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Edition 23

Directors NewsSparkwellWoodlandsSchool ClubLee MillChaddlewoodMike's Meal -Smoothie Montessori Information - SensoryPlayParenting Advice - The Importanceof Outdoor PlayStaff NewsDates for your diaryMarch News

Well, isn’t it lovely to observe the signs of Springeverywhere? The gardens are beginning to havesome colour as the spring flowers appear and in allthe nurseries the children have begun planting andsowing seeds. Over the last month the teams havebeen talking about their outside areas with thechildren and thinking about what they would likeadded. Watch out for developments over the comingmonths. This month the teams are auditing theirliteracy areas, looking at the environment and howenabling it is and how inviting the book area is. This month we have had to close the Lee Millsetting due to a positive COVID case, fortunatelythe person is well and only had a mild cold and sofar there have been no further cases. Now we areable to meet up with family and friends, (which weare all relieved and excited about!) we ask you tobe extra cautious. If your child or anyone in yourfamily has any COVID symptoms please self-isolateuntil you have had a negative PCR test, lateral flowtests are only to be used if there are no symptoms.We thank you for your patience and cooperationduring this challenging time. During April Tracey will carrying out a teachingplacement at Sparkwell All Saints School aspart of her Early Years Teacher Trainingcourse. It will be nice to be able to see a fewfamiliar faces who used to attend LittleOrchard. This is a six-week placement and willprovide a valuable insight into how childrencontinue their learning journey in a schoolenvironment. Tracey and Caroline

We welcome spring with open arms in hope that brighter days are coming soon! Throughout March wehave enjoyed celebrating special dates such as World Book Day, Mother's Day and St Patricks Day. The children have explored a pirate's life as well as an early introduction to spring, The children haveenjoyed learning some new pirate songs and loved dressing up as a pirate too! The children have reallyengaged in role play with their friends and finding the treasure using their own treasure maps. We have explored real root vegetables and learnt a little about the process of how the vegetable growsand then how it gets to our plates at home. We have also been planting flowers and learning about what aflower needs to survive. The children have loved having tadpoles at the setting too, we have been learning about the life cycle of afrog. Everyday the children are excited to see if the tadpoles have changed, grown or turned into a frogyet, we have had some wonderful conversations from the particular learning experience. Let's see what joy April can bring, fingers crossed we start seeing the tadpoles develop their legs! Charlotte

Spring time has arrived and we are all enjoying the warmer sunny days out in the garden and runningon the field ( please ensure you provide hats and suncream). We are watching the Rooks in our nurserytrees that have made nests and will be making our own nests out of sticks in the coming weeks. We have been very busy this month celebrating red nose day, St Patricks day and St Davids day. We also had science week where Hayley did an experiment with the two year olds where we placedfood colouring in oil and then moved the colours around with a brush. The children enjoyed lots of funexperiments with Irina too. We are now celebrating Easter where we have been using boiled eggs to roll in paint and we did a foodcolouring experiment with the eggs too. We have also been growing cress seeds on cotton wool. Thechildren have been looking at them everyday to see how much they have grown. We hope you all have a lovely Easter break!Hannah

It’s been so lovely to have everyone back this month, all the faces that we hadn’t seen sincechristmas! It’s been busy but we have really made the most of the lovely weather, making sure weare outside at every opportunity with the lighter evenings coming in. This month we have had lots of fun making Mother’s Day cards, building our own dens andpainting. We hope you are all enjoying your Easter break and can't wait to welcome everyone back! Breakfast and After School ClubGemma

British Science week provided a lot of excitement this month with many experiments taking place. Wecarried out chemistry experiments, animal and plant studies, float and sink, magnetism, colour mixingand so much more. The lava lamp with the oil, water and fizzy vitamin tablet caused great excitementas did the bicarbonate of soda and vinegar. For World book day we shared a wide variety of books, the children brought their favourite booksform home for us to share. Many children dressed up as different characters and excitedly told uswho they were. For St Patricks Day the babies explored green spaghetti, to begin with they were alittle hesitant but were soon feeling the texture. The babies have been enjoying the sunny weatherexploring the outside spaces together. The planting has begun in earnest, if you have any spare seeds or shoots we would love to expand onwhat we are planting. During our isolation we have had Rocket the snail updates daily and a storyread by a member of the team. We hope you have enjoyed them. Here is a link to one of the storieshttps://youtu.be/gL7tZWBG8Sk Alina

