Junior Infants

Junior Infants 2023-2024
Welcome to our page. Our teachers this year are Karen and Rachel.
We will update our page regularly with news and pictures.

Junior Infants 2022 - 2023
Welcome to our page. Our teachers this year are Rosemary and Karen.
We will update our page regularly with news and pictures.

Traveller Culture Day

We are continuing to learn our new sounds each week.
We are working hard counting forwards and backwards to 10 and beyond.
Don't forget to check out the kids section of our website for games and websites!

St. Patrick's Celebrations

Reading Buddies
To celebrate World Book Week, we had our lovely friends from 2nd class visit us to read to us. Have a look at the beautiful pictures.

Newbridge House

Halloween Pumpkin Carving

We loved having our parents in before the break to help us carve pumpkins for Halloween. We song some scary Halloween songs for them and some of the nursery rhymes we have learned.

Autumn Walk
We went on an Autumn walk around the school grounds. First we found red, brown, orange, green and yellow leaves. Then we found conkers and pine cones that had fallen from trees.

Hurling
We started hurling on Wednesday with coach Liam. We are learning to follow instructions and work as part of a team.

We have been hard at work.......

Our First Day on Yard

School Year 2021-2022

Newbridge Farm

We went on our end of year school tour to Newbridge Farm and Playground.
We saw lots of animals such as; pigs, cows, sheep and horses. Then we had a picnic and fun with our friends in the playground.

Wellbeing Week

Art Gallery

School Year 2020-2021

Look at some of our art work....

Our First Day on the Yard!

Our teachers Rachel and Rosemary think we are such good boys and girls that we are ready to go outside and play in the yard! We had fun playing with all of our new friends. Here are some pictures of our first time on the yard!

Junior Infants School Year 2019-2020

Welcome to our new Junior Infants. Our teachers this year are Ruth, Chloe and Rachel. We will update our page with pictures and news from our classes throughout the year.

Update for Parents 22nd June 2020

To our amazing Junior Infants & Parents/Guardians,

We hope that you have received and are enjoying your final work pack, which was delivered last Friday. You will find your child's school report card inside the bag also. If you would like to speak with your child's teacher about anything on the report card, just email or text to arrange a call back. There are a selection of worksheets included. These are optional helps for you - so use them as you see fit - in the order sent or pick and choose sheets that suit you! They should last you until at least 30th June, but most likely a little bit longer (if you still intend to use them occasionally over the Summer). Send us an email if you have any questions, and your child's teacher will respond.

We have been making phone calls to each parent over the last couple of weeks. It has been lovely to hear how well all of our Junior Infants are doing. If you have not spoken with your child's teacher and you would like to, send an email or text to the school and they will phone you. Don't forget you can contact us at any time on our special email address just for Junior Infants: [email protected]. We would absolutely love to hear from you all! You could show us if you try out any of our ideas or if you have news you want to tell your teacher! Your teacher will reply to you if you do decide to email.

As your child's first school year is drawing to a close, we would like to say a massive thank you to you all. It has been so wonderful to receive so much support from parents who have worked with us throughout the year. Even through these uncertain times, it has been lovely to experience how dedicated you have all been, ensuring your child continues to learn and develop skills from home. Parents have always been a child's primary educator, but you have all stepped into the role of teacher for your child in a way that we couldn't during the restrictions. We are so disappointed that we didn't get the chance to finish out the year together, but we think the parents of St. Joseph's have done a fantastic job! We will all be together again in September. Thank you again, from all of the Junior Infant teachers.

If you need to contact the school for anything please email [email protected] or text/ring 0892368376.

If you would like to send your teacher a message about anything, we would really love to hear from you all at this email address: [email protected]!

Rachel, Ruth, Chloe & Shannon :-)

Week 14 At Home Activities 22nd June 2020
Send us an email to [email protected] if you would like a message back from you teacher! :)

Take Care of Your Mind & Your Body!

It is so important to make sure you are taking time to look after your own mind and body. Your happiness and health is everything! As restrictions are lifted and life is becoming busier again, make sure you take what you have learned from this time with you. Here are some ideas to practice at home for the whole family! They include, breathing and meditation, singing songs and lots of play! Let us know if you try out any of these by emailing [email protected]

Relaxation for better Sleep!

Sing a song!

Play Time: The Beach/ Summer Holidays!

We may not be able to go away on holidays yet, but that doesn't mean we can't play pretend! Here are some ideas for you to play under the theme of 'The Beach' or 'Summer Holidays'.

Watch Peppa Flying on Holiday

Trip to Beach/ Sand Box

We're all going on a Summer Holiday, Sing along!

Pack a suitcase for a pretend Summer Holiday!

SESE Activities:

Sensory Walk
Go on a sensory walk around your home. Talk about what you can see, hear, feel, smell and taste.
Can you find something that is smooth?
Can you find something that is rough?
Can you find something that is noisy?
Can you find something that is round?
Draw some things you can see, hear, feel, smell and taste in the summer time... :)

Week 13 At Home Activities 15th June 2020
Send us an email to [email protected] if you would like a message back from your teacher! :-)

English/Literacy

Tricky Word Hi5!
What you need:
1. Scissors
2. Marker
3. Bluetac/cellotape
4. Your hand
How to play:
1. Trace your hand onto paper using a pencil (5 times)
2. Cut out your hand using scissors
3. Ask an adult to write a tricky word on each hand - I, the, you, like, here
4. Stick the hands to a wall
5. Ask an adult to call out a tricky word and you must Hi 5 the correct word!

