The Adventures of Travelling Teddy!

Teddy has been enjoying his adventures with the children in Junior Infants! Every day after school Teddy goes home with a child from Junior Infants! They have lots of fun on their adventures: Teddy has been to the park, on a plane, on a boat, to the shops... and every night he has a sleepover with a different child!
Every day the children tell the rest of the class what they did on their adventures with Teddy. This is great for their language skills as we learn about talking about events in the past.

Parental Involvement Programme- Maths Workshop

We had a fun Maths workshop in March. We showed the mammies and daddies how good we are at our counting and number games. Then we played a new game called 'Animal Hunt' with our parents. 

It was great fun to show off our number skills and play a game in our classroom with our parents. 

Spring fun in the School Garden

We did lots of work in our school garden in Spring. We had to tidy up our box and get it ready for planting! We pulled out the weeds and put in fresh soil. Then we planted our beans. We will have to check our plants to see how they are growing.

A special visitor in Junior Infants...

We had a very special visitor in Junior Infants today! His name was Jim and he works in Dublin Zoo! He told us lots of interesting things about the animals that live in Dublin Zoo. He showed us some pictures of the animals, we saw elephants playing in the water, monkeys up the trees and meerkats sunbathing!
He also brought some things for us to touch and feel, like an ostrich egg, some animal skins and an elephant foot!
We had a lot of fun touching the different things and learning all about animals.

Autumn in Junior Infants

In October we were learning all about Autumn. We learnt about animals we might see in Autumn, activities we might do in Autumn and the different signs of Autumn. We went on an Autumn Walk around our school to look for these signs of  Autumn. We saw lots of different coloured leaves, berries growing on bushes, conkers and sycamore seeds on the  ground and even some acorns!

Junior Infant Newsletter 3rd November 2015

Welcome back to everyone after midterm break. We’re delighted to see the children back with happy faces and ready for lots of work!

We have a busy term ahead!  

For the next fortnight we will be covering lots of new things such as learning:

*       New sounds: ‘c’, ‘e’, ‘h’, and  ‘r’.

*       New sight words: Look, at, the, my, look, I, am, like

*       How to write the letter ‘a’

*       Number 2

We are starting to learn all about animals. For the next fortnight we will be learning about animals that hibernate and pets we can have.

Useful Vocabulary Winter    Autumn    hibernation    hedgehog   squirrel    nuts    gathering food      squirrel nest or ‘drey’     hedgehog  nest Cat    kitten   dog  puppy   rabbit    hamster    guinea  pig    bird    goldfish      snake     turtle      tank     aquarium     cage   hutch     bed       bowl    lead       collar

Some rhymes to practice at home:
Mary had a little lamb	Little Bo Peep
Hickety Pickety	I have a pet (Super simple songs available on youtube)

How you can support your child’s learning: Literacy: *       Find things around the house/ in books that start with our ‘s’,’a’, ‘t’, ‘i’, ‘p’ and ‘n’ sounds   as well as our new sounds ‘c’   ‘e’    ‘h’   and ‘r’. *       Cut out pictures from magazines/ brochures/ leaflet with this sound *       Look for this sound in the environment (on signs, in books) *       Encourage your child to practice writing their name and the letter ‘c’ at home Numeracy: *       Practice counting to 5 *       Find things that are pink and orange *       Find 2D shapes in the environment: circles, squares, triangles, rectangles *       Encourage your child to do sorting and matching activities at home: using pasta, toy cars, toy blocks, or socks!  S.E.S.E. *       Talk to your child about winter  and hibernation: what is hibernation? What animals hibernate? Why do animals hibernate? Look for signs of hibernation (squirrels collecting nuts) *       Maybe you could help hibernating animals at home: visit http://www.dspca.ie/   to find out how you can help hedgehogs at home *       Talk to your child about animals we keep as pets. Talk about the different ways we have to care for our pets (food, bed, play time, walks, bringing to the vet). *       If you have a pet bring in a photo to show the class!

Reminders:

Ø Please return homework folders and nursery rhyme kits each day.

Ø If your child is absent please ring the office so we can record any explanations.

Ø Encourage your child to put on and take off their coat independently- this is an important skill to be learnt as the weather begins to get colder!

Colours in Junior Infants

We have been learning all about our colours in Junior Infants. So far we have learnt about red, blue and yellow. Next we will be learning all about green. We do lots of activities when we are learning about colours: we make a colour table, we read a book about the colour, we learn a rhyme about the colour and we sort things by colours!
Here are some pictures of us hard at work sorting materials by colour.

