Melting Snowmen

 Last week during our festive STEM stations, each pod had to create a coat to prevent their snowmen from melting. The children had a variety of different fabrics to choose from and worked together to create these special coats to keep their snowmen cold! Great job everyone! 

Nollaig Shona!

 

Peter the Polar Bear

The children in the Junior Room saved Christmas this week! On Monday, the children received a letter from poor Peter the polar bear, who was stranded in Lidl in Trim: 

The children got straight to work. They made maps, built Arctic helicopters and Arctic scenes to help Peter when he got to our school. The children learned about polar bears and other Arctic animals, as well as Inuit people. They decorated our room to make it look more like the Arctic so Peter feel at home. On Friday, we baked cookies for Peter to bring to Santa (and a few for ourselves too!). Thanks to the children in the Junior Room, Peter got back to the North Pole in time to save Christmas!

The children loved watching videos and looking at pictures of the different animals in The Arctic. 

There is a great  photographer called Paul Nicklen who has a page on Instagram and a website: https://www.instagram.com/paulnicklen/?hl=en He has some fantastic wildlife pictures that your child might enjoy! 

The Restaurant and 1st Class Business Proposals

We have been learning all about food and restaurants for November. The children have been setting up restaurants in their pods, constructing new restaurants for Trim and making food out of playdough, as well as doing lots of drawing and recipe writing and reading! This week we looked at mapping and the children made amazing maps during Aistear too! Have a look: 

 Rang 1 also did up business proposals for a new restaurant in Trim! They put so much work into these. Each group needed to come up with a name, logo, blueprints and 3D model, sample menus and more! 

group 1

Follow this link to see group 2's proposal: 

Group 2 Proposal

Spooky STEM

 We had great fun doing Halloween STEM activities on Friday! 

The children explored magnets for science. They had to work out how to make their scary characters fly! Technology was designing pumpkins on abcya.com. There were also some spooky maths worksheets!

Busy Bees in the Junior Room

The children have been so busy so school the last couple of weeks! 

This video shows a Literacy Lesson. The children have a few different jobs to do: 

1. Warm up the big muscles (workout time!)

2. Warm up the small muscles (we love playdough discos!)

3. The Junior Infants are doing a worksheet to develop their visual perception, a key skill for reading and writing. 

Seniors are playing a game to develop spelling skills, revise their sounds and practice reading words. Rang 1 are learning how to form letters in cursive writing. We practice on the big whiteboard, then the girls practice on their mini whiteboards and in their workbooks. 

4. Junior Infants then practice their pre-writing shape of the day. You can see we are working on zigzag lines in the video. Young children need plenty of practice with mark making before they start formal handwriting. 

This is an example of our STEM stations (Science, Technology, Engineering, Maths) from last week. There were 3 stations that each pod had a turn at: 

1. Engineering-build a free-standing tree with autumn leaves on it

2. Technology and Science-autumn themed activities online 

3. Maths-making pattern flowers with paint

We do STEM stations every Friday.

Féach ar seo! Tá na páistí ag caint faoi rudaí mór agus beag.

Look at this! The children are chatting about things that are big and small. 

 

Incy Wincy Spider

Nursery rhymes are important for so many reasons: 

Last week we looked at The Incy Wincy Spider. We practiced rhyming, counting syllables, performing the rhyme, oral language and more! 

While Juniors and Seniors did a cut and paste sequencing activity for the rhyme, 1st Class came up with this great version and made posters for it: 

 Poor Incy!!!

Check out each pod performing the rhyme below

Aistear-Learning Through Play

The children in the Junior Room all take part in Aistear, or learning through play. There is further information found below, taken from  https://curriculumonline.ie/Early-Childhood/ 

Aistear is a fantastic, safe and supported way for the children to make sense their world, expand vocabulary, make connections, interact and develop a wide variety of curriculum, social, physical and emotional skills. It is far more than just playing! 

We have spent the first few weeks of school getting used to the new normal routine for Aistear; limiting shared resources, separate play areas for each pod, cleaning and quarantining toys so everyone can stay safe, etc. Moving forward, we will have monthly themes for our Aistear time which will link to many other curriculum areas. 1st Class will also be set more challenging activities to complete alongside the thematic play. 

Have a look at what we have been getting up to recently: 

Making prints for Visual Arts (motor skills, self-expression, exploration of colours, self-esteem, visual processing, coordination, sensory play, problem solving, creativity, imagination...)

Exploring the sandpit (hand-eye coordination, sensory play, oral language, social skills, fine motor, gross motor, social skills)

Making puppets for the theatre (mark making, free writing, fine motor skills, imagination, storytelling, pencil and scissors grip, problem solving..) 

Construction (imaginative play, fine/gross motor development, problem solving, cooperative learning, sharing, creative thinking, self-esteem..)

Small world (creative thinking, drama, cooperation, social skills, sharing, language development, motor skills, free writing element supports English curriculum...)

Most importantly, we get to have fun, make a mess and encourage the children to associate school as an engaging, interactive, positive place to be! 

 

Phonological Awareness with Infants

Phonological awareness involves thinking about the sounds in words rather than the meaning of a word. It is a crucial step in learning to read for young children. Infants are working very hard on developing these skills to prepare them for learning the sounds and learning to read later on in the school year. 

Today we did some animal noises. 

The children had to make each animal sound. This introduces the concept of symbols (e.g. letters) having a sound that is different than the name. By doing a line of sounds they are also working on left-right reading orientation and the concept of blending sounds together. 

After a lot of practice, the children drew their own sound boards. Have a look: 

 

Rhyming and Writing our Names

We listened to this great rhyming song, and then made up our own versions! We all got squashed when the elephant sat on us! We even squashed some of our family members 🙈

Then we practiced writing our names. It is really important to use the correct pencil grip, so please try to encourage this at home when possible! The Juniors need to build up the muscles in their hands before they start formal writing in school. Loads of playdough, cutting, tearing and building activities are great for this! 

We are looking for the Dynamic Tripod Posture! 

1st Class will be doing cursive writing this year, so they practiced writing their names in joined up writing. Seniors and Juniors did rainbow names! Great work everyone 👍

Displays

The children have been helping to decorate our classroom! Have a look at their lovely work. 

We learned about the Feelings Monsters and made our own ones! The children did an amazing job on these!

Look at our self portraits that we painted last week! The children were so well behaved when using the paint! Great job!

First Class were working as historians and gathering evidence about their own history.

Here are everyone's family portraits

The children made a great 'Wash Your Hands' collage...have a look at the process...

The Seniors and 1st Class children made some posters about when and how to wash your hands too.