Tag Archives: social skills

Baking

Let make muffins!

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Today at the baking table, a small group of children were busy making banana muffins. Having made them most weeks, they have developed the skills to bake them independently. Today, they took full control of the activity and made the muffins with minimal support.

First, the group gathered their bowls, spoons, and ingredients. Then, they washed their hands and put on aprons, ready to begin.

I asked what they needed first, and they promptly replied that they needed to mash the bananas. They peeled and placed a piece of banana in each bowl and began to mash it with a spoon.

Next, they said, “We need 2 scoops of flour.” Taking turns, they measured out 2 scoops each and added them to the bowls.

The next ingredient was “1 scoop of sugar.” Once again, they took turns measuring out 1 scoop each and placing it in the bowls.

I then asked, “What do you think we need next?” They replied, “Baking powder, 1 little spoon.” Passing the baking powder around the table, they added it independently.

The final ingredient was soya milk. Using their judgment, they added the milk a little at a time, mixing it in until they were happy with the consistency.

Once the batter was well-mixed, they started spooning it into the cake cases, demonstrating good hand-eye coordination. When all the cases were filled, they were ready for the oven.

Twenty minutes in the oven and voilà—delicious banana muffins

 

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Some marvellous Monday fun for our little scientists 😍

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Today some of the children wanted to do the sticky ice experiment for today’s experiment. We used some ice and then put some thread in the centre of the ice cube. Then we sprinkled salt onto it waited a few minutes and just like magic the thread had stuck to the ice cube enough for us to lift the cube up using the thread. I explained to the children that salt lowers the freezing point of water making the ice easier to melt. After sprinkling the salt around the thread the melted water is affected by the surrounding low temperature and freezes again so the thread and ice are frozen together.

The next experiment the children asked to do was the blow up the balloon without blowing experiment. Firstly we had to measure out 100mls of water into a beaker. We then added two spoons of baking soda and poured the mixture into a bottle. We then carefully used the funnel to fill our balloon with two spoons of citric acid put the balloon on the lip of the bottle and poured the citric acid from the balloon into the bottle.

To the children’s delight the balloon started to slowly inflate. I explained that the reason for this is baking soda is an alkaline substance that reacts with acidic citric acid to produce a large amount carbon dioxide gas the more carbon dioxide produced the more the balloon inflates. The children followed my instructions and measured the ingredients out accurately  they quickly realised that the more baking soda and citric acid they used the bigger their balloons got.


Our last experiment of the day was to see if oil and coconut milk which we added food colouring to would mix the children quickly seen that it doesn’t. This is because the molecular structure is very different as is their density so that when the milk is dropped into the oil it forms small droplets.
Well done everyone, you made predictions about what you thought would happen next, studied cause and effect and answered my questions about what actually happened during the experiment. You truly are the best scientists.

Creativity, Expressive Arts, Literacy

Welcome to our hairdressers ✂️

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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?”

Creativity, Expressive Arts, Literacy, Social Studies

Story time 📖📚

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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.

Baking, Creativity, Snack, Social Studies

The great Cart Mill bake off🧁

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Today the children wanted to make muffins for snack. They each washed their hands and put aprons on before starting as we spoke about the importance of hand hygiene especially before and after preparing food. We looked out all the ingredients and pre heated the oven.

Ingredients:

  • 3 scoops of gluten free flour
  • 1/2 scoop of sugar
  • 1 teaspoon of Xanthan gum
  • 1/2 teaspoon of baking powder
  • 100 ml Soya milk

“Can I add raisins?”

“me too”

The children measured all the ingredients out and carefully added them to their bowl, giving them a good mix using their gross motor skills.



“it’s so hard to mix now, it’s not soft”

Now they are ready for the oven. We discussed our rules about using the oven.

“It’s very hot, only adults allowed”

“You need oven gloves, so you don’t burn yourself”


When they were ready we let them cool down in the kitchen. Next we gathered chopping boards and knifes to cut up the muffins and we cut them up and shared them equally between 3 plates to have for our afternoon snack. They even had a wee sneaky taste test for all their hard work.