Junior Infant Newsletter 21st September 2015

Junior Infant Newsletter 21^st September 2015

Hello again from Junior Infants.

We have had a busy fortnight in Junior Infants.

We have started staying in for the full day until 1.40pm. We are a bit tired but we are getting lots more work done!

This is what we have been doing for the past two weeks in school:

• *       Maths: We have been learning about the colour blue, matching, sorting and number rhymes
• *       English: We have started Jolly Phonics and have been learning about the sounds ‘s’ and ‘a’. We are also writing our names, tracing, colouring, and learning new rhymes
• *       Oral Language: We have started our Oral Language Chatty Groups. We are in special small groups working with teachers in stations. This fortnight we were talking about ourselves, our families and school.
• *       Fine Motor Skills: Every morning we do our fine motor activities to help us when we start to write. We are also doing lots of tracing and cutting.
• *       S.E.S.E. (History, Geography, Science):  We have been talking growing and changing, our bodies, and things we can do now that we’re big.

Nursery rhymes to practise at home:

Where is Thumbkin?	Jack and Jill
Miss Polly	Little Miss Muffet
Hickory Dickory Dock	Rólaí Pólaí

For the next two weeks in school we will be learning about our families and school.

Vocabulary: Mum (mother/ mammy)  Dad (father/ daddy)   brother   sister      uncle   aunt        grandparents       grandmother (granny, nanny, nan, gran)             grandfather (grandad, grandpa)       cousin older            younger                      family

How you can support your child’s learning: Literacy: *       Find things around the house/ in books that start with our ‘s’ or ‘a’ sound. *       Look for this sound in the environment Numeracy: *       Can your child count to five? Practice this at home (e.g. chanting, clapping, stamping) *       Find things that are blue and yellow  S.E.S.E. *       Talk to your child (using photos if necessary) about the people in their family. We have been talking to the children about how all families are different so make sure they can name the people in their family (e.g. brothers and sisters) *       Bring in a photo of your family for use in class *       Get started on your Art at Home Family Tree project. Talk to your child about how people are related *       Go to the library and read books about families(e.g. the Large family books) S.P.H.E. (Social, Personal, Health Education) *       Talk to your child about the importance of washing their hands properly and practise this at home.

Reminders:

• *       Don’t forget your yellow History Timelines
• *       P.E. is on Mondays and Wednesdays. Please wear school tracksuit and runners.
• *       Parental Involvement Programme Workshops start this week: Thursday 24^th September Ms Stapleton’s Class and Friday 25^th September Ms Murray’s class
• *       The Carambola Lunch Programme has started- if you have signed up for this your child will receive their lunch in school every day. They do not need anything extra.
• *       Please bring in a photo of your family for use in class. This photo will be stuck in their ‘Family’ booklet

We look forward to seeing everyone at the workshops this week.

Fiona Murray and Sarah Stapleton

Junior Infant Newsletter 7th September 2015

A big welcome to all of the new Junior Infants boys and girls (and their parents!).

The children are settling in well to school and it is great to see lots of lovely smiley faces coming in to school every morning.

We have been very busy in school already:

• *       In Maths we have been learning about the colour red and how to sort materials by colour. We are also learning number rhymes ‘5 Little Monkeys’ and ‘One Little Finger’. We are also beginning to count up to 5.
• *       We have been doing lots of fine motor activities to get us ready for writing.
• *       In English We are learning lots of nursery rhymes like ‘Incy Wincy Spider’, ‘Baa Baa Black Sheep’, and ‘Humpty Dumpty’. We are also learning how to write our names.
• *       We are doing lots of colouring and trying our best to stay inside the lines and use lots of different colours

For the next week we will be learning all about our bodies and how we grow and change.

Vocabulary: The body: arm     hand     head    eyes    ears   nose    mouth   chin   hair    neck    cheeks    shoulders  knees   elbows     toes     feet     legs     back       stomach Growing: Baby  toddler    child    teenager     adult      elderly      growing    big    small

How you can support your child’s learning: *       Talk to your child about things they can do now that they could not do when they were a baby ( riding a bike, writing their name, feeding themselves, dressing themselves) *       Encourage your child to be more independent by getting them to do things for themselves (putting on and taking off their coat, dressing themselves, opening and closing their lunchbox, tidying up their toys, feeding themselves) *       Show them pictures of them as  a baby and discuss all the changes that have happened *       Go to the library and find books about the body and growing up.

