Pirate Playtime

Our theme for May has been Pirates! Arrrrgh!

We began our learning with Pirate Camp. We had to learn about the 5 Oceans and then about some sea creatures. The children know lots of interesting facts on these two topics! We learned a bit about pirates long ago too and got our very own pirate names! Shiver me timbers!

 The children did a fantastic job on their pirate books. They had to write an ocean fact, a sea creature fact and a pirate fact.

Then we brought our learning into playtime. We had a very messy water station where the children explored floating and sinking, and capacity, informally. They made ocean scenes at the art table by  experimenting with different shades of blue. There was the role play area with a pirate ship, buried treasure and map making. The construction area had pirate pictures to inspire the building there too. 

Yo, ho, ho!!!

Halloween Aistear

We had great fun this week during playtime. Table 1 had a Oíche Shamhna bingo. Table 2 had a spider art activity which we will be finishing tomorrow and a colouring competition. Table 3 was the potions lab where the children explored capacity informally and made spooky potions which was great for sensory learners. For construction at Table 4, the children were building a school for witches and wizards. 

Potion Lab

We are getting ready for Halloween in the Infant Classroom! For playtime, our classroom has become a spooky Potions Lab! The art table are creating spiderwebs with oil pastels and watercolour paint, there is a Halloween matching game at another table, the playdough table are creating different ingredients for the potion in the cauldron, and the messiest learning of all is taking part at the drama table where we are pretending to be witches and wizards creating potions! 

Last week was Maths Week, so we began learning about capacity using our potions lab. It's a fun way to develop vocabulary such as full, nearly full, empty, holds more, holds less, holds as much as...We are also doing some whole-class work on estimating how many jugfuls of potion will fill a certain container and ordering containers of potion in order of capacity! 

The Potion Lab is also great for oral language development, as the children dictate their potion ingredients and method for me to write down, sharing, motor skills, and literacy! It's also just fun to make a big mess! Have a look at our spooky room: 

Happy Halloween to the Juniors and Seniors! Well done on your fantastic costumes today! :) 

Well done especially to Poppy and David who won the Parent's Association Best Dressed prizes: