Electric Ireland Visit Junior Infants

Junior Infants are having a very lucky year.  Electric Ireland has donated high-visibility jackets to the school and Junior Infants were the lucky recipients.  All the children were given a jacket that they can wear when they are walking to school or walking home.  Wearing their bright jackets will keep them safe on the dark winter evenings.  All the cars will be able to see them clearly.


Electric Ireland

Here is a video of our fun morning with Electric Ireland.  There was a photographer there to take our photos and we might even appear in the news paper.  It was a great morning and we wore our jackets all day.

Halloween in Junior Infants!

We had a spooky Halloween week in Junior Infants.

We carved a pumpkin.

We made spooky Halloween patterns.

We learnt Halloween rhymes such as '10 Little Monsters, 5 Little Pumpkins and 'Pumpkins, Witches and Ghosts'.

We read 'Room on the Broom', a story all about a witch!

We did lots of Halloween activities in our play time: we made scary monster masks, we made monsters out of play dough, and we turned our play area in to a spooky monster shop!

On the last day we had a Halloween party, and it was also Jay Jay's birthday so we had some chocolate cake!

We also did some other spooky Halloween activities, check them out in our video!

 

Pumpkin Fun in Junior Infants!

 

We had lots of fun carving our pumpkin for Halloween!

Autumn in Junior Infants

In October we learnt all about Autumn.

We went on an Autumn scavenger hunt to see if we could find some signs of Autumn.

We saw conkers on the ground, helicopter seeds, acorns, leaves on the ground and we even saw a squirrel!

We collected signs of Autumn and put them on our Autumn table in our classroom.

We learnt Autumn songs like 'Falling Leaves' and read Autumn stories like 'Leafy the Leaf that wouldn't leave'.

We did lots of play activities based on Autumn. Have a look at our video to see what we did.



The Little Red Hen

In October Ms Murray's class read the story of the Little Red Hen. We then did lots of play activities based on the story of the Little Red Hen and her friends on the farm.

We used lots of materials such as feathers and wool to make masks of the characters.

We used our sensory boxes and farm animals to make the farm.

We used play dough to make lots of different types of breads and cakes for the bakery.

We then turned our role play corner in to a bakery!

Teacher got us special aprons and hats from the bakers in Superquinn.

Have a look at our video to see us in action!

 

 

Jungle Animals in Junior Infants

This month Junior Infants are learning all about animals.  For the next two weeks we will be looking at jungle animals and animals that live in other hot places.

Talk to you child at home about animals from hot countries.  Maybe you could even visit the zoo this month to look at some of the animals.   There are lots of links to videos and activities here which you can use to help you learn all about these animals at home.

• Sheppard Software - Preschool Animal Activities
• Elephant Documentary for Kids
• Sounds of the Jungle Animal
• Jungle Safari Video
• Tropic Story - Play with and learn about jungle animals
• Y8 - Play free jungle themed games
• CBeebies - Jungle Jingle (learning animal sounds)
• CBeebies - Monkey Nut Crackers (help the monkeys crack the nuts.)
• Learning Games for Kids - Match the Jungle Animals
• Africa Games - Jungle Games
• Science Kids - Fun Jungle Facts for kids
• Number Zoo - learn to count zoo animals (You Tube)
• DLTK Crafts for Kids - Jungle Crafts

Have great fun at home learning all about Jungle and other animals. 

Play time in Ms Murray's Junior Infants

The Doctor's Surgery

Playtime is so important in our class and it is our favourite time of the day!

During the year we will be having lots of exciting role play themes, and pretending to be lots of different people. Keep an eye on the blog to see what we have been doing during our play.

When we were learning about different parts of our bodies such as our arms and legs

we had a doctor's surgery set up in our classroom. We learnt rhymes such as 'Miss Polly had a Dolly', watched videos on Youtube about trips to the doctor, and read books such as 'Next Please'.

When we were playing in the doctor's surgery we had to take turns being the doctor and being the patients.

Check out our video to see us hard at work!

 

Junior Infant Shape Hunt

Junior Infant Shape Hunt

To celebrate Maths Week Junior Infants have been doing lots of fun Maths activities.

Today Ms Murray's class went on a shape hunt around our school! We saw lots of circles, squares and rectangles but we only saw one triangle! What shapes can you see in our video?

