Category Archives: Mark Making

Creative Arts, Fine motor skills, Fun, Literacy, Mark Making, Outdoor Learning

Imagination Stations

Leave a comment

Great creativity and imagination have been flourishing in Busby Nursery, in artwork, literacy and small world play.
After reading “The Very Hungry Worry Monsters” by Greening Rosie, several of the children were inspired to depict Worry Monsters in their own way. Some chose to use the whiteboard, others chose pens and paper, and others independently constructed models using tissue paper and tape.


Outdoor Art on a big canvas has also been a very popular choice, with the children using their gross motor skills to paint.

Later on, some recycled old packaging provided a great canvas for the children to paint on. They mixed up their own powder paints, then used brushes on sticks to create their giant floor painting.

Creative with Clay: the children experimented with clay, water and different tools. They showed great concentration to mould, shape, and decorate. They also mixed some impromptu clay paint and used it to make handprints…


“I made a little pot with shells on it.”
“I’m making a dinosaur!”
“It feels squelchy…”

Sensory World in a Tuff Tray

“The giant lives in the sunflower. We can put this stone here for a door.”
“I’m making snow with this chalk.”
“This is the bog and the hippo’s eating the mud.”
“It feels all squelchy. It’s like chocolate.”
“This feels so soft.”

Adventures in a Tepee



Den building, design, problem-solving and imaginative play:
“We can make a garden for it. We can use this for a fence.”
“I can put the pegs back on. It goes here.”

Chilling and making sweet music together…

Fine motor skills, Group Pink, Group Yellow, Health & Wellbeing, Imaginary Play, Literacy, Mark Making, Outdoor Learning, Science, Technology & Construction

May Days and Creative Ways

Leave a comment

The children have been using all kinds of exciting creativity in their play. Great minds at work!

Planting our herb garden and creative cup stacking. “Tah dah!”


Young Scientists in the Making:
“Scientists work really hard.”  “Can I be a scientist?

Helicopter Stories:
In Helicopter Stories, the children make up their own stories and are then each given the “stage” to act out their story, with friends taking part as various actors. It is great for building self confidence, esteem, focus, and talking and listening skills. We have had some wonderful stories, including “The Rhino and the Fight”, “The Orange Dog”, “The Magical Unicorn Food” and “The Red Racing Car.”


Some of the children wanted to create their own puppet show too. Great acting and storytelling skills were on display!

The children wanted to turn an old cardboard box into a den and had lots of great ideas about how to design, decorate and upholster it:


And for Mrs McInnes’s special birthday this week, they carefully designed her cards and created a very special cake:


“Happy Birthday, Mrs McInnes!”

 

Gardening, Group Blue, Group Purple, Group Red, Health & Wellbeing, Imaginary Play, Literacy, Mark Making, Outdoor Learning, Science

Fun in the Sun

Leave a comment

The children in the Purple, Blue, Green and Red groups have settled well back into nursery. We have been taking advantage of the lovely weather with lots of exciting outdoor learning experiences such as pouring/ filling in water tray, painting, planting, reading and developing our gross motor skills on the bikes.

Creative Arts, Culture & Traditions, Eco Learning, Fine motor skills, Group Pink, Group Yellow, Imaginary Play, Mark Making, Natural World, Science, Sensory Play, Technology & Construction

Exploring Eggs and Nests 🐣

Leave a comment

Plenty of eggs exploration has been going on this week…
The children have been learning about how birds are making nests at this time of year and will soon be laying eggs. They have been creating their own clay eggs and various Easter designs.

Eggs Role Play and Exploring  Properties & Materials
“This is Bird World!”
“This egg is light and this one’s very heavy.”
“It’s made of stone.” “This one’s made of rock.”
“This one rattles.” “That’s metal.”
“That’s a rooster. Don’t put him in the pond – roosters can’t swim, but ducks can swim ‘cos they’re waterproof.”

“These are the baby birds saying “We’re hungry!”“


Birds & Block Play:
“Look, we’ve built this for them. This is the tree bird (green), this is the water bird (blue) and this is the lava bird (orange).”

Later we made birds’ nests using twigs, ivy, moss, fern, leaves and feathers. Great snipping and fine motor skills!

“I like the smell of that” (ferns)
“Maybe we should go outside and put these out for the birds. It should be up a tree so we need a ladder. We need feathers as well…”

Making Eggs with Clay Modelling

Painting the Clay Eggs

Printing Marbled Eggs
The children squeezed shaving foam, then added marbling inks to create a marbled pattern on egg shapes.


Designing individual Easter Cards


Eggs exploration and squidgy colour gel beads in the water tray


 More Nest-making and an Egg matching game. 

Have a very Happy Easter and Spring Break, everyone!

 

 

Fine motor skills, Fun, Learning at home, Mark Making, Science, Sensory Play, Videos with ELCC Staff

Slimy, Bumpy, Sticky Sensory!

Leave a comment
If you fancy some sensory & science exploration at home, why not try out one of these fun ideas from Miss Hampton, Miss MacFarlane, Miss Henderson, Mrs Krivickiene & Mrs McInnes!
1. MAKING GLOOP with Miss Hampton:
One way we can explore our senses is by making gloop. You’ll need:
2 x cups of cornflour
1 x cup of water
2 drops of food colouring (optional)
In this video Miss Hampton demonstrates what to do:


How does the gloop feel? Is it a solid or a liquid?
The great thing about gloop is it can be both. There are lots of ways to explore gloop. Did you know that cornflour is made of lots of long stringy particles and when the water is added they don’t dissolve, they just spread out? When you roll it in your hands the particles join together and it becomes solid, but if you hold it up and let it dribble it becomes a liquid.