Blending sounds with our feet!
What you need:
1. Scissors
2. Marker
3. Your foot
How to play:
1. Trace your foot onto paper using a pencil a number of times
2. Cut out your feet using scissors
3. Ask an adult to help you write sounds onto the feet, you can help the adult write c, o, a, d, g as we have been practicing
4. Ask an adult to make words with the feet e.g. c-a-t, t-i-n, m-a-p etc.
5. Step on each sound and say the sound, try to blend the sounds together to read the word!

Storytime
Continue to read to your child as much as you can as it is great for their oral language skills.

Sharing a Shell is a great story for this time of the year.
When reading the story, you can stop and ask your child questions beginning with who, what, where and why e.g Who is the main character? Where is the story set? What would you do if you were the crab? Why do you think bristleworm is upset? etc.
Your child will be able to read along with you after hearing the story a few times.
Encourage your child to speak about their experiences on a beach, the sea creatures they know, what they would do if they were in a situation like the characters in the book.

Maths Activities

Counting

·Continue to revise counting forwards and backwards as high as your child is able.

Game: What Number Did I Miss?

Count from 1-10 (or using a higher range if your child is able), pausing and not saying one number, for example, 1, 2, 3, … 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10. “What number did I miss?”
Repeat, skipping a range of different numbers.

Game: What Two Numbers Come Next?

Parent counts from 1, stopping at a certain number and asking the child to tell them the next two numbers. For example:

- Parent: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5:
- Child: answers 6 and 7

When your child becomes better at this game, you can try to simply give them a number without counting up to that number. For example:

- Parent: What two numbers come after 5:
- Child: 6 and 7

5 Frames

Continue to revise 5 frame activities as listed over the past number of weeks.
If you child is progressing well with these activities, try asking them to list the different ways you can “make 5”. You might start off by listing a couple of ways and asking your child to think of some additional ways. For example:

- Parent: I know that 4 and 1 altogether makes 5. Can you think of another way to make 5? ……. How about 3? If we have 3, how many more would we need to make 5?

Once your child becomes stronger at this encourage them to start to write down the different ways to make 5.
There are a handful of children who will find the above activities easy. For those children, move on to discussing the different ways to make 4 and encourage them to write these down. Continue to challenge your child at a level appropriate to them.

Baking and Counting

Baking is a great opportunity to practice a bit of counting. Making something like Rice Krispie can allow your child the opportunity to count out the bun cases, count how many squares of chocolate go in, count how many spoons of Rice Krispies are added and so on. It is also a good way to use the language beside, in, on, into, etc.

Counting for Fun

Use bun cases or pieces of paper together with pieces of pasta/ lego/ coins. Write numbers on the cases as in the picture (choose numbers appropriate to your child’s ability). Ask your child to have a look at and name each number, before adding the correct number of items to the bun case.
If you wish, you can choose numbers 1-6 and roll the dice to add some practice with dice patterns.

Keeping Active!

These are great little activities to pass a half an hour and also keeps your child active while having fun!

Banana, Banana, Meatball

The Cha Cha Slide

How To Floss

Dance Monkey Dance Along

Week 12 At Home Activities 8th June 2020
Send us an email to [email protected] if you would like a message back from your teacher!

English/Literacy

Salt Writing
What you need:
1. Plate/tray
2. Straw
3. Paintbrush/your hand
How to play:
1. An adult will spread salt on a plate/ tray
2. Adult/sibling calls out a letter to write (c, o, a, d, g)
3. Child writes letter in salt
4. Child shakes plate/tray to rub out letter and starts again

Tricky Word and sounds Splat
What you need:
1. A range of trick words/ sounds
2. Fly swatters
How to play:
1. An adult writes tricky words/ sounds on paper and lays them on the floor
2. An adult/ sibling calls out a tricky word/ sound
3. Two children must race to splat the correct one
4. The child who gets it first scores a point!

Blending sounds to make ap words
This is the same as a few weeks ago when we looked at 'at' words. You should continue to practice 'at' words with your child but you can also start practicing 'ap' words this week. By adding a different sound before 'ap', your child can sound out the sounds, blend them together and read the word! You can show your child a picture for each word and help them to put the words into sentences so the words will make sense to them! E,g cap, tap, map, nap, gap, sap.

An extra activity you can do is to practice reading simple sentences with your child using their tricky words and sounds. E.g. I like the cap

SESE Activities
Send us an email to [email protected] if you try out any of these activities :)

Watch the video on all of the different animals of the sea e.g. seahorse, shark, starfish. Draw a picture of your favourite sea animal :)

What you need: Egg carton, some blue paint and glitter (optional), small shells or pebbles/stones, glue and scissors, any recyclable materials around your home :)
Paint the inside of your egg box. Put some glitter over the top to make it all sparkle :) Cut out some fish using coloured card/paper and use some grass for the seaweed. Glue down the pebbles or shells :) enjoy!!

Listen to the story 'The Singing Mermaid' by Julia Donaldson. Draw a picture of your favourite part :)

Using play dough or lego, make your favourite sea animal. Send us a picture to the email [email protected] if you try out this activity :)

Week 11 At Home Activities 1st June 2020

Send us an email to [email protected] if you would like a message back from your teacher!

