Some Interesting Facts about Hedgehogs

Visit these websites to learn more about the hedgehog and to see lots of pictures and video clips.

• National Geographic Kids: Hedgehog Facts and Pictures
• Wildlife Garden Project: How to Help Hedgehogs in your Garden (video)
• Baby Hedgehogs Eating (Video)
• Irish Wildlife Matters: What to do if you find a hedgehog in distress.
• British Hedgehog Preservation Society
• Hedgehog curled up in a ball (Video)

The Do's and Don'ts of Hedgehogs

· Do leave areas of wilderness where hedgehogs can snuffle for insects.
· Do put out drinking water
· Do put out good quality dog or cat food (not fish based).
· Do install, in a nice, quiet area of the garden, a hedgehog house or a stack of logs
· Don’t put out any bread or milk for a hedgehog
· Don’t pick up uninjured or fit and healthy hedgehogs
· Don’t leave black sacks or rubbish lying around
· Don’t use chemicals or slug pellets – they can poison hedgehogs and other animals, if you must use them up them under a slate where animals can’t reach them easily.
· Don’t light bonfires without checking to see if a hedgehog’s home is underneath – also check for other wildlife who may have built their homes under unlit bonfires.
· Don’t fork over compost heaps in case a hedgehog or another animal has built their home there.
· Don’t use your strimmer under hedges and undergrowth without checking these areas first, hedgehogs and other animals may be resting there during the day.
· Do keep all nets above ground when not in use, keep fruit nets taut.
· Don’t leave drains or similar open holes uncovered. Make sure ponds have a way out for small animals, house brick steps or wire mesh can be used to give the animals a chance to get out if they fall in.
· Don’t spray hedgehogs with flea spray. It can be harmful to them.

A Cute Baby Hedgehog

This video links to You Tube.  Be careful not to let your child browse You Tube videos unsupervised at home.

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!!!!

Our First Week in School

Junior Infants have been very busy during their first week in school. Have a look at some of our photos.

How to Post a Comment to the Blog

The class blog is an opportunity to share our school activities with the children’s families (in Ireland or around the world), and with other schools.  We hope you take the time to check in on the blogs during the year, and we encourage you to interact with the blog posts by leaving comments.

To help you learn how to leave comments, you can download this guide to use at home.

• Using the School Blog at Home

Welcome to Junior Infants

Ms McHale, Ms Stapleton and Ms McSweeney would like to welcome all the new girls and boys into Junior Infants this year.  This is a very exciting time for all the children and the parents and we hope that everyone has a great year.

We understand that sometimes people can be nervous, the new pupils and their parents, but before long everyone will be settled into their new routine, and all the children will have lots of new friends.

If there is anything you are concerned about during the year, or if you have any questions about how your child is progressing or the work being covered in class, we will be delighted to meet with you.  As the mornings are very busy times, it would be much appreciated if you could arrange these meetings in advance with us for collection time.

Again, we hope that everyone has a really wonderful year.

From,
Ms McHale (Rm 6), Ms Stapleton (Rm 5) and Ms McSweeney (Rm 3)