February 2014

Aistear

During February we focused on our environment and how subjects in our classroom can be found all around us.

Science all around us

This was a very exciting Aistear module where the children learned about the following elements of science:

·         Magnets-the children had lots of fun seeing what materials are attracted to magnets and those that are not.

·         Electricity Circuit- the children saw how a circuit is built and they then built their own circuits.

·         Every Action has an Equal and opposite reaction : We made a volcano using Diet Coke and soft mints. It was brilliant fun!

·         Floating and Sinking: The children predicted and then experimented different materials and if they floated or sunk in the water.

·         Materials : The children looked at the materials in our classroom and all around us and how they are made and their functions.

Each of the children wore a white top to signify their transformation to scientists. The great thing was I heard lots of the children saying “ They want to be scientists when they grow up” !!

Music all around us

The children learned that music can come from the environment around us, from instruments or our bodies.

Home Corner : Each child recited twinkle little star and three blind mice on our classroom organ. The children were wonderful and  I see some natural pianists already!

Reading/Writing: The children learned about labeling instruments in an orchestra.

Small World: The children learned a song/musical notation and made instruments using playdough.

Art: The children made instruments using recycled materials. We even played the instruments to “ I am the music man”

Geography all around us

We welcomed Isabel’s Dad into our classroom to tell us all about the differences/similarities between Ireland and Canada. Afterwards the children made a lovely card to tell Isabel’s Dad about what we learned.

Home Corner : We conducted a geography audit of our school and acted out reading a map of Rathdrum.

Small World: The children constructed the main street of Rathdrum using small world materials.

Reading/Writing: The children drew wonderful maps of our classroom.

Art: The children made beautiful houses using felt and lollipop sticks.

History all around us

We were very lucky to welcome another visitor to our classroom. This time we welcomed Michael who is Mia and Sean’s Grandad. He is a member of the historical society in Rathdrum so he was able to tell us all about the history of Rathdrum. The children made a lovely card to say thank you to him for taking the time to come into our classroom and see us.

Home Corner : We conducted a history trail to see why monuments are important and why it is important to record dates. We then acted out the story of “Little Tiger’s Big Surprise”

Reading/Writing: We made a classroom timeline and wrote letters to ask questions what things were like long ago.

Small World: We thought about how things change and using the story of Sleeping Beauty we created the sequence of this story.

Art: We made beautiful cherry blossom family trees to record the change in our own families.

Firemen

We welcomed two firemen into our classroom who answered our questions and told us about always being very careful with fire.

Martial Arts

We concluded our 4 weeks martial arts class. It was a wonderful class and the children really enjoyed receiving their certificates at the end of the class. Thank you Mr. Paul Healy for the great classes.

Valentines Day

For Valentine’s Day we made our parents lovely valentines cards and a picture frame with a picture of everyone in our families.

Happy Valentine’s Day Everyone.

January 2014

Aistear

During Aistear, junior and senior infants have been learning all about weather. We have learned lots about all aspects of weather.

Week 1 – Weather and Seasons

We learned a lot this week about our weather and the expected weather in each of our seasons. But we also learned how unpredictable the Irish weather is!

Week 2 – Weather and Clothes

During learning about weather and suitable clothes we dressed up in the different types of clothes for different weathers and we dressed our teddies for different weathers. Following dressing up our teddies we had a brilliant teddy fashion show.

Week 3- Weather and Science

Weather and Science was a really exciting week, where the children dressed up in white coats as scientists and conducted lots of experiments to forecast the weather. We pretended our classroom was a weather laboratory and we made a tornado in a jar, made a rainbow using a glass of water, investigated how hot air needs more space, we used a rain gauge and an anemometer. It was a great week of fun and learning.

Week 4- Weather and Forecasting

This week we all turned into weather forecasters telling the weather on the news. First of all we went to the senior and middle rooms to survey them on what their favourite weather was – they all chose sunny weather! Then we learned about north, south, west and east and told everyone about the weather to expect.

