First of all Happy New Year to everyone out there! As we make new years resolutions and think of ways in which we can enrich our lives I have one to ponder on, namely utopian thinking.

I make no bones about the fact that this is a curious  one. However, the other day I was, driven by my daughter, to read about utopian thinking, and not only was it insightful but it did get me thinking that utopian thinking is healthy.

The idea of utopia stems from Thomas More’s book ‘Utopia’ in which there is a society which live in harmony, and utopian thinking is the mindset in which we reflect on society and look to change it to an ideal version where everyone and everything benefits. This means that we are continuously evolving in our thoughts and are prepared to ditch certain ideas in the process.

As I read about utopian society where everyone is equal, where everyone works towards the common good, where jobs and responsibilities are managed by the whole community fairly and there is equal status and recognition amongst them, it got me thinking about the nursery class and our micro community.

Thomas More would be pleased with an eye-view into the nursery as the virtues of utopia are lived and practiced by the children.
 
Their world view is not clouded by the lived experience of the big wide world. It is fresh, open, honest, kind, good fun and abundantly wholesome. Problems have solutions and can be worked out amongst themselves, and if not they may seek the help of adults in the nursery. There is a willingness to embrace and adapt and keep it fresh and move on with creativity and imaginative thinking which embodies utopian thinking.

I was reading a lovely book about dinosaurs with the children, and it was a wonderful experience into the mindset of utopian thinking which is not to be constrained by conventional thinking. As we flicked through the pages of the book the children  began to speculate the reasons for the different features of the different dinosaurs. There was one who had a red plate on its head – the book said that it was likely that the red plate was a decorative piece to attract a mate. When I told the children that it was to make that dinosaur attractive, one of the children laughed and told me that the red plate was a store of energy like walking around with a volcano on your head. And then we looked at a prehistoric squid called a cephalopod and observed its tentacles.  I said that they squirted ink when they felt they were in danger, and one child suggested that actually they also squirted their ink as they liked to swim through it as smelled so nice, 'a bit like a bath bomb.’ Brilliant!  

It all made me think that,  in the presence of children, utopian thinking is always abundant.

This time of year the highlight is always the Nativity.

What is so lovely is the journey from start to finish. We begin after the half term and it is very early days and December seems quite distant. It seems almost wrong to be wishing the time away singing We wish you a merry Christmas at the beginning of November.
 
Indeed the journey we all take can be likened to the famous one when Mary, Joseph, and the donkey travelled towards Bethlehem. One step after another they got there.

When we start the children are not familiar with the story or the songs and gradually, as time goes on, they learn the story. First we read the story of the first Christmas and then the following week we brought a nativity set into circle and told the story using the little wooden figures. The children then enjoyed playing and doing their own versions of the story in the classroom. At one point we even had flying donkeys and flying kings!
 
The children, through repetition, soon got to know the whole sequence of events. During this time, we interjected the story with songs which will eventually be in our play. Gradually we have begun to see how the nativity is starting to take shape. We are definitely en route to Bethlehem! Two more weeks to go...

After having sung the songs for a few weeks the children are now confident, enjoying their singing and getting stuck in. So I’m going to leave you with two little excerpts of two of the songs in our play:

I have been recently reading one of Maria Montessori’s London lectures (from 1946) entitled Spontaneous Activity. It’s an interesting read in which she makes it clear that children have an innate compulsion to learn and be able to do things for themselves. She observed that this is exemplified in all sorts of curious behaviours; the first of these behaviours is achieved with the hands. Montessori said, ’We should remember that the child used and exercised his hands before he began to use his feet.’ Consequently we need to give little hands opportunities to learn.

In the Montessori pedagogy practical life activities have a key place in the classroom. They enable the hands to become skilful and dextrous and so enable the child to develop their independence. This week, after reading the lecture, I watched the children more intently at work on the practical life actives; how they used their hands in  pouring, transferring, manipulating tools on the tool block, threading, peeling garlic and using the garlic press and, in baking how they chopped up mushrooms for the pizzas they were making. Working on these activities it is lovely, and affirming, to see that the children are clearly focused, engaged and intent on completing their task, and what is more they take pride in their success.
As Montessori stated, ’the greater the effort, the greater is the children’s pleasure.’
 