“hmmm yummy our friends are going to love these”

Article 29 – I have the right to an education which develops my personality, talents and abilities. 

 

Outdoor Learning

Mud kitchen creations

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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.

Expressive Arts, Snack, Special Event

Today we were Celebrating Burns day at Cart Mill family centre 😁

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Here are some of our Burns day activities. We enjoyed Vegetarian haggis neeps and tatties for our snack and asked the children what they thought of it thumbs up or thumbs down I’m pleased to say the majority of the children liked it.

” The haggis is a bit spicy, but I like it”

“ can I have some more , it’s so good”

“I don’t like it, it’s to bitty”

” The turnip is my favourite it’s a nice yellow colour “

We also enjoyed painting using a big box and cars to move the paint around to look like tartan.   The box was quite heavy and the children had to get it into the correct angle to move the cars. “ My car is super fast” “ Im making the green tartan”

After lunch the children decided they would like to try some highland dancing. They were twirling jumping and dancing in time to the Scottish music.

Creativity, Expressive Arts, Literacy

Holidays are coming 🌲

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Yesterday in the studio the children explored marbling ink. They selected different colours to create their own unique art.


Adding the marbling ink to the water and swirling it around to make cool patterns, the children added their paper to the water and we all counted to 10.  After 10 we lifted the paper out and looked at patterns that had transferred onto the paper.

“ Wow! That’s so cool , my colours pink and yellow are on the paper now”

“ Can I make a Christmas card on mine”

“ Me too can I make one?”

We put our pictures over to the drying rack and left them to dry over night.


Today the children collected different things to create their Christmas cards.

Jewels, sequins, pom-poms etc were glued on to create lovely Christmas cards, the children cut out their marbling ink pictures and added to red card.


The children practiced their writing skills as they wrote out their cards. Some for Santa, aunties, uncles, mums,dads, brothers and sisters.

We hope everyone  has a lovely Christmas and a Happy New Year🎅 🌲

 

Article 29 – I have the right to an education which develops my personality, respect for others rights and the environment.

Article 12 – I have the right to be listened to

Literacy, Social Studies

DIY sensory emotion bags😀

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Today the children have been exploring emotions through their very own sensory bags.

We began by having a discussion about what kind of things we could put in our sensory bags while making the jelly mix.

“We could put beans in, they are squidgy”

“and cornflakes, my brother likes cornflakes they feel crunchy”

We collected a variety of different things to put in such as oats, cornflakes, shaving foam,beans, rice ,custard and jelly. The children helped to make up the custard by adding 200 ml of warm water (which we measured using a measuring jug) to the custard powder.

We used ziplock bags and stuck faces on them showing different emotions. The children then added each thing to each of the bags and closed the bag over.

Using their hands to feel and move the contents of each bag they were able to see the different emotions through the bag. They guessed what each one was and how it felt.

“It’s an angry face, it’s crunchy”

“ it’s happy face, it feels gooey”

”what’s that one I don’t know that”

As well as simple emotions we are beginning to look at more complex emotions.

”that is a surprised face, when might you feel surprised”

“ When someone pops a balloon  ”

The children have enjoyed learning about emotions in different ways. During this sensory experience they have been developing their fine motor skills when using their hand muscles and learning some new vocabulary to describe what they feel.

Digital Technology, Social Studies, Technologies

Our emotions😀😢🤪😱🫣🥱😡😳

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This week at the malleable area the children have been using their creative imaginations to mould our play dough into different things.

“I made a big worm, I rolled it with my hands”
“look I made my ear in the play dough, I lied down like this”

”I made a smiley face”

The smiley face sparked a conversation about the different faces we could make.

”can I show you my silly face”

The children used the iPad to take a picture of the different faces they could make, they even took a picture of Carly’s silly face but we won’t bore you with that.

Each child made a different face and we discussed what they were and why we might feel these ways. Using facial expressions we can begin to learn and recognise different feelings and emotions that we can feel and find solutions to understanding and dealing with them.

”some of the new boys and girls get sad faces when they just come to nursery, now they have happy faces”

We will continue exploring emotions in different ways at the malleable table, it is a very important way of communication especially for children as they don’t often understand their feelings.