Monkey Puzzle Angel
March 2017

Office News

This month we welcomed Rachel into the Monkey Puzzle Angel Team and we would like to take this opportunity to wish her all the best in her new role as manager. If you haven’t already had the opportunity to meet her please don’t hesitate to email and arrange a meeting, her door is always open. Rachel would also like to say a big thank you to all staff and parents for the warm welcome she has received and looks forward to getting to know you all in the next coming months. Rachel would also like to remind all parents and carers that she welcome’s all feedback you may have to help the nursery strive to be outstanding.

This month has been another extremely busy month filled with lots of exciting activities and celebrations. We celebrated Mother’s Day with our fabulous Tea Party. Thank you to all the mummies (and daddies) that attended we hope you enjoyed all the activities set up by the staff team. We loved seeing the children interact with you in the nursery environment, we hope it gave you some ideas for things to do at home too!

We are pleased to announce that Monkey Puzzle Angel will be hosting their first parents evening. This will be being held across two evenings the first being Wednesday 17th May and the second being Thursday 18th May. Parents evening is a great opportunity to sit down with your child’s key person and discuss their progress in more detail and work together to identify some next steps. Each appointment will be 15 minutes long so please speak with your child’s key person to book in an appointment. Rachel and Francesca will also be available if you would like to book in an appointment with them. Any questions about this event please come and speak with us.

We just have a few reminders and dates for the diary. Firstly, we would just like to remind you that when you are storing your buggies could you please make sure they are put away safely. As the weather is getting warmer (fingers crossed) the children will be spending more time in the garden and we want to insure the children are safe. We also want to remind you that Easter is coming so we will be closed for both Good Friday (14th April and Easter Monday (17thApril). We also have two more insets days Friday 9th of June and 1st of September. The nursery will be closed on these dates as they are used for staff training.

If you need any additional information on anything mentioned above, please feel free to ask.

Discoverers

During the month of March, we have continued exploring colours. We have looked at Orange, blue, pink, black and white. The children have taken part in activities that introduce them to new textures and materials as well as new colours. The children have enjoyed foil painting, sensory tables with rice, paint, and scented bath gel. They have also been investigating new sensory materials such as rice flour playdough, pink couscous, rainbow oats and kinetic sand. When looking at exploring colour lots of messy activities were planned such as lemon playdough, food tasting, mashed banana jelly and pumpkin seed play. The children could combine two of their favourite things- exploring new objects and getting very messy.

All the children are very interested in exploring the mathematical concept of ‘filing and emptying’. They have been using the measuring cups and bottles to transfer water from the sink to the water tray. They have also been using an array of sensory materials to build castles, cook, mix and pour. All of these activities have helped enhance the children’s fine motor skills and we have seen a real increase in their knife and fork and drinking from a beaker skills.

It has been wonderful to see all our babies become more enthusiastic and involved at circle time. The children are now becoming more vocal about the songs they would like to sing and dance too. Their favourites are ‘Wheels on the bus’, ‘Baa Baa’, ‘Big red bus and ‘Wind the bobbin up’. We have started to introduce some new songs and books into our circle time routine that have become instant favourites. These include, ‘Hot Potato’ and ‘Rock-a-bye your bear’ by the wiggles. They have also enjoyed joining in with ‘if your happy and you know it’ and ‘knick knack paddy whack’. Although we love these stories and songs the one we love the most is ‘sleeping bunnies’. The children now know that when their teachers start to sing they must pretend to sleep they then jump up and hop just like little bunnies. Along with this being very fun it has also enhanced the children’s listening skills as they follow along with the instructions of the song.

This month we have also celebrated St Patricks day, Red nose day and Mother’s Day so it has been very busy! The children embraced all things green on St Patricks Day, getting involved in a giant paint activity9. On Mother’s Day, the children enjoyed surprise visits from their mummies. It was wonderful to see all our mums here at nursery engaging in all the activities with your children. We hope you had a wonderful time and we made it a memorable Mother’s Day.
We have a wonderful March and can’t wait to see what amazing things the children achieve in April.
We just have a little reminder for all parents and carers. When you bring in spare clothes could you please ensure you label EVERYTHING as our numbers are increasing rapidly and we want to make sure everyone goes home with the right clothing.