Montessori gave these lectures 75 years ago at the tail end of her work in education. It is a testament to her knowledge, that in spite of the many changes that society has undergone, her insights in child development still hold relevance today. So let’s work those hands!

It has been well over a year since my last blog. I hit pause for a while whilst I adjusted to a world without my mum. Now is the time to hit play again and to re-start these posts. So! What better starting point than breathing in the beauty that Autumn graciously brings?!
 
We are so lucky that we are situated on the edge of a park and are able to embrace all the beauty, colours, changing scenary, dew-dropped mornings and birdsong that the season bestows on our senses. Being in such close proximity to daily changes and earth’s continuing cycle is a privilege.  
 
One of our recent favourite things to do is playing and being creative with leaves, twigs and other little nature finds. When I was little, I recall the deep satisfaction in wading through thick piles of leaves, enjoying the rustling sound and also making ginormous enormous leaf piles and bundling into them. Simple pleasures which our children all loved to do too.  ‘Again!’ ‘Again!’ came the cries of delight.

It turns out this week I never actually got beyond Monday at the nursery. My mum has been in hospital since the 6th September. She was 84 and had a fall. Although there were no fractures her time in hospital exposed other things going on.

Very sadly, Mummy died on Thursday 1st October from aspiration pneumonia. We got the call early on Tuesday morning to say that she was nearing the end of her beautiful life. We were so lucky to have had those last few days with her as she became more lucid and we took the opportunity to remind her of how much we loved her and she told us that she loved all of us too, very much ‘always, always’ she emphasised.

She quietly and peacefully, with grace and dignity, slipped out of this life. Mummy has found her angel wings and her soul is flying high. To say she will be missed is an understatement. From the very core of my being I will miss her. But I will take what she taught and what she stood for and do the best I can to continue to emulate her strong values.

She taught kindness, compassion and love.

Since her time in hospital and her passing, my dad, my brother and myself have been inundated with messages from all over. There have been close family, extended family, friends and even those that she simply brushed contact with who have all called and paid tributes to the person that she was. And in all of them there has been the constant themes on what a kind, giving, caring and loving person she was. All of them. People remember her with deep rooted affection because of those traits. She did not have one single bad cell in her body.

And she was smart! So smart that she could intuit very quickly. It was a smartness that was driven not just by logic but also empathy and concern. She had the ability to read people. That’s probably one of the reasons why she enjoyed the company of all the children she ever encountered. She ensured that she played, spent time and nurtured every one of them  always making sure she had chocolates at the ready in her bag!  She loved her grandchildren with a passion.
 
Children are open books and they will give of their time generously offering love and engaging very freely; those qualities were embedded in Mummy and it made everyone love her and want to spend time with her and remember her. She was loved so much because of her nature. She gave love and offered counsel and she would seek it out, she always wanted to help. ‘Fawzia come over and we can have a chat.’ She always seemed to know when something was up, there was no hiding anything from her.

So! Here’s to my beautiful angel Mummy. I am so grateful that I could call you mine and for everything that you did and the person you were.

And here’s to all those values that you embodied. The world is distinctly less bright for those you have left behind but we will be your standard bearers. I really look forward to being reunited with you again one day in the future.

Here are some pictures I managed to take on Monday! Also one of Mummy who is the driving force of the values embedded in the nursery. She has an impact and legacy  on all our lives.

This week has reminded me a bit of childbirth for two reasons. First: the process of childbirth is usually a turbulent one although it is supremely rewarding. Second: and this is more related to the ‘due date’; you make all these lovely cosy rose-tinted plans about giving birth and keeping an eye on your due-date and both can easily fly out of the window when reality takes over!
 