 

 

Say Cheese!

Junior Infants got their first school photos taken last week.

Don't we look great in our lovely clean uniforms!

Ms. Murray's Junior Infants 2013

Shapes, shapes everywhere!!

Ms Redmond's Junior infants went on a shape walk around the school grounds. We were trying to find 'Sammy Square' and 'Cindy Circle'. We couldn't even begin to count how many circles and squares we found, there were so many!! Can you spot the shapes in our photo's?

Ms Redmond's class went on an Autumn Hunt!

Junior Infants had a brilliant time on their Autumn Scavenger Hunt. They found sycamore seeds 'helicopters', conkers, all sorts of Autumn leaves; red, yellow, brown and orange and even the home of an animal we think.

Ms Hickey's class love maths stations!!!

We practiced our counting, adding, matching and pattern making! :)

During maths stations the children reinforce their learning through a variety of fun activities. Each group moves to a different table after 10 minutes. The activities include making patterns using pegs and pegboards, matching number and picture cards, counting objects and making simple addition sums. Maths stations work really well for this class and they absolutely love maths as they are learning but having fun at the same time :)

Ms McHale's Class went on a Circle Hunt

We have been learning all about the circle this month.  We have played circle games, done some circle art and crafts, and cut and coloured circles.  On a rainy day we decided we would check how much we learned so we went out on a walk around the school to try and find all the circles around the school.  We had to look every where.  Some were high up and some were low down, but we had our brain boxes turned on and we found loads.  Here are some of the circles we found.

Autumn Leaf Hunt

Today was a lovely sunny day so Ms McHale's class went out for an Autumn Leaf Hunt. We are very lucky to have such a lovely school with so much nature around us. On our walk we found lots of Autumn Leaves, coloured red, brown, yellow and orange. We also found lots of conkers and chestnuts under the horse chestnut tree. 

We had a great time on our walk. 

Welcome to a new school year!

A big welcome to all the new pupils who have just started school in Junior Infants, and a special welcome back to all our pupils in Senior Infants.

It's lovely to see everyone looking so wonderful in their new uniforms, and so excited to be in school.  No doubt we are all going to have a really excellent year.

As always, should you have any questions or concerns during the year please speak with your class teacher and she will be happy to help.  Alternatively you can speak with our Home School Links teacher, Mary Collins, or the school principal, Emer Breen.

Best of luck to everyone at the start of the new year.

Keeping our School Clean and Tidy

Junior Infants have been learning all about how important it is to keep the environment clean and tidy. 
We know that we should put rubbish in the bin and not throw litter on the ground.
We know that we should recycle paper in the recycling bin.
We know that we can help to keep our area tidy by picking up litter when we see it.


We went with 6th class on a litter clean up walk around the school.  We wore our safety jackets and we were on the lookout for litter.  The 6th class girls had gloves on to keep their hands clean and safe, and we carried the litter bags to collect any litter we found.

It was a great walk, and we were delighted that we could not find too much litter as our school is kept very clean by our caretaker James.

Junior Infants Writing Workshop for Parents

Last week we had out last Junior Infant Workshop for Parents.

 This workshop was all about writing with your children.  We focused on two aspects of writing: writing for expression and handwriting.

As with all our workshops we started with a presentation from the class teacher and Mary Collins.  This focused on the importance of writing and gave some strategies for developing the children's writing skills at home. 
We then invited the children back in and all the parents did some writing activities with their children. 
It was an excellent workshop and once again the attendance and the participation of parents was wonderful.  As it was our last workshop, we would like to thank the parents for their great contributions during the year, and their willingness to participate.
As we hope to continue the workshops we welcome any feedback from the parents who participated and would love to hear any ideas you might have to improve the programme next year.

Have a look at some of the photos we took during our workshops:

Sports Day 2013

What a fantastic day we had on Sports Day this year.  It was a beautiful sunny day and the whole

school went over to the Bray Emmets GAA club .  There was a wonderful timetable of events organised for the Junior classes and the Senior Classes.

We had sack races, water races, a funny hat relay, a fantastic obstacle course and we played bean-bag golf.

Thanks a million to Mary Collins and Ms Byrnes for organising the day, and to all the teachers and parents who helped us with all our activities.  We had a brilliant time.

