November 18 2018

News from Ms. Black’s Junior Infants!

We had lots of practice at shopping and dressing up in our Fancy Dress Costume Shop. The cake sale was great fun and we looked fabulous in our Halloween costumes.
We are learning our Jolly Phonics letters and sounding out words. We are working on recognising  the tricky words too. We are practicing our caterpillar letters c o a d g.
  
Our topic for November is food we have enjoyed stories  like Pizza at Sallys, The Tiger Who Came To Tea and Frogie  Eats Out! We have a pizza restaurant in our role play corner. We have done art activities on pizzas and made pasta necklaces. Next week we will continue our food topic with a cafe and ice cream parlour .We are looking forward to cooking pizzas at the end of our food topic.
  
We are writing our numbers and playing maths games  and  doing lots of counting. We have started practising for our Christmas Show and we are having great fun learning the songs and  dancing!
  
Last week we were  on the stage at assembly and sang a song and recited two poems.
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November 11 2018

3…2…1…BLAST OFF!

During the month of October we learned all about Space! In English we read the story ‘Whatever Next!’ by Jill Murphy. In this story, Baby Bear finds a space rocket in the cupboard under the stairs. He finds a space helmet and space boots in the kitchen and then he zooms up the chimney and lands on the moon, all before bedtime! Whilst reading this story, we practised our comprehension skills of predicting, visualising, questioning and summarising, we learned new vocabulary, wrote a list of things that Baby Bear would need to bring with him to have a picnic and even dramatized Baby Bear zooming up the chimney in his box rocket!

In Maths, we continued to partition and combine for 6 but we also learned all about 2D shapes – squares, rectangles, triangles, circles, ovals and hexagons. We enjoyed going on 2D shape hunts around the school, playing guessing games with the shapes, drawing pictures using 2D shapes, playing with tangrams, using BeeBots to find 2D shapes and constructing 2D shapes out of cocktail sticks and marshmallows. In Gaeilge we learned lots of songs and phrases surrounding the theme of ‘An Scoil’ and of course ‘Oíche Shamhna’.

  

In History, we learned all about Neil Armstrong and created a timeline of his life. In Geography we learned all about our Solar System. We came up with a great mnemonic to remember the names and order of the planets – My Very Excited Mother Just Served Us Noodles – Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. We even pretended to be the planets orbiting around the sun! In Science we learned all about rockets and how they blast off into space. We made our own balloon rockets and launched them along a string.

In Music we learned lots of songs for Halloween but we also had to prepare for our assembly performance. We learned a song that retold the story of ‘Whatever Next!’ that we had been learning in English. We performed it at assembly to all of Junior Infants, Senior Infants and First Class! We did a fantastic job! In Drama, we played some fun drama games and read the story ‘The Way Back Home’ by Oliver Jeffers. The little boy in the story crash lands on the moon and befriends a Martian. Together we had to come up with a solution to help the boy and the Martian find their way back home! This month, we are busy preparing for our Christmas play, we are very excited to perform it in front of all our families.

In Art, we made some fantastic space rockets made out of plastic bottles and papier mâché. We also made some puffy paint planets. We had great fun making the puffy paint out of shaving foam, PVA glue and paint! Finally to talk about our favourite time of the day… Aistear! We loved playing in our space centre role play corner this month. We had to do all our safety checks before counting down and blasting off into space. We then had to put on our space suits and walk around the moon! We hope you enjoyed reading our blog post. Check back in a month’s time to find out what we have been up to in November and follow us on twitter @MsOlsonsClass to keep track in the mean time!

  

   

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October 29 2018

Ms Livingston’s Senior Infants

Welcome to Ms. Livingston’s Senior infants. This month, our Aistear theme was The Vet. We learned all about how the Vet is very important in our community and what they do to help our pets. Each day we play at a different station which is based on our theme.

We made our own bread. We measured how much of each ingredient we would need. We put it in the oven to bake. It tasted delicious! We even got to take home a slice for someone at home to try.

We went on an Autumn Nature walk around the school grounds. We used a checklist and clipboards to record what exactly we saw. Some of the items we collected were conkers, leaves and pinecones. We brought some of them back into our class to put on our nature table. Then we wrote about what we saw, what we heard, what we smelled and how we felt when we were on out Autumn walk!

