Tag Archives: teamwork

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”

Today in the discovery room we were Little scientist’s 🧑🏼‍🔬

Today the children chose to do two different science experiments. The first one was called The underwater volcano experiment. For the first experience we used water, food colouring oil and an effervescent tablet. The children were able to follow my step by step instructions and used their critical thinking and problem solving skills to guess what was going to happen in the experiment. We measured out the exact amounts off water and oil using our measuring beakers and counted five drops of food colouring into the measuring beaker.

I explained how the effervescent tablet produced a large amount of carbon dioxide when it met the water the carbon dioxide then takes the coloured water out of the oil and water layer and creates an explosion.

”That’s cool, it’s gone bubbly” “ The oil and the water haven’t mixed” “I wonder what will happen when I shake it, oh the bubbles go away”

The second experiment we did was called sugar water rainbows. It didn’t go quite to plan as we didn’t really have a rainbow at the end though the children still enjoyed doing it and we can always try it again.

For this experiment we used sugar, water and food colouring again the children measured out their ingredients, the idea behind this experiment is to learn a little about different densities the colours that have more sugar in them will sink to the bottom of the beaker.


“ I’m measuring 40 ml of sugar into my cup”

” I have only to put 10ml of sugar in mine”

“ I’m squirting in one drop of colouring, I want red, I like using the dropper”

“ I need blue for mine it’s my favourite colour, I have blue in my hoodie”

“look the sugar has sank to the bottom, it’s blue at the top”

Great team work everyone.

I wonder what experiments we will choose to do next maybe colour mixing? If anyone has any other suggestions, we would love to hear them!

Helicopter Stories 🚁

Today in the story corner the children have been creating their own stories! We sat together as a group and went  round the circle, each child adding onto the story, there was lots of fun and giggles. 

“There was a dinosaur then a bumble bee.”

After creating the fabulous story the children had lots of fun being illustrators. ✍️


“I’m drawing the fire engine.”
“I’m going to draw the dinosaur, he is a giant.”
“Look at my bumble bee.”

Here is a look at the children’s fantastic imaginative story and drawings.

Taking part in helicopter stories gives the children the freedom to create the story in the way they want too. It’s a great way to build literacy skills, develop emotional and social skills, explore and extend the children’s learning all while having lots of fun. 

Cart Mill Christmas Concert 🎶🎄

Today is the day!! It’s Christmas concert time 🎅🎶


The children have been practicing super hard the past few weeks, learning new songs and actions, including a French song and Makaton signs.

All the hard work paid off today, the children had lots fun performing in front of all their family members! What a lovely day filled with Christmas spirit 🎄. Great job, you were all fabulous!

Holidays are coming 🌲

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

Oh no, it’s a Gruffalo!

In our story corner today we have been discussing  books we have  at home and took great delight in sharing our favourites with our friends.  We couldn’t decide which was our overall favourite, so we voted by raising our hands and then counting to see which story had the most votes.

Our winner was ……. The Gruffalo!

Lots of exciting discussion followed and we were able to name the Mouse and the Gruffalo as the main characters, and remember which animals the mouse met on his walk through “the deep, dark wood!”.  We decided we wouldn’t like to walk in the “deep, dark wood cos it might be a wee bit scary”, but “maybe we could take a torch and it wouldn’t be scary anymore!”

It was so exciting to choose which character we would like to be.  Listening very carefully, we were able to take turns and use our story  spoons to predict which character the Mouse would meet next!  Some of us demonstrated we know the Gruffalo really well by joining in with repeated phrases, “oh help, oh no, it’s a Gruffalo!” being a firm favourite! To challenge ourselves further, we even added in some sound effects and actions!

“The snake goes sssssssss”

”Owl goes toowittoowoo”

”look I’ve got terrible teeth and I’ve got big claws”

”his prickles were purple”

”his eyes are orange, mines are brown.”

Using a thumbs up, thumbs to the side and thumbs down, we shared our likes and dislikes of each character and then decided we would like to swap our spoons and read the story again! (Repeated at least 5 times!)

