The cars were looking a bit dirty outside recently, so combining Cheeky Monkeys’ love of transport and water they quickly got to work to make them look SPARKLING again !!
The children accepted the mission with excitement and determination and didn’t hesitate to quickly get to work using the little cloths, sponges and soapy water to scrub, scrub, scrub!
Once they thought the cars were looking presentable the children placed them on the car garage, before quickly getting to work on the next car that had come to their car wash!! Xxxx
Cheeky Monkeys had lots of fun rolling the cars/trains around the roads/tracks and under the tunnels! This activity encouraged them to investigate how objects fitted into different spaces, figuring out which ones will fit and which won’t, as well as beginning to learn about, and explore, prepositions; e.g the car is under the bridge etc…
When nearby grownups commentated upon vehicles’ movements and modelled associated language and asked if our children could follow simple instructions to make vehicles travel different routes our children were developing their listening and comprehension skills.
Our children were also developing their own vocabularies and frequent excited squeals were interspersed with “ohhh car” “beeeppppp” “zoommmm” and some repeated “on unel (tunnel)” and “fast” and “slow” amongst many other words.
This was all whilst naturally developing core strength and stability as little bodies leaned, moved, stretched and balanced to ensure vehicles could continue on their journeys across the tray…
Beep, beep move out of the way there are just so many tunnels to explore!! Xxxx
Bonding with grown ups is just so much fun! (…. And so vitally important for learning and development to take place!) This little one has been sat this morning telling Alice all about how much he loves his brother and his new bathroom at home! He doesn’t like spiders though and Alice honestly couldn’t blame him for feeling like this…
It is so wonderful when we see our very lovely Team Jollies members who cover holidays and days off, and as a result often end up covering in rooms across the whole nursery, building bonds and spending time really getting to know the little ones they are looking after.
Our children love to talk and seeing them so at ease with their Jolly grownups and so engaged in conversation makes our hearts smile xxxx
Getting those little fingers working in a different way as beads were threaded… strengthening fingers, refining fine motor control and drawing upon hand/eye coordination. Plus there were opportunities to develop and extend colour recognition and counting knowledge too…
Sometimes a little bit of guidance, some suggested strategies to try, or the odd demonstration from a nearby supportive grown up was required, but patience and perseverance prevailed for our children as beads were added onto string. xxxx
Train obsessions are no joke in Cheeky Monkeys (they take ALL kinds of transport VERY seriously ;)) but to feed their children’s obsession a little bit more the lovely Cheeky Monkey grown ups thought why not take a little trip across the road to the train station to watch real trains in action!!!
Our children were not disappointed. The excitement in their hearts and faces was palpable from spotting the very first train all the way through until they saw the last train before their return to Jollies. All our children were clearly in their element.
Every time a train passed many of our children would shout with excitement and they literally couldn’t smile wide enough as they waved to all the passengers onboard.
They also loved having a cheeky alfresco snack too whilst they did their spotting… you’ve got to keep yourself fuelled after all!!
We’re certain it won’t be long until our little monkeys are ‘choo-sing’ to do this again as this has definitely fed their train obsession!! Xxxx
Tia continued on with developing the fine motor skills of her little cheeky monkeys!
By experiencing invitations to play that enable them to practise their fine motor skills our children are able to develop their hand/eye coordination further and this helps us out when it comes to learning how to write in the future as without strong fingers and coordination you simply cannot control a pen or pencil!!
So a parcel was delivered to Jollies and an opportunity was spotted by Tia as she utilised the discarded box to go pom-pom crazy!!!
Her children were introduced to an assortment of pom-poms and then got busy posting the different sized pom-poms into the different sized holes and tubes! Sometimes they fitted and sometimes they didn’t… Lots of opportunities for extension of knowledge surrounding colour recognition and counting also emerged too; as well as the obvious comparisons of size.
Oh so simple, but oh so effective!! Pom-pomtastic it certainly was as we really got those little fingers working!!! Xxxx
Cheeky Monkeys have been working on their fine motor skills with Tia, using their fingers to carefully free the animals from the tape. They were very soon being closely observed ‘picking, pulling and peeling’ them free!!
The problem of how to free them was all theirs to solve and they soon found the most effective strategies through a process of trial and error and some strategic thinking at times too…
Some children struggled with this concept initially and couldn’t quite work out how to peel the tape enough to set the animals free, but most were determined to do it!
We saw some fabulous perseverance as our children continued trying, watching what their friends were doing and also looking at techniques modelled by Tia and then copying until they did it! They were all so pleased when they managed to free their animals after using a trial and error approach having been so determined not to give up!!!! Xxxx
(Just to clarify: No animals were harmed in the making of this activity )
….But you’ve also got a super whizzy transport area, sensory shelves, dressing up and a crunchy, glittery seaside to pique your interest too!!!
Enabling, enticing and inspiring environments bring the fun to Cheeky Monkeys and their Jolly grown-ups clearly know their children’s interests well and are on a mission to follow them as they help them all learn and develop through their play… it’s just the Jolly way!!!! xxxx
Magic happened in front of our very eyes here at Jollies as our eggs turned into caterpillars, which turned into chrysalises, which turned into butterflies…. AMAZING!!
This life cycle was incredible to watch and the excitement and anticipation built as we waited patiently for each stage and our children loved getting up close and personal with the butterflies before finally setting them free!! They enjoyed their time at Jollies, but the time had come finally to say goodbye as we said flutter by butterfly and sent them on their wonderful way.
Before this though we took part in close observation, we used reference books to find out more, we created artwork inspired by our butterflies, we pretended to be caterpillars turning into butterflies and we talked lots and lots and lots about them all xxxx