So, let’s explain the turbulence! The start of every year is always the biggest intake of children and this is usually a smoothish(!) process. Yes, there are always some initial tears in the first few days but this year has felt different. My belief is that because of the lockdown and continuing into winter with uncertainty, the start back to ‘normal’ has been harder. Thinking this through, it really should not be surprising as our little children have spent far more time with their parents and families in their homes than they would ordinarily have done. There has been no school, play groups, swimming, playgrounds as well as other extra-curricular activities. But there has been a safeness and security in staying at home and bunkering down. Naturally it makes perfect sense that in coming out of our respective homes to resume normal life there has been a level of anxiety attached. Add social distancing and other measures and restrictions into the mix, and all in all it has made the start of term more turbulent than in normal times.
 
So the dropping off in the school garden has been different. For some several few the goodbyes have been hard all round with both children and parents feeling the weight. That said there have been many who have been more than happy to get back to daily routines, and we have observed children getting stuck into nursery, and parents happily waving them off. Thus, it has been curious and interesting in making these observations as these first few weeks progressed. The good news is that we are nearly there! And that is thanks to the will and care of everyone involved. Hence just like childbirth we are beginning to experience the rewards of time.
 
And now to explain the ‘due-date’ analogy…
I had made some lovely plans to bring out our continents puzzle and begin to label the different continents. This followed on from our land, water and air lesson last week. However, with all the differing arrangements as settling all the children in has taken precedence, our in-depth look ended up being more a quick look. And thus the best laid plans and all that!
 
The children enjoyed looking at the Continents puzzle, and we had some lovely moments when we were recalling the names. I held up Europe and one girl said it was called ‘Syrup’. Then when we looked at Africa one child said they thought it was cold in Africa. I asked why. And he replied ‘because it’s green and it’s green here and it’s cold.’ I thought that was a timely moment to introduce the concept of the Equator.:-)

Here is another little photo selection of what we have got up to this past week. Enjoy!

Last week we resumed a bit of normality. It seems like we took another inch towards it although I am highly aware that this may be a false sense of reality. We are, after all, only one positive test away from our nursery bubble closing for 2 weeks. Fingers crossed though that we can ride this wave and see that off.

It was a heartening experience seeing all the children return, both old and new. Everyone by now is used to queuing, to keeping a mask at the ready, handwashing and even having their temperatures taken. Which was great as, as it turns out, this is precisely what was needed to bring the children into the nursery garden.

And after a week of refamiliarizing ourselves with some of the old routines, and adapting to the new, we were able to make some headway into our topic for this term – Migration!

We have begun with the basics, or as Julie Andrews would sing, “Let’s start at the very beginning...” and she is right; it is a very good place to start.

The children were shown the land and water globe and were great at identifying what it was called. They labelled it ‘a planet’, ‘the world’ and also ‘Earth’. We spoke about how land, water and air are vital to our planet and life on earth. One child pointed out that they bring their own water bottles into nursery every day. I asked if they are reminded to drink water by their parents. They all emphatically shook their heads and in unison told me ‘no, no, no!’ to which I then asked them if they could remind me, seeing as they were expert water drinkers.

We looked at our ‘land’ ‘water’ and ‘air’ jars and matched some picture cards to each jar. There were some interesting and imaginative ideas and cute conversations. ‘Where does the train go? Land, air or water?’ One child quickly replied ‘In the air!’ The others were baffled. Some looked confused and others thought it was funny. I smiled, ‘Fantastic! So if I catch a train to London, will it fly there?’ and ‘That means if we look carefully we can see train tracks in the sky!’ There were guffaws, cries of ‘no’ and fun was had by all. We clearly were all enjoying the joke which led to other deliberately wrong answers when we explored the difficulties of sea turtles living on land, people living in the sea (we would need gills and fins) and hot air balloons flying in water.

Through our exploration and reasoning, and through our intentional mistakes we became drawn to the right answer. It was a lovely little exercise in sharing ideas and thoughts.

Here follows a little selection of pictures from the week. Enjoy!

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.