Maths Activities

With the beautiful weather, this week is definitely one for some activities in the sun and to cool us down!
Please continue to practice the 5 frame activities from last week. Your child should be growing stronger and more able to list all the ways to make 5. Also continue to practice counting forwards, backwards and bunny ears as detailed in previous weeks (scroll down for some further detail if needed)

Capacity

Gather together as many different containers as possible along with a large basin/ bucket/ bath of water.
Encourage your child to guess which container holds the most down to the least (take a picture to remember what they guessed)
Next, along with your child, figure out a way to find out which container holds more/ less and order the containers.
Compare to the picture you took
You can then let you child have fun with the water and explore the capacity of all the containers independently.
Here are some more ideas of ways to make water play even more fun or to change it up a little from day to day so it doesn’t become too repetitive

· Add different coloured paint/ food colouring to some water in different cups/ containers. Guess and explore what happens if you mix, for example blue and yellow.
· Add washing up liquid to make bubbles and allow your child to explore this (this is also a great chance to talk about the importance of washing our hands and to talk about how long washing our hands should take- its often recommended to encourage children to sing ‘happy birthday’ song twice)
· Add textures such as rice/ stones/ pasta to the water to make it even more fun
· Add some ice to the water to allow children to explore this. Another great idea is to freeze some of the children toys in the water overnight and encourage them to free the toys when they’re playing (see picture below)
· Make a DIY waterfall with some old plastic bottles (see picture below)

Nature Art Activities

Painting Leaves

Painting Branches

Go out and collect some leaves and try and name the different types together - beech, oak, ferns, holly or sycamore. Bring them home and have some fun painting them your favourite colours. You can print the leaves shapes onto paper to make a cool nature picture!

Can you find some tree branches lying on the ground when you are out for a walk? (Be sure not to break them off living trees!). Bring them home and turn it into a cool art activity! These would look fantastic hung inside or outside in your garden for a Summer decoration! Give it a go!

Week 10 At Home Activities 25th May 2020

Send us an email to [email protected] if you would like a message back from your teacher!

English/Literacy Activities

Fiddlesticks
This game can be played with sounds and tricky words. It's super easy and fun. All you need is lollipop sticks, a cup and a marker!

Writing with Shaving Foam
What you need:
1. Shaving foam
2. Tray/plate/container
3. Letters written on cards - c, o, a, d, g
How to play:
1. Spray some shaving cream onto a tray/plate/container and spread it.
2. Pick a card up and practice writing the letter in the shaving foam
3. Compare each other's letters
4. After, you can practice writing the letters on paper or in your workbook!

Maths Activities

5 Frames

Continue to play last week’s game (detailed in last week’s maths if you scroll down the page) using 5 frames, where you are exploring all the different ways you can make 5. Once they are doing well at this game, you can move onto the below.
Ask your child to independently tell you some of the ways to make 5. If they are struggling with some of answers, flash them some of the 5 frames as a clue.
As the week continues and they become more competent in listing the ways to make 5, start to write down the answers. To begin with, you as the adult can write down the answers they are providing.

e.g. 4+1=5 (say “4 and 1 altogether makes 5).

Make sure to give them lots of praise for their effort and hard work regardless or whether they are getting the correct answers!

Number Formation

Continue to practice writing numbers 0-5
To make things a little more fun, work together to turn your numbers into some art!

What Number Am I? Game!

Write a number of a piece of paper and hide it e.g. 3
Give your child a clue about the number e.g. it is bigger than 1. Keep going until they get the answer
Allow your child to have a turn- this is great for practising number formation too!
As they become more able with this game, try giving them a clue to tell them what number the magic number is in between. So, for example for the number 3, you will tell them the clue that the number is in between 2 and 4. If they are finding this tricky, write out a number line from 1-10 and look at the number you have chosen and talk about what ‘in between’ means
As they become able to guess the number correctly, encourage them to give you a clue by telling you what the number is in between.

Length

Roughly snap a handful of spaghetti pieces. Ask your child to put them in order from the longest to the smallest.
Try the same activities with socks or any other suitable items at home
If you have lego or any other building toys at home, encourage your child to build a range of towers and order them from tallest to shortest.

Nature Walk Art Activities!

We are due some gorgeous sunny weather this week! So I want you to get your sun-cream on and get outside for a nature walk! Here are the things you need to collect, bring a bucket each and fill them with:

Lots of leaves - all different types, shapes, colours and sizes!
Twigs
Wild flowers - daisies, dandelions, bluebells, buttercups (don't pick flowers that someone has planted!)
Lots of stones - all different colours, shapes and sizes.

Here are some activities to do with your pieces of nature:

Don't forget!! If you do any of these activities, your teacher wants to see you're fantastic work! Send us a picture to [email protected]!!

Nature Trees

Fairy Wings

Make Your Name!

Rock Pictures!

SESE Activities
Don't forget!! If you do any of these activities, your teacher wants to see your fantastic work! Send us a picture to [email protected]

Amazing Facts About Elephants:
Elephants are the largest land mammals.

A baby elephant is called a calf.

Elephants eat plants, grass and fruit. They don't eat meat.
Elephants love bananas. They are so clever, they can peel a banana.

To drink they suck the water up into their trunk and spray it into their mouth.

Elephants love water. They love to swim and play in water.

Story Time Poem of the Week

The Jungle
Walking through the jungle,
What did i see?
A big lion roaring
At me, me me!

Walking through the jungle,
What did I see?
A baby monkey laughing
At me, me me!
Try add in all the animals from the book.....
Let's see how many you can remember!!

