Ashmore Park Nursery

Andrea and Caroline’s groups have been looking closely at one of the plants they have in their environment. Observation is an important skill for our children to evolve and being able to talk about what they notice, and then the process of drawing captures each child’s ideas. Their drawings and paintings then allow us as Educators to discuss with the children their thoughts and ideas around the object being observed. These conversations support us in what to offer the children to deepen their knowledge and understanding.

‘It’s got holes, Turtles eat leaves. That’s a little one (hole), they’re not opened, this one is rolled up, that’s a bendy one’.

‘There’s leaves. It’s got a pot with water. Some small ones (leaves). It’s curly like my hair’.

This week we had a visit from Caroline Bestwick who works for the special care dental service. She spoke to the children about what food is healthy for our teeth as well as how to keep them clean with regular brushing. Caroline also spoke with the children about being ‘too big’ for dummies and bottles because they are not good for teeth now they are older. We will have a bucket available for any bottles or dummies if the children want to give up in the nursery garden next week.

This week the Educators have been thinking carefully about the learning environment for the children and on Monday, all the learning spaces were evaluated using an audit tool. Each room has had alterations including where and how resources are displayed. We have some photographs to share with you and the children have been incredibly observant noticing and talking about the changes they have noticed.

WE HAVE AFTERNOON PLACES AVAILABLE - FOR APRIL 2022:

If your child is three prior to 31.03.2022, please contact us on 01902 558116 or email the school on:
[email protected]
If you would like your child to start School after the Easter holiday period.

Alternatively, you can register your child for a place at our school, we accept applications from birth and have an ongoing waiting list.

We very much look forward to welcoming you and your family in the future🙂

The Educators have been provoking children’s thinking about patterns by placing images with visually engaging patterns for the children to look at and imitate or be inspired by. We can see children’s ever evolving observation skills through their increasingly detailed paintings and pictures.

For those parents who came into school this week for Parent Partnership meetings, we hope you enjoyed looking at the photographs of how important construction materials are to children’s thinking and learning. Yesterday some children in Natalie’s group demonstrated the power of construction play and created an amazing ‘city’. The thinking processes of the children can clearly be seen with the creation of several enclosures all fitting together to create spaces for the children’s imagination to flourish. We can see ideas of pattern and symmetry evolving within the construction and Natalie observed high levels of cooperation amongst the children.

On Thursday, we celebrated World Book Day. We wore our pyjamas and had bedtime stories and hot chocolate. The children had voted for a story from a choice of two, and the Children listened to this story and they engaged in activities linked to the story. The children really enjoyed showing their pyjamas to each other and noticing the different pyjamas that the adults were wearing too. We hope your child enjoyed their day and the book ‘Dinosaur Roar and Friends’ that came home with their book token.

As the children grow in confidence at subitising amounts without counting, they are playing games with each other or inviting adults to play by asking ‘what do you see?’ The children’s knowledge of what makes up an amount is evolving and they are showing their knowledge in lots of situations, demonstrating that they have a growing depth of understanding.

Children’s observation skills are evolving in many ways at school. Recently the children have been noticing the daffodils starting to grow in the garden and bunches of daffodils have been visible to the children inside nursery too. Other plants such as amaryllis are growing in each classroom so that children can observe the growing process. This week we have drawings of daffodils and amaryllis to share. The drawings show how much the children are learning by looking closely and their representations of the flowers are incredibly detailed.

Working with construction materials evolves a wide range of knowledge, skills and thinking for our children. Spatial understanding of how shapes fit together as well as their properties develops over time and children’s thinking processes can be observed and noted by the Educators. The thinking processes of the children reveal their ideas, knowledge and motivation. Here is a selection of photographs across a range of materials that reveal these characteristics of learning.

This week we have photographs of Caroline’s new children settling in and exploring all the resources and materials we have on offer. The children are getting used to our nursery routines and coming to school every day.

We have welcomed our new children into school this week. We know it is challenging at present because parents are not yet able to come inside but we would love to share some of what the children are doing whilst they are settling in. This week we are posting photos from Claire and Kirstie’s group.

This week the children in Andrea’s groups have continued their thinking around identity, focussing on ‘eyes’. To enable children to evolve their observation skills and their knowledge about ‘eyes’ we offer a diversity of materials for children to use to explore the features of ‘eyes’. Children are refining what they notice and developing language to describe what they see. The children have been offered ‘visual references’ such as photographs of a variety of eyes to support their thinking whilst creating an eye made from clay. Having photographs of a range of eyes offers the opportunity for the children to notice differences and talk about them and also ask questions. Clay is a very engaging material for our children and they have manipulated the clay to make the pieces they want to represent the features that are important to them.

Welcome back to all our families and Happy New Year.
The children all seem happy to have returned to school and have quickly settled back into our routines. As part of their growing knowledge and skills, the children are using scissors, paper and glue to express their own thoughts and ideas. Our project work around identity appears to be influencing the children’s thought processes as they create pictures with the materials focussing on features that make up the human form. Bodies, clothing and facial features are being represented with paper and drawing.

On Thursday, the children had their Christmas party. Unfortunately the children could not all be together, as they would usually be, but they all thoroughly enjoyed themselves. After playing games, the children sat down together and ate party food including pizza, crisps and cake. We had a special visitor talk to the children, digitally this year, who left each child a Christmas gift. Today the children had a special treat, Clive Chandler the puppet man came into nursery and told the story of Jack and the Beanstalk to each of the groups in nursery, 5 performances in total.
We would like to say a big thank you to all our parents’ school fund donations that have helped fund all our Christmas festivities this term, your generosity is greatly appreciated.
Have a very happy Christmas and keep safe.
The Nursey Team.

