May News 2021

The theme this month at Monkey Puzzle Orient Close was Maths!! Children of all ages explored everything number and shape related from fishing for number ducks and shells in the paddling pool to driving the ride along toys around large scale shapes and numbers in our beautiful outdoor areas. A big well done to Red Monkeys for winning this month’s challenge.

Yellow Monkeys have greeted some new friends this month, exploring the room together and thoroughly enjoying singing the ‘Hello song’ and listening to their carers stories. They have also delved into exploring textures and making marks using various resources such as their bodies, paintbrushes, blocks and stacking cups along with paint, rice noodles, spaghetti and oats.

Blue Monkeys continued to get messy throughout May as they used their whole body to explore and create a large scale picture using rice noodles and paint. They even felt brave enough to explore new texture such as a mixture of cornflakes and custard. Our youngest monkeys also brought their stories to life by creating their very own tufty tray ‘The Tiger who came to tea’ using cups, saucers plates and tigers to explore as their carers read the story.

This month our toddlers have been discussing their feelings as they reflected on the stories they read, to further this experience Pink Monkeys looked at their own reflections in the mirror, drawing what they saw and discussing how they felt – we were so pleased to see so many smiley plates! They have also been starting off their days getting physical as they take part in exercise time, stretching on their mats, running on the spot and learning how to do star jumps and balance in a variety of ways.

Our eldest children in Red Monkeys have been exploring the many ways we can use our bodies to move around as they took part in a variety of obstacle courses where they walked, run, crawled, hopped and jumped their way around. The outdoors has been the main focus for preschool this month as they watched their own mini allotment grow, discussing how ‘Monty the Mint’ and ‘Tommy the Tomato’ where changing day by day. The May shower brought a lot of excitement as the children watched and listened as the rain pattered down outside eagerly awaiting the flash of lightening that followed.

The month was topped off with two main celebrations – Pyjamarama in which staff and children alike came to nursery dressed in their best pjs and armed with their favourite bedtime stories to share with all. Eid was also celebrated as we held Eid parties, explored festive colours and henna designs as well as making stuffed dates to take home!