This week we homed in on the planets in our study of the Story of Everything. The first thing we looked at was the solar system. I popped a small model of the solar system in the middle of our circle time each day and asked our soon-to-be space consultants what they thought it was. The immediate and universal response was ‘planets’! So far so good.

Hmm a little trick question for those who think on their feet. What about this big yellow one one in the middle? Is it a planet? They all eyed me with suspicion and slight derision and certainly incredulity ‘No! Ha ha ha of course not! Its the sun!’ I asked the question, ‘Isn’t the sun a planet?!’ ‘No!’ (subtext: Fawzia, have you learned nothing?!’) ‘The sun is a star!’ Awesome!

Let’s count the planets. We did. 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8. Now let’s divide them into two groups – our rocky ‘terrestrial’ planets and our gas giants. At this point with 4 planets on one side of the sun and 4 planets on the other side a child observed ‘it looks like a spider.’

Now let’s name and think of what each of these planets are like by being space explorers. And unknowingly to start with we ventured on a path of problem solving.

Mercury –we all swayed and ducked because of the flying meteorites crashing into the planet. One child labelled them ‘boulders’ and it stuck. Another said if she was on Mercury she would get a tent which would protect her from the boulders. We might all just join you. I commented, it would  be a very strong tent.

Venus – we all experienced extreme heat on our travels to this planet and mopped our brows profusely as the sweat gushed out! All because of those pesky enduring clouds keeping the heat trapped in. ‘We could bring fans to keep us cool’ came a suggestion. ‘Good idea!’

Earth – the best! One child observed, ‘It is not too hot and not too cold’. We identified we can breathe the air and drink the water and live on the land. How awesome is the earth?! No need to problem solve with this one as it’s just right. Hooray!

Mars – keep your head down as there is red dust flying everywhere. What can we do?! ‘Shut your eyes!’ ‘Wear swimming goggles!’ Sorted.

Jupiter – the biggest gas giant in the universe! So big it has 60 moons! Would that be a bit confusing to open your window and see 60 moons? Or would it be exciting?! ‘It will be funny’. But! We couldn’t land in Jupiter – or any other gas giants as there is no land – just gas (like air). ‘We will have to stay in our spaceship.’ The logical thing to do!

Saturn – the rings are made from ice and rocks flying around. Would we like to whizz round in the rings? ‘No no no!’ Very emphatic. How do we get out of this one? I loved the suggestion that emerged – ‘We could follow the penguins and stay with them.’ Good idea! The penguins would be the key to safety! ‘Where would we end up I wonder?! Where do penguins live?’ A boy answered, ‘Antarctica!’.

Uranus – Major problems with this planet because it spins on its side. How can we combat this?! In short – we can’t! But we can be jolly and sing ‘Uranus on the bus spins round and round round and round round and round, Uranus on the bus spins round and round all day long.’ So that’s what we did.

Neptune – the furthest away and the coldest. Hmm.. ‘What to do on a day trip?’ ‘Wear a very woolly coat and hats, gloves and a scarf’. Problem solved!

So there lies a handy little guide of top tips if you, or anyone you know, wants to venture from Earth and visit the other planets in our solar system! Good luck! May the force be with you!

Maria Montessori spoke about ‘the Absorbent Mind’ as naturally as we all talk about our every day lives.

It is a concept that lies at the base and heart of the way children (and for that matter adults) learn. Montessori observed from the moment every child is born they have the capacity to absorb and learn from their surroundings; this happens first unconsciously and then consciously. Every child has the innate ability to comprehend, make sense of their world acquiring skills and knowledge. 

From a modern day perspective the pressure for children, at an increasingly early age, is to aspire to a perceived ‘academia’ (for little ones this is often translated into a fixation on learning numbers, letters and sounds). In aiming for such results, this can often be accompanied in the loss of value of the nature of the absorbent mind; or to put it another way – the problem with adults imposing a directed structure of learning on children results in a compromise and interference of the absorbent mind and subsequently children can miss out.

Having lived the Montessori method now since our eldest daughter was a toddler (she is now approaching 20) I can say with certainty that my belief in the correctness of the ‘absorbent mind’ is emphatic. 

The Montessori nursery provides all that is needed for positive, happy and successful learners. Montessori’s genius ensured that all the milestones and learning concepts for children could be achieved by placing them in an ‘enriched’ setting. The shelves in a Montessori nursery are laden with materials that are aesthetically pleasing and entice the children to play with them, at their own will and direction, and figure them out. And once they are satisfied in their understanding of how something works they move on to the next activity or they continue with the same materials organising and working with them in a more complex way. 