Oral Language Activity:
Look at the picture. These animals live in the jungle.
What animals can you see? Can you find the snake, elephant, giraffe, rhino, giraffe, toucan, lion, monkey and the zebra?
Can you make the sounds these animals make?
Why do you think the giraffe has such a long neck?
Where on the rhino's body would you find its horn?
Which animal is hanging upside down?
Which animal is your favourite? Why?

Draw a picture of your favourite animal that lives in the jungle. Don't forget to send it on to [email protected]. We would love to see your fantastic work! :-)

How to Make Jungle Slime

What you need:
1 cup of Shaving Foam
1 cup of Glue
Water
Green Paint
1/2 teaspoon Baking Soda
Gold Glitter (Optional)
Contact Lens Solution (Laundry detergent works too...)

Watch the video and follow the steps on how to make some jungle slime. :-)

Make your own DIY Jungle Binoculars

Decorate your Jungle Binoculars and go on a pretend safari around your home.... :-)

For this craft, you will need:

Two toilet paper rolls
White glue
Glue-dots
Scissors
String or ribbon
Construction paper or butcher paper
Optional: decorating supplies (markers, crayons, stickers, tissue paper!)

Steps:
1. Attach the toilet paper rolls.
2. Wrap the rolls in paper.
3. Decorate the binoculars.
4. Poke holes in the sides.
5. Tie on the string.

Enjoy!! :-)

Safari Hunt in your home..
Hide animals all over and pretend to put on your backpacks, hats etc. Then stop in the middle because it’s so hot and have a pretend drink of water and put on your sunscreen.

Make your own jungle in your home...

Construction:
The children could create their own mini-jungle using a selection of materials including material, straws, lollipop sticks, recyclable material etc. They can also go outside and gather some natural materials to put into their mini-jungle. They can create the jungle settings of rivers, trees, vegetation etc. Later the children can work on making some jungle animals once the jungle has been created.

Playdough:
The children could make some animals that that would find in the jungle using playdough e.g. create a four-legged animal that swings through the trees and has a tail or they could create their own imaginary jungle animals using play dough. Send us a picture to [email protected] to show us your fantastic work!! :-) Have Fun!!!

Week 9 At Home Activities 18th May 2020

Email [email protected] to show us what you have been up to!
This week we have included: Dance, Tying Laces, Maths, English Literacy and SESE!

Just Dance!

Dance is a great way to exercise and have lots of fun! Your child will know these dances from school, so they will hopefully bring up some happy memories of dancing with their friends! You can find all these videos on YouTube. So if you have a TV with YouTube already on it you could open them on the TV for a larger screen, or cast them to your TV if you can from your phone. Of course you could just use your tablet or phone either! Enjoy :-)

Let's Tie our Laces

Following on from last weeks videos, you choose the stage that your child is at with tying their own laces. Although this task may seem difficult for a small child, it is an important life skill that they might as well learn while we have this time! So keep trying and just master one step before going on to the next! This is a fantastic fine motor activity for your child, which is an activity that helps them to build up the muscles in their fingers. This, in turn, will help them with their writing. Let us know by email if you have been helping your child learn this! Here are the 4 videos for reference, just click to enlarge them:

Step 1: X knot

Step 2: Loop

Step 3: Wrap

Step 4: Double Knot

Maths Activities

As always, please continue to work on counting activities and asking your child what number comes before/ after another number- these activities are detailed further in earlier weeks if you scroll down.

Pattern

We have done lots of work on pattern in school this year and the children should be well able to do these activities
First, have them continue on the 2 colour pattern, as in part 1 of the picture
Next try and have them create their own 2 colour pattern. You may need to help them do this the first time but they should then be more than able to do the work (part 2 of the picture).
Next, move onto continuing a 3 colour pattern (part 3 of the picture) before trying to create a 3 colour pattern. Creating a 3 colour pattern may be tricky for some of the children so give them lots of praise and support when trying this!
When you have finished this, you can have fun with patterns and use household items to create patterns. Encourage your child to find items to create their own pattern using household items!

5 Frames

5 Frames:

See the picture where I have made some simple ‘5 frames’. The children have used these throughout the year and are very good at them.
Cut out each number/frame and hold all the flashcards in your hand so they cannot be seen. Quickly flash one of the 5 frame numbers to your child before hiding it again. Ask them the following questions:
How many dots did you see? (if they get this wrong look at the card and count the dots together)
How many empty spaces did you see?
Repeat this for all the cards you have made.

Next make a second set of the cards and cut them out.
Turn these cards upside-down on one side of a table and put the other set on the far end of the table. Play a game of ‘Make 5’
Each player takes a turn to pick one card from each end of the table. As you turn each card, you must say how many dots there are.
Once both cards are overturned you must figure out if they add together to make 5. If they do, keep them, otherwise put them back.
If they do add to make 5, spend some time talking about what two number add together to make 5. E.g. Yes, 3 and 2 do make 5 that’s right! Look at me holding up 2 fingers on this hand and 3 on this hand, lets count them and make sure we were right. Well done!”
The person with the most sets of cards that make 5 wins!

Bunny Ears

This is a short activity that is great to do each day.
Ask your child to get ready for ‘bunny ears’. (we have been doing this throughout the year so they should know to make a fist with one hand and place it on their head).
You call out a number from 1-5 and ask them to show you that number of fingers. The trick is that (if they are able) they cannot look at their hand to do it!
Once they have their answer ask them to look at their hand and ask them to count and check if they were correct.
For some of the children who are particularly good at maths and find this easy, you can ask them if they can think of another way to show you the number. So, for example for the number 4, they will firstly show you 4 fingers on one hand. When you ask them to show you another way they might use 2 hands and raise 2 fingers on each. When you ask again they might raise 1 finger on one hand and 3 fingers on another.

