Tag Archives: social skills

Outdoor Learning, Trips and Outings

Wednesdays are for Wild Raspberry picking 😃

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Today at Cart Mill family centre the children discovered wild raspberries on their nature walk. They talked about what other fruits grow wild in Scotland” I found strawberries when I was on holiday , they were really sweet” “ I like finding brambles on a walk they are big  purple and juicy ”  They collected the raspberries  and decided  to make them into yummy muffins.

The children looked up a muffin recipe in a baking book and decided what ingredients they would need. “We need flour sugar milk and baking powder to make them rise” “let’s wash our raspberries so they are clean ““We will need scales to weigh out our ingredients “ “ The children were able to name and weigh out their ingredients waiting patiently on their turn.

“ I need 150 grams of flour” It’s not sticky enough you need more milk” “ I need to put in two tablespoons of sugar “


The children used lots of descriptive language whilst making their muffins.  They are looking forward to tasting them at home , well done everyone.

 

Literacy

Jack and the Beanstalk

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Today in the noisy and quiet room the children were keen to act out the story of Jack and the Beanstalk.

First, we decided to read the story to familiarise ourselves with it.

 

The children enjoyed re-telling their favourite parts in the story.

”Fee-fi -foo-fum! Jack Pott, what have you done?

“Fee – fi -Foo – fum,  I smell the blood of a Englishman. Be he alive, or be he dead, I’ll use his bones to grind my bread.”

The children each chose a character to play in the story and we used the props to help us re- tell the story.

 


“ want to be Jack so I can climb up the Beanstalk”

“ I am the goose that lays the golden eggs, Jack you have to rescue me from the giant”

“ I am Jack’s mummy and I am going to throw the magic beans out the window “

 

 

“Quick chop the beanstalk, the giant is after me”

The children had so much fun acting and developing their language skills by expressing various characters dialogue in the story.

They also developed  their social skills by expressing their characters feelings and showing respect through turn taking, co-operating and sharing with each other.

Why not give it a try at home and re-tell your favourite story’s or make one up. Have fun! 😊

 

 

 

 

 

Expressive Arts, Literacy

Let us entertain you!

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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!

Expressive Arts, Literacy

Let’s Make a Nursery Rhyme Basket

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Today in the noisy and quiet room the children decided to make a nursery rhyme basket. First, we went on a prop hunt and filled our basket up with all the nursery rhymes props we could find. We found quite a lot of small toys that we could use which related to nursery rhymes. We had lots of fun looking for, and putting together our nursery rhyme basket.

“ I found a bus”

“I found a fish and a star”                      “ Look I found a mouse”

” I found a spider”

It was a great way to get everyone involved and we had lots of fun on our rhyme hunt. Well done every one good job ! 👍

We then sat down to explore our basket whilst singing our song “ what’s inside our basket, our basket, will ( name of child) like to have a look.”
The children took it in turns picking out their favourite nursery  rhyme props  whilst singing the rhyme and doing the actions within the group.


The children used the experience to enhance their language as they recited their favourite nursery rhymes, it was a great activity for children learning English as an additional language too. By using the props, it really bought the songs to life and helped develop further skills, such as recognising and naming objects and simple story sequencing. The children developed their social skills by demonstrating the need to take turns and shared their songs with others in the group. The children also developed their fine motor skills by moving their fingers and hands.

Why not make a nursery rhymes basket at home, see what you can find around your home that matches with nursery rhymes and let us know how you get on!😊

Digital Technology, Technologies

Our Maze Adventure

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Today in the Discovery room we have been busy learning about ‘what is a maze?’

We had a think about it and decided we should write down what we thought it was. 🤔 Here are some of our mind mapping ideas-

“It is round and you find your way out.”

”A maze is something you go in to.”

“You have to get in one way and another way out.”

The first thing we decided to do was look at different types of mazes and have a go trying to solve them out using our fingers to work our way around them and then we tried to follow it using our pens .

“These can be tricky!”

“Watch out for those dead ends!”


“My bee  is going to get the  flower”

We had so much fun exploring our mazes that we decided to create one for our Bee Bots, using our wooden blocks in a pattern.

First we created a route by using the wooden blocks to mark out the path. We used all our problem solving skills to identify and remove the blocks that wouldn’t work with our route until our maze was complete – not forgetting to add in some dead ends to make it a bit more tricky!

We placed the Bee Bots on the green circle that symbolised green is for go and start. The children pressed up, down, left, right buttons while counting the number of times the Bee Bot moved to direct him all the way through the maze.

The children had lots of fun and were developing their navigation, co-ordination, problem solving skills, social skills by taking turns and working as part of a team, following and giving instructions and developing their language skills by suggesting ideas and supporting each other. They also showed their ICT programming skills by programming the bee-bots to follow the route round their maze.

Why not give it a go at home, you can draw or make one and if you are lucky enough to have a remote control toy, you could see if it can get through the maze. We hope you have an a-mazing time!😊

Digital Technology, Literacy, Technologies

Bee Bots Navigation

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Today  in the Discovery Room the children have been enjoying playing with the Bee Bots robots. They have been developing their technology and navigation skills by learning the positional terms on the Bee Bots e.g the symbols: up, down, left,  right and green for go.

The children were trying to direct the Bee Bots onto the first letter of their name on the alphabet mat. They used their numeracy skills to count how many times the Bee Bots moved after pressing each symbol.


   
“Its on e“

“ I got it on l”

“ Its going on e”              
 
“ I got it on c”
  

After becoming comfortable with the navigation systems, we decided to do a follow up activity. The children raced the Bee Bots to see if they could push a ball over the finishing line.
During this the children developed their problem-solving skills by navigating a route and implementing it by pressing the symbols on the Bee bot in order to push the ball over the finish-line.


 
“ I got the football”
 

” my one crossed over the line ”

We had so much fun developing our navigation, fine motor, numeracy and literacy skills.
Why not give it a try at home with any electronic games, remote control, or a programmable toy.