The Cheeky Monkeys embarked on a research project learning about what endangered animals mean and investigating one species that are either endangered or vulnerable. The children used tablets and the internet to safely look up what animal they wanted to research and find information about. They worked together with a partner to learn about their respective animal and help each other navigate the tablet and read facts. Finally they had to fill in a fact file about their choice of animal.

Children learn through repetition. Each time Cheeky Monkeys are exposed to a new object or experience, new neural connections are made in their brain. Through repetition, these connections are strengthened and learning occurs. Each of our classes is designed to repeat certain activities-such as the Goodbye song-in part because of this important connection between repetition and learning, and also because the routine created through repetition helps to foster and strengthen our class community. Rituals and repetition at home are important components of a predictable and nurturing home and family life as well.

The Cheeky Monkeys children made colourful butterfly artwork during one of their visual arts lessons. Engaging in various artistic techniques such as cutting, drawing, colouring, and sticking a variety of materials ignites their imagination, and enhances their fine motor skills and hand-and-eye-coordination. The process of assembling and designing the butterfly allows them to practice decision-making, spatial awareness, and problem-solving as they choose where to place each element. Furthermore, this activity promotes self-expression and creativity. These beautiful and colourful butterflies will be part of our decoration for the End of Year Celebration.

The Cheeky Monkeys raced against each other with the help of chess pieces. They had to roll the chess pieces towards them via a string up on a roller with their hands and save the chess pieces from trouble on the chessboard. This racing game promotes the development of their fine motor skills, as they have to use their fingers and hand muscles to manipulate and control the string. Rolling up the string also enhances hand-and-eye coordination, requiring children to coordinate their movements and align the string with the roller. Moreover, this simple yet engaging task encourages focus, concentration, and patience, as children learn to roll the string smoothly and evenly onto the roller. Playing racing games is beneficial for children as it promotes their cognitive skills by requiring them to make quick decisions, strategize, and react to changing scenarios. The children were able to save their chess pieces from trouble only 12 to 20 seconds and they all did a fantastic job.

With the warm spring weather upon us, it is a given that we spend more time outdoors. One project we are undertaking is gardening and planting flowers. The Cheeky Monkeys helped weed and turn the soil to get it ready for planting. The first to go in was marigolds. This bright orange flower brings some much-needed colour to welcome spring. We also started planting indoors into small containers. We will plant some vegetables as well. Mother’s Day preparations went well and children created special crafts to give to their mums. The celebration of Mother’s Day was truly touching.

Spatial awareness allows us to sense our surroundings, recognize how our bodies relate to our environment, and understand how objects around us relate to one another. As the Cheeky Monkeys develop spatial awareness, they hone a better understanding of physical boundaries as well as concepts such as distance and direction. In this lesson, the
Cheeky Monkeys have opportunities to show their understanding of spacial concepts through movement, dance, instrument, and prop play, as well as expand their spatial vocabulary by describing their surroundings.

The Cheeky Monkeys children worked hard and finished their cacti during their visual arts lessons. They drew various kinds of patterns on their cactus pieces with colourful markers, joined the pieces together to the best of their knowledge, and glued crumbled silk paper pieces on them according to their preferences.

The Cheeky Monkeys children had a fun-filled play date with the chess pieces. First, they drew the chess piece their classmates were giving clues about. Then, they played some P.E. games with the chess pieces and ran through the chessboards by jumping on two feet, one foot, forward, backwards, and diagonally.

In mathematics, the Cheeky Monkeys have continued learning how to tell the time. They made their own flower clocks from cardboard. They cut out a circle for the face of the clock, minute and hour hands, and petals to go on the outside. They will then start writing about events that take place during the day and what time they happen. In addition, we had a special outdoor lesson where we learnt about the seasons and what changes happen during them.

In this activity, Cheeky Monkeys explore their voices by singing and vocal play. As they echo you, they are learning to match and reproduce specific pitches and word sounds. It allows them to practice the precise coordination of lips, tongue, and breathing necessary to speak or sing expressively. Imitation and vocal play are critical parts of vocal development and give older children the chance to develop their singing voices and explore the complexity of communication.

The Cheeky Monkeys children were making cactus crafts in their visual arts lessons. First, the children extended their knowledge and understanding of cacti and identified their main features. Then, the children chose from the available cacti designs and painted their samples with different hues of green tempera paint. Yet the creative process was not done, the children had to draw cacti patterns on the samples with markers, join the pieces together, and decorate the cacti with colourful silk paper pieces according to their likes.

The Cheeky Monkeys children continued having another fun game with the chess pieces. First, the children formed a light and a dark army. Then, they collected their chess pieces from the battlefield and built their castle walls from them. Next, the children used shooting balls and tried to destroy the opponent’s wall. They played a rock-paper-scissor game to decide who should start the battle. The dark army won the first and the light army the second battle. In the end, the light and dark army had a draw.

Our brains are hard-wired to see the patterns and sequences in the world around us. Learning to see or hear and then recall patterns and sequences means that we can extract meaning from information, language, music, and movement as well as organize the information so we can remember it more easily. As the Cheeky Monkeys develop the ability to recognize and decode patterns and sequences, their learning potential is greatly enhanced because their brains are building skills in prediction and categorization, which can be applied to any new information they encounter.

The Cheeky Monkeys children drew amazingly cute hatching baby chicks during one of their visual arts lessons. First, they observed pictures of baby chicks and identified their main physical features. They followed the steps of the drawing process diligently and enjoyed seeing how the hatching baby chicks came alive during the drawing process. At last, the children personalised their drawings according to their likes and drew unique patterns on the hatching eggs.

The Cheeky Monkeys children had a fun playdate with the chess pieces. First, one of our Cheeky Monkeys students read a chess-themed football story to his classmates. The children got expired by the story and organized a ball game. They created a colourful team and a white team based on their outfits. They used the chess-themed dice as a ball. They tossed and threw the ball among each other and tried to place it in the goal. First, the colourful team scored. They cheered greatly for their success. Then, the white team scored too. The children put their hearts into the game 100% and enjoyed every moment of the game. At last, they were only a few steps away to get chess stickers. But would the Cheeky Monkeys children be able to lead one of their blindsided classmates to the stickers?

The lead-up to Easter was a busy time full of activities for the Cheeky Monkeys. The children were involved in several Easter craft activities such as making egg decorations, baskets and a card. In mathematics, the children started learning about time. During centre time, we had several activities to do with time such as a Bingo game and Smartboard matching activity. Finally, we said goodbye to Ms Marian. We will miss you very much.

We have had an eventful few weeks leading up to the Annual Charity Fashion Show. The children and their teachers have been busy preparing the costumes, painting, cutting and glueing pieces together to make the final outfits. The Charity Fashion Show was a success and was well enjoyed by all. As a special treat, the Cheeky Monkeys got to meet a real search and rescue dog brought in by the Pest-Megyei Search and Rescue Foundation and the proceeds from the Charity Fashion Show and Art Charity Foundation were donated. The children asked questions and got to pet the lovely dog.

Through auditory discrimination activities, the Cheeky Monkeys are encouraged to develop phonological awareness. Phonological awareness involves an appreciation of the sounds, as well as the meanings of words. Instrument exploration activities such as guiro encourage children to be sensitive to the nuances of different sounds. This also helps them become sensitive to and appreciative of the subtle differences in the sounds of language as they continue to develop and fine-tune their language skills.

The Cheeky Monkeys children worked together with the Brilliant Pandas children during one of their visual arts lessons. The children painted and designed the welcome poster for the Charity Art Exhibition. They used a lot of vivid and pastel colours, painted the poster to the best of their knowledge, and at last, they highlighted the letters with black paint.

The Cheeky Monkeys children visited the Chess Palace and its residents during one of their chess lessons and enjoyed the spring weather with them in the Chess Palace garden. Queen Quenessa’s special guest, Jumbo elephant arrived at the palace as a guest and played some games with the children’s chess pieces. One of our Cheeky Monkeys children read a story about Jumbo elephant’s funny experience and the children listened to their classmate excitedly. They played the Elephant Tag game with Jumbo and everyone had a lot of fun.

March has been a busy time with preparing for the Annual Fashion Show and The Charity Art Auction. The children have been busy preparing their costumes, painting, cutting and glueing. In mathematics, we are learning about multiplication. The children worked in pairs to make multiplication stories and statements.

Circle dances usually contain a series or pattern of steps that are repeated. Patterns appear in dance, music, art, and nature as well as in math, science, and literature. Helping the Cheeky Monkeys understand patterns will give them a foundation for decoding, organizing, and predicting in all areas of life.

The Cheeky Monkeys children made funny-looking clown self-portraits during one of their visual arts lessons. First, they extended their knowledge and understanding of the carnival season and observed various clowns with their art teacher. Then, they drew makeup on their faces with colourful markers and created wigs with other colourful materials, such as colourful paper pieces and buttons.

The Cheeky Monkeys children transformed the chess pieces from 2D to 3D settings, set the pieces on the chessboards according to various requirements, and played a chess-themed memory game with them. They also extended their knowledge about back ranks and learned the advantages and disadvantages of leaving the king in the centre.