Doodle for Google

We are so proud of Brooke, Luke, Aoife and Jessica who were chosen in the top 300 in Ireland for their doodles in the Doodle for Google competition. It is such an achievement to have 4 children in the top 300. Well done all of you.

Firemen

We were delighted to welcome the firemen to our classroom. The children had lots of questions and because we were talking about weather forecasting in Aistear we asked the firemen about the importance of knowing the weather for the firemen.

Reading

The junior infants have now started to read. They are all really enjoying starting to read and are very excited about being such big boys and girls.

December 2013

December

Aistear

During December, we were very busy with Aistear learning about everything relating to Christmas. During the first week, we learned about the nativity story which prepared us for our carol service.  Throughout the second week in December, we learned about writing Christmas cards and all the work that the post man does during Christmas. For our last week,  before our holidays we had great fun pretending we were in Santa’s workshop and the children designed, constructed and presented toys that they made for Santa’s workshop to the class. In addition, during this time the children made wonderful Christmas decorations to take home and decorate their houses for Christmas.

School Carol Service

The junior room was delighted to perform the nativity story as part of our school carol service. All the children were absolutely wonderful and I was very proud of every one of them. They all performed their roles wonderfully and sang their songs beautifully.

Ovoca Manor

The junior room were so delighted to follow the star to Ovoca Manor to see their performance of the nativity play. We had such a wonderful time seeing the nativity and Jacobs's Dad greeted us which was a great surprise ! We decorated some star cookies and then had the opportunity to play with playdough, dress up, complete two art projects, read books and play with lego. It was such a wonderful experience and we thank Mairead and everyone in Ovoca Manor for their hospitality when we were there.

Canon John and his Family

The junior room wish Canon John and his family and very happy retirement. We will miss him a lot but hopefully he will enjoy his time with his family and get some time to relax.

Christmas Party

The junior room had such a wonderful time at the Christmas party. Everyone was dancing and having a wonderful time. Santa’s grotto looked absolutely fabulous, thanks to Brooke’s parents and Santa was very generous and kind.

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The junior room wish everyone a very happy and peaceful new year and we look forward to lots of exciting fun in 2014.

Junior Room – November

Junior Room – November

Aistear

During November, we have been very busy with Aistear. This month, we were learning about different types of fantasy characters. We learned about cowboys, princesses & knights, dinosaurs and superheroes. We acted out stories, created our own superheroes, made wonderful pieces of art including masks, dinosaur puppets, used our imagination for small world creations and used our writing skills writing out dinosaur poems and sequencing stories. Everyone works so hard on their Aistear groups and it is a joy to see the children learning so much.

 

Write-a-Book Competition

The senior infants have entered the write a book competition. I am so proud of these wonderful books with the theme of Rainbows.  

Open Day

During November we had an open day where we welcomed new families into our junior room so the new children could see our classroom. It was a wonderful morning with lots of new families.

September / October 2013

September

Welcome back to our senior infant class and a big welcome to our twelve new junior infants.

During September, we settled into the school routine understanding where our playground is, where we hang our coats, where we sit and the importance of listening well in class.

October

October was a very busy month with lots of fun and learning.

Jolly Phonics

Junior Infants started learning all about their letters and sounds. They are all doing a fantastic job and they will be reading before we know it !

Aistear

We have started our aistear work again. Our themes in October were English all around us, colours all around us, Maths all around us and Autumn. It has been a great fun learning experience for everyone in our 4 stations of small world, home corner, reading/writing and art.

Maths Week

We had great fun during maths week. Our Aistear theme was also Maths all around us, so we were learning all about shapes, numbers, patterns and understanding that Maths is something we do every day. We all went on a maths trail outside where we saw numbers, shapes and patterns outside in our playground and garden.

Colours All Around Us

In our “colours all around us” week we learned about colours, rainbows and we even went on a colours trail to see how many colours there are outside.

English All Around Us

During English all around us, we had great fun acting out the story of “we are going on a bear hunt” and creating a map of the story.

Autumn

Our Autumn theme allowed us to collect lots items for our nature table. In small world we made a beautiful Autumn forest and in art we made Autumn trees.

