Junior Room Fun

 The children have been learning about life cycles and butterflies recently! Last week we had so much fun at our STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art and Maths) Stations, have a look at the video below: 

Rang 1 are ar fheabhas at their Gaeilge!

STEM Stations and 1st Class Nuacht

 Some recent fun in the Junior Classroom :) 

A Nuacht

 

Plants

We have begun learning about plants this week! During Aistear, everyone got a chance to plant some lovely vegetables. We also have a Garden Centre in the role play area and the children all made some seed packets to sell with a list of what their seeds need to grow on the back! We're so excited to learn more about plants and other life cycles during the month!

We also had great fun during STEM Stations on Friday! We did some printing using different parts of flowers, playing engineering games online and set up shops in our pods to practice using money (our Maths topic at the moment): 

Finally, here are the children doing an AMAZING job during Gaeilge on Friday. They had to follow instructions as Gaeilge to draw and colour their teach, then they either labelled the parts of the house or wrote sentences about it. Dochreidte!! 🤩

 

Nollaig Shona!

 

An Nuacht

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. 

Aistear- The Doctors' Surgery

During playtime in school the children are given opportunities to learn through play. Every month there will be new themes and through Aistear the children cover topics in SESE, Drama, Art, Literacy, Numeracy, SPHE, etc...More information on Aistear can be found by clicking this link: AISTEAR

Our themes at the moment are Myself and The Doctors' Surgery. Each station has a different activity and over the week the children will experience each one. 

Table1: Cut and Paste items from the Doctor's bag. As well as developing fine motor skills, the children are working on language development as they recognise the different items.

Table2: Visual Art. This week the children are doing wax resist self-portraits. This is linking in with the story we did this week, Ronald the Rhino, where we learnt that the best person we can be is our self! They are also encouraged to talk about different features and colours they have (in English and as Gaeilge).

Table3: Role Play. After a whole class discussion and work on an interactive poster about the Doctors' Surgery, the children role play. They are using the new language they have learned, developing social skills, using Literacy and Numeracy informally...  

Table4: Construction. The children here have been asked to build a new hospital for Ireland. They work on spatial skills, teamwork, oral language and motor skills. 

We are also learning body parts as Gaeilge, so Aistear provides opportunities for the children to use their frásaí nua!

Have a look at our photos below!

Sa Ghairdín

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!

Seachtain na Gaeilge

Broken Irish is better than clever English! 

Seachtain na Gaeilge runs from 1st-17th March 2017. This festival celebrates the Irish language and culture and is a great opportunity to try and use your own cúpla focail! 

This week Juniors and Seniors have obair bhaile as Gaeilge. Monday is a colouring page which gives them a chance to practice their dathanna. Dé Máirt is a game they all enjoy, Deir Ó Grádaigh. Wednesday is making a card using a greeting as Gaeilge-Lá Fhéile Pádraig Sona Duit! These are some fun activities to encourage Gaeilge to be a living and spoken language and hopefully to encourage interest in our country's teanga! 

More eolas can be found on the Seachtain na Gaeilge website here. 

There are some helpful phrases to be found here too! 

Leprechaun Traps!

Last week the Juniors and Seniors worked with their partners to design and create leprechaun traps to mark Engineer's Week and the start of Seachtain na Gaeilge. They did an incredible job on their traps and worked really well in the groups, developing social skills, oral language, problem solving skills, creative thinking and motor skills! 

Over the weekend, when the school was quiet, a little leprechaun got into our classroom! He was too clever to fall into our traps though...and he made a big mess of our classroom!!! 

However, he did leave some special chocolate coins and shamrock stickers for the boys and girls to show them how impressed he was with their traps! 

What a crazy morning!!!