We have had a wonderful couple of weeks starting to look at the Digestive system. So here I am going to catch up on myself by rolling two weeks into one blog. Apologies that this will be a longer one than you are used to. 

As time moves, and lockdown continues, we are gradually adapting and becoming more experienced at presenting our online circles in a way that engages the children fully by getting them involved and piquing their desire to learn and absorb. It has been very rewarding to be part of this different journey with all of them online.

In the nursery the children are happy to be observers of an activity, dipping in to give hands-on help, answer questions and then subsequently have a go by at that same activity after circle as part of the classroom work cycle. Observation and interaction are important during the circle times as it enables the imagination to spark, questions to be answered and allows for our lovely children to become critical thinkers. In doing so they learn and also increase their understanding through a process of addressing concrete concepts, breaking them down, thinking of answers to questions and also asking questions themselves. Above all what continues to hold true, whether online or present together, is engagement and practical involvement are the keys to happy learning! 

So onto the Digestive System. This was particularly chosen to be able to replicate at home from gathering simple materials found around the house.

In the first week I marked up a T-shirt drawing the digestive system onto it. My 15 year old daughter then kindly offered to paint it and label it and also added a finishing touch which went down well with all of us who never grow out of toilet humour!

Each morning I wear the T-shirt each as Tim and I greet the children, say our ‘Good Morning!’ and then begin circle time. We started the digestive system topic with looking at the T-shirt and considering an overview of the journey of food through the body and also asked the significant question ‘why is food so important?’ Here we had help from Mummy and Daddy Pig (of Peppa Pig’s family’). Our same 15 year old daughter had kept all her Peppa Pig toys and the remote control car has come in very handy for this one. The children were able to liken the petrol used to make the car drive to food giving us energy. They were particularly delighted when I used my banana petrol pump to fill the car with fuel. ‘Glug, glug, glug’ was the sound I made as the banana pump filled up the car with petrol. And imagine their delight when the car drove off! It was great seeing their faces enjoy the car speed off and delight in the equally bad driving (as Tim, out of sight of the screen, struggled to get to grips with the steering!). I asked the children if Daddy Pig needed driving lessons and all the children were unmuted and shouted ‘Yes!’.

The children were easily able to liken the car’s petrol to the food that we eat. We agreed food gives us energy to breathe (we took some deep breaths together), to move (we shook our hands, blinked our eyes, jumped up and down) and grow. I was really thrilled to see some of the children had made their own digestive system T-shirts and are really embracing and enjoying their home learning! 

This last week has seen the children move on into considering what happens in the mouth. It has been great as we have been really able to step up the involvement at home. At this point a big thank you to all the lovely parents who have helped to make this happen. I tasked all the children if they were able to bring to circle a banana (or other soft food) a blunt knife (suitable for children), a masher, a spoon and some water. I had some extra bits but the children were asked to bring those basics. And they did with enthusiasm and joy! It has been fantastic as this week we have simulated the start of digestion the mouth!  We considered that the three important components in the mouth to break down food are the teeth, the tongue and saliva. The children looked onscreen at our model of the teeth and identified that the front teeth (incisors) were sharp like our knives and these are used to bite food. So we all sliced our bananas using our knives. The teeth further back were flat (molars) and these are used for chewing and mashing up food. So we all mashed up our bananas with the masher. The tongue was used to move food around the mouth. So we all used our spoons to stir the banana. And finally we needed saliva to make the food wet to help break it down even more making it soft and slippery to slide down our oesophagus. So the children and I all poured water for saliva (I added oil for mucus too) onto our bananas. From that point I looked up and all the children were busy cutting, mashing, stirring, and adding water. And the lovely thing was they all held their food ‘bolus’ up to their screens to show their results. I provided a running commentary for each of the children on the state of their boluses and what stage of preparation they were at as some were taking time over slicing their banana, some were racing ahead and busy with the mashing and others had really gone to town with plenty of saliva!

Really good fun and one mum posted a picture of the banana cake she made after our united demonstration of what happens to food in the mouth! 