Coronavirus (COVID-19) vaccines

Dear Parents and Carers,

We have been asked by the Black Country and West Birmingham CCG to share the following message:

The NHS is encouraging everyone eligible for their first, second or Covid-19 booster jab to walk-in and ‘grab a jab’ this weekend, to protect themselves and help make the Christmas period safer for us all.

There are 100 sites across the Black Country and West Birmingham, all are offering first, second and booster doses for adults aged 18 and over, as well as vaccines for 12-15-year-olds.

Appointments can be booked online via the National Booking System (https://bit.ly/3dtsler), or by calling 119.

Walk-in jabs, without an appointment, are also available at a number of vaccination sites across the area including the Mander Centre, WV Active Bilston-Bert Williams, the Civic Centre (from tomorrow) and The Hub at Ashmore Park from Saturday. For a full list of local vaccination centres, please visit https://bit.ly/3HmGV5a

For more details about the vaccine, please visit www.nhs.uk/covidvaccine

Coronavirus (COVID-19) vaccines NHS information about coronavirus vaccines, including who can get a vaccine, how to book and how well the vaccines work.

We have been thinking about the meaning of Christmas with the children by sharing the story of the Nativity. Children have become familiar with the characters and the sequence of the story. In the construction station, children have been offered the opportunity to create their own interpretation of the story using the blocks and Nativity figures.

On Friday our School supported the ' for the @999 Cenotaph' campaign, during the day we talked about the importance of the NHS and the 999 Emergency Services, and we discussed what they do to help us.
The School has made a charitable donation to the campaign on behalf of all of our families and we thank those who made individual donations.

As you know, the children have been working on subitising (instantly recognising groups of items without counting). Children are asked ‘what do you see’ and ‘what do you notice’ instead of saying ‘how many’? A parent of a child in Andrea’s group has shared through the Teams App how her child has been sharing her knowledge of subitising at home.
'Last night Betsy-Flo took some baubles off her Christmas tree and was asking us “what do you see”, she was moving them around into different patterns. Saying “3, 1, 1, 1 and 2, 1”. She also said, “I’ll be Andrea and you be the children on the mat”.
Part of the role of the special helper, is to bring the register to Nicky in the office and let her know which children are 'not' here today. Children are encouraged to tell Nicky the names of the children not at school and subitise with their fingers to show the amount of children who aren't in school that day. Samyra and Max were able to show Nicky multiple ways to subitise the number three.
We really like to see when children share their knowledge with you at home, so please use the Teams App to share these wonderful moments with Andrea, Caroline, Kirstie, Natalie and Laurie.
Thank you.

As the children grow in confidence at being able to subitise small amounts of items without counting, we can see their knowledge during their play. Children are recognising amounts from 1-4 and demonstrating their understanding by showing the amount with their fingers or saying I can see 3 or noticing how that amount is made up e.g. I can see a two and a one.

Families, we have been asked to circulate the following 'Covid-19 Vaccination Service' information, on behalf of Wolverhampton City Council, please see the details below:

We would like to thank all of our families and staff for supporting this year's 'Children in Need' by purchasing raffle tickets and generously giving donations!
We are pleased to announce that the winning ticket number was 'Green 393' and Rocco (pictured below) was our lucky winner.
As always our families have been very generous and we have raised an astonishing £158.00 for this fabulous charity.
Enjoy your weekend everyone🙂

Natalie’s children have been observing what is inside the squashes and discussing what they notice. They were then asked to draw the insides of the squashes with fine black felt tips and then add colour once they had finished drawing. Drawing allows us to see what detail the children are noticing in much greater depth than they may be able to describe with words.

Today we have been celebrating Diwali in nursery. We have shared a story together and watched a video learning about the five days of Diwali and talked about other celebrations we have with our families such as birthdays, Christmas and Halloween. We have tasted bhajis and poppadums and even had a go at Bhangra dancing. One of Andrea's families have kindly shared their pictures with us of their celebrations at home. Happy Diwali!

Climate Action Week Event - Saturday 6 November 2021
'In partnership with Penn Climate Action & Friends of the Earth'

We have been asked to share the following event details with you:

You are invited to be part of a family friendly global event, which is being held in the West Park, Wolverhampton on Saturday 6 November 2021 from 11.30 a.m. – 2.00 p.m.
The event is being held to tell those with power locally, nationally and internationally that we want them to act to reduce 'Climate Change'.
The event will be covered by the media, and there will be stalls, children’s games, poetry, speeches, information on Climate change and things you can do to reduce it.
The environmental groups in Wolverhampton would love to see you there.
By coming to the park on 6 November 2021, you can make a positive difference to 'Climate Change'.

As part of our work, we are always looking to engage and encourage the children to investigate, explore and talk about what they notice. This week we have been using a wide range of autumnal squashes to create a context to evolve these skills. The children investigated the squashes using their senses, they smelt them, felt them with their fingers and observed many features. By having a range of squashes, the children could discuss what they had in common, as well as what was different about them.

“I see yellow at the front and orange pattern”
“It’s stripy” “it heavy”
“It got a lump on it, why it got a lump on it? I draw it bumpy like the pumpkin squash”
“It’s got a spotty and stripy pattern like a green and yellow pattern”