Extra curricular activities in a nursery can facilitate enhanced learning by engaging children in hands-on, experiential experiences that reinforce academic concepts in a practical way.

These activities often make learning more enjoyable and memorable. At Monkey Puzzle Muswell Hill we have created an extra curricular timetable that enhances our unique curriculum taking into account our aspirations for our children.

Extra-curricular activities are aligned to each room with consideration being given to the children’s stage of development to ensure they receive the greatest impact from participating in these sessions. All of these sessions take place weekly. 

Babies

Movers and Shakers

At Monkey Puzzle we believe music is a great activity for all children. It enhances cognitive development, promoting skills like memory retention and mathematical concepts through rhythm and melody. Additionally, music encourages emotional expression and social interaction.

Music is vital to a child’s development.  Age-appropriate songs and rhymes provide introductions to numbers, language, animals and colours amongst many other things. 

Music encourages natural movement where a child identities and bounces or sways to the rhythm of the music and this progresses to more synchronised movement such as clapping or copying actions associated with the song.

Movers and Shakers engage with our babies as they enjoy a music and movement class filled with excitement and wonder.

Every class includes songs, rhymes and sign language, rhythm, and percussion, colours, shapes and counting, movement, coordination and social interaction. 

Heuristic Play

Heuristic play consists of offering children a large number of different kinds of objects including natural materials like fir cones, conkers, seashells, and pebbles as well as ribbons and other objects like curtain rings, jar lids and sturdy cardboard tubes with which they play. 

Heuristic play is rooted in young children’s natural curiosity. As babies grow, they move beyond being content to simply feel and observe objects, to wanting to find out what can be done with them. As they grow into toddlers they have an urge to handle things: to gather, fill, dump, stack, knock down, select and manipulate in other ways. When they make an enjoyable discovery they often repeat the action several times to test the result, which strengthens cognitive development as well as fine muscle control and hand/eye coordination.

Toddlers

Clay Play

Our toddlers love to participate in our clay play sessions. Playing with and manipulating clay has a number of benefits for children.  It encourages sensory development including touch, sight, smell and even sound.

Working with clay can help to improve hand/eye coordination and build both gross and fine motor skills, including the small muscles in hands and fingers.  This helps with dexterity and is beneficial for children mark making, cutting and ultimately writing.

Manipulating the clay is a positive way to express emotions, a good stress-reliever and can also be a calming activity.  Playing with clay helps to build imagination as they create 3d art which can also give toddlers a sense of pride and accomplishment. 

Drama Vision

At Monkey Puzzle we believe, drama classes in a nursery setting encourage children to explore their creativity, build self-confidence, and enhance their communication skills through imaginative play and storytelling.

Drama Vision sessions give children an opportunity to discover their talents, ignite their imagination, gain confidence to express themselves and develop key communication skills whilst having fun.

Drama helps develop confident communicators who learn to work together.  Physically the children strengthen co-ordination, agility and poise while developing a rich colourful imagination.

Sessions include acting games and exercises, movement and dance, vocal technique, storytelling, puppetry, roleplay and performance.  These sessions are delivered by the wonderful Marianne who trained at ALRA (Academy of Live and Recorded Arts) and has over 10 years experience working with under 5’s teaching play, music and drama. 

Pre-School

Debutots Intergenerational

At Monkey Puzzle we believe in joining generations with imagination, by visiting our local care home. The aim of these sessions is for the children to interact with elderly care home residents to boost self-esteem and confidence in both our nursery children and the residents. 

Our Care Home visits are part of the excellent programme that Jennifer Mushumani, the Director of Debutots Muswell Hill, Finchley & Hampstead has created.  “Joining Generations With Imagination” is a project which partners residential care homes and pre-schools or nurseries for intergenerational story sessions.

The impact of the project is incredibly powerful with the benefits for both residents and children visible the second the children walk in the room.  The regular sessions use storytelling and imaginative play to foster and encourage wonderful interactions and friendships between the generations.

Sports 4 Stars

Physical activity is a crucial part of every child’s development for both their health and wellbeing.  It can help with the maintenance of a healthy weight and the development of strong bones, muscles and heart. Physical activity also impacts on the social, emotional, and cognitive development of children such as self-confidence, social interactions, taking turns and working collaboratively with others.

Sports 4 stars offer our preschool children the opportunity to participate in a range of sports.  Sports 4 Stars make it their aim to provide physical activities that are fun and action packed.

The activities are led by Chris with a boundless energy, he has become a firm favourite with the children.  The activities vary every session so the children never become bored.

The children have tried a wide variety of sports including tennis, football, hockey, basketball and even archery.  Focus ranges from gross motor skills to, hand/eye coordination and fine motor skills.  Techniques of how to hold sports equipment such as tennis racquets and hockey sticks are visited and built upon. 

Woodwork

Woodwork provides a fantastic opportunity for our pre-schoolers to think creatively and develop problem-solving skills. It involves creative thinking, imagination, maths, physical coordination as well as fine motor skills.

The children are taught how to use the tools safely and given the opportunity to try techniques in appropriate ways in our dedicated woodwork area.  The children get to use real tools including screwdrivers, hammers, nails and saws in a carefully controlled environment.  It always delightful to see how proud they are of their achievements as their confidence using the tools grows.  

All Age Groups

Field Trip Adventures

Every week our children go on regular field trip adventures where they have the opportunity to learn more about our local area.  We take each room on a local walk which could include a trip to the shops for the children to buy fruit or vegetables for their afternoon snack, we may take them to the post box or post office so they can send letters or to the recycle bank where they learn about taking care of our environment. We also incorporate this with our weekly cultural capital activities for the children to all enjoy a shared experience, for example taking them to Costa so they can all have a baby chino.

As already mentioned, physical activity in early childhood lays the foundations for a more active and healthy life. We also know that children will be more naturally active when they are outdoors and there are new learning opportunities for children outside of the setting including road safety, so we like to get and about as much as we can.

Another popular activity with the children is when we visit the library. We visit our local library (Friern Barnet) with each room once per week.  We are always looking for new places to visit and new experiences for the children. 

Cooking

At Monkey Puzzle Muswell Hill our children participate in weekly age-appropriate cooking activities.  Cooking is an activity that is filled with unlimited learning possibilities. There are lots of opportunities to practise counting and develop children’s understanding of numbers from volume to lengths, sizes and weights through to learning sequencing and time. 

Cooking can support children in their communication and language as they listen and follow instructions and learn names for different ingredients, utensils and cooking/preparation techniques. Physically the tasks involved in controlling the utensils such as cutting, rolling and kneading can help develop fine motor skills and dexterity. Cooking can also help children understand the world around them, seeing for example how ice melts, butter softens, powders dissolve and batters harden when heated. From a personal, social and emotional perspective, not only can children learn about the benefits of healthy eating and good hygiene, but children feel a real sense of achievement and pride when they have created something from beginning to end. 

The children always look forward to creating their own dishes which can be eaten at nursery or taken home and shared with the family.