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! 

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:

The Postman Visits Ms Collins

Junior Infants are learning to read and write

Junior Infants have been very busy over the past two months learning their first sounds and their first sight words.








So far we have learned these sounds:

We have done lots of activities to help us practice our sounds.

• We use our sound books to say our sounds
• We sing the Jolly Phonics songs.
• We have a special action for each sound.
• We practice building words using our sound cards.
• We play games with our sounds and look for pictures and words that start with our sounds.  We can make sets of pictures that start with the same sound.
• We look for our sounds all around the classroom.  In our books, in the library, on posters, on the whiteboard and when the teacher is writing.
• We practice writing our sounds using lots of different tools.  Here are some pictures of us making our sounds using toy cars.

We have also been learning some new sight words.  We practice our new words at home and in school every day so we know them really well.

• We have used our words to make sentences. Sometimes we stick pictures into our sentences to help us with the new words.
• We bring our word bags home every night and we play games with the words.  We practice reading the words and making sentences at home.
• In school we play word bag games with our friends and our teacher.
• We play games on the computer and practice making sentences with our new words.
• We look around the classroom for some of our new words.  We look on the posters, in our books and on the whiteboard.

Here are some of the activities we have done with our words this year:

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!!!!

Infant Art and Writing Displays

We have been very busy in Junior and Senior Infants this year. Here are some of our art displays from the year.