The Cheeky Monkeys children made layered hearts during one of their visual arts lessons. First, they drew concentric hearts with oil pastels, and then, they painted the gaps between the hearts with watercolour. Although the children experienced the oil pastels’ amazing water-resistant effect many times already, they always enjoy using the watercolour-resistant painting technique.

The Cheeky Monkeys children extended their knowledge and understanding of back ranks during one of their chess lessons. They learned how to give checks and checkmates using back ranks and completed various back-rank-themed chess puzzles. They also had a playdate with the chess pieces, where they learned the power of whispering. The original word never came back to the starting point. Not just that, but when they whispered a word to their neighbours, no one else knew or heard it, not even the chess pieces next to them.

The Cheeky Monkeys have been preparing for the Student-led Conferences, the children have been practising how to play a few games so they can teach them to their parents during the conference. Valentine’s Day is also upon us and we have been busy making colourful decorations to display during the assembly. Skiing is going wonderfully, almost all the children have advanced to the bigger slope. Most of the children can do ‘pizza’ with their skis now.

Inhibitory control is the ability to resist a strong inclination to do one thing and instead do what is most appropriate or needed. Instead of reacting with what is on their mind at the moment, the Cheeky Monkeys have to stop or inhibit that inclination and enact something else.

Examples are:
-Being able to think before you act.
-Being able to learn something new that conflicts with what you usually do.
-Acting appropriately when tempted to act otherwise.
-Paying attention despite distractions.

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The Cheeky Monkeys children worked on their chess workbooks and completed a few value-based chess activities during one of their chess lessons. They completed mathematics-based tasks, such as counting, adding, subtracting, grouping, and selecting according to different needs with the help of chess pieces. The children learned various chess tactics, such as which piece to capture when there are multiple choices and why.

The Cheeky Monkeys continued on with their ‘Where in the World Am I’ unit by doing a class project that consisted of circles that decreased in size depicting where we live, from the Solar System all the way down to Happy Kids. The children worked in their TRIBES groups and shared the responsibilities of completing the circles. In maths, we did an independent graphing project where children had to formulate an interview question to ask their peers and graph the results, and afterwards, they analysed the information collected.

As the Cheeky Monkeys listen to sounds made by different objects, they are using and developing their listening skills. As they think about familiar objects in new ways, they are using and developing their creative thinking skills. Finally, as they choose and use these sounds in a composition, they are exercising musical choice and strengthening their musical awareness.

The Cheeky Monkeys children started to prepare their special art pieces for our upcoming art exhibition. First, they practised drawing hearts and down and crossing the paper on washable boards. Then, they realized their best try on paper and coloured them according to their preferences.

The children had a busy first week back from the holidays. We got straight into our Unit of Inquiry with a drawing activity to see what children know about what our World looks like. They used their prior knowledge to sketch out the Earth and coloured in the land and water. In our Maths lesson, the children were learning about mass and what a pan balance is used for. The children worked in pairs to weigh different objects against each other and see what is heavier and what is lighter.

Responding to different musical cues, taking turns, and stopping one’s motion are all examples of practising inhibitory control. This important skill can be practised in this activity and in other activities we have played in class today. Inhibitory control is the ability to resist a strong inclination to do one thing and instead do what is most appropriate or needed. Instead of reacting with what is on their mind at that moment, the Cheeky Monkeys have to stop or inhibit that inclination and enact something else. Examples are, being able to think before you act; being able to learn something new that conflicts with what you usually do; and acting appropriately when tempted to act otherwise.

The Cheeky Monkeys children extended their knowledge and understanding of winter animals during their visual art lessons. First, they watched some penguin documentaries and observed the penguins’ physical features, main body parts, and habitats with their art teacher. Then, they challenged themselves and made paper penguins from colourful paper pieces.

The Cheeky Monkeys children extended their knowledge and understanding of the pawn chess piece during their chess lessons. They learned the pawn chess piece’s special ability, moving and capturing features, and value. They learned ‘The Pawn’ game and played one match collaboratively, then they played against each other and showed off their logical thinking skills.

In today’s lesson, the Cheeky Monkeys have learned that they can express their feelings through movement and identify the feelings music inspires in them. In this activity, we can explore together how major and minor tonalities can elicit different feelings and different ways to express those feelings through movement. This multi-sensory way of learning deepens your child’s understanding of their expanding music vocabulary.

