Smiley Happy Monkeys

🫧 Fun with foaming soap! 🫧

Yesterday we had such a great time with the foaming soap. A good way to get messy while technically getting clean!🤣

At SHM, we love sensory playtime. Here are just some of the benefits it provides our little ones:

💫 the sensory input and repetitive actions help to calm and settle chilrren

💫 it promotes early scientific thinking, encouraging children to notice cause and effect as well as testing their ideas out

💫 practices those all-important fine motor skills : squeezing, pouring and stirring are great for this

💫 enhances memory - did you know regular sensory play can actually help children process and retain information better?

💫 builds confidence, letting children explore new smells, textures and smells in their own time

💫 gives so many opportunities for communication and new vocabulary

We love watching the children's curiosity develop, as well as getting involved ourselves of course!

Oh if only you could see the big smiles on these faces!! 🥰

We've been celebrating National Ice Cream Day this week, enjoying some as a special treat and painting our very own. 🥳

Children of all ages got to choose which flavor they wanted and had a go at scooping their own, we love any opportunity to practice fine motor skills! 🤪

It's been brilliant to see the children using ice cream in their pretend play, and hearing the conversations about which special people our little ones have shared ice cream with before. What a fun week!❤️

Visits from our favourite neighbour!🐴❤️

🚀 Zoom zoom zoom, we're going to the moon! 🚀 

We have been super busy at the cabin recently helping our gorgeous new little ones to settle in and learn our routines! It's been great to see them gain more confidence and make new friends. 😊❤️

Of course we've still found time to explore our theme of Space, with lots of crafting, reading and singing! The children have loved it.🚀🌛

We LOVE visiting the park, here's just a few photos from our trips the last couple of weeks. ❤️

💐💕Maternity leave💐💕

Esperanca has officially started her maternity leave.🤰🏼✨

We are going to miss you so much, your gentle kind nature, your laughs and most importantly your dance moves!🤣💃🏼

We wish you all the best with your pregnancy and we cannot wait to meet your little one.🩷

Don’t forget to come and visit!😜

We have absolutely LOVED doing activities on focus books this month. 📖 ✨️
We reenacted Bear Hunt about 1000 times using chalk drawings, played small world through all the settings, drew our own bears and even did bear hunt yoga! 🐻 

We then explored The Very Hungry Caterpillar, using our play food to think about healthy eating. The children loved the caterpillar puzzle too! 🐛🦋

Lastly, we've been looking at The Tiger Who Came To Tea, having our own tea parties and making our own tigers.🐅 🍵

What a brilliant month of storybook fun!❤️

❣️February: Love and Family ❣️
Here's a snapshot of some of the things we've been doing this month learning about family and love, including some gingerbread people that didn't quite go to plan! 😅

At Smiley Happy Monkeys, we love letting our children be as independent as possible! This week, that looked like making their own pizza bagels. 👨‍🍳 It was great to see the children practicing their fine motor movements, spooning the sauce, sprinkling the cheese and toppings as well as practicing their social skills, waiting their turns and sharing. 🥄 Everyone was very proud of their creations, and nearly all the plates were empty at the end of lunch! 😆