Discoverers

January has been an amazing month, being busy learning and running around with lots of smiles. During the past month the babies have been busy getting messy with our colour of the month which was pink, using their whole bodies to make marks. They have also enjoyed big and small activities such as big and small ducks and exploring the crazy foam on the tables while saying ” big duck ” to understand the concept of different sizes and counting them too.

We have continued to going to Highbury fields and the playground. Athough it’s been a little cold, we’ve all wrapped up warm. Thank you to our parents for providing warm hats and gloves that we try to keep on them. The babies really enjoy the swings, splashing in muddy puddles and playing in the sand.

This month we have created a new display as you may have noticed. It’s all linked to ‘Going on a Bear Hunt’ with all the different scenes in the famous classic story. The children have been busy making the mud and sticking brown tissue paper together, making the snow and painting the big bear and cave.
During our story times, the babies really love the book and are always asking to read it with the music, and know all the parts in the story and making the sounds.

We have really enjoyed exploring different coloured play dough that we have made together every day and using the cutters and rolling pins to make shapes and use their hands to feel the texture.
We use:
3 cups of plain flour
Half a jug of warm water
2 spoons of oil
Paint/ food colouring in a large bowl and mix all together

The babies have also enjoyed using the shape sorters, puzzles and mega blocks. The pop up ICT toys and musical instruments are used every day during music time and the children love the dancing and making different sounds.

During the month on February its Chinese New Year of the monkey this year and we are so excited to make our own monkeys and decorate them and enjoy lots of different activities for this celebration. Also for Valentine’s Day we will be making something special for our mummy’s and daddy’s that I’m sure you will love.

Hello and welcome to our new starters this month who have settled very well.
Also welcome to our settler babies joining us in end of the month.

Thank you to parents who have emailed their family pictures for us to create their family album for the children to look at as part of people and communities and during circle times. Also to remind parents who haven’t had the chance to send any pictures yet, we would love to see them. Thank you.

The pegs and boxes with your child’s name may have moved around a bit to adjust with the new children who have started. We have made them in alphabetical order to ease the confusion.

Ideas are welcome in what you think your baby enjoys doing at home for us to explore further here too.

We look forward to our next messy month full of learning and exploring indoors and outdoors with lots of fun activities every day.

Explorers

The Christmas holiday is just a memory and we are all back with great enthusiasm and energy to burn with our toddlers. We are all equipped with new brilliant ideas to share with our toddlers, offering them new experiences.

All monkey puzzle members of staff would like to thank you for the chocolates and generous presents at Christmas.

As you may have noticed, we are preparing Explorer’s class with winter displays. There is the polar bear display on the window that represents our one of the favourite books, “Forever” by Emma Dodds who writes about a parent’s love.

The second display is one of Peppa pig and George that encourages the children’s speech. Children made many funny comments about them so if you’d like to have a closer look at the display you’ll be able to read them.

The third display that you can find about “Winter” is next to the big window that gives the opportunity for younger children to learn new vocabulary and for the older ones to notice features in their environment this winter season.

We have been very busy bees by creating interesting and expressive art such as the penguin parade that is displayed on the entrance wall between Explorers and Inventors class, a winter tree with cotton wool, hand printed mittens and polar bears with sock puppets and colouring in winter sport paper sheets.
Further activities have been carried out such as as fake snow, foam, ice cubes and flour for water and sand tray to create wintery feelings and experiment different materials to use all their senses. Often we talk about the weather, clothes that we wear. We borrow books from libraries that specifically focus on stories happening in winter time such as animals and people living in South and North Pole, Mammoth in the fridge, etc.

We also borrowed a happy birthday book about a cuddly bear, as we had many children who were celebrating their birthday this month. We sang songs, danced and made great parties for the children. Everyone was happy to make cakes with play-dough, sticking pencils and singing the Happy Birthday song.

Inventors

Christmas is over and it’s a start a start of a new year. Just a quick thank you to all the parents for all the lovely and thoughtful gifts and cards all the staff received over the holiday period. We are all very excited for the start of 2016 and it’s going to be filled with lots of fun, laughter and learning for all the children.

We would like to welcome Helena our new friend in the pre-school room who has already make great friends with all the children.

This month we have been concentrating on the winter season. We have transformed one of our display boards in to a winter display with lots of wintery pictures as well as a snowman. We made hanging penguins out of recycled materials and have been decorating lots of winter clothes. The children also enjoyed tracing over winter words and some of the children chose to trace over their names which promotes literacy and reading. The children made adorable shaped penguins while learning about 2d shapes and have also made 3d snowflakes out of polystyrene. The children have played with fake snow and winter animals and also had the opportunity to add various toys to promote their imaginative play.

We also had a dinosaur treasure hunt in ice using tweezers, paintbrushes and eye droppers which lefts the children busy for hours!

Our second display was transformed into an art gallery bringing to life the creations of artist such as Vincent Van Gough, Pablo Picasso, John Bramblitt, Jackson Pollock and Leonardo Da Vinci. The children were able to explore different paintings techniques, doing their own interpretations of these types of arts. They used drip painting to create various paintings using natural materials such as sticks from the garden that the children chose themselves.

The children also had the opportunity to experience what it’s like to paint with their eyes closed just as John Bramblitt would have done as he was blind and still managed to produce extraordinary paintings just though the sense of touch. The children also learnt about cave paintings and even had the chance to do some cave painting themselves in a pretend cave that the teachers created for them.

The children have also been very busy baking and making delicious drinks in the kitchen with our nursey chef. The children made some yummy hot chocolate to keep us all warm during this chilly winter season and also made some very tasty savoury biscuits.

Ingredients:

• 115g plain flour
• 55g grated strong cheese (cheddar is best)
• 55g unsalted butter
• 1 egg yolk
• A pinch of salt
• A pinch of freshly ground black pepper
• A pinch of paprika (for those that like a little spice)

Method:

Preheat oven to 180C.
I. Blend the flour, cheese and butter in a food processor until it looks like fine crumbs.
II. Add salt and pepper to taste, add paprika for an additional kick!
III. Add the egg yolk to the food processor and mix until it forms a soft ball. You may need to add a little water to encourage the ball to form.
IV. Roll the mix on a lightly floured board to a thickness of 8mm and cut the biscuits.
V. Place the biscuits on a non-stick tray and bake in the oven for 10 minutes, or until golden brown