunity  for our children to explore and develop life skills. We are so excited to learn how to take care of our new creatures, and watch them transform into beautiful butterflies 🦋

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Melting snowballs

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Within the science area we have been discussing the properties of materials, particularly learning about the difference between solids and liquids.

While playing with ice the other day we started discussing the properties of snow, hailstones and rain. We decided to make our own snowballs and experiment with various ways of melting them.  We created our snowballs by making gloop and then freezing it inside plastic baubles.

When we took them out of the freezer, they were so cold and frozen we couldn’t even open them and had to put them in the bowl of hot water to start the melting process.

Once we got the snowballs on to the trays the children experimented with dripping hot water on top of them. One of the children realised that if he made a hole and put water inside the hole it speeded up the process. His friend decided to make the holes and he could squeeze the water in. Great team work! The other children realised they could use the tools to help chip away at the snowballs.

Throughout this experience we discussed how the freezing and melting process changes water from a solid to a liquid and back again. After they were all melted we had a great time playing with the gloop and getting messy!