So plenty of fun to be had, lots of learning absorbed and a thriving community.  All is well. :-) 

As lockdown perseveres and we continue to do online sessions the lessons learned are mind-blowing. This really is with reference to a deeper understanding of the human spirit and what matters the most; I speak of our compassion, our resilience, our values and our enduring bonds. 

I am aware that I have skipped a few blog posts. There has been a change of focus and a shifting of routines which has made the world turn slightly upside down and subsequently my routine of writing the blog has been sidelined by sharing news with the parents and posting on our private Albany Montessori at Home Facebook page. 

The absence is significant because in the midst of it all there was a wonderful surprise which needs a big mention. In  the second week of term whilst Tim and I were doing our online circle, the doorbell rang and we were slightly distracted. I was mid flow in circle, talking about our Stone Age people and the evolution of humans from then to now, and Tim got up and came back with a hamper and a card. I glanced at the top of the card and out of the corner of my eye there were all the children smiling up at us. I caught Tim’s eye and told him, ‘I can’t do this right now – let’s do this at the end of the session.’  So that’s what we did. 
At the end of the session we felt the presence of our wonderful nursery community even more, all watching us from their homes. Tim started by saying that most of you might have heard the door bell during the session. He continued that that was unusual as we had not been expecting anything, and when he had opened the door there was a hamper at the door step as well as two boxes of wine. He began by thanking everyone, by going through the contents of the hamper, by saying it would be so lovely if everyone could come over and share. And actually we were both so choked up that not many words flowed other than thank you, we miss you and what a wonderful surprise. There were tears from us and from the parents. Even now writing this two weeks later it make me well up. 

This is what I wrote to the parents later that day: 

In moments like today my brain becomes overloaded, my heart bursts and I become speechless. Luckily Tim’s brain doesn’t shut down for as long as mine! He has already eloquently summed up our feelings and thoughts beneath the video and really I just want to corroborate and add some words of my own.

Sometimes there should be more words than ‘thank you’ to express the depth of feelings that are felt; like a scale of thank yous. If this was the case our thank you today would be off that scale. 
Your combined thoughtfulness, care and love is amazing. We value the daily circles so much for the opportunity to see you all and continue to be a part of each other's lives. Thank you for taking the time to be there too and now giving us one of the most thoughtful gifts that we have ever received. We are overwhelmed by your kindness and feel very blessed to be part of a such a caring, joyful and united community. So from the absolute deepest, soulful and love-filled bottom of our hearts an enormous (bigger than Argentinosaurus!) THANK YOU with massive amounts of love. 
Missing you all hugely. Coming  back together is going to be, without a shadow of a doubt, the best thing in the world. ❤️❤️❤️

The mind-blowing lessons are all and everything to do with experiencing what being part of a united and caring community feels like. That we all share caring values, that we support one another and that we continue to be there for each other. Since then I have spoken to parents who tell me that the online circle is the best part of the day. I whole heartedly agree. It fills the soul to its brim and overflows with love, laughter and joy. And the best thing is we repeat it all over and over again seeing each other, touching base and then signing off till the next day. And our goodbye is singing  ‘The more we get together the happier we’ll be.’ So much truth in such a simple song. 

As we head into the start of the new term it is a very different experience to the way in which we usually get the cogs turning. Normally after the Easter holidays I heave two sighs: one as an exhale to acknowledge the coming to an end of a break which has allowed for a time of relaxation, and the second as one of braced relief that normality will resume and daily life will go back to a familiar rhythm.  
How far from that point we are now as we enter into a virtual next term. 

One month ago life changed beyond recognition. We entered a brave new world where we have mostly all been isolating; the antithesis of our needs as social beings. To say it has been hard has its misrepresentations as it has pulled us together which has highlighted the positive. 