This is a great short activity to do regularly.

English/Literacy Activities

Snap!
This game can be played with tricky words or sounds and is super easy and fun
What you need:
1. Paper
2. Marker/Pen
3. Scissors
4. Minimum 2 people to play
How to play:
1. Make snap cards by writing tricky words/sounds on paper a number of times and cut them out in the shape of cards.
2. Take it in turns to place down a card.
3. When you both put down the same card the first person to say snap wins those cards.
4. Keep going until one person has no cards left.

Find the sound!
This is similar to a game in a previous week but more competitive!
What you need:
1. Various baskets/containers
2. Various household items/toys
3. Minimum 2 people to play
How to play:
1. Each player takes a container, and adult can decide which sound to focus on and set a timer.
2. Both players must look around the home for toys/items which begin with the sound and put them in their container.
3. When the timer is up, both players must com enack and name everything they put in their container. The items can have the sound at the beginning, middle or end but th eplayer must be able to tell the adult whether the sound is at the beginning/middle or end to get a point.
4. The player with the most items who can correctly say where the sound is in the word, wins!

Writing with magic water!
What you need:
1. Paintbrush/your fingers!
2. Water in a container (bowl/cup etc.)
How to play:
1. Fill a container with water fro each player.
2. Each player uses a paintbrush or their finger to write letters on the ground using the water.
3. An adult can call out what letter to write.

SESE Activities
If you try any of these activities out, please email [email protected] and send us some pictures. We would love to see your lovely work!! :-)

Make your own Musical Instrument :-)

Can you make your own musical instrument? You might want to make a shaker, a drum or something else of your own choice.
Here are some resources you may want to use. Remember you can think of your own ideas too. (Kitchen Roll, Elastic Bands, Plastic Cups/Paper Cups, Lentils/Rice, Tissue Paper, Scissors, Glue, Tape. Perform an at-home concert using your new musical instrument.

Dublin Zoo Virtual Tour

Watch Dublin Zoo's virtual tour and look at all the amazing animals. Can you name any of the animals that you see? In this video, I spotted some lions, giraffes, leopards and penguins.
Draw a picture of your favourite animal :-)
Send a picture of your drawing to [email protected] if you try this out :-)

Have a listen to the book "Dear Zoo". If you could pick any animal to live in your home, what would you pick? Why?
Try see if you can join in and make any of the animal noises too!! :-)

Listen to this famous classical piece "Carnival of the Animals".
Does this music sound like any animals you know?
Listening and Responding Exercise:
Draw a picture of what you think is happening in this piece of music. It might be a lion running through a jungle or an elephant stomping through the Savannah.

ZOO Animal (Giraffe) Masks:

What You Need:
paper plate
yellow paint
brown paper
craft stick
glue
wiggly eyes

Method:
1. Paint the paper plate yellow.
2. Cut small circle of light brown paper (coloured in) for nose
& add nostrils and smile.
3. When paint is dry, glue the nose and smile onto the giraffe.
4. Add wiggly eyes or draw and cut out your own. :-)
5. Glue Ears and Antlers onto back of the giraffe.
6. Have fun and enjoy your new mask!!
(You might want to try out some other masks like the zebra or a lion.)

Zoo Animals:

Can you name any of the animals in this poster?
Which is your favourite animal? Why?
What colour is the lion?
What colour is the tiger?
What is the tallest animal?
What animals in this poster can fly?
What do you think is the fastest animal?
What colours do you see on the butterfly?
How many spots do you see on the snake? Count them :-)
If you could be an animal, what animal would you be? Why? :-)

Week 8 At Home Activities 11th May 2020

Email [email protected] to show us what you have been up to!

This weeks activities: English Literacy, Maths, Tying Shoe Laces, Art & SESE

English Literacy Activities

Rice Hunt
What you need:
1. A tray
2. Paper with tricky words or sounds writen on it
3. Rice
4. Paintbrush
How to play:
1. An adult/Older sibling writes tricky words/sounds on a sheet of paper
2. Place the paper in a tray and pour rice on top to cover all the words/sounds
3. The child uses a paintbrush to brush rice out of the way to reveal the word/sound.
4. Child must say word or sound they find in order to get a point!
Tip 1: Encourage child to hold paintbrush like a pencil to improve pencil grip
Tip 2: Ask child to trace letter, think of a word which starts with the sound, sing jolly phonics song/do action.
Tip 3: Ask child to put tricky word into a sentence

Bingo!
*This can be played with siblings in different classes too!!
What you need:
1. Paper
2. Pen/Pencil
3. Colouring pencils
How to play:
1. Write a number of tricky words on a sheet of paper, cut them up and place them in a bowl.
2. Write some tricky words on paper for each player (don't make them the same)
3. Each player takes it in turns to take a word out of the bowl.
4. If you have the word on your paper you colour it in.
5. When all your words are coloured in you shout Bingo!!

