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does anyone use 'wow' cards to share children's achievements with parents? I have heard of these but would be interested to hear of anyone who uses them and what they think of them?

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Have just started them. Gave 2 out to each child over half term break with letter explaining for parents - only had 3 children bring them back in since. Haven't worked according to plan but it's early days. Once children have brought them back they share them at circle time then we stick them on our wow wall for a day and then the wow vouchers go in their learning journeys. I hinted to parents not to put things which impress the parents more than the child like 'I can counted to 456'. Then most of the other children haven't a clue what the wow vouchers are which means that their parents didn't share them with them when they took them home.

 

Early days!

 

ppp

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We do wow stickers. I make up a sheet of sticky labels on the computer which say, Wow! I.......... and put a small shiny sticker on it too to liven it up a bit! We write on what the child has done at nursery that caused us to say wow. We would also put a stick it note into their learning journey folders recording the wow.

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We use them very successfully - we have a 'wow wall' and children all have 'wow' slips in their trays for Key Persons and Parents to write on. They go up and stay up until they are replaced by a newer one then are filed in the learning story.

Everyone loves it and speak very highly of it. Children run in to tell us their 'wow' or out to tell their parents their 'wow'.

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We have 'Super Me!' sheets - same idea and also go in to learning journals. We do find we have to encourage parents to use them - i.e. parents tell us something the child has been doing and we often have to suggest recording it on a sheet or asking if we can write it for them

It does mean we have the parent's voice in the journal.

Gruffalo2 :o

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Guest Wolfie

We also use WOW cards very successfully and the parents love it. We have a display with information about them up in the corridor and three WOW boxes for each of the three rooms. I've done some "sample" WOWs on the display, to stress that it's not all about what your child can do - sometimes it's a situation or experience that has made you go "WOW"! For example, watching your child snuggled up on the sofa with someone special, sharing a story, etc.

 

The cards are put into each child's Learning Journey, alongside observations and photos from nursery, under the relevant area of learning and cross referenced to other areas as appropriate.

 

Go for it - it's a great idea!

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i love this idea and have never heard of it before. Is it the sort of thing which could be displayed in a reception for the whole nursery to join in?

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So here they are anyway if they are of any use to anyone.

 

The wow wall one is the note we sent home to parents with a wow slip paperclipped to it, the others are paperclipped together and live in the children's trays

wow_wall.doc

wow.doc

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Very interested in the 'wow' cards and would like to get it up and running in September but being a bit thick, could someome explain what they are, how they work etc, is there any site i could go on and have a look, oh and has anyone got any examples they wouldnt mind sharing, sorry it is Sunday morning and attended a birthday party last night and think brain is not what it should be today.

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oh great Cait thanks, we do something similiar with parents, whereby we ask them to let us know of any achievements, interests, up and coming events from home etc, but only a few have replied which we then add to learning journey folder and discuss at 'circle time'. Perhaps if we could come up with something similiar to these wow cards we may get more interest (well heres hoping anyway). Does anyone know if ofsted 'approve' of these wow cards?

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Why wouldn't they! It's engaging the parents in their child's learning and showing you value parental contributions and demonstrating your commitment to working with parents!

 

We have diaries for communicating too and they all work really well together

Edited by Cait
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didnt mean to sound as if i was against the idea i think it is very good for all the reasons you quoted in your post Cait, it is just i am up against a lot of resistants from staff members whenever i try to introduce anything new, dont think they trust me very much and seem to want proof that anything i introduce is approved of or recommended from some sort of governing body e.g. Ofsted etc. Thanks for your input though and will bring up at next meeting hopefully armed with examples and feedback from the lovely people on this site

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I wish you luck then. Staff resistance to change is a hard one, and there are loads of posts on here from people saying the same thing. I do feel that the Wows are really useful. Is there some way you could possibly make it their idea? er, 'I've been thinking about what you said at the last meeting about asking parents to help with the learning stories as there's a lot of work involved, well how about something like this?'

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not to sound corny but 'wow' what a bloody brilliant idea. my mum comes in to do display stuff for me this week so im gonnan get a wow wall too. it sounds so exciting

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Hi all,

 

I also have 'Wow' moments in my class. Every Monday the children have a 'Wow' moment ticket each to take home for the week- they can also ask for more if they need to. Each morning and evening I put out a real Reception post box that the children then can post their 'wow' moments into and then on a Friday we sit and have a 'wow' moment circle time and celebrate all the wow things they have achieved that week. They get so excited and they are very protective of their post box and won't let any other class go near it as it is 'special'! When they have read out their wow moments these go up on the wow display outside the classroom with anything else to go with it like maybe a photo and when they have a new wow moment this one is taken down and put into their learning journal.

 

hope this helps.

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oh great Cait thanks, we do something similiar with parents, whereby we ask them to let us know of any achievements, interests, up and coming events from home etc, but only a few have replied which we then add to learning journey folder and discuss at 'circle time'. Perhaps if we could come up with something similiar to these wow cards we may get more interest (well heres hoping anyway). Does anyone know if ofsted 'approve' of these wow cards?

 

Ofsted praised our use of WOW vouchers in our OFSTED. They are also real feel-good things for you to read, too! Ours are bright yellow slips of A5 paper with a shooting star border and a big WOW! at the top. We have a golden postbox for them to be posted in.

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I sent home a letter with 2 wow vouchers. The letter had small examples of what to put on vouchers and letter also explained that these wow vouchers celebrate their child's achievements at home and is something they can share with us. Also a keep sake and also said something along the lines of 'These Wow vouchers will help to support and extend your child’s learning, bringing their home life together with their development at Playgroup and promoting the Parents as Partners aspect of the Early Years

Foundation Stage framework.'

 

Hope that helps,

 

ppp

Edited by Guest
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We simply sent a letter and attached a couple of cards to it. Oh, the letter had a couple of examples, so parents got the idea that it could be simple things, not Einstein moments!!

 

Gruffalo2 :o

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