Here are some of our photos from the day.

Going on a Bear Hunt

Ms McHale's class learned all about Journeys in March. 

We had a post office in our class room and we went on lots of journeys around the school to deliver all out mail.  When we came back we drew maps to show the journey we took when delivering our mail.

We also read books about journeys.  Our favourite book was "We're Going on a Bear Hunt".  We acted out the story and did lots of art work for our bear hunt display.  We also drew our own bear hunt maps to show how well we remembered the book.

When we were finished the story we went on our own Bear Hunt in the school garden.  Ms McHale hid lots of coloured bears around the garden.  Each team had a map with pictures of objects in the garden on it.  We had to find the object in the garden and then colour in the bears on our map.  It was a great day.

Under the Sea

In Junior Infants we are learning all about the sea and life under the sea.  Here are some of the videos and resources we will be using this month.

• Short cartoon of a submarine going under the sea
• Underwater dream - Sound Effects
• Sounds of the Sea
• Paper Plate Crafts
• Under the Sea Crafts

Phonics Games to Play at Home

Choose some of these phonics games to play at home:

• PBS Kids - Alphabet Games
• CVC Machine
• Initial Sound Matching Castle
• Phoneme Pop
• Sesame Street - Jumping Rhymes
• Starfall - Learn to read (games and stories)
• Jim's Whirlyword Machine

The Postman Visits Ms Collins

Picnic in the Garden

Seachtain na Gaeilge Concert

This year, for Seachtain na Gaeilge, we had a school concert in the PE hall.  Everyone spent a few weeks preparing their Irish performance.  There was singing, poetry, dancing and drama.  Some classes had put lots of work into lovely costumes as well.

It was great to see everyone putting on their best show.   Here are some of the photos from our concert:

Ms Gifford came to teach us all about America

Ms Gifford is visiting our school for three months from America.  She is working with Ms Dillon, but last week she came to visit us in Ms McHale's class to tell us all about where she is from.

She showed us a slideshow with pictures of lots of famous things in America like the Statue of Liberty and Disney.


We knew lots of things about America and some of us have family who live there.

We also learned a new American song called Yankee Doodle.  Here are the words to the song:
Yankee Doodle went to town; A-riding on a pony
Stuck a feather in his cap; And called it macaroni.
Yankee Doodle, keep it up; Yankee Doodle dandy
Mind the music and the step; And with the girls be handy.

Rosie's Walk

We will be reading the story 'Rosie's Walk' over the next fortnight. Here is a video of the book. We hope you enjoy it

We're going on a Bear Hunt

We have been reading "We're going on a Bear Hunt" in class. We watched the video and pretended that we were going on a Bear Hunt too. Would you like to go on a Bear Hunt with me? Click here to see video

Pinnochio talking story!

We are reading the story of Pinnochio in Senior Infants. We listened to the story and sequenced pictures. We are going to make puppets like Pinnochio.

Click here to listen to the story.

The Post Office - Ms McHale's Class

Ms McHale's class are learning all about writing and sending letters and the post office. 

We wrote a letter to 1st class.  We had to put the letter into an envelope and then we wrote the name and address on the envelope.  We also needed to put a stamp on the letter or the post man would not deliver it.
When the envelope was ready, we posted our letter in the post box in our class post office.  One of the children was the class post man. He wore his post man hat and a bright coat and he had a post mans bag.  He had to take the letter out of the post box and put it in his post man's bag.  Then we were ready to go.

We all went off to find the classroom.  It was a long way.   We had to go around corners and up the stairs, but we found it.  When we arrived we knocked on the door and we delivered our letter to Ms Barry's class.

When we came back to the class we drew a map showing how we got up to Ms Barry's class to deliver our letter.

The next day was very exciting.  Ms Barry's class sent a letter back to us. They had put their letter in an envelope and they wrote our class address on the envelope.

We look forward to sending more letters and parcels around the school this month.
This is the song we are learning all about addresses:


Here are some videos about the post office:

• Off to the Post Office - The Delivery Office
• Off to the Post Office - The Deliveries
• Post Man Pat in a Muddle

Dress Up Time!!!

Senior Infants had great fun dressing up as their favourite characters!