Halloween

The children are very excited about Halloween and on our last day before the mid term we all dressed up and went on a parade in the car park. We had great fun making witches and black cats and watched a movie with popcorn before we went home.

Happy Halloween Everyone

Junior Room- June

Aistear

 Look at the little village we created in Art this month. We learned about Estate Agents and the work they do. We made “House for Sale” posters and we sold a lot of houses!!                                       

                                             

School Tour

The children were over the moon when I announced we would be visiting Sea Life in Bray on our school tour. It linked in really well with our Under the Sea topic from last month and the children were very eager to see the fish and other sea animals they learned about.

We went on our school tour on Tuesday the 18^th of June. We left the school around 9.30am and we went straight to the aquarium in Bray. We met our tour guide and she escorted us around the Aquarium and informed the children about the different sea animals. The children put her to the test as they had some very interesting questions for her!!!!

    

Once the tour was over we got back on the bus and we went to our next stop- Zoom in Charlesland!! The children thoroughly enjoyed the time they had at Zoom. We had some sweaty and tired heads returning onto the bus at 1.15pm!!

We returned to school at 1.50pm and each child received a certificate and a fancy pen from Sea Life as a token from their tour.

     

Teddy Bear Picnic

Monday- 24^th June the Middle and Senior Room went on their school tours. Since we had the school to ourselves we decided to have our lunch in style. Each child brought in their favourite teddy bear. We made some Rice Crispy buns in school and once they were cooled we headed off to our picnic spot. We had a great picnic and we even got to bring home an extra Rice Crispy bun!!

  

 

School Sports

Tuesday- 25^th June we had a School Sports Afternoon.  We were all really excited before the event. There were 4 teams for the day. Each child got the teams’ colour painted on their faces. The parents came to watch and they even got the chance to run in a race!! The races on the day were:

1. Egg and Spoon                                                                              2. Fast Walking

3. Hula Hoop                                                                                       4.Sidewards Skipping

5. Bean Bag

Then the children got an opportunity to participate in two fun team work games. This was a first and exciting experience for many of the children!! Have a look.

 

End of Year Service

Thursday- 27^th June the End of year service took place in St. Saviour’s Church at 6.30pm. Our room performed the song “Be Bold, Be strong” on the night.

Holidays

Friday- 28^th June we are getting our Summer Holidays!!!! I hope everyone has a fantastic break and see everyone again next year. Best of luck to the children as they move onto their next class.

Junior Room- April/ May

Aistear-April

The children have been very busy since they returned to school after the Easter break. We have been covering the theme of People who help us. The children had great fun this month learning about the Optician, the dentist and the Bank.  Each week the children took part in fun filled activities which broadened their knowledge and vocabulary of the above topics. Hopefully the children will be more prepared next time they visit the optician or dentist. I think the highlight of the month was when the children got the opportunity to visit the local Bank of Ireland branch in Rathdrum. They got a lovely tour of the building. The staff informed the children of their daily routines while also they provided demonstrations of counting etc.

                                                                             

Aistear-May

We covered the theme of explorers for the month of May. It was a very active and exciting month. The children were fascinated with the topics we covered and they got great enjoyment out of them.  Here are some samples of the work we did:

1. Space

      

     

2. Africa

3. Under the Sea

 

     

 

The children will be very excited when they find out about their school tour in June!! It will be linking with the Under the Sea topic!!

                                        

Write a Book Competition

During last week’s assembly Lara was presented with her Write a Book medal and certificate. It was a very proud moment for Lara. We are very proud of her and wish her a huge congratulations.

W.O.W( Walk on Wednesday)

The children participated in WOW for the month of May. They were a little bit disappointed that the golden boot didn't return to our classroom but we would like to say congratulations to the Senior Classroom who did win it.  We will try even harder next year!!!   

Nature Day in Glendalough

This was a very enjoyable experience for the class. We spent the day at Glendalough carrying out some fun activities. We participated in an outdoor treasure hunt followed by a team work game where the children had to lead their partner around an obstacle course. We got a bit wet on the day but it didn’t put a dampener on the fun we had.