I could go on like the nerd that I am about this but I will refrain! 

The urge to make me write this was sparked by one of our four year olds who drew a fantastic picture of the staff team on the white board. What struck me was multi fold and I will keep it brief! First the detail of all the staff – I had curly hair, Lesley had sparkly earrings, Donna had a bun and so on. Second, that there was a process of elimination that went on – who first, who next, and who was there still to draw? Third, the skills and precision of her mark making. Fourth – the joy which the child got from doing it and also the joy that all felt in seeing it. And lastly and most importantly – that the child had chosen to do this on her own. She was creative, precise, imaginative and valued her own ability and achievement. The child has been at the nursery since the age of two (she is now  four) and in that time, like all the other children, she has gently and happily gone from one activity to another, exploring, discovering, enjoying and learning. 

Suffice to say here was the absorbent mind showing itself in all its wonderful glory! 

On Monday morning one of the children came and took me by the hand and said, ‘Come and listen to my story.’ And so I was lead by her to her work. She had laid out some of the picture cards from ‘The Slug in a Jug’ game in a line. This I discovered was the sequence to her story. She began to tell me her story, ‘The cat put on a hat because it was sunny and chased the bee with the fan and landed on the pie. The man with the tie was cross and looked like a frog...’ She carried on inventively and at times I chipped in to help her in moments of her pausing to link the pictures together and we soon entered a negotiation of events based on how credible it all sounded and whether it all fitted together. The outcome was delightful and fun, and soon other children joined us and also wanted to take part in making up a story based on the pictures. There followed group ideas, negotiations, and compromises and different stories around the same pictures.

Following on in circle time we read one of my favourite books ‘The Story of Everything’ by Neal Layton (remember he also wrote ‘The Tree’ which featured in a blog post a few weeks ago – Neal is a great story teller!). The Story of Everything is exactly as it sounds. The children were taken through the story of the beginnings of our Universe, starting with ‘A very long long time ago there was nothing’ ... and then came the Big Bang, followed by the formation of planets and stars (we discovered the sun is our nearest star). They learned about first life in the oceans, followed by evolution of life onto land, the thought about the timespan of the dinosaurs who were wiped out by the biggest meteorite. We read how that had given way to the smaller mammals to thrive and then from apes evolved humans. We delved into the world of human resilience as they survived the Ice Age wearing the furs from woolly mammoths and lived in caves and dens. As time passed they made houses first in villages and lived on farms and later moved to cities. And the cities grew and the buildings got bigger and humans spread themselves all over the planet. The last page poses the question ‘what will happen next in the story of everything?’ Hmm... an interesting and relevant question. Although I think we can address climate change and the need to be eco warriors at another circle time.

I love stories. I love the joy of hearing stories, reading stories and discovering stories. Be it fiction or historical. This lead me to do a bit of reading around the value of stories particularly for children. There is a lot out there! But suffice to say stories, as we innately know, are immensely good for the soul. They are the life force for imaginations, for developing empathy, for connecting people. We share stories, we learn through stories and our own lives are a collection of stories.

In my reading I came across these wise words from Albert Einstein; ‘If you want your children to be smart, tell them stories. If you want them to be brilliant, tell them more stories.’
The next part of the Story Of Everything lies in their brilliance and imagination.

新年快乐 (xīn nián kuài lè).

Happy Chinese Rat Year to one and all!

Circle time and the classroom this week has been all about Chinese New Year. We have read the story of the 12 animals lining up to race across the river. The winner – the rat – had the 1st year named after it (even though he jumped on the Ox’s behind, ran up his back and jumped onto the river from the Ox’s head. Cheating?! Or genius?!). 

We decorated the classroom with seven lanterns (a coincidently lucky number in China), we made our own lanterns and masks, and looked at and talked about pictures of Chinese New Year Celebrations. We agreed that wherever you are and whoever you are, everyone can join in the fun of celebrating Chinese New Year. 

