Situated in central Gillitts, Fun Kids is Upper Highway’s hive for modern moms specialising in toddler play based, educational classes focusing on early childhood developmental skills such as fine motor skills, gross motor skills, music, arts and crafts, song and rhyme, sensory play and a time for moms to spend quality time with their little ones.
Fun Kids offers stimulating, interactive classes for mums and tots aged 1 years old to 3 years old.
In each class we cover a range of age appropriate themes and topics that your child will experience in their little world. We explore these exciting themes through sensory and tactile play, music, arts and craft, gross and fine motor activities, as well as social and emotional skills to ensure the early childhood developmental milestones are met.
The lesson will be 90 minutes long with 45-60 minutes of indoor activities and 30-45minutes of structured outdoor play.
During this time mums can socialise and enjoy refreshments while their little one is engaged and active during stimulating free play.
Classes are a wonderful meeting place for mothers to get to know fellow moms and babes in their community, as well as, make new friends.
The lessons will run according to School Terms with one lesson a week for each age group.
Fun with Music (18 months – 3 years)
Fridays will involve a new class filled with music and dancing in Term 1. Feel free to double up on this class as an extra! This class will entail 45 minutes of music, dance, instruments and an exciting story according to the weekly theme. The remainder of the 90 minutes will be outdoors, building social skills and muscular development. A musical instrument will be made in each class, out of recyclable materials to be taken home, as a souvenir from your morning.
Our Programme
This programme has been designed by a qualified Educator with:
* Bachelor of Education Degree
* Remedial Qualifications
* First Aid & CPR Certificates (Updated)
* Experience (10 + years in the field)
* Fellow mom of a toddler
12 to 18 months
18 to 24 months
2 to 3 years
Each term we work out exactly how many weeks are in that term and exclude the public holidays to ensure you only pay for classes you will be at.
Please email us (info@funkids.co.za) for current term prices.
I am a born and bred, Upper Highway Resident. I went to Kloof High School ,studied at Edgewood College in Pinetown and have lived in the area my whole life.
I am a qualified teacher with a degree in Early Childhood Development and remedial qualifications. I taught both grade 1 and 2 at Penzance Primary for almost 8 years before I went on maternity leave.
I married Brendon Funnell in 2010 and in 2016 we welcomed our beautiful baby girl, Frankie into the world. A baby we waited 5 long years for.
Upon finishing my maternity leave in January 2017, I realized that I just wanted to be a “stay at home” mom and cherish the fleeting time I had with a baby. So my hubby allowed me to hand in my resignation and be 100% dedicated to the well-being of our daughter.
At the beginning of 2018, I started getting “itchy feet”. I was missing teaching but I was also not ready to go back into a full time teaching position. And so, the idea of Fun Kids started developing. My sister in law and I started planning, typing out lessons, making music play lists, crafting away and we just knew we had to pursue this idea of toddler classes.
Luckily my daughter was ready to start school at 18 months old and I was ready to start working again… everything was in our favour.
Fun Kids started in May 2018, we started off very slowly, building a name and a brand and building relationships in the community. We were based at Funnell Cars on Old Main Road.
As the year moved on, Fun Kids just grew with every month, it was quite amazing to see.
In September, Lauren, stepped out of the business as she just felt she was missing out on valuable time with her young son, Sebastian.
In January 2019, we moved Fun Kids to my home. And it has been the best decision for us as I can now work from home and my classes have access to our beautiful playground.
I am absolutely passionate about teaching and learning. When I taught grade 1, I developed such a passion for reading And books. I was just blown away that in 10 short months, you can teach a child to read and write.
Now that I am teaching toddlers daily, I am totally intrigued by the way they learn with their senses. I love making activities with each theme. I love seeing them being used and enjoyed. And I love seeing the toddlers so pleased with themselves for mastering threading or colour sorting.
I am a firm believer in education and I believe that learning and parent involvement go hand in hand. So for me, I get to combine this philosophy in my toddler and parent classes.
I have so many ideas and plans for Fun Kids but with a toddler myself, I have to dedicate my non-working hours to her. As she gets older, I will certainly be adding more classes and more ideas into the mix but for now, I must read as many books as I can to her while she still wants to listen, push her on the swing and build play dough structures in my free time because one day, I will truly miss these moments.