The Cheeky Monkeys children made ripped paper Christmas trees during their visual arts lessons. First, they painted the paper half green and half colourful with bright colours. Then, they ripped the painted paper into smaller sizes and glued the ripped paper pieces in organized tree shapes according to their preferences. Some children made skinny and tall trees, while other children made short and wide ones. At last, they turned their creations into Christmas trees by sticking golden tree toppers to the top of the trees.

The Cheeky Monkeys children had their last chess lesson in 2022. They had the opportunity to play their favourite chess games, such as playing a chess-themed tick-tock boom game, setting the chessboard and mixing it with the cheekily game, and playing chess on the big and giant chess boards with their classmates.

The weeks leading up to Christmas have been busy in the Cheeky Monkeys class. We had our first skiing lesson, the children got used to having skis on their feet and enjoyed going up via the rope lift and skiing down. We were preparing for our Christmas show and making presents, one of which was the gingerbread man ornament. The children presented the Christmas show for their parents and it was an immense success, the children performed beautifully and remembered all the songs and their parts.

The Cheeky Monkeys have started preparations for Christmas. We decorated the tree using fun and colourful ornaments. Some children started colouring in Christmas tree ornaments to stick on the Thanksgiving Tree we made. We also welcomed the Elf on the Shelf to the class, he appears in different places around the Cheeky Monkeys classroom and watches over the children. The children wrote a letter to Santa asking him what they want for Christmas and also how they have been good this year.

Anchoring new learning with movement is the best and most efficient path to understanding. We have now experienced a rhythm pattern by moving to it, hearing it, seeing it, and playing it. Because of this multi-sensory experience, the abstract concept is more understandable and will become a building block for more learning.

The Cheeky Monkeys children made colourful Christmas trees during one of their visual arts lessons. First, they showed their creative painting skills and painted pine trees with green and brown tempera paint according to their likes. Next, they designed and decorated the trees with pompoms, colourful buttons, and shiny Christmas-themed sequins. At last, they put silver or gold tree toppers on the top of their Christmas trees.

The Cheeky Monkeys children focused on the king chess piece in their chess lessons. First, they learned important features of the king’s chess piece, such as its value, starting position, and movement abilities. Then, they mastered the meaning of check and checkmate and practised giving checks and checkmates to the king chess piece in various ways. Next, they learned to solve checks in three ways. Step away from the check, ‘block’ the check with another piece, or capture the piece that caused the check. At last, the children played an ‘open chess game’ where they mastered the main rules of chess and discussed openly the possible solutions with each other.

The Cheeky Monkeys were busy on their Unit of Inquiry about Community, which is coming to a close. We explored what a community should have and the children paired up to build their own community with streets, buildings and parks. After that, we talked a little about mapping and the children drew the classroom from their perspective. In maths, we looked at the four basic shapes and the children did some centre activities with the different shapes.

Today the Cheeky Monkeys spent time learning about these two musical symbols that represent one played beat and one silent beat. Putting these symbols together in different sequences gives us rhythm patterns. We moved, played, and read this pattern: ta ta ta (rest). Learning to create and play sequences using symbols is a beginning step in learning to read music. Learning to read those sequences is also good practice for learning to read words and sentences. The benefits of experience are that these patterns are experienced kinesthetically, aurally, and visually. The multi-sensory approach aids comprehension and internalization.

The Cheeky Monkeys children extended their knowledge about our upcoming Thanksgiving Assembly and made some Thanksgiving-themed decorations during one of their visual arts lessons. They coloured rolls and semi-circles with oil pastels, cut the semi-circles out on their outlines with scissors, glued the turkey animal’s body parts together, and glued beaks, wattles, eyes, and feathers according to their preferences.

The Cheeky Monkeys children have focused on the bishop chess piece during their chess lessons. They learned interesting facts about the bishop chess piece, such as that the bishop is a twin piece, its value is three, and it moves on diagonals, one bishop on black diagonals and another on white diagonals. They also practised how to move the bishop chess pieces on the chessboard and how to capture other chess pieces from the opponent’s team with them. They completed bishop-themed tasks in their workbooks and became masters of using the bishop chess pieces in chess wisely.

The Cheeky Monkeys have been learning about the places in our community and about maps in our Unit of Inquiry. The teacher used Google Earth to show the children where Budapest is and we located Happy Kids on the map by typing the address in the search bar. The children learnt how to navigate on the tablet by moving up and down the street, zooming in and out and moving the screen around. The children then located their house on the map and they were encouraged to learn their address.

The Cheeky Monkeys imitated the rain and wind sounds with rhythm sticks and scarves. Ample opportunity for practice of this kind along with the affirmation and enthusiasm nurtures the development of the children’s gross motor skills and coordination.