Writing with chalk and magic water
This can be done before or after children write in their handwriting workbooks
What you need:
1. Chalk
2. A spray bottle filled with water
3. A surface outdoors to write on e.g. fence/ground/wall
How to play:
1. Child writes letters on the surface using chalk - c, o, a, d. He/she can do this as many time as they like.
2. Using the bottle full of water, the child traces over the letters.
3. To make it super fun a sibling/parent can call out a letter and the child and another sibling/parent can race to trace the letter with the spray bottle.
tip: Make sure the child is tracing the letter with the water and not just spraying all over the letter

SESE Activities

Send a picture of you trying out these activities to [email protected] :-)
Let's have a look at Waterproof Materials. Waterproof materials do not let any water pass through, just like a raincoat. Try out this experiment below using items from your home to see if they are waterproof or not.

Waterproof Materials

Find some objects around your home that you want to test out to see if they roll. Here's some examples of objects you can find. Push the objects to see if they roll. But don't forget.... First guess, then test!

Go outside and try find some things that are made out of each of these materials: plastic, metal, wood and stone. Draw on a blank page what you found :-)

Let's Learn to Tie our Laces!

Important: Do not move on to the next step until your child has fully mastered the first ones.

Revise:

Step 1, 2, 3 & 4: The Cross over knot
Step 5: The loop

(Scroll down to last week for instructions for these steps)

Step 6:

Take the free lace and wrap it behind the loop you've made.
Bring the lace around to the front of the loop.
You can talk about finding the hole for the lace to go through, can you find the hole without letting go of the loop?

Step 7:

Pass the middle of the free lace through the hole until it makes a mini loop
Pinch both loops now one in each hand

Step 8:

Pull the loops together to secure the knot

Your child will need to practice this many times every day to make sure they build up the skills to do it on their own. Give them the time to do it themselves before going outside and be there to help if they get mixed up.

Send us pictures of you with your laces tied if you are learning, we would love to see!

Videos to practice Tying your Laces.

Steps 1, 2, 3 & 4: The Crossover Knot

Step 6, 7 & 8: Find the hole, 2nd Loop and pull

Step 5: Making the Loop

How to make it into a Double Knot

Art: Using Bun Cases!

Bun cases, coloured paper or paint, glue, google eyes or a marker.

Paper, bun cases, a marker, googly eyes or draw them on!

Paper plate with the middle cut out, glue, bun cases, a marker or paint. You can just glue on the cases instead of using thumb tacks!

Send us pictures if you make any of these!

Week 7 At Home Activities 5th May 2020

Email [email protected] to show us what you have been up to!

This weeks activities: English Literacy, Maths, Tying Shoe Laces, Rainbow Work & SESE

English/Literacy
Please continue to read stories, practice your tricky words, sounds and writing! :)

Blending sounds to make words!
This is an activity from last week which is really important to help your child read. The most important part is helping your child understand that only the first sound needs to change and they will be able to read a lot of words!
Please scroll down to last weeks post to see how to help your child do this.

Practicing our sounds with our toys!
This is a super fun game you can play to practice your sounds while playing with your toys!
What you need:
1. A big piece of paper with the sounds we have learned so far = s,a,t,i,p,n,c,k,e,h,r,m,d,g,o,u
2. A big bunch of your toys/random items from you home

How to Play:
1. An adult/big sister or brother writes the sounds on a big page.
2. Adult/sibling can ask child what each sound is and help them come up with words that start with each sound.
3. Child chooses a toy/item from the house, adult/sibling asks child what sound the toy/item starts with and can help them if needed.
4. Child puts toy on the sound it starts with.
5. If your child can fill the whole page they may get a street such as a sweet or a big hug and loads of praise!

Tricky Words Cup Game
What you need:
1. 3 cups
2. Tricky words written on paper = I, the, and, you, come, here, like
3. A small random object such as a stone/ hair clip etc.

How to play:
1. An adult/big sister or brother will write tricky words and stick them to cups
2. Child closes their eyes
3. Adult/sibling hides the random object under one cup and mixes the cups up
4. Child must guess which cup the object is under but only by saying the tricky word first e.g."Is it under 'the'?"
5. If the child gets it right, they can be the one to hide the object next time.

Writing using object
This can be doen before/after the child practices writing in their copies/wprkbooks. C, o, a ,d only
What you need:
1. Selection of random objects such as stones, hair clips, paper scraps etc.

How to play:
1. Adult/Older sibling calls out a letter for the child to create using random items. (the letter doesn't have to be perfect )
2. The adult/older sibling may write the letter first for the child to follow.
3. Both the adult/older sibling and child can make the letter using different objects.

Maths

Don’t forget to take advantage of the weather! I

If you are lucky enough to have an outdoor space, fill a basin with some water. Throw in some different sized containers, some ice cubes and some toys and allow your child to have fun!
When you’re going on a walk or doing some exercise, use it as a change to practice counting steps or see if you can spot any numbers on your walk.
Do whatever activities work for you- make sure to practice counting and writing numbers regularly but other than that, choose whatever Maths activities appeal to you from this week or previous weeks :-)

Number Spray Game:

What you need: Chalk and a spray bottle (just clean out a bottle you have at home). Alternatively you could write the numbers on some pieces of paper if you don’t have chalk and place the paper on the ground to play the same game)

How to Play:

Write a range of numbers appropriate to your child’s ability on the wall or ground with chalk (for most children this will be 1-10 but some will be able for a higher range and some will need a lower range).
Give them the spray bottle and ask them to spray all the chalk on, for example, the number 2. Continue until the wall is nice and clean! (If you want to make this even harder, you can try saying to spray the number that come after/ before another number to really get them thinking!)
Repeat this game for shapes. Before telling them the shape you want to spray, give them some clues e.g. this shape has 3 sides, all the lines are straight etc.
Once you have played the game once, encourage your child to write the numbers and shapes themselves and, if they have a sibling to play the game themselves

Target Points Game

Same materials as above

Draw some numbers on a footpath/ back yard/ kitchen floor.
Talk about which numbers are bigger/ smaller - Give each child playing a handful of pasta shells/ small stones and take it in turns to try and throw them into one of the circles. Wherever your marker lands, you get the number of points in that circle.
Try giving your child something to keep track of how many points they have e.g. a piece of lego for each point they get. Spend some time at the end counting to see who got the most points.