Well, what a month this has been. We had a wear your pyjamas to nursery day for Comic Relief where weraised a brilliant £15:50. So I would like to say a huge Thank you to everyone that got involved anddonated. We celebrated the festival of Holi (Festival of colour). This provided lots of wonderful learningopportunities for the children and gave them a chance to produce some wonderful pieces of art,collectively within their groups.We baked cakes for children’s birthdays and have made biscuits and EasterEgg nests as well as making Mother’s Day and Easter cards to send home. The pre-school children have been busy learning all about animals with Jayne. They produced their owninterpretation of a giraffe, zebra, parrot and lion. The children learnt about what habitat the animals livein and what they like to eat. The 2-year-olds have enjoyed their sea life role-play area, and lots ofmatching activities with Flo as well as spending lots of time outside exploring. The babies have also beengetting messy with their creative activities, they have read lots of lovely stories with Chloe and Saisha andeven been learning some new songs. Tracy

600g mixed berries400ml Milk6 dessert spoons of Greek Yoghurt60g Icing SugarCombine all ingredients in ablender and blend until smooth. Enjoy!Very Berry SmoothieMike's MealsIngredientsMethod

Humans learn about the world through our senses and the young child is particularly skilful atgathering information through their mouths, hands, eyes, ears, noses etc. So in our classroomsyou can find something unique to Montessori schools: the sensorial shelves. Here live thefamous Pink Tower, a worldwide symbol of Montessori education, alongside the brown BroadStair, the red Long Rods, the coloured cylinders and much more. These beautiful materials arelovingly made, based upon over a century of research into brain development. The sensorial activities isolate one sense at a time and allow the child to practice and refine eachsense: weight, length, volume, rough vs. smooth, smell, sound, colour perception, temperatureetc. Here you will also find polished wooden geometric solids including the sphere, cylinder,cube, cone and pyramids. Your child can really get to know the qualities of the solids and thencompare these with the flat shapes in the many trays of the geometric cabinet which houses thecircles, the triangles, the rectangles etc. Adults may ask why would a 3 year old need to learnabout a cylinder? I would reply why not? If they can learn about a brontosaurus or a tadpole or aMassey Ferguson tractor, then mathematical names are just as easily gathered by theirintelligent brains. If you have a name for something it helps you to understand it - you can talkabout it, ask questions about it, describe it and think about it using its name. Shapes, solids andmathematical things are all around us in the world. Exploring and becoming familiar with them inour classrooms following a gentle steady method provides an excellent foundation for futurelearning. There is an elegant secret hidden in many sensorial materials… there are ten of each item in theset. Why? Well, this is a gentle unconscious preparation for our counting system which is decimaland based on tens. In fact the sensorial area is entirely a preparation for maths - your childlearns to categorise, to judge and compare, to analyse and match. These are all vital skills to haveready for working with shapes and numbers in maths lessons for decades to come. An addedbonus is the rich vocabulary this area of our curriculum promotes: describing words such assharp, smooth, corner, edge, face, base; and comparative language such as bigger, smaller,wider, narrower, heavier, paler, darker etc. There is much detail hidden in the careful design ofthe Montessori classroom - it is a rich sparkling treasure box just waiting to be opened andexplored by little hands and minds. "The senses, being explorers of the world, open the way to knowledge. Our apparatus foreducating the senses offers the child a key to guide his explorations of the world, they cast a lightupon it which makes visible to him more things in greater detail…” ~ Maria Montessori, TheAbsorbent MindMontessori Information The Sensorial Shelves