We also had a exciting last day before midterm, we dressed up in our Halloween costumes and bought lots of cakes in the cake sale!

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October 14 2018

News from Ms. Wood’s Junior Infants

September has been a busy month in Ms Woods’s Junior Infant’s class. We are all getting used to school, making new friends and learning lots of new things.

We are learning our Jolly Phonics sounds and nursery rhymes old and new. Our theme for Aistear was ‘Homes’ so we have had a week based on Goldilocks and the Three Bears  and The Three Little Pigs and two weeks based on ‘The Scarecrow’s Wedding’. Activities include role play while using new words, construction, art and craft, sequencing activities and much more. In Maths we are exploring number and doing pattern.

  

 

We are learning to write new letters in sand, on whiteboards, in marla as well as on paper.

We love gymnastics and ball skills and we are always having fun while learning lots.

 

 

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October 14 2018

News from Ms. Black’s Junior Infants

We have settled into school and made lots of new friends. We work and play really well together. We are learning letters and enjoy singing the jolly phonics songs. We have been making repeating patterns in maths and learning our numbers and counting sets.

We learned lots about Autumn and made lovely colourful autumn trees . We have collected lots of leaves, acorns and conkers. We learned a poem about a squirrel called Whisky Frisky!

We have enjoyed the story about The Scarecrow’s Wedding and did role play, construction and art activities based on it. We made fabulous scarecrows and  they even have repeating patterns on their clothes.

  

We are doing really well at GAA football skills, our coach Steve is very impressed. We are looking forward to Halloween and will make some scary Witches and funny pumpkins.

  

 

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October 3 2018

September News from Ms. Olson’s Class!

What a start to a fantastic new year in Senior Infants! Our monthly theme for September was ‘All About Me’ and we thoroughly enjoyed learning about families, our bodies, our school and of course recognising how special and unique we all are!

During Aistear time, we had great fun playing in the Doctor’s Surgery role play corner. We had to sign patients in at reception and instruct them to wait in our waiting room, before being seen by the doctor in the treatment room. We were also very excited to play ‘Teach your Monster to Read’ on the class computers and we’re definitely getting the hang of using the mouse and the keyboard now.

  

In English, we have been working really hard to learn all our Jolly Phonics and to develop our blending skills. We read ‘Owl Babies’ by Martin Waddell and ‘The Smartest Giant in Town’ by Julia Donaldson and learnt how to predict, question, summarise and make connections! In Maths, we have been super busy sorting collections of objects into sets, making patterns and partitioning for three, four and five. We also carried out some data investigations and recorded them both on paper and using our interactive board. In Gaeilge, we learnt many phrases in relation to ‘Mé Féin’ and ‘Lá Bréithe’ and sang some new songs and rhymes.

  

In S.E.S.E, we made family trees, identified the names of our body parts and went on a tour of our school before creating a big map on the classroom floor of our journey. In Drama, we played some fun games and read ‘Elmer’ by David McKee. Poor Elmer was sad that he was different from all the other elephants but we helped him to feel better by finding a solution to his problem! We like to start our day with a song, so we have been singing some lovely songs in Music. We are currently learning a song in preparation for Halloween – it is called ‘There was an old witch..’ And last but not least, we have made some beautiful artwork in Senior Infants. We drew and painted our self portraits and made some lovely Wassily Kandinsky inspired autumn trees!

  

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October 3 2018

Junior Infants and Ms Walsh Getting Creative for Autumn

We have all settled in really well to life in Junior Infants.  We have had a lot of fun learning each other’s names, making new friends and learning all about each other.

In maths we have been sorting sets, making patterns, learning all about 2d and 3D shapes and playing some fun maths games like “sweetie jar”.
We are enjoying learning our jolly phonics sounds every day.  Our Aistear theme for September was homes and houses.  We explored this theme through junk art, role play, construction, sequencing and through márla.
We have also been learning so much about Autumn.  We liked making these clay hedgehogs and Autumn
trees.
            Making Autumn Trees                               Happy Hedgehogs
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May 9 2018

April was an Eggciting Month in Senior Infants!

What a busy month we’ve had in Senior Infants! Our monthly theme was ‘The Sea’ and we had great fun exploring this topic.