Number Before and After

Please be careful when the children are writing their numbers that they start the numbers in the correct place.

Keep practising counting up to 10 and back from 5 (or beyond this if you child is able)
Where you child is able, start off by doing some oral work on the number AFTER. Follow this up with some written work like below…

The next day do lots of work talking about the number before. Again, if your child is able, try following this up with some simple written work like below…

Finally, some children might like to be really challenged to try to figure out the number before AND after. This is tricky but lots of children would be able so give it a go!

Days of the Week

Keep revising over days of the week. Encourage the children to say all 7 names of the week first and follow this by asking them questions about what day comes AFTER another.

Ordinal Numbers

Again keep revising what the children learned last week, talk about 1st, 2nd, 3rd when you can.

Let's Learn to Tie our Laces!!

It is important to practice this for a few minutes every day if you would like your child to learn how to tie their own laces independently. We might as well use this time to teach them this important life skill. Here's how:

Last Week we did Steps 1, 2, 3 &4, The Crossover knot. If your child has not mastered this yet, just keep going with that until they have it. Do not move on until then.

1. Separate the 2 laces
2. Cross over the laces
3. Take the lace that is on top and pass it under the other lace
4. Pull both laces at the same time to finish the cross over knot.

Here is the next stage Step 5: The loop. We are going to take the next few steps very slowly as it can get difficult.

5. Take the right-hand lace and form a loop. Squeeze the loop hard with your pincer grip (thumb, index and middle finger pinched).

That's it for this week! Next Week: How to make the 2nd loop.

Rainbow Work

These are ideas to help with your child's mood. Stresses we may have, a lack of routine and all of the changes that have happened could lead to our children feeling stress or upset or feelings they do not like. We as educators (parents & teachers) need to ensure we do what we can to help our amazing children through this.

Rainbow Art

Grab a cardboard box or cereal box and cut a large semi-circle shape.
Draw on the 7 semi-circular sections 1 for each colour of the rainbow
You can choose any way for your child to colour it in:
You could paint the colours
You could collage the colours using paper scraps (from newspapers, magazines or wrapping/coloured paper). Your child could help cut them with their small scissors.
You could use finger prints and paint to dot on the colours.
If you make a rainbow please email us a picture! [email protected]

Rainbow Mindfulness

Use your new cardboard rainbow to do this relaxing breathing exercise. You could do this for no reason just to meditate, or if your child is upset or stressed use it the 'calm down'. Put this into your child's chill out zone so they can use it to do rainbow breathing when they need to calm down. (You will need to teach them how to do it on their own first)

Creating an area for your child to go when they need to chill out or calm down could save you a lot of stress. It is a wonderful skill for them to be able to identify when they need to take some time to relax. .

Hearing nice words and saying nice words about themselves is a wonderful way to allow them to believe in themselves. Invest in your child's self confidence by doing this every day or every night before bed.

Rainbow Songs

2 Songs that your child may be familiar with already, learn them together for smiles all round!

SESE Activities
If you try any of these activities out, please email [email protected] and send us some pictures :)
Happy Experimenting!!

Baking Soda & Vinegar Volcano
Use baking soda and vinegar to create an awesome chemical reaction! Watch as it rapidly fizzes over the container and make sure you've got some towels ready to clean up.

What you'll need:
Baking Soda (make sure it's not baking powder)
Vinegar
A container to hold everything and avoid a big mess!
Paper towels or a cloth (just in case)

Instructions:
Place some of the baking soda into your container.
Pour in some of the vinegar
Watch as the reaction takes place!

Make Your Own Rainbow
Learn how to make a rainbow with this fun science experiment for kids. Using just a few simple everyday items you can find out how rainbows work while enjoying an interactive, hands on activity that’s perfect for kids.

What you'll need:
A glass of water (about three quarters full)
White paper
A sunny day

Instructions:
Take the glass of water and paper to a part of the room with sunlight (near a window is good).
Hold the glass of water (being careful not to spill it) above the paper and watch as sunlight passes through the glass of water, refracts (bends) and forms a rainbow of colors on your sheet of paper.
Try holding the glass of water at different heights and angles to see if it has a different effect.

It's Summer Time!!! Let's look out for some signs of Summer...

A Tree in Summer
Draw a picture of the local tree in summer. You can do some more leaf rubbings using the leaves of the summer tree :-)

Summer Walk
Predict what signs of summer will be seen e.g. insects, flowers, leaves, birds, green, nests, bees, butterflies.
Go on a nature walk and look out for some signs of Summer. Draw some pictures of the things you see on your journey :-)

Week 6 At Home Activities 27th April 2020

This week we would love you to contact us with pictures of your work or with any questions or messages you might have! Email [email protected] and add your teachers name to the subject bar.

We have activities for Play - (Role-play, Play Doh making, Small World and Chilling Out) , English Literacy Activities, Maths Activities, Bubble Art , Positive Affirmations, SESE Activities (Geography, Science and History) and in exciting news Tying Laces Step 1 uploaded for you this week. We hope you enjoy them and share your work with us.