There been a shifting of creativity into delivering circle online which has been imaginative, although not without its challenges! We have continued to meet as a nursery community on a daily basis interacting as we talk through a topic; the last few weeks we have covered the meteorite hitting the earth, changing the climate and wiping out the dinosaurs. We then went onto consider the survival of mammals and the evolution of man from apes. Our children have all named the first human as ‘homohabilus’ and this week we have been learning about life in the Stone Age. It has been wholesome and delightful to see that despite the stifled dimensions of interacting online, the children are enjoying and they are learning. 
We have also joined our children online to do music sessions, which have been very good fun although we have been waking our teenage children and neighbours in the process! The children made requests for their favourite songs and we have  immediately responded. 

However it has equally been a struggle. We started off with most of the nursery children joining us online but quite a few are, understandably, finding it upsetting to reconcile the disconnect between seeing us and all their friends on the screen and not being able to see us in person. We have felt the same. After the sessions Tim and I have breathed out trying to be brave and strong but with tears in our eyes. There is a sense of loss. We are missing all the people we spend our daily lives with: the children, the parents and our wonderful colleagues who share our day to day routines. 

So as we enter into a new term with more uncertainty, the peculiar circumstances we are in are felt very strongly.  But a new normality of online circles and posts on the newly created group page will continue. It has been wonderful to see parents posting as well with their ideas and news. 

This leads to the final message of this blog today: let’s look to the light at the end of the tunnel. There will be days which are harder than others but we will see it through and be back together again soon. And when that day comes it will be uplifting with tears of joy! I for one can’t wait!

Meanwhile we will see everyone for online circle on Monday morning! It is the best way to start the day! 

As I write this latest blog it seems the world has turned upside down even more. At the start of this week our nursery was about three quarters full and, as the virus continued to impact the country, this gradually diminished on a downward path until by the end of the week there were only about 7 children. We totally understood and are supportive of the decisions parents and families have taken.

As a nursery we function as a community and the main thing is that we look after each other and support one another with understanding, compassion and love. This has been made abundantly clear as there have been many concerned conversations with parents and staff this week on what the future holds. All of our parents and staff have been massively supportive, concerned, kind and caring and it has been an emotional week.

So a message to the nursery community:

We remain here for our all of you. Although we will not all be seeing each other as we usually do we will be going online in a more personal way. So we will keep our strong and gorgeous community together, in touch and up to date with one another. It means that when we finally get back together it will not feel as if we have been apart from one another for very long. :-) And there will be a time in the not too distant future when this will happen in real life!

This also means that as a technophobe I will be forced into coming to terms with digital literacy! Yikes!

There have been lovely moments this week as we still had fun and enjoyed ourselves.

Here are some highlights.

It was very lovely when one of our alumni children returned to join us for an afternoon. That felt very special and he just slotted right back in. It was great to witness that other than gaining several inches in height, his personality and good nature had not changed; he was the same – sociable, good fun, funny and loud child that we had in nursery a few years ago. There was a lovely familiarity. When he took the role of the wolf in ‘What’s the time Mr Wolf?’ and all the children asked him the all important question he replied ‘Ten past two.’! The children were slightly blindsided by how many steps they should take!

Another highlight.
We looked at the different types of dinosaurs and identified them as herbivores and carnivores and ourselves as omnivores. It was very lovely when just the following day the children were naturally talking about the dinosaurs using the different terminology, one boy said, ‘I am an omnivore! because I like plants and meat’. And another girl shook her head and said ‘if I were a dinosaur I would not be a good herbivore as I only eat meat.’ So carnivore all the way then!

We passed a Megladon tooth in circle and one of the children wisely told me, ‘that’s a fossil.’ Perfect! 

Finally! Archie the dog joined us for rugby on Friday afternoon. The children loved that although he had to be kept away from pinching  their balls! 

Stay safe, be healthy and look forward to the hugs in the not too distant future!

Last Thursday 5th March we celebrated World Book Day in fun and style. There was an adorable array of costumes, a healthy range of books and we even managed to raise some money for Book Aid International. 
In thinking about this week’s blog it seems the natural thing to do is to explore the benefit of books. However I wrote about that recently – well the power of stories – and I feel it would be wrong to repeat myself so soon. So instead I thought that another appropriate idea would be to actually investigate World Book Day and consider its origins and impact.