Senior Infants meet illustrator, Chris Judge

In the run up to World Book Day, Senior Infants went up to DuBray bookshop to meet illustrator and children's book author, Chris Judge.
We listened to Chris read his book, 'The Lonely Beast' and then he showed us how to draw the beast.
Our drawings were fantastic!

Frogs in Junior Infants

Junior Infants have been learning all about frogs. 

We have watched videos, learned new songs and played games all about the life cycle of the frog.

We wrote an excellent report about the frog.

We made little frogs out of clay to put in our spring time display outside our classroom.

Ms McHale brought in some frog spawn for us to observe for the next few weeks.  We are keeping the frogspawn safe in our classroom and we look forward to seeing it hatch into tadpoles in the next few weeks.





Please Note:

Blanket licence signed for frog spawn collection by teachers

It is illegal to disturb or collect frogspawn as frogs are a protected species in Ireland.  However, to facilitate nature studies in primary and secondary schools around the country, the Minister for Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht has issued a blanket licence covering all teachers. The licence allows teachers to collect frog-spawn for use in the class-room. Frog spawn has traditionally been collected by Irish school teachers in spring and kept in glass tanks in class to allow students of all ages observe and learn about the development stages of the frog. Frog eggs, laid as spawn, gradually turn into tadpoles and they in turn go through metamorphosis - the process whereby aquatic tadpoles turn into juvenile frogs.
A copy of the licence can be downloaded here - Frog Licence - Department of Education 2013 [370kb]

Windows on the World: A visit from the Kenyan Ambassador

We had a big day in the school on Thursday.  Over the past few weeks, 4th, 5th and 6th class have been working on their Windows of the World project in preparation for St Patrick's Day. This year our school has been given Kenya as our country. 4th, 5th and 6th class have been learning all about the country, the culture, the people, the geography, the animals and the art work.

To help us celebrate Kenyan culture the Kenyan Ambassador to Ireland, Catherine Muigai Mwangi, came to visit our school. We worked really hard to decorate our school in preparation of the visit. We had balloons, bunting, ribbons and flags in the Kenyan colours - red, black and green. All our pupils lined up at the front of the school and they waved their Kenyan flags to welcome the Ambassador.


The Ambassador planted a tree outside the school to commemorate her visit. She then went to visit 4th, 5th and 6th class to talk to them about life in Kenya. The girls had lots of questions for the Ambassador, and the Ambassador brought some gifts from Kenya for the girls. It was an excellent visit.

Over the next few weeks the girls will continue to learn about Kenya and they will prepare their display for their Windows on the World shop front. We can't wait to see it.

Infant Art Displays

Junior and Senior Infants have been very busy this year working on all their projects.  Here are some displays showing off all their hard work.

Life Cycle of the Frog

Junior and Senior Infants are learning about the Life Cycle of the frog.  Here are some activities to practice this at home.

• Frog Life Cycle Game

Frog Life Cycle Colouring Pages

• Frog Life Cycle Colouring Page
• Frog Life Cycle Sequencing Cards
• My Itsy Bitsy Frog Book
• Frog Life Cycle: Cutting and Matching Activity
• Frog Life Cycle: Match the picture and information

Spring

Junior Infants are learning about Spring. Be sure to look out for signs of Spring - baby animals, daffodils, tulips, nests, buds and blossoms on trees, frog spawn, birds singing......

Art Exhibition

 

Our mums and dads loved our art exhibition at Christmas!

Gymnastics in Junior Infants

For the last two months Junior Infants have been doing Gymnastics in PE.


We are learning lots of different ways to travel using our hands and feet, we are learning different types of rolls - pencil roll, ball roll and the forward roll, and we are learning to use some gymnastics equipments like benches and mats.

It has been lots of fun.  Here is a video of us in our PE class.

We love Gaeilge!!

Junior Infants are learning Irish. Last month we learned how to talk about our clothes or our Eadaí.

We know sciorta, geansai, stocai, broga, briste, guna, hata agus cota.

We are also practicing our Irish songs and rhymes every day. Here is out rhyme about teidí's clothes:
Tá teidí agam.
Teidí deas bui.
Ta hata agus cóta air
Le broga is stocaí.

Every month we learn a little bit more.  Look at our lovely Líne Éadaí

We're learning all about the farm.