One girl had brought in a Barbie from home. She was carrying her around in a carrier and I asked if Barbie was going to celebrate Chinese New Year. The girl replied she wasn’t sure if Barbie likes to celebrate the Chinese New Year. ‘Well how old is Barbie? Has she been to any other new year celebrations?’ I asked. The answer was surprising; ‘Barbie is 110.’ Wow! Barbie is doing really well for 110. She must have been to plenty of celebrations. Then the girl told me ‘Barbie is young.’ At this point I scrunched up my face. 'How can she be young at 110? Are the life spans of Barbies incredibly long?!' The girl explained and put me out of my quandary. She is young because I have to look after her and dress her and wipe her bottom.’ The penny dropped. Barbie – although looking remarkably good for her age – was actually in receipt of social care. This is how delightfully and brilliantly a conversation can veer off on a tangent – but we came back full circle. ‘So really then Barbie must have had a lot of birthday parties.’ ‘Yes I think she was born in the year of the pig.’ ‘It was the year of the pig last year! I’ll bet she must have celebrated Chinese New Year at some point.’ The girl nodded ‘Yes I think so too.’

It is always a real treat when a child recalls a topic or a story a significant amount of time after the initial introduction. This happened on Wednesday when one of the children asked if I could be Guy Fawkes. I think the memory was triggered as we had been discussing kings and queens and the wearing of crowns.

It was the mention of the crown I believe which started the ball rolling. One of the children immediately ran and got the candle (which had been our gunpowder prop) and asked if she could be King James and I could be that ‘bad man’ trying to blow him up and ‘can so and so be the police that caught you.’ I thought that was a marvellous idea and was more than happy to oblige to be the ‘bad’ Guy Fawkes. 

In November we had spent a week acting out the story of bonfire night. We positioned King James I wearing his crown on his throne and had two men – Guy Fawkes and Robert Catesby (who it turns out actually masterminded the whole plot) sneak in quietly to the Houses of Parliament tiptoeing their way to hide behind the throne. They were discovered by the police (modern terminology for the King’s guards who had had a tip off!) and dragged to gaol. We stopped it there and omitted the gory fate of the schemers! 

So last Wednesday we revisited this little scenario and joyously the children adapted it again and again to include more and more characters. King James was joined on his throne by princess Elsa (there ended up being about three or four Elsas at any one time) and princess Anna (from Disney’s Frozen), Rapunzel (from Disney’s Tangled), and Sleeping Beauty – there were two of those (again a signpost to Disney). The boys got involved too and represented; two were King James, one wanted to be Olaf (the snowman from Frozen) and one didn’t care who he was as long as he was in mortal danger! 

As the re-enactments continued, Fawkes' and Catesby’s rabble grew as did the police throng. 

Whilst hiding behind the royals and Olaf I asked a member of staff to get the camera and she quipped ‘to show how Guy Fawkes nearly blew up the Disney Princesses?!’ I smiled; reinvention is a wonderful thing. And they still all lived happily ever after! :-) 

We have been reading ‘The tree’ this week by Neal Layton. This has been partly brought on by laying the context down for the topic of The Story of Everything (based on  a book by Neal Layton – spot the fan!) where we will spend the best part of the term digesting and discussing the life of our universe with a focus on our very own planet. 

With the current state of our planet, the fires consuming Australia, and David Attenborough and Greta Thunberg voicing their concerns about the changing climate, it seems like a good idea to jump on the bandwagon and start a discussion with the kids. 

‘The tree’ is a gorgeously simple book about a tree which stands serenely whilst effortlessly providing  a home for different animals. A couple want to move onto the land and plan to cut down the tree to make way for a grand home for themselves. However they soon realise the impact on the animals and so change their plans, and instead build a tree house. 

The children loved the book. They all looked really concerned when the birds nest fell out of the tree when the couple initially tried to cut the tree down. At this point I asked what would they do. They all answered with the aim of conserving the tree; ‘I would find another place to build a house’. 'I would use bricks to build my house’ said another who thought that the tree was being cut down to provide wood to make the house. ‘I would live in a tent’. ‘I would go back to my old house’. Naturally the children were relieved and happy with the ending of sharing the tree. 

I asked one of the children later, 'which is your favourite picture in the book?' The girl immediately turned to the last page; ‘this one because they are all living together. I like the tree house.’ So I asked ‘Would you like to live in a tree house like that?’ She was quick to reply, ‘No, because I don’t like big ladders.’ 

Happy New Year to all as we enter into 2020!! 

As we are about to start the new term, I have been taking yet another look at the work,  philosophy and wisdom of Maria Montessori. I came across these insightful words of hers: 

'If education is protection to life, you will realise that it is necessary that education accompany life during its whole course.’

