early years documentation
A set of documentation that has been created by Wingate Community Nursery School to demonstrate various ways to document children’s learning
turning the ordinary into extraordinary with bonus dvd
Price: £50 plus VAT, P&P
This story demonstrates how children at Wingate Community Nursery School are empowered and encouraged to think out loud, to imagine, question and wonder, to be ambitious in their thinking and follow lines of enquiry, wherever possible. Working in this way, responding to children almost instantly, can sometimes prove challenging for the educators, as with it comes uncertainty. Not always do they have the knowledge, skill or expertise to take ideas forward. What they do have, however, is a genuine interest and enthusiasm to ‘give it a go’ and act as co-learners, alongside children. What really matters, is that adults ‘fall in love with’ children’s ideas and become passionate about embarking upon the road of discovery and investigation. This piece of work is documented by Mandy, one of the educators working with 3-5 year olds and is beautifully portrayed with her daily reflections throughout the project.
blow machine
Price: £30 plus VAT, P&P
This story demonstrates how children at Wingate Community Nursery School are empowered and encouraged to think out loud, to imagine, question and wonder, to be ambitious in their thinking and follow their lines of enquiry, wherever possible. Working in this way, responding to children almost instantly, can sometimes prove challenging for the educators, as with it comes uncertainty. Not always do they have the knowledge, skill or expertise to take ideas forward. What they do have, however, is genuine interest and enthusiasm to ‘give it a go’ and act as co-learners, alongside children. What really matters, is that adults ‘fall in love with’ children’s ideas and become passionate about embarking upon the road of discovery and investigation. This piece of work is documented by Mandy, one of the educators working with 3 – 5 year olds and is beautifully portrayed with her daily reflections throughout the project.
no it’s william burton
Price: £25 plus VAT, P&P
This is an extensive piece of documentation that tells the story of how one child’s idea to cut open a real (dead) fish to see what was inside was embraced by the educators! There were no plans to gut the fish that morning – but rather to explore the children’s imaginative ideas about fish and discuss views on fishing etc. William took the group down a whole different route, becoming intrigued by what really is inside a fish. This 25 page document demonstrates how having the confidence to follow the children and not the plans lead to empowerment, learning and leadership for children.
our dead fish
Price £20 plus VAT, P&P
This booklet documents how educators explored the ideas of life and death, heaven and earth with the children, upon the discovery of a dead fish at nursery. It is a lovely example of the importance of listening to children, respecting and valuing their thoughts, ideas, philosophies and hypotheses – seeing them as competent citizens.
isaac very important work
Price £20 plus VAT, P&P
This piece of work shares a spontaneous observation of Isaac, a little boy with Down Syndrome, playing in the water. He caught Becky’s eye, as she walked past the water tray one day .. compelling her to stay and watch a while. The ‘observation,’ which lasted around 30 minutes, is shared with us in this beautiful 16 page document. Becky writes about what she noticed Isaac doing and her thoughts on his play. She includes input from Isaac’s mammy and Catherine, his key person, to find out more about his love of water. And just when Becky thought she understood the play, she realised she had missed something quite significant and so reflects
openly and honestly about this – asking, ‘do we always understand what we see?’ This piece of documentation asks the question, ‘What made this possible …’ encouraging practitioners to reflect on their own
practice and explore aspects such as time, space, freedom and respect.
exploration of an OHP
Price £20 plus VAT, P&P
Following a visit to the farm, a group of children downloaded the images they had taken, which became a stimulus for conversation and recall. The children were animated and talked at length and in great detail to each other about their recent memories. To develop this further, we decided to offer these children the opportunity to view these images on a large scale using an OHP. The explorations proved fascinating – for both the children and the adult working with them. The stunning photographs in this document, illustrate children operating at a high level and show them
exploring light, shadow, transparency, opacity, magnification, rotation etc.
dead or alive?
Price £15 plus VAT, P&P
This booklet documents what happened in nursery, when a little mouse was found lying very still in the garden. The adults gathered the children together to talk about what to do – thinking they may want to bury it etc.
To their surprise, some of the children hadn’t assumed it was dead, but was ‘just asleep.’ The documentation reveals what happened next and how the children conducted tests on the mouse to determine ‘dead or alive.’ This story shows how the adults seize opportunities to talk about life and death and explore children’s thinking. It also demonstrates the power of risk taking and believing in young children as thoughtful, mature, responsible citizens.
ellie and the dogs
Price £15 plus VAT, P&P
This little A5 booklet captures the fascinating play of Ellie, quite typical of many 3 year olds. It very simply documents how she plays with a basket of dogs and a handful of blocks over 3 or 4 days. It also analyses the learning across the EYFS, highlighting a few possibilities for ‘next steps’. But perhaps more interestingly, it notices the patterns of play and categorises them into four very clear schemas; enclosure, transporting, assembling and positioning.
look at all that rain
Price £10 plus VAT, P&P
This was a comment that was made one very wet morning, by an educator sitting with the children one morning, remarking, “I don’t know where it’s all coming from!”This spontaneous comment sparked off a discussion that lasted approximately 45 minutes, with many children sharing their ideas, thoughts, theories and hypotheses on ‘where rain comes from.’ The discussion triggered an opportunity for a smaller, highly motivated group of children to represent their theories on large
paper using a black marker. The children’s comments about their work were annotated and are captured alongside their drawings. This little book illustrates the children’s work and their lovely choice of language to describe their understanding of what we know is called the water cycle.
sol the maker
Price £5 plus VAT, P&P
This is a very special piece of documentation in a folded A3 design. It celebrates Sol’s expertise in inventing and ‘making things’ and is written, very sensitively, to the child. The story begins with Sol bringing in a plastic bottle from home “to make a bee catcher!” and ends with him talking to the Headteacher of his local primary school about creating a ‘making place’ in the Reception Class, ready for him on his transfer in September.
