Remembering Our Queen at Footsteps

The passing of our monarch Queen Elizabeth II was a huge loss to the Royal family and to the Nation. We felt it was important that we helped the children within our settings to make sense of this national event, its importance in History and also to help them negotiate any feelings around the events that might arise.

But as you can imagine, this is something that needs to be handled delicately, as well as, a celebration of the life and service of the Queen. As with all sensitive topics, our incredible teams ensured that this was handled with compassion and in a manner appropriate to the ages of our children.

The children amazed us with their interest and enthusiasm in the opportunities they took to explore events in the world around them. As ever, we created the space and activities for them to choose how they wanted to access this new knowledge, vocabulary and emotions.

We certainly celebrated her amazing life in style. We had Royal tea parties with marmalade sandwiches and a very special guest who loved marmalade sandwiches too! The children all recognised the iconic Paddington Bear and we watched the clip of him sharing a special tea with the Queen on our IPad. We talked about palaces, castles and all the different homes the Queen had which King Charles III will now live in. We’ve read stories and poems about Kings and Queens and looked at pictures of the Royal family

Crafts featured in our ways to remember the queen too. We made photo frames which they painted in red, white and blue and we looked at the Union Jack flag – how it represents all of the United Kingdom and how we are all united by the Queen. Some of our settings have the flag displayed on flagpoles and the children lay flowers by it in remembrance. We talked about all the thousands of flowers that have been laid around London – some children had been to see them and lay their own so we could talk about their experiences too.

We’ve made crowns, biscuits, Paddington suitcases and even taken our patriotic creations out to Forest School with some silhouettes of grass and leaves. We’ve had royal themed tuff trays, small world play and role play on offer.

We’ve waved our flags high and just wanted to say “Thank you Ma’am”