I appreciate this truth and realise that as time marches on our absorption of learning is not finite. My eldest daughter (19 years old) reminded me of this during the holidays when I tried to organise her social life and she was having none of it! Lesson in life about letting go!

Much like the tower in the picture our lessons in life are a series of building blocks which can at times collapse under the strain of thinking we know it all (picture 2)! The children don’t pretend to have all the answers as they are ambassadors for imagination and love discovering, learning and absorbing all the lessons that life has to offer. 

We naturally see a tower in the pictures but when I asked the children what they saw the answers were diverse and brilliant. They saw a person, a plant, a tooth, a rainbow and best of all some saw simply a process; a process of balance, weight, size, shape and wonder and fun – especially when it toppled over. What could be more joyful?!

So here’s to continuous discovery and learning! 

Happy 2020! 

During the Christmas of 1747 in Herrnhaag, Germany, a young bishop called Johannes de Watteville made the first Christingles from candles wrapped in red ribbons. He gave them to the children to celebrate the birth of a child who brought light into the world.

Over the years the Christingle has evolved keeping the red ribbon and the candle but adding the orange, cloves and sometimes different fruit.

Our children enjoyed making their Christingles and happily took them home. Some wanted to light them and others simply wanted to eat the orange. It made me reflect upon the original purpose of the Christingle: that children are a joy and all bring happiness, light, hope and love.

Wishing all children everywhere a happy holiday.

The past week we delved deeper into the world and lifestyle of Neanderthals. We had discussed what they made their paint from last week and this week decided to think about other aspects of Neanderthal life.
 
So! We looked at where in the world they lived. Out came the continents puzzle map and we identified all the continents and placed a man from our ‘m’ sound bag in Europe. Also in our sound bad was a ‘monkey’ and a ‘mermaid’. We debated if the Neanderthals came into contact with those and the children rationalised that the mermaid would ‘definitely not’ be found on land and anyway as one said ‘but Fawzia they are pretend’, and as for the monkey, ‘perhaps not as they like it hot’ and we had already had talked about Neanderthals living in the Ice Age.

In the pages of this wonderful book we learned that Neanderthals were actually quite clever: they made fire. One child asked ‘how’ so we looked it up in the book and found out they made sparks from striking flint or they rubbed wood; the Neanderthals made tents – again another child asked ‘how’? so we looked it up in the book and found out they used animal hides – they hunted. And again a child questioned ‘but what did they hunt with?’ so we looked it up in the book and found pictures of different types of blades they made from flint and bones. And we all concluded Neanderthals were actually pretty smart people. Funnily enough last night on TV there was a programme all about Neanderthals and it concluded what the children had thought, that Neanderthals were intelligent, cognitive and on the money!

In baking we prepared healthy snacks of roasted vegetables with garlic and herbs – rosemary and thyme plucked from the nursery garden. The children were busy, smashing garlic, plucking rosemary and chopping peppers, tomatoes and florets of broccoli. One girl said that we could find more mushrooms in the Gruffalo’s forest which was handy as we nearly ran out!

And finally! On a summery walk to the park Archie (our border collie) had fun chilling out with the children! 

This week we are painting like Egyptians! 

This past week, before we put our feet up and enjoyed the long sunny weekend, we went back in time, WAY BACK! About 40,000 years or so...

We learned about people – we named them Neanderthals (one boy insisted on calling them Neanderthals) that used to stride the Earth. They lived in caves and they hunted animals, and they painted. They painted with berries and animal fat. ‘What’s fat?’ one of the children asked. Hmmm... without wanting to fat shame myself, I ventured, ‘We all have fat – humans and animals – to keep us warm. And we have muscles which help us move’. The children and I then patted and felt our arms, legs and tummies. ‘Where were the muscles in our arms?’ We flexed our arms and found biceps and triceps, ‘And what were they hidden beneath?’ I asked. Silence and then, ‘Fat?’ suggested a girl. ‘Yes! We have layers of fat beneath our skin. They help to keep us warm’ I told them. ‘And do they help to protect us when we fall?’ a boy asked. 
‘They certainly do!’

And after that little discussion we set about making Neanderthal paints. Using berries, butter (I couldn’t source animal fat and some of us are vegetarian) and a mortar and pestle. The children loved getting stuck in! We all got wet, greasy and messy!