Play - Aistear

We are going to give 4 ideas for play for this week. You could choose to do 1 activity a day or to do all 4 every day. Our play theme this week is going to be: School! Our New Language for this topic will be: teacher, student, secretary, care taker, reception, entrance, exit, playground, classroom, desk, pencil, whiteboard, marker. Encourage your child to use new language and to speak in full sentences but also to use their imagination!

1. Let's Pretend Play - School

Set up a little classroom room in your child's play area: 2 or 3 'desks' - 1 for teacher and 2 for students. Make books, paper, pencils, pens, markers, chalk etc. available. Stick pages on the wall to be the 'Whiteboard'. Call the rolla, take turns being the teacher and the students. Other family members can join in as the secretary, care taker, whatever you and your child can imagine just go with it. You might need to model what to say for your child first and then let them have their turn. Email us pictures if you try this out!

2. Sensory Play - Play Doh!

Click here to Follow this easy recipe to make Play Doh with your child:
1. Plain Flour
2. 100g Salt
3. 4 teaspoons Cream of Tartar
4. 260ml Lukewarm Water
5. 2 Tablespoons vegetable or coconut oil
6. Food Colouring (You can divide the mixture up and use different colours)

Cook over a Medium heat until combined, knead until smooth and then store in an air-tight container or bag.
Make school items, numbers, sounds or anything else!

3. Small World Play - School

Take out whatever small toys you have at home. This could be with lego and lego people, dolls and plastic furniture, a dolls house, dolls and blocks, animals whatever it is. Pretend play using the dolls with your child. You could pretend play a school. Any other theme would be good also: farm or zoo perhaps. Use the new language and full sentences. This is a really good way of developing your child's language and thinking.

4. Chill Out Zone

Set up an area where your child can go to be calm. We have an area like this in our classrooms in school. Just a small corner of any room that you could spare. Add a rug or cushions, a canopy whatever you can find to create a sense of calm. Your child could have a couple of toys, storybooks or some music or meditation to listen to there. This could be an area they can go to when they need to calm down and take 3 deep breaths too. If your child is getting worked up you can then ask them: Do you need to calm down? Bring them to the chill out zone and ask them to take their deep breaths. Tell them they can come back when they feel calm. It is not a punishment area or time out: it's all about the calm!

English/Literacy
Please continue to read stories to your child, practice sounds in their sound book and practice writing letters in their workbooks

I Spy with Sounds
This is a really simple game to help your child recognise letter sounds at the beginning, middle and end of words.
Level 1: "I spy with my little eye something beginning with s" (sink, scissors, sister, sock etc.)
Level 2: "I spy with my little eye something ending with t" (belt, cat, boat etc.)
Level 3: "I spy with my little eye something with 'a' in the middle" (cat, tap, mat etc.)
The sounds we have learned so far are s,a, t, i, p, n, c, k, e, h, r, m, d, g, o, u. Please continue to show your child the jolly phonics songs and stories for these sounds which can be found on the jolly phonics app or on youtube. I included a link to the youtube videos in previous weeks.

Tricky Words as Passwords
This is something the children are very familiar with in school. We use tricky words as passwords to come into and leave the classroom. You put a tricky word somewhere the children will see it often e.g. at your front door, on the fridge, on a light switch etc. Each time your child comes into your home/opens the fridge/turns on thr light, they must say the password. You can use as many words as you think your child is able for. The tricky words we have learned so far are I, you, the, and, like, here.

Reading words by blending sounds together
If you think your child would be able to move onto putting sounds together to make words, you can start by using the word 'at'. By adding a different sound before 'at', your child can sound out the sounds, blend them together and read the word! You can show your child a picture for each word and help them to put the words into sentences so the words will make sense to them!

Alphablocks on youtube is great to practice this!

Writing Under the Table
This activity is great for children's arm strength, letter writing and it's super fun!
All you need is paper, pencils/crayons/markers, tape and a table!
An adult can tape paper under a table and the child lies on their back to practice writing letters c, o, a ,d. When your child has practiced writing their letters they can simply draw a picture!

Maths Activities

Please continue to practice Maths activities listed below in weeks previous.

An Idea to Help Everyone

The Days of the Week

- Place a bowl or container in the kitchen (if you want you can try and make something using some cereal cardboard and decorate it!).

- Pick something you would like your child to work on- it may be tidying away their plate after they eat, saying thank you more or helping with jobs in the house). Every time you child does the desired behaviour, add an item to the bowl (you can use pasta, lego, spoons- anything you have!). Enjoy sitting down at the end of the day together to count how many items are in the bowl.

- Set a challenge each day for your child to get an even bigger number tomorrow.

- You can decide to give your child a little reward or simple a big cuddle and lots of praise for their great work!

Practice saying the days of the week everyday! Here is the song we use in school. Some of the children had started practicing this in school but it can be tricky so lots of practice will help them!

- Once they master naming the days of the week you can try asking them what day comes after another day.

Regular Dice Patterns

Find a piece of paper and draw out dice patterns 1-6 and well as writing numerals 1-6 (if your child is stronger at maths write out numbers 1-10 or even 1-12). There are lots of activities to do with these little pieces of paper!

Match: the number to the correct dice pattern!
Snap: Put all the numerals turned upside down on one side of a table and the dice pattern turned upside down on the other side of the table. Take it in turns to turn over one number and one dice pattern, if they are the same number keep them and you get one point