At Monkey Puzzle Irthlingborough, each room is individually appointed to reflect the specific requirements, of each age group. On the whole, we prefer to move the children between the rooms based on their individual development rather than age alone.

Green Room – Baby Room
(Approx 3-18 months)

Our mobile and non-mobile babies benefit from the large, bright, open plan rooms, well equipped with the latest in sensory equipment to test their senses and encourage development.

In our Green Baby room, we provide a wide range of sensory toys to explore such as black and white equipment, touchy feely boards, books and toys.

Fun and messy activities provide new experiences and promote the use of different senses. We have a range of sensory play and messy experiences throughout the day. We do love to get messy in our Green Room.
We have a large open area to allow children to become more mobile by rolling, crawling, pulling themselves to stand and walking for physical development.

In order to encourage your baby’s curiosity and sense of exploration we have a heuristic area to help children experience such natural objects as wood, metal, pine cones and corks. This is also available in the way of our separate sensory room.

We also have a dedicated ‘Kitchenette’ area to cater for our littlest people’s tummies. At meal times in our Green Room we encourage older babies to become more independent and we work alongside parents to establish weaning stages.

As babies spend a lot of time sleeping at this early age, we provide a separate quiet room. We have amazing sleep pods, which our littlest people find really comforting to sleep and relax in. We constantly monitor the temperature to ensure the babies are comfortable, we monitor the sleeping children, at all times. As a golden rule, there will never be more than three babies to any one member of staff so you can be assured that your little one will get the essential attention they need at this stage in their life. Your child’s key person will take care of all your child’s personal needs whenever possible.

The room is very well appointed with outstanding levels of equipment, allowing your child to discover at their individual level of understanding.

The ‘Story Corner’ where our older babies can sit in a group and listen to stories. A sand and water play area, a construction area to develop coordination and a messy play area for painting and generally getting rather messy. Our Green Room also have supervised access to our fantastic gardens, Multi-Sensory Room and large grounds.

Orange Room – Tweenies Room
(18-30 months)

When your child moves up a stage, their day is structured around their changing interests, being actively encouraged with a wide range of different activities on offer, while being encouraged to make choices about what they want to play with. Our nursery equipment has been carefully selected, allowing your child to discover at their individual level of understanding.

The Orange Room is designed to help Tweenies to start learning how to become independent. It is full of sensory toys, texture and plenty of new opportunities for the Tweenies to engage and explore! In the early stages of the Tweenies development they are mostly exploring the world around them, so it is important that they experience a range of material, objects and sounds.

The ‘Story Corner’ where children can sit in a group and listen to stories, wet /dry play area, role-play area, creative/arts area and plenty of table top space for group activities, a construction area to develop coordination and a messy play area for getting mucky, a cosy teepee for relaxing and a dedicated sleeping area for when they need to recharge.

In this room, Tweenies also begin to learn how to feed themselves using utensils with support and encouragement from staff. Children and staff sit together at this time learning the social skills surrounding a family meal time.

We operate a 1:3 ratio in the Orange Room for children aged under 2 years and a 1:4 ratio for those aged 2 and over.

We have supervised access to our fantastic garden, Multi-Sensory Room and the large grounds. We often go on walks to explore the natural environment and look out for mini beasts.

Pink Room – Toddler Room
(2.5 – 3.5 years)

The Pink room, benefits from a number of dedicated areas which promote the EYFS focusing on the primary area’s of the ‘Early Years Foundation Stage’ framework and encourages learning through play and exploration.

In our Pink room we like to offer a wide range of sensory based activities, with lots of opportunity to develop our 2-3’s independence and self-selection skills. There are various dedicated areas offering different activities throughout the day. There is a dedicated reading and group time area where Pink Room children have their circle times, focusing on different topics each week.

We have a fantastic home corner, where we like to use real life food and pagaging where possible and a large role play section. We have a lovely small world area, Music area, an amazing indoor slide/ climbing frame, wet and dry messy play areas (every day), focus activity area and a malleable messy play area.

As this is the time when the majority of children start ‘toilet training’, the Pink room is equipped with brightly decorated children’s toilets, encouraging independence as well as a nappy changing area.

Blue Room – Pre School
(3.5 years – Rising 5 years)

Pre School children follow the ‘Early Years Foundation Stage’. We support them and prepare them for their eventual move to Big school. This Room has a more settled routine, with children working in small key groups throughout the day. Through our observations of children learning, through their play, we are able to introduce adult led activities that follow the interest of individual children, linking them to the seven areas of learning:

• communication and language
• physical development
• personal social and emotional development
• literacy
• mathematics
• understanding of the world
• expressive arts and design

Our Blue Room children still benefit from a wide range of sensory based play experiences, having wet, dry, malleable and art based activities to choose from throughout the day. The children have open access to the garden every day (free flow) from their room and complete a lot of their daily activities outside through choice. The garden also reflects the areas of learning and allows problem solving on a grander scale. Our Pre-School benefits from our amazing Rain-forest room where our Pre-Schoolers enjoy different small group activities like their Story of the week, investigation area, finger gym and practice early phonics. Our blue group also access our amazing multi sensory room and pet corners to further their learning experiences.

We have Spanish lessons from a trained Early Years teacher on a Thursday. We are in regular contact with our local schools and know what they are expecting when children start school. We work closely with our children to gently introduce them to the ‘pre-school’ experience, in preparation for big school. In this room there is a strong focus on independence, with children always encouraged to try things first and ask for help if they need it.

All our children get the opportunity to go on local educational trips, and whether it be to the local shops or places of interest we always risk assess our outings and ensure that ratios are adhered to. We also invite a range of local emergency services and professions to come in and talk to the children about topics from safety awareness to working as a vet, and how to use the phone in an emergency.

Garden & Outdoor Spaces

We have an amazing purpose built playground which caters for all of the EYFS learning areas in an outdoor space. We have amazing impact flooring, a mud kitchen, a bug house, gutter wall, water wall, music wall a large variety of activities such as large Lego, loose parts, massive purpose build sandpit and a lovely climbing frame.

Just outside of the nursery, but still in the business centre grounds, we have use of the amazing top field. This is a large, enclosed grass field that we love to visit for ball games, picnics and just a general run around. Above this are the ‘woods’, a lovely tree line into private allotments which we have a space we are working to develop.

Multi Sensory Room

We have an amazing multi sensory room. This room is used by all the different age groups throughout the day. We also use this space for any of our fantastic outside extra curricular visitors who come in like baby Yoga or our Spanish teacher. In our multi sensory room we have a huge range of awesome equipment. We have a ball pit with steps, a slide and ball mover/ shooter. We have a relaxing fiber-optic tunnel, infinity tunnel (which is sound operated), bubble tube with fiber-optic strings and a wireless cube controller, projectors, moving fairy lights, musical squares and an amazing light table. There are a huge range of activities that take place in this room to enhance

If you would like to come in for a visit, please get in touch.