Nature Walk

The Junior Room went on their first nature walk of the year to collect autumn leaves today! The children were so careful when walking outside of the school, what superstars! 

Autumn

We began learning about autumn yesterday! In the video you can see the children hard at work drawing, labeling and writing about things we see in autumn.

You can also see some of our flexible seating options in the video. Flexible seating gives the pupils the freedom to choose how they complete written work. They pick the option that helps them to learn the best. Flexible seating allows the children to move while they work, provides sensory input and ensures everyone is comfortable! 

Spooktactular Playtime

This week our four playtime stations were very busy...

Bord a hAon: Leaf Hedgehogs

Bord a Dó: Bubbling Magic Potion Experiment

Bord a Trí: Baking with Bernie

Bord a Ceathair: Constructing Haunted Houses 

October Aistear

This month we have been learning about Autumn and School. These are our themes for Aistear (playtime). Last week the boys and girls did a collaborative artwork where they worked together to paint a branch. This was great for oral language, teamwork and colour recognition (English and Irish!). 

The next table were cutting and gluing autumn colours onto tree templates to build up fine motor skills.

The next two tables were based on school. On the whiteboard the children were working collaboratively to draw pictures of the school, things and people we see at school and our classroom. 

The socio-dramatic play area had one child in role as the teacher and the others were the pupils! 

This week we are furthering our learning in multi-sensory ways. The children are using different materials to cover pages in Autumn colours. This is very fun and very messy!!!

The next table have different playdough challenges, such as making a hat for a scarecrow or spines for a hedgehog or Autumn leaves. This encourages creative thinking, motor skills and is a tactile way to explore the season. 

We have some Bingo as Gaeilge to practice our vocabulary so far...

And today we had Mr. Jones running the drama station! 

Here are our beautiful branches from last week with Autumn leaves made from this week's art!

Playtime

In the Infant Classroom we like to learn through play as much as possible. This week our theme is School. There are 4 stations in the room with a different activity at each one and the children swap tables each day. 

Here we have the children doing socio-dramatic play. They take it in turns to be the teacher and the other children are the pupils. They are working on drama and oral language skills, and exploring jobs in our local community (teachers) which links with SESE. Depending on the activities their new teachers give them they are also practicing writing, reading and maths skills! 

The construction station is loads of fun and the children are working together to build a schools. They are developing communication skills, fine motor skills and creative thinking. 

This group have built Ms. Keane in the far left corner and the whiteboard in the one opposite!

The playdough station works on fine motor skills and creative thinking too. The children are making people or things they see at school. This also ties in with SESE as well as working on spatial awareness. 

Taking the playdough Rolla!  

Ms. Keane doing work! 

David worked really hard to make Mr. Larke!

We are also exploring Autumn at the moment in school! The leaves are changing colour and we are using these colours to make prints from different materials. This links again with SESE, fine motor skills, art, and oral language skills, as well as being lots of fun and messy! We are covering pages in our Autumn prints and cutting leaves from them to decorate our SESE tree!