Here goes! Did you know that the idea for World Book Day has been nicked from a tradition which has been going since 23rd April 1923 in Catalonia? This was to celebrate the life of their local hero and best selling author Miguel de Cervantes who wrote Don Quixote. In Catalonia there began a tradition of celebrating books and gifting them to each other in memory of Cervantes. Fast forward 72 years to 1995 and the first official World Book Day took place. It has since been designated by UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) as a world wide celebration of books.
 
There is a link with World Book Day to Cervantes’ Don Quixote. Don Quixote is a man who has romantic ideas about chivalry but is delusional. His attempts to be a hero do not come to anything as he chased unrealistic dreams with no base in reality - hence the phrase ‘tilting at windmills’.

With regard to World Book Day there is a poignancy as the purpose of World Book Day is to get all children across the world to embrace books to read, enjoy and to learn so serving to fulfil the educational commitment set out in the 1989 UN Convention on The Rights of the Child. Is this ‘tilting at windmills?’ Let’s look at the impact.

Lifted straight from the World Book Day website...

Research found that children who participate in World Book Day activities are more engaged in reading and books than those who don’t.

• Nearly 3 in 5 felt that they read more books
• Nearly half say they buy more books
• Over 2 in 5 borrow and share more books
• A third also read more with their parents due to taking part in World Book Day, with half of those believing they subsequently read more independently (The National Literacy Trust’s Annual Literacy Survey, 2019)
• 1 in 4 pupils (25.2%) say that the book they ‘bought’ with their 2016 World Book Day book token was their first book of their own.
• Amongst children receiving free school meals, this number increased to 3 in 10 (32.9%; National Literacy Trust, 2017)
• Lower income families are likely to discover books through World Book Day (Nielsen, 2018)

So there you have it! World Book Day does not ‘tilt at windmills’. It is celebrated in 100 countries and the day clearly bears fruit. This is not to say that it has changed the lives of every single child in the world but for just 23 years of service it’s pretty awesome.

After a little break at half term we have resumed for the next instalment! And that part has been to develop our little song for the planets.

It is one of those joyful experiences when learning takes on a life of its own – when knowledge is learned, and then developed and applied.

The children had really enjoyed singing ‘Uranus on the bus spins on its side, on its side, on its side. Uranus on the bus spins on its side all day long!’

It naturally followed then that it was only fair to the other planets to include them in the song too.
So this week’s blog post is our very own song – ‘The planets on the bus’! (not surprisingly sung to the same tune as the ‘Wheels on the Bus’).

I will say now that contextual knowledge from the children has been applied. We also add in actions which is great fun – I like pretending to duck from the meteorites.

The sun on the bus shines like a star,  like a star, like a star. The sun on the bus shines like a star all day long.

Mercury on the bus you have to duck, have to duck, have to duck. Mercury on the bus you have to duck all day long.

Venus on the bus is very hot, very hot, very hot. Venus on the bus is very hot all day long.

Earth on the bus we drink and breathe, drink and breathe, drink and breathe. Earth on the bus we drink and breathe all day long.

Jupiter on the bus has lightning storms, lightning storm, lightning storm. Jupiter on the bus has lightning storms all day long.

Saturn on the bus has rings of ice, rings of ice, rings of ice. Saturn on the bus has rings of ice all day long.

Uranus on the bus spins on its side, on its side, on its side. Uranus on the bus spins on its side all day long.

Neptune on the bus is very cold, very cold very cold. Neptune on the bus is very cold all day long.

And that’s all folks! For the planets that is. Although we will be singing that with wonderful abandon at our end of term Singing Circle!  Hooray hooray!

In other news this week we eagerly and happily celebrated Shrove Tuesday by emptying our larders and making pancakes. Yum yum and yum. Even better when we ate the pancakes for our snack. Demolished!

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.