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.

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!

The Farm

Junior Infants have been busy learning all about the farm. 

We learnt about the different animals that live on a farm and made fabric and fibre animal crafts for display. 

We worked in our groups to make animal reports about some farm animals and then tell the class what we had learnt.

 We wrote about the different animals in our special farm writing books. 

We read some stories about the farm, like Farmer Duck and The Pig in the Pond. 

We also learnt some songs like 'Old MacDonald Had a Farm'. 

Junior Infants know lots about the farm now! 

Autumn Nature Walk in Junior Infants

We went on an Autumn Nature Walk on Friday. We were looking for signs of autumn around the school grounds and we found loads! We saw leaves of all different colours (red, yellow, brown...), blackberries  (although some weren't ripe and were still red) and conkers that had fallen on the ground from a big horse chestnut tree. Some of the conkers were still in their prickly shells. We also walked through the fallen leaves on the ground and listened carefully to the crunchy sound they made when we stood on them.

 

 

 

 

 

We went on our school tour to Glenroe Farm!

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!

 

 

Junior Infants are Learning all about Chicks

The three junior infant classes are learning all about the farm and the animals that live on it.  This week we are looking at the chick.  We are learning to describe the chick, what it looks like and what it does.
Here is a video that teaches us about hens on the farm

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.

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]

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.

Autumn in the Infant Classroom

Infants have been learning all about Autumn.

Autumn Weather
We have been watching the weather every day and we have recorded how the weather has changed on our class chart.  During September and October it has gotten colder and there are more cloudy days and less sunny days.

Autumn Trees
We have also gone out on nature walks around the school to look for signs of Autumn.  We have lots of trees in the school.  We saw that the leaves on the trees have been changing from green to brown, yellow, orange and red.  We collected some of these leaves for our class nature table.  We sorted these leaves into different colours.
We looked at three special trees.
We used clues to find out what trees we were looking at.  We looked at the leaves on the tree and the seeds from the tree.

• The sycamore tree with it's star shaped leaves and it's helicopter seeds.
• The horse chestnut tree with it's fingered leaves and the chestnut and conker seeds.
• The oak tree with it's pretty, frilly leaves and it's acorn seeds.
• We also found lots of blackberries growing in the hedges around the school.  These will be great for feeding the birds.

Everyone should go to visit their local park and look for signs of the trees changing in Autumn.  Particularly look for our three special trees.

Here are some pictures from our nature walk.

Learning About the Hedgehog

We have learned about the animals we see in Autumn, particularly the hedgehog. 

We learned that the hedgehog has brown spines on his back, a brown furry face and a brown furry tummy.
It likes to eat slugs, snails, worms, fruit and insects.

It lives in hedges and makes a nest in dry leaves and grass.

The hedgehog curls up in a spikey ball to protect itself when it is scared.  It is a good swimmer and a good climber.

We watched videos and looked at pictures to help us learn.

We made a big hedgehog using our handprints.

We used brown clay and cocktail sticks to make little hedgehogs and then we made our hedgehog a nest using brown and orange, autumn leaves.