Smiley Happy Monkeys

🚀 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! 😆

Under the sea 🌊🐠

This January, we have been learning all about Under the Sea! 🌊We have done lots of painting, crafts and colouring. 🎨 We've also read lots of sea related books during story time and even had a go at a board game. 📖The children's favorite (and messiest!) has definitely been the sensory play, from play rice to 'gloop', they absolutely loved it. 🫧 It's been amazing seeing the children's understanding and vocabulary develop over the month, we've had some very interesting conversations about puffer fish! 😁

🌿Big Garden Bird Watch!🐦🐦‍⬛

Today, we took part in the RSPB Big Garden Bird Watch, getting our puddlesuits on and using our bird finders to look around! 🐦 The children engaged so well and spent ages looking at any birds flying in the sky - we even learnt some bird names. 🥰 We then enjoyed a bird scavenger hunt round the garden, it was amazing to see the little ones working as a team to find the pictures, then matching it to their checklist. The children even asked for a book about birds at storytime! 🥹

Reasons why we love Mr/Mrs Potato Heads:

🥔 Children get to use their creativity and problem solving, choosing which pieces to add
🥔 Children practice their fine motor skills and hand eye coordination, clicking parts together
🥔 Children learn anatomy and colour vocabulary
🥔Children get to play imaginatively (you might not want to see which Mr Potato head is 'daddy'🤣)
🥔 Adults get to enjoy the crazy looking potato heads children make!!