The Cheeky Monkeys children made pumpkin magazine collages in one of their visual art lessons. First, they collected pumpkin-coloured magazine paper pieces from magazines. Then, they ripped the selected paper pieces into smaller sizes and glued them on their paper bases. They carefully overlapped the pieces and formed smooth outlines for their pumpkin artwork. Of course, they did not forget to add some stems to their pumpkins. Their pumpkin artwork is just perfect in every way.

The Cheeky Monkeys children went to the Chess Playground and had a lesson with Sturdy Rook. First, the children played a tick-tock boom game with the chess dice. Then, we nominated a few children to be rook chess pieces and move like one on the chessboard. Then, we learned about the rook chess piece’s value, movement features, capturing abilities, starting positions, and many other important features with the help of Sturdy Rook.

The last two weeks were very eventful in the Cheeky Monkeys. The children did an activity last week that promoted working together, this activity consisted of partners drawing together on paper using the same crayon. They cannot talk and have to communicate non-verbally, through their hand movements and body language. Music was played which helped to create the mood and atmosphere. The children noticed at the end that there was a natural leader and follower between the pairs. The children were also busy preparing for Harvest and one of the crafts was a cutout of a farmer. We had Rolli Polli for the first time this year and it was a blast. The children had a ton of fun in the space and got to enjoy the new equipment.

In our classes, we teach the activities so that the Cheeky Monkeys can take in information through multiple senses. We call this multisensory learning. Multisensory learning is a powerful teaching tool because it fosters resilient learning and supports the different learning styles of children in our class. This activity involves listening, processing, labelling, and movement.

When we use multiple senses we are able to provide many opportunities to strengthen learning and make it more permanent.

The Cheeky Monkeys children have been learning about harvest season and harvestable fruit and vegetables. During one of their visual art lessons, they made a harvest basket full of fruit and vegetables. First, we observed some pictures of the harvest season, and some harvestable fruits and vegetables and identified their main physical features with the children. Then, they drew yummy fruit and vegetables, cut them out on their outlines, and glued them on the harvest basket. In the end, the Cheeky Monkeys left the art room with a harvest basket full of yummy fruit and vegetables. Amazing teamwork!

The Cheeky Monkeys children tested their chess knowledge during one of their chess lessons. First, they paired up with their classmates and sat down in front of a chess set. Then, they put the chess pieces in their starting positions. Next, they placed chess pieces where our chess teacher told them to, such as: “Put a black rook on A5.” After, the children copied various chess setups from the board to prove they can read 2D chess positions and can transform them into 3D chess positions with their chess sets. At last, they played chess with each other, but of course, they did not forget one of the most important rules; shake hands before the game with your opponent and wish them good luck.

The Cheeky Monkeys children had their first chess lesson with our chess teacher. First, they played the Guess Who? game with the chess pieces. The chosen child had to ask questions from the children about the chess piece that stood on its head to find out which one it is. Questions that were answerable with yes or no words were valid only. Then, we flew on the magical chess rug to the Chess Palace and listened to a story about chess, and reviewed some chess knowledge with the children. At last, we played a chess-themed True or False game with each other. If a statement was false, they had to hug each other around the shoulders, but if a statement was true, they had to touch each other’s smart heads. The children giggled a lot during the game and of course, they did not let themselves be tricked.

The Cheeky Monkey children have been learning how to work together in their TRIBE group by doing a Likes and Dislikes activity. The group had to share their interests with their group and see who also shared the same. They compared what they liked together and what they did not like and made a poster of all their favourite things. This activity created a sense of community among their group and also brought them together through their shared interests. In our maths curriculum, the children learnt about number bonds and are now moving on to addition with 10. They are learning to count from a given number using marbles in a cup and then adding more. And last, we enjoyed our first pony riding this past week.

When learning to sing on pitch, each child takes in the information and processes it differently. Our lessons are carefully crafted to give the kinesthetic, auditory, and visual learners opportunities to experience the lesson through their strongest learning styles. Hearing the two pitches sung, singing the pitches themselves, associating the two pitches with a familiar song, and moving their hands up and down while they sing are perfect examples of how one activity reaches each learning style. When Cheeky Monkeys experience success through their dominant learning style, they gain confidence and learning is strengthened and accelerated.

The Cheeky Monkeys have had an eventful two weeks since school started. The children enjoyed seeing all their friends after the summer and were busy playing in their new classroom and garden. We celebrated International Day of Charity—the children learned about what charity means and also started on their Big Draw project for charity. We also had International Literacy Day, the children brought in their favourite books to present and shared them with their class. Lastly, we got started on our maths curriculum and recapped numbers to 10 for the first unit.