The highlight of the week was VE Day. We discussed the idea of eighty years with reference to people we know who are eight, eighteen and eighty years-old. Eighty years, being a long time, is how many years of peace we, in Britain, have had since the end of the Second World War.
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We raised the special union flag and lit a peace candle, prayed thanking God for peace and asking for peace.
The children stood perfectly for the national anthem. We were so proud of our little people.
How quickly May has come round again. It was time to make a decorated pole and erect it again. Žaneta Tomanová, one of our parents who is Czech, took the lead. (The Maypole is a bigger tradition in the Czech Republic than in England.)
Children chose their preferred coloured ribbon and we practiced saying the colour in Czech. We talked about the Czech tradition as well as the roots of words. The ribbons were attached to a ring, and the pole was raised. Then it was time to start the dance around the pole. Up you get and join the dance!
Adults reflected on the connections being made between countries, cultures and languages. (All very Froebelian!) And, we remembered Žaneta coming barely a couple of months ago to read to the children a beautiful book that tells of the string that connects us all.
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Miss Brigid came to work with us at Mr Noah’s twenty years ago. She became an essential part of the staff and the life of the kindergarten. Very sadly, and suddenly, she was taken from us. Mr Peter conducted the funeral service at Charing Crematorium on Wednesday 2nd April.
The first week of the Easter term, we had a tree planting ceremony. A hole had been dug for a memorial magnolia tree. Notes made of memories of Miss B were read and each one was placed in the hole by the author (adults and children).
The tree was planted and everyone had the opportunity to add some compost around the foot of the plant.
So often we have heard Miss B remind us of the first of the nursery school values: ‘Loving one another’. Words she spoke as a challenge or as an encouragement have been mounted and displayed in the outdoor dining room – her domain. She ‘being dead, yet speaketh.’