Nursery rhymes to practise at home:

Incy Wincy Spider	Humpty Dumpty
Baa Baa Black Sheep	Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes
If you’re happy and you know it	2 Little Dicky Birds
5 Little monkeys	1,2,3,4,5 Once I caught a fish alive
One Little Finger	Hokey Pokey

These rhymes can all be found on Youtube or on our class blog  on the right hand side. 

Notices:

*       Junior Infant Parent Introduction Meeting is on Wednesday 9^th September at 11am in the school hall

*       From Thursday 10^th September Junior Infants will finish at 1.40pm every day. Please ensure you are there on time/ someone is therein your place to collect your child as they can become upset if they don’t see someone

We look forward to working with you all this year. Please don’t hesitate to come to us if you have any concerns.

Many thanks,

Fiona Murray and Sarah Stapleton

Maths in Junior Infants - Term 2

We have been learning loads of new Maths this year.  In Junior Infants we try to keep our Maths as fun as active as possible.  We are counting all the time, and we count everything.  We sing loads of number rhymes and songs to help us learn our numbers.

We are always learning new maths games and have lots of interesting and colourful equipment to help us learn new things.

Here we are doing a shape experiment.  We wanted to learn which 3-D objects will roll and with will not roll down the hill.  We found out that the shapes with the curved sides will roll down the hill, but the shapes with the flat sides will not.  We also know that toys with wheels will roll down the hill, because the wheels have curved sides.

JI Maths, rolling

We also invited the parents in to a Presentation about how maths and number are taught in Junior Infants, and how they can help their children to learn at home.  A copy of the presentation can be downloaded by clicking on the picture.

Maths in Junior Infants

Since starting school in September, Junior Infants have been working very hard in Maths!

We do lots of fun activities, sometimes we don't even know we're learning we're having so much fun!

In Maths this term we have been learning about:

-sorting

-matching

-shapes

-numbers 1,2, 3

-number rhymes

-patterns

That's a lot of work for our first few months in school!

To show our mums and dads, grannies, granddads and everyone else all our hard work we've made a video to show some of the activities we do during Maths every day.

Happy Faces in Junior Infants

Look at all the happy faces in our new Junior Infant classes!

We got off to a great start on our first day of school.

It was a busy day, with lots of stories, games and new toys to play with.

Some people even came to take photos of us for the Bray People!

We're all so excited to be in Junior Infants and ready for lots of fun and learning with our new friends.

 

Easter in Junior Infants

We have been working so hard in Junior Infants so to celebrate Easter we did lots of lovely things.

First, we  made special Easter baskets.

Then we went to the garden to have an Easter Egg hunt! Someone had hidden lots of eggs and Easter treats all around the school garden. We had to search in the flowerbeds and under pots to find them!

 

We also did some baking! We made chocolate nests for our fluffy yellow chicks to sit in.

 

We had so much fun!

The Farm

The three Junior Infants were busy learning all about the farm.

We read stories about the farm such as Farmer Duck and The Pig in the Pond.

We learnt about the different animals that live on a farm, like pigs, cows, chickens and sheep!

We even learnt that these animals give us food we eat, like sausages, eggs, and milk!

We had exciting play time with all different farm activities: we painted farm animals, we used animals and sensory boxes to make the farm, we used márla to make farm animals and vegetables and our role play areas turned in to 'Farm Shops!'.

 

We also did lots of writing about the farm. Have a look at our lovely 'farm  books' hanging up outside our classrooms.

Another busy month in Junior Infants!

 

World Book Day in Junior Infants

A late post to celebrate World Book Day!

 

We had a fantastic week in Junior Infants celebrating books and our favourite characters. We read lots of new stories such as Dr. Seuss 'The Cat in the Hat'!

The 5th and 6th class girls came down to read us lovely stories. It was very exciting listening to the big girls reading.

On Friday something strange happened in Ravenswell. There were no children in school, but we had lots of book characters! We had princesses, Pippi Longstocking, Alice in Wonderland, Little Red Riding Hood and Pinocchio!

Have a look at the video to see all the fun things we got up to! 

 

Exciting news in Junior Infants!

The three Junior Infant classes got a special delivery in the post yesterday.

 

 

 

We had a package with three brown boxes inside that said 'Urgent! Open Immediately!'.

 

Inside the boxes we found........ CATERPILLARS!

 

We're going to keep the caterpillars and watch as they make their cocoons and then hatch into beautiful butterflies!

 

 

 

 

Keep an eye on the blog to see how they're growing and come in and see them in our classrooms!

 

 

Pancake Fun!

 

Junior Infants celebrated Shrove Tuesday by eating some yummy pancakes. We even had some with chocolate spread as a special treat!

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.



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?