Play, learn and grow
with Monkey Puzzle

Monkey Puzzle Day Nursery New Cross

15 hours ago

💃🕺 Dancing, music and lots of happy little movers! 🎶✨

It looks like our team’s love for dancing has well and truly rubbed off on our little ones! 😍💃

Our children especially love our weekly ShakerKid sessions, where they get to shake their bodies, move to the music and have lots of fun alongside our fantastic instructor! 🎵🪇 From big energetic moves to tiny little wiggles, there’s always plenty of dancing, laughter and smiles! 🥰

And our babies have been getting in on the musical fun too! 👶🎶 They’ve been thoroughly enjoying their Music Wall in the garden, exploring and experiencing the wonderful world of sounds around them. 🌿👂✨

We love seeing our children express themselves through music and movement while developing their confidence, coordination and curiosity along the way! 💕🌟

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Monkey Puzzle Day Nursery New Cross

16 hours ago

All jokes aside, our children absolutely adore having opportunities to take on new responsibilities, make choices and build their independence skills. After all, one day they’ll be “all grown up” just like the adults around them! 🥰✨

At Monkey Puzzle New Cross, we believe that encouraging independence from an early age helps children develop confidence, a strong sense of self and valuable practical life skills. 🌱

👧 Our Preschoolers have been loving our self-sign and self-serve boards! When they arrive at nursery, they sign themselves in on the register, and when it’s time to go home, they sign themselves out.

Before mealtimes, they also collect their own placemats from the self-serve board before sitting down to enjoy their yummy food! 🍽️😋

These simple responsibilities give our preschoolers more control over their routines while helping them develop confidence, independence and a sense of belonging.

👶 Our Toddlers have been diving into lots of cooking fun! 🧁👩‍🍳 They’ve been developing practical life skills as they learn to mix, fold, sieve and bake a whole range of tasty recipes.

Because sometimes the best learning happens when little hands are busy! 💕🙌

Giving children opportunities to practise practical independence skills from an early age helps build the confidence and foundations they’ll carry with them into the future. 🌟

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Monkey Puzzle Day Nursery New Cross

1 day ago

🎉🔊 More Sound Buttons Have Arrived! 🔊🎉

Our sound button fun continues, and we’ve been busy adding even more special voices to our team boards! 🥰✨

We’re excited to share that our Babies’ team board and Management team board now have their very own name buzzers! 👶💛👩‍💼

Our little ones can now press the buttons and hear the names of the familiar adults who are part of our setting. We love how this simple addition makes our team boards interactive, engaging and much more meaningful for the children! 🌈

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Monkey Puzzle Day Nursery New Cross

2 days ago

🔤✨ Phonics Fun in Preschool! ✨🔤

This week, our preschool children have been diving into the wonderful world of phonics and early literacy through a fun and hands-on literacy game! 📚💡
The children were invited to choose a word card from our phonics book. Each card featured a familiar object, along with the letters needed to spell its name. 🐻🍎🚗
But the fun didn’t stop there! The children then became word detectives 🕵️‍♀️🕵️‍♂️, searching through a collection of Scrabble tiles to find the matching letters and build their chosen word. 🔠✨
With support from our adults, the children carefully listened to the individual sounds in each word, practised sounding out the letters, and then began blending those sounds together to hear the whole word. 👂🗣️➡️📖

It was fantastic to see the children developing their confidence with sounds and letters while also strengthening their communication, listening, concentration, letter recognition and early spelling skills.
We are so proud of our little learners and can’t wait to see where their phonics journey takes them next! 🌈🔤✨

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Monkey Puzzle Day Nursery New Cross

6 days ago

🐛🍎 Our Hungry Caterpillar Adventure! 🍓🍃

What a wonderful week our little Discoverers have had exploring the much-loved story of The Very Hungry Caterpillar! 📚🐛

Throughout the week, our toddlers have enjoyed listening to the story and getting involved with the different parts of the adventure. They’ve been working hard to remember all the delicious foods the hungry caterpillar munched his way through — from apples and pears to strawberries, oranges and lots more! 🍎🍐🍓🍊

Our amazing Early Years Practitioners then took the learning one step further by creating a very hungry caterpillar of our very own! 🐛💚 The children were so excited to have the opportunity to feed their caterpillar themselves.

Sitting together in a lovely circle, the children took turns choosing a piece of food to feed to the caterpillar. It was fantastic to see them practising their turn-taking, sharing, listening and communication skills while having lots of fun at the same time! 👏🥰

There were lots of excited smiles, enthusiastic conversations and plenty of opportunities to revisit the story and recall what happened next. 📖✨

We love seeing our little Discoverers learn through play, imagination and hands-on experiences — and we think our hungry caterpillar certainly had a very tasty week! 🐛😋🍃

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Monkey Puzzle Day Nursery New Cross

7 days ago

✨🎙️ Our Key Person Boards have had a VERY exciting revamp! 🎙️✨

Two out of our three Key Person Boards have now had a makeover, and we couldn’t be more excited about our newest addition! 🥰🌈

Alongside our lovely photos of our smiling children and dedicated team members, we now have sound buttons featuring the voices of our very own children! 🎉

Some of our wonderful children have recorded themselves saying the names of their key adults, meaning that when we press each button, we can hear their little voices saying the names exactly as they pronounce them. 🗣️💕

We absolutely love this idea because it makes our Key Person Boards much more interactive, personal and child-led. It gives children the opportunity to see and hear themselves represented within their environment, helping them to feel that their voices, ideas and contributions are truly valued. ❤️

But there are lots of learning benefits too! 🌟

👂 Listening and attention: Children are encouraged to listen carefully to familiar voices and sounds.

🗣️ Communication and language: Recording and saying familiar names provides meaningful opportunities to practise speech, vocabulary and clear communication.

💪 Confidence and self-esteem: Hearing their own voices played back can give children a wonderful sense of pride and achievement.

🤝 Relationships and belonging: Key Person relationships are so important in the early years, and this interactive board helps children recognise and connect with the adults who are there to support them.

🌈 Child-led learning: Most importantly, the children themselves have helped to create something that is now part of their environment, giving them a real sense of ownership and belonging.

It’s such a simple addition, but it has already brought lots of smiles, giggles and excitement! 🥰🎶

And we’re not stopping there… 👀

🍼✨ We can’t wait to give our Babies’ Key Person Board a revamp next! We’re looking forward to making it just as interactive, meaningful and special for our youngest children. 💕🌟

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