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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!    On an ongoing basis it has to be said that our parents have been and continue to be a bastion of goodwill, support and understanding as well as good fun and a fountain of knowledge. I count myself continually lucky that the parents who send their children here get what we do and what we are constantly aiming to achieve. They also get that sometimes we need to make it up as we go along as we tread new ground. This is one of those times. I write this as the Coronavirus is gathering momentum and as a community we are, like everyone, feeling bewildered, concerned and wondering what next. So this is a personal message to all our truly wonderful and supportive parents. We have your backs and we know you have ours. Keep reading the emails we send out; things keep changing on a daily basis and we are keeping our noses, ears and eyes to the ground and advising as we see best. Thank you for all your help. We appreciate and value immensely your continued support and understanding. And so this blog is a massive shout out to our parents and recognising what an integral part of the nursery community you are. To brighten things up here are a few more adorable pictures from World Book Day!
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.
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.
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Albany Montessori Blog
Latest news from Albany Montessori School. The original Montessori nursery in St Albans. Archives
October 2023
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