2. MAKING PLAY SNOW with Miss Henderson:
If your fingers are getting cold from the snow outside you could make some non-melting play snow of your own.
All you will need is:
 Cornstarch
Hair Conditioner (white conditioner works best)

Mix the ingredients together to form a smooth dough. If it’s too sticky, add more cornstarch. If it’s too crumbly add more conditioner. Think about the textures and the smells as you make the dough. Is it cold or warm? Is it smooth or sticky? Hard or soft? Has the conditioner made it smell like coconut, fruit or flowers?
Another way to explore our senses and science is:
3. MAKING SNOW SLIME with Miss MacFarlane
For this you will need:
1 cup of white glue
2 cups of shaving foam cream
1/2 tbsp of baking soda
1 table spoon of contact lens solution (it must contain boric acid!) 

Put the cup of white glue in a bowl and mix in the shaving cream, then stir until well combined. Add in the baking soda and stir. Slowly add 1 tablespoon of contact lens solution until a slime has formed. Once the glue starts sticking to the spoon that’s when you knead it with your hands until you are happy with the consistency!
And there you have made your own snow slime!
Use your senses to explore the slime:
What words can you use to describe how the slime feels?
Can you think of any words to describe its smell?
Can you think of words to describe how it looks?
Does it make any sounds?   Why don’t you use different materials & tools to investigate what different sounds it makes? Go around your house and find different things to poke your slime with!

 


4. Make a SENSORY WRITING PLATE  like Mrs Krivickiene for practising your letter/number writing and at the same time explore your sense of touch.
You’ll just need a plate, any dry grains you have in your cupboard (rice, lentils, couscous, etc). Feel the grains and then write or draw in them with your finger or any kind of stick.
(If you want to avoid too much hoovering afterwards, you can do it outside, or cover the plate in cling film first.)

5. Mrs Krivickiene has  also been making a SENSORY JAR, using water, oil and a drop of food colouring. 

This is a great experience if you want to have a mindful break and look at something extremely mesmerising. Besides, there is true science behind it. Water and oil have different molecule structure (molecules are the tiny building blocks of everything you see around.) This means that water and oil won’t mix.

First,  pour some baby oil into a glass  jar or bottle. Then add some water coloured with a little food dye and close the lid tightly. Watch the effects as you gently tip and jiggle you jar…

6. As if that wasn’t all enough, in Google Classrooms this week you can also watch Mrs McInnes use all of her 5 senses as she dissects and investigates an onion!

Fine motor skills, Health & Wellbeing, Learning at home, Mark Making, Natural World, Outdoor Learning, Science, Sensory Play, Technology & Construction

The Wonder of Snow ❄️

Leave a comment

Hello everyone,
This week we are focusing on Sensory Play and Fine Motor Skills.
We have been given a free gift of one of the best sensory experiences ever – SNOW – and lots of it!

What have you been doing with this sparkly new toy?

If you are building snow people or an igloo, or rolling giant snowballs or sledging, these are all great for your gross motor skills like strength and co-ordination, as well as your creativity. Drawing or writing your name in snow is also really good for your fine motor skills.

And we can use all our 5 Senses to enjoy the wonders of snow.
For example can you –
– See the snow sparkling in sunlight, like millions of tiny diamonds?
– Hear the “crunch crunch” sound as you stomp through the snow?
– Feel snow with your hands, feet, cheeks?
– Smell the freshness in the air?
– Catch a snowflake on your tongue – how  does it Taste?
What do you notice about the snow?
Snow has many different forms:
When is falls, is it light or heavy?
What about when it is rolled into a giant snowball?
And when it melts, what is it like then?
What colour are snow shadows?

Have fun investigating and playing in the snow!

 

Eco Learning, Learning at home, Mark Making, Natural World, Outdoor Learning, Science, Videos with ELCC Staff

Bird of the Day: Starling

Leave a comment

Wednesday’s Bird is the amazing Starling:


– Starlings are bold noisy birds who like to hang around together, chatting.
– They are mainly black with white speckles, but if you look closely you can see flashes of shiny metallic green and purple in their feathers.
– They have quite big feet and so walk about a lot.
– They are omnivorous, which mean they eat all kinds of things, including seeds, fruit and insects.
(I always see them in the car park at Silverburn shopping centre. I think maybe they wait there to pick up scraps of food dropped by shoppers….)
– At night just before they go to bed, Starlings gather together in huge flocks and do something REALLY AMAZING!
Click on the green link and watch this video to see what they do:
https://youtu.be/M1Q-EbX6dso

Flying around in groups of thousands, the starlings move together like a giant swirly black cloud, making wonderful patterns in the sky! It is one of the great sights of Nature! It is called a Murmuration – a great word. Can you say “Murmuration”…?
Mark Making Challenge:

If you have any black paint and some cotton buds, you could try dipping a cotton bud in paint and dabbing it on paper to make a picture of this amazing sight. Or just use a pen, pencil or crayon to make dots and create a murmuration of starlings or any other pattern you like.