Article 12 – you have the right to give your opinion
Article 29 – Your education should help you use and develop your talents and abilities.

“Let’s make the biggest train track in the world”

We have been reading lots of stories this week and this has sparked some great ideas for the block area.

“I want to make a big office like that, I will need lots of blocks. My  mum goes to the office”

The children decided to choose their favourite book first and then make something from the book. We made a chart where each child ticked the side of their favourite book.

Fergus’s Scary night was the favourite! They decided on making a dogs bed for ‘Fergus’ to hide when he is scared.

“It’s triangle and square beds, Fergus not scared in here”. The children worked well together to build the dogs beds.


“We are building the biggest train track like Thomas, and a bridge look we can go under too”

Finally, the children built some of the buildings and structures from the story ‘All through the night’. “I’m building  the digger with a snow shovel that can lift snow and rocks, it has a train track under it”.

“This ones mummy’s office”

The children have loved creating things from their favour stories this week, using their imagination and problem solving to fit the pieces together.

Berry nice smoothies 🍓🫐

Today in the home room the children decided they wanted to make fruit smoothies.

We used the internet to search for a recipe to make delicious fruit smoothies. We then collected the ingredients we needed from the kitchen to begin making our very nice smoothies.

To begin the children took turns to  scoop a spoonful of frozen berries into the bowl. Next they safely used a knife to cut up a banana to add to the bowl.

“I put strawberries and blueberries in they were stuck together with ice”

Using the measuring jug the children measured out 240ml of milk, they worked as a team to measure one tsp of honey before adding all the ingredients into the blender. We also made a water based fruit smoothie as an alternative.

“it’s so noisy”

When the ingredients were all blended together the children poured the smoothie into an jug and shared with their friends for snack.

“It tastes yummy”

“ I can taste banana, I like banana for snack”

 


 

Welcome to our block play! 🧱

Today in the block area the children have been exploring the first two stages of block play, carrying and stacking. These stages allow children to carry the blocks around and use their senses to feel different shapes and weights and begin to explore building by stacking blocks vertically to create towers and horizontally to form rows.

Froebel block play has 7 stages, the children are starting at the beginning as for some of our children we are exploring the block area for the first time. For our older children, this gives us the opportunity to become role models and share our previous knowledge and skills.

The children worked together to carry the blocks to where they wanted to go, great teamwork everyone!

Then we used our knowledge and problem solving skills to create our stacking towers, some children used large blocks, some used small blocks. We remembered our safety rules and didn’t build our towers any higher than our necks.

  

Block play helps children to learn to take turns and share materials, develop new friendships and co operate with others. It also allows children to develop their special awareness and develop their risk assessment skills.

Getting busy in the Mud Kitchen

You might be wondering how playing in a mud kitchen can be educational. Well, let’s find out:

During mud kitchen play, kids explore various soil types, textures, and material transformations. They observe how mud changes with water and experiment with different natural elements. This activity also introduces early math concepts like measurements and proportions as they scoop, pour, and mix mud. Teamwork, cooperation, and sharing blossom in the mud kitchen, enhancing social skills. The kitchen’s open canvas sparks imagination, letting children be chefs, scientists, or nature artists, opening doors to endless creativity.

So let’s see what happened in the Cart Mill Mud Kitchen today.

First we foraged the garden and collected lots of different plants to use during our play. They will make fantastic ingredients for the items on the menu today. We found pea pods, pea shoots, dock leaves, clovers and mint in the garden.

The children decided that on todays menu was “Beans and pea pie”

Next our little chefs set out to start cooking in the mud kitchen.  Exploring their imagination they worked together to chop the leaves on the chopping boards.  They scooped water using ladles, spoons and cups and mixed the mud and sand together in pots, pans and bowls.

“We need to turn the gas on to cook them”

”Chopping them all up so it’s small”

”Pour the water in the kettle”

”Mixing it all together”

One of the children opened some of the pea pods we found in the garden and explored what he found inside. “They are green beans”

The finished result! Look at the fantastic creation ready to be served.

Article 6- I should be supported to live and grow

Article 28 – I have the right to an education