In English we read the stories, ‘The Snail and the Whale’ and ‘Sharing a Shell’ by Julia Donaldson and discovered that Julia is a big fan of rhyming words just like we are! We love ‘Rhyme Time’ in our class each morning! We found some very interesting words for our word wall and we liked writing our own adventures for the Snail and the Whale. We also wrote about a time when we went to the seaside (real or imaginary!).

In Maths we had great fun learning about capacity. We sorted different sized containers and estimated and measured how much water, sand and different materials could fit into them. We also decided which containers would be best for holding different materials. Ms. Olson played a trick on us in our last capacity lesson – she poured water from a small container into a larger container and asked us if the containers had the same amount of water in them or whether they were different! Ms. Olson managed to trick quite a few of us (hehe!).

We had great fun in S.E.S.E this month. We learned about ‘The Titanic’ and constructed our own Titanic models in Art. We investigated different materials from the seaside including sand, pebbles, stones, sea glass, driftwood and even seaweed. We were able to touch the materials and feel the difference that water had on them. For example, when the seaweed was dry it felt quite crunchy and hard and when wet it was slimey and slippery! We also did a floating and sinking experiment and made predictions about which objects would float and which would sink. We learned about some interesting sea animals too. Did you know that an octopus has blue blood? We were very lucky to receive a Big Grow package from our friends at Innocent. We grew some lovely cress, spinach and peas and made sure to water them everyday.

In Music, we learned the song Apusski Dusky and performed it for the Junior School at assembly. We also listened and resonded to songs from The Little Mermaid – ‘Under the Sea’ and ‘Part of Your World’. In Art, as well as our Titanics, we made jellyfish mobiles and newpaper sharks and in Drama, we helped ‘The Rainbow Fish’ decide what to do with his shimmering scales.

                                  

We had great fun in our Aistear stations this month, in particular, we really enjoyed our time in ‘The Pirate Ship’. We also loved our time at the water and sand play station. We love getting messy!

However, perhaps the biggest news we have from Senior Infants this month is: We welcomed four beautiful ducklings into the world! We incubated the eggs for 28 days and on the 25th and 26th April 2018 we welcomed James Pond, Smash, Sir Quacks-a-lot and DJ Tiny into Senior Infants. At two weeks old, they are now too big to come to school anymore and they are off to a lovely new farm home in Enniskerry to be with some other ducks. We’ll miss their little chirps in the classroom!

That’s all from us here in Senior Infants, we hope you’ve enjoyed reading our blog post!

 

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December 22 2017

Wrapping Up for Christmas in Senior Infants!

Well what a busy month it has been in Senior Infants! From nativity plays to Aistear, Wildlife Warrior Workshops to Christmas sing-a-longs, December has been a cracker of a month!!

For much of November, Senior Infants had been practising for their production of ‘What a Star!’ and boy did they shine! On the 7th December 2017 all the Mums and Dads, Grannys and Grandads, brothers and sisters came to see our star-filled nativity show and everyone was very impressed. The children put on a fantastic performance!

In between practising for our play we made sun catcher nativity scenes, Christmas elves, Christmas tree decorations, penguin pictures and Christmas cards.

 

We had so much fun during Aistear this month, as our theme was Christmas all our stations were linked. We were busy elves in Santa’s Workshop designing, making and wrapping toys whilst the postmen and women delivered children’s letters to Santa; we baked chocolate chip cookies for Santa Claus and we made lovely Christmas cards.

     

We’ve had some special visitors in Senior Infants this month, Jingles – our Elf on the shelf (who we managed to catch on camera!! The footage can be seen on our Twitter page @MsOlsonsClass) and two lovely hedgehogs from Hedgehog Rescue Dublin. We learned a lot about hedgehogs and hibernation during our Wildlife Warrior Workshop. It was lots of fun!

To send us on our merry way, we finished off the term with a lovely sing-a-long, singing carols such as Jingle Bells, Away in a Manger, Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer and Santa Claus is Coming to Town! That’s it from Senior Infants, Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night!

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December 22 2017

November News from Ms. Hegarty’s Class

During November we started rehearsing our nativity play.  It was a little surreal trying not to talk about Christmas or Santa (it was much too early!) while singing lots of Christmas songs and acting out the Nativity.  We were very fortunate to have polydrons from the yard in our classroom in this month and we had great fun building with them.

Here are pictures of some things we made while learning to follow instructions and diagrams.

 

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