February News 2019 Every month is both interesting and varied at Monkey Puzzle St Albans but writing this month’s news felt extraordinary with the amount of celebrations enjoyed. The very start of the month saw children of all ages wrapped up warm and enjoying the snowfall. The oldest children discovered how to stay safe outside by wearing hats, coats, scarves, gloves and wellie boots and developed their independence in practicing how to dress themselves. They absolutely loved working together to build our snowman, throw snowballs and of course make snow angels. The Year of the Pig for Chinese New Year was explored with enthusiasm. The whole nursery seemed to go ‘pig’ crazy and made their own pig pictures and, of course, dressed up in Chinese clothing! Chinese food was of course on the menu for the whole day which was a great success alongside many activities using chop sticks, exploring Chinese writing and telling stories. Fortune cookies were given out at the end of the nursery day as a special New Years’ treat from us! Exploring food and music is a great way for young children to start to understand different cultures. Along with dressing up in specific colours that link to a countries flag or festivity we can really start our children’s learning. Love was definitely in the air for Valentine’s Day. Both staff and children were dressed in hearts, red and/or pink which led to many discussions about the people we care about. Beautiful homemade valentine’s cards were created with love and sent home and all the children definitely enjoyed their homemade heart shaped biscuits! Sensory is a large part of each days’ planning at the nursery as children learn new experiences so well using their senses. February was no exception with children exploring different textures through sensory bags and sharing conversations about how things feel, smell, sound and look.