What are your fondest childhood memories? Some of mine are playing outside whetherthat was on the beach with my cousins, rock pooling, beach combing, making clay in astream on Dartmoor, BBQ’s, swimming in fresh water or sat somewhere warm reading abook. I still love to go for long walks or swim in the sea, it provides me with calmness,happiness and helps me to relax. There are huge benefits to playing outside, it tires children (and adults) and helps for a goodnights sleep. It’s a fun way to learn using all your senses and for older children they canlearn to identify birds, shells, plants. If, like me, you need help identifying the natural worldthere are some great apps, books and free downloads. It doesn’t matter what age you are, being outside has health benefits for us all from thenewborn in the pram enjoying the walk to the older child climbing a tree. The NCT identifyseven benefits of outdoor play, one of which is encouraging a healthy lifestyle. Whilst webelieve we all should be outside as much as possible enjoying the fresh air and the wondersof the natural world, there is nothing so glorious as exploring on a warm Spring day. Withthe Easter bank holiday approaching what plans do you have? Where will you be exploring?The National Trust have a list of 50 things to do before you’re 11 3/4. How many can youtick off as an adult or as a family? Playing outside can be as expensive or as cheap as you like, a few old saucepans, a woodenspoon and mud, leaves and petals provides endless fun. What delicious mud cake can youmake? Racing Pooh sticks down a stream, who will win? Bike rides, jumping in puddles orflying kites. We all need to spend time outside. “Let the children be free. Encourage them; Let them run outside when it’s raining; Let themremove their shoes when they find a puddle of water and when the grass of the meadows iswet with dew let them run on it and trample it with their bare feet. Let them rest peacefullywhen a tree invites them to sleep beneath it’s shade. Let them shout and laugh when thesun wakes them in the morning” Maria Montessori The Discovery of the Child The Importance ofThe Importance ofOutdoor PlayOutdoor Play

This month we welcome Alina to our Lee Mill setting as their new manager. Alina is looking forwardto getting to know you all over the coming weeks, she has many years’ experience in Early Years andis currently completing her Early Years Teaching Training. Katie has also joined the team in the babyroom with Jess who has recently moved over from Woodlands. Unfortunately, Becky our apprenticehas had to leave the team due to a family member being unwell. We wish Becky and her family thebest of health and our thoughts are with them. Sarah and Abi have joined the Woodlands team working at the Before and After School Club.Rowena who was working at school club is now very excited to be joining the team at nursery astheir cook, helping to prepare and serve the meals in the nursery. Sparkwell has said goodbye toCharlotte H and wished her well in her next adventure. The team have been joined by Jodie who istheir new deputy manager. Jodie has many years’ experience in childcare settings and management. The managers and Directors are attending training over the coming weeks focussing on thechanges to the Early Years foundation Stage which come into place in September. The Lee Mill teamhave been busy updated their safeguarding training. I’m Deputy Manager and work with the two year olds atthe Chaddlewood Setting. I have been doing Child Carefor nearly 14 years, gaining my Level 3 on the way. I hadnever worked in a Montessori setting before joining LittleOrchard and I have truly enjoyed learning andimplementing the Montessori Ethos. I learn somethingdifferent everyday!I have provided cover at the other 3 nurseries and theBefore and After School Club since working for LittleOrchard. I love picking up ideas from the other settingswhich I can then bring back to the children atChaddlewood.I work closely with the children daily and provide funactivities that follow their interests I particularly enjoyworking outside, enjoying the fresh air and planting. Withthe children last year, we made our own little greenhouses using sandwich bags and watched the beansgrow. We then put them outside for the children to waterdaily. When the beans had grown we had them for oursnack. We have just started this cycle again this year andwe can't wait to watch them grow! Staff NewsFeatured staff member - Flora

Spring Term 4th January-1st April Half term - Monday 15th February Bank Holiday 2nd April and 5th April Summer Term 19 April-27th July (Chaddlewood 16th July) Half Term - Monday 31st May Bank Holiday 3rd May and 31st May Autumn Term 6th September - 17th DecemberHalf term - Monday 25th October We are closed for all Bank Holidays and for approx a week at Christmas.Stretched funding at Chaddlewood does not cover the weeks beginning 5th April and23rd August.. Would you like to order a jumper, T shirt or bag for your child in purple with our logo on? These can be found via our online shop here Dates For Your DiariesLee Mill - Alina: leemill@littleorchardmontessori.co.uk Tel: 01752 893498 Term Dates for Devon/PlymouthContact DetailsJumper/ T Shirt PurchasesPlease contact managers direct regarding changes to sessions, extra days andholiday notice:Sparkwell- Charlotte: sparkwell@littleorchardmontessori.co.uk  Tel: 01752 837883Woodlands -Hannah:woodlands@littleorchardmontessori.co.uk Tel: 01752 658567Director Caroline:caroline.lucas@littleorchardmontessori.co.ukEmily:Invoice queries:admin@littleorchardmontessori.co.uk Chaddlewood - Tracy : chaddlewood@littleorchardmontessori.co.uk Tel: 01752 202193