October at Monkey Puzzle can only mean two things…..Halloween & Diwali celebrations!!

The nursery was decorated top to toe with spooky decorations; enter if you dare tape wrapped around the entrance railings & stretched across each door, spiders in their cobwebs nestled in every corner & a very friendly skeleton poised on the nursery entrance door welcoming our parents, carers & children. Bunting of all kinds; pumpkins & bats hung across the rooms & our week long Halloween celebration meant that all children were able to join in & experience the enchanting activities & taste our spooktastic menu; which consisted of specialities like; ‘Hubble Bubble pumpkin pot & Swamp Smoothie’.

Our youngest children Blue Monkeys developed their fine motor skills by creating witches brooms! They decorated tubes with paint & explored the texture of straw whilst sticking this on. The babies also used their tiny hand prints to create spiders, ghosts & witches. Our toddlers in Pink Monkeys also decorated tubes to create bats which hung from the ceiling & they enjoyed using their imaginative skills whilst making a potion in their pumpkin pot! The Pre-school children in Red Monkeys had a wonderful play experience, where they could sit & explore a fantastic display of a variety of pumpkins which were all different shapes, colours & sizes, (great for extending their maths development) the children were also provided with the resources which gave them the opportunity to draw what they saw.  The week concluded with our fancy dress party & everyone looked fantastic!! Over & under games with pumpkins, find the pumpkins & stick the face on the pumpkin were all played & enjoyed, along with a few old time favourites of musical chairs & bumps!

Traditional decorative scarf’s were used to decorate the nursery & Diwali was also a wonderful celebration at Monkey Puzzle where the children & staff fully embraced all the colourful activities; wax candle painting, bright coloured corn-flour, painting Rangoli patterns, colouring, reading the Diwali story supported by flashcards & making Diva lamps.

A big thank you to all our parents who joined us for the above celebrations.

Also this month our toddlers took part in a transport day & all areas including the garden were filled with transport resources; roads signs & zebra crossings, different shapes boxes & tin foil to create a 3D train, transport snap, car painting & threading trains. All rooms have also been exploring the autumn season; collecting leaves on walks, hunting for bugs in the leaves with magnifying glasses, bark rubbings & leaf collages.