Explorers

In March, we celebrated World Book Day. The children in toddler room dressed up as their favourite characters from different stories. The children could choose which book they wanted to read and parents were also encouraged to come and read books to their children too. Yiting (Xixiang’s mum) brought in some Chinese book for the children and read it to them during circle time. The children seem really engaged in the story and were excited to see what happens.

To celebrate World Wild Life Day the toddler and preschool room took a trip the farm. The children were very excited to see lots of their favourite animals. Before going the staff talked to the children about different animals that might live on a farm and the noises they make. The children had a wonderful time and couldn’t stop talking about all the things they had seen and heard! MOOOOO!

The toddlers choose different Irish symbols to be painted on their face in honour of St Patrick’s Day; the face painting was carried out by Simona and she provided the children with a range of colourful designs. The toddlers were provided with lots of paint and resources to allow them to do some vibrant art work. They also created leprechaun masks with green and orange colours. The aim of the art work was for the children to use the mask to appear as leprechauns and take lots of fun selfies.

For the Red Nose Day event, the toddlers made some cakes for the fundraiser/Mother’s Day tea party; additionally, the children made some red cornflower for messy play. The toddlers also decorated a box with red paint and glitter in support of Red Nose Day and fundraising for charity. The Mother’s Day event was very fun and the toddler room children enjoyed taking part in some activities alongside their mummies. The mums got pampered in the Monkey Puzzle Angel salon as well as doing some mother and child hand printing. Mums also got to do some cooking with the pink playdough and make some beautiful pasta jewellery. It was great to see so many mums come in to enjoy the stay and play with their children.

March has been a very busy month for toddlers and we have seen so much progress from all our children. In April, we will be seeing some of our children progress even more by making the transition to pre-school. The toddler room children will also have the opportunity to make some new friends as we welcome some children from baby room.

Inventors

This month has been another busy month in Preschool; we have been celebrating many events and learning lots of new things!
We have started the month, celebrating World Book Day. Preschool chose to work on the famous story “Room on the Broom”, and they were engaged in all different kinds of activities, from roleplaying the book to making our own potion in a caldron. Children also made some finger puppets with the characters of the story, they dressed up as wizards and witches and sang the story’s song. We wanted to thank all the parents who took a bit of their time to come in a read with their children; it is such a good routine to get into and the children really enjoy their stories especially when they are read by someone very special!

Another celebration was “World Wildlife Day”. In Preschool, we celebrated this event by making children aware of the importance of putting any kind of rubbish in the bin to keep animals safe. Pre-schoolers were able to see pictures in which people were helping injured animals. At the end, children were engaged in an art and craft activity, in which they had to choose and stick their favourite wild animals.

We also celebrated International Women’s Day, boys and girls participated in making flowers for all the girls in their life, which was really sweet!
Another big celebration that we could not have forgotten, was St Patricks Day. Staff and children came in wearing green clothes and we all danced to Irish music and did lots of lovely Irish Dancing! Children really enjoyed the face painting and making leprechaun masks.

International day of happiness was also due this month. We made funny faces by sticking funny eyes, noses and mouths on face templates. Our children had so much fun making these faces!
For World Water Day, children were involved in an art and craft activity which represented their interpretation of the rain. They used pipits to pour the paint, cotton wool and blue paint; their imagination and their understanding of the world did the rest!

We are still working on the space theme. Children are really enjoying this topic and, as they are willing to learn much more about it, we are planning to make a trip to the science museum! We will give you more information about it in the next few weeks.

Finally, we wanted to thank all the parents that came for Mother’s Day. The day was a great success and children put lots of enthusiasm and effort into making lovely cards and presents. We hope you all had a great time!

Just a few reminders…
– As the amazing weather is coming, we will need sun cream so that we can enjoy the outings as much as possible! Please, do not forget to label your child’s clothes, as children really enjoy messy play! Due to different allergies, it is not allowed to keep food or drinks in the children’s bags. Please, ask a member of staff to keep the snack in a safe place! As we are going to the science museum, it would be great if at home, you could support your child’s learning about the space!