Caterpillar Update in Junior Infants

Junior Infants have been very busy learning all about minibeasts.

We had a very special delivery from the postman. It was a brown box that said 'Urgent: Open Immediately!'. In the box we found.... caterpillars!

     






The caterpillars were very small when we first got them. They had to eat the special food in their jar. They ate lots of food every day until they were big and fat!
        


Every morning we would look at our caterpillars and see how big they were growing. We wrote sentences about our observations in our writing copy.



We noticed that the caterpillars were crawling to the top of the jar. They were hanging down. One morning we came in to our classroom and saw that one had made a cocoon!

Over the next few days all of the five caterpillars made cocoons. They are now hiding in their cocoons until they are ready to change into beautiful butterflies!

We went on our school tour to Glenroe Farm!

A Special Visitor!

On Thursday we welcomed a special visitor to the school - Ms McHale's beautiful baby girl, Amelie! All the teachers were very excited to meet Amelie and it was great to see Ms McHale again, too. Amelie is now 3 and a half weeks old and is a happy and content little baby. We can't wait to meet her again. Congratulations Ms McHale! 

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.

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.

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.

Working Hard in September

There are lots of things we can do while we are learning to write.  We are working on our fine-motor skills, which means we are learning to use our fingers in different ways.

We use lots of different tools to do different things.  Here are some of the activities we are doing this week to prepare us for our writing later on.

 

It's a good idea for children to practice a range of activivities like this at home.  Particularly useful activities include:

• Cutting pictures from magazines
• Drawing and colouring pictures using a variety of tools (markers, crayons, pencils, chalk...etc)
• Painting using big and small brushes
• Playing with playdoh and mala.
• Make jigsaws of different sizes.
• Use kitchen tools to pick up small things, pour liquids, sort items by colour or size...etc.
• Put close pegs on to the washing line, around a box..etc.
• Fit paper clips onto pieces of paper.
 



 

Wow work with mala!!

We have been using our mala over the past few weeks to make different shapes and numbers. Sometimes the mala is very cold and hard to use, so we leave it on the windowsill, and the sunshine makes it soft. 

Today we were making the number 1 and we were making circles with our mala.

Two children did some wonderful work with their mala today.

Daniel made his numbers from 1 to 10 using his mala/





Ciara wrote her name using her mala.

Well done for the Wow Work!!!!