In January, we learned all about the Polar Regions in Junior Infants. In Aistear we had lots of fun playing in both the Arctic and Antarctica home corner. We were polar explorers searching for different animals, we had to set up camp in the freezing climates and build igloos. It was lots of fun. We had fun playing with small world based in the Polar Regions and acting out winter sports and we did lots of cut and stick activities to learn about penguins and polar bears. We learned about floating and sinking and tested out different objects to see whether they floated or sank. We also worked as a group to create Antarctica and Arctic posters. We used twistables, pencils and cotton wool to create our posters and stuck pictures of different animals native to the polar regions on them. We also constructed snowmobiles with Lego and igloos and polar animals with playdough.

In English we continued to learn our Jolly Phonics, Tricky Words and we enjoyed playing phonics games. We enjoyed engaging with the books – ‘The Emperor’s Egg’ by Martin Jenkins, ‘Lost and Found’ by Oliver Jeffers and ‘The Polar Bear and the Snow Cloud’ by Jane Cabrera. We found ‘The Emperor’s Egg’ to be very informative and we learned many facts about penguins. We also enjoyed our letter writing stations – we wrote the letters in sand, with playdough, on whiteboards and as rainbow letters.

In Gaeilge we enjoyed learning about ‘An Scoil’ (School) and ‘Caitheamh Aimsire’ (Hobbies). We liked learning about ‘Caitheamh Aimsire’ as we learned new vocabulary and sang songs and rhymes relating to toys! Toys were definitely on our minds in January straight after Christmas! In Maths we took a giant leap forward as we started learning how to partition and combine within five! We have been learning our number stories for all the ways we can make five: 0 and 5; 5 and 0; 1 and 4; 4 and 1; 2 and 3; 3; and 2. We also enjoyed sorting and learning about weight. We sorted items according to weight and did some heavier / lighter hunts and challenges. We also enjoyed playing maths games on the iPads.

In S.E.S.E, we learned all about Antarctica and the Arctic – we especially liked learning about penguins and polar bears. We learned about the Irish explorer, Tom Crean, who almost made it to the South Pole. We learned the names of the seven continents and we had such fun singing the continents song on YouTube.

In P.E. we focused on the Games strand of the curriculum. We love playing warm up games such as stuck in the mud, flush the toilet and duck duck goose. We practised lots of skills this month including rolling, stopping and trapping balls, kicking and shooting, dribbling, bouncing, catching, tossing and striking. We used footballs and  rackets and bean bags a to practise these skills. We loved doing little relay races too whilst we practised these skills.

In Art we made beautiful penguin and polar bear collage pictures. We also decorated a handprint poem for Grandparents’ Day.  In Music, we sang some lovely songs – our favourite being ‘Boa Constrictor’. The song is so funny as it is about being eaten by a boa constrictor!

We hoped you enjoyed our blog this month – stay tuned for February’s news!