Junior Infants are learning all about life on the farm this month.  For the last two weeks we have been learning about all the animals that live on the farm.

We have made some farm animal crafts which we have displayed around our corridor and our classrooms.

We are learning to describe all the different farm animals, and their baby animals.

Why don't you talk to your child at home about life on the farm and the animals they will see there.  Maybe you could also bring your child to visit a real farm.  Glenroe Farm is just down the road.  You can visit their website here: http://www.glenroefarm.com/


Here are some videos you can watch at home:

• Farm Animal Sounds for Children
• Learn all about the Farm Animals (Turtle Diary)
• Fun Farm Animal Facts for Children
• A Visit to the Farm

Here are some Animal Songs to sing together:

• Old MacDonald had a Farm
• The Animal Sounds Song
• Mary had a Little Lamb

Have fun learning all about the farm!!

Step it Up - Keeping Healthy during Operation Transformation

We are taking part in Operation Transformation in our school. Everyone is trying to be more healthy, to eat better and to do more exercise. Our parents and staff have even set up their own Operation Transformation Groups.

 

To help everyone in the school be fitter and more active the girls from 6th class went to every other class in the school to teach them the Step It Up dance. They came to visit us today and we danced and jumped and clapped. It was a great idea to keep us warm on a cold day.

You can see the official Step It Up video on You Tube by clicking here.

Here is a video of the 6th class girls teaching Junior Infants the Step it Up dance.

Spring Time Hunt

It's Spring Time again and Ms McHale's class went out to explore the school grounds and to hunt for signs of springtime appearing around the school.

The children were given partners and each pair had their own binoculars to help them to find things, and a clipboard with a special Spring time Checklist, so they could record everything they saw on their walk.


We had a great time looking for buds and leaves on the plants and trees.  Hunting for spring flowers like daffodils and crocuses.  And we were very quiet when we were listening to the birds singing their spring time songs. 

Here are some photos we took of our walk and some of the things we found on our walk.

Parents Helping in the Classroom

This has been a very busy year for parents, as we encourage our parents to be very involved in their children's school life.  Part of this is all the wonderful work they do at home during homework games and art activities.
Another important part of this is coming into the school to attend meetings, participate in school workshops and to help in the classroom.

Parent Workshops:
This year Junior Infants has held monthly workshops for parents on various parts of school life.  These workshops have included:

• An Introduction to Junior Infants
• Bedtime Reading with your Child
• Jolly Phonics
• Numeracy Games and Activities

The parents have been wonderful for attending and being active participants in these meetings.  Every meetings consists of a talk from the teacher, and demonstration by the pupils of what they have learned and then the parents play a game with their own child.

Parents Helping in the Classroom:
A number of Junior Infant parents have volounteered their time to help our with activies in the school and in the classroom.  There are parents helping with the Bedtime Reading Club on Tuesday mornings and the Savings Club on Friday Mornings.
We also have a number of parents helping in the classrooms during the Morning Maths Games and Art Activities.  These parents are being very generous with their time, and their help is an invaluable support to the class teacher.  More importantly, their children love to see Mummy coming in to help and to be a "teacher". 

Thank you so much to all our parent helpers.  We appreciate everything you do.

Parents are Working Hard at Home

The parents in Junior Infants have been working very hard this year.

Homework Games
They have been playing lots of homework games with their children.  We have been playing number games, sound games and word bingo.  Because of all their hard work, lots of children are moving up to their second and third word lists. 

Art at Home Projects:
Every month the children are given an art project to take home.  Parents and other family memers are encouraged to take part in the project and to help out the child as much as he or she needs.  Previous projects included

• My Family Tree
• My Time Line - I am growing up.
• Paper Roll Jungle Animals

In January we were learning about homes.  Every child was asked to make a box house using old boxes and art materials.  Some really wonderful houses were brought into school.  Lots of different shapes, sizes and colours and using lots of different materials.  A special thanks to the parents and families for helping with this project and making our Box Town look so wonderful.

Junior Infant Nativity Play

We had great fun this year doing our first school Nativity play.  Our play was called the Sleepless Night.  It was about a poor innkeeper who was woken up by all the different visitors who came to visit the baby Jesus when he was born in Bethelehem.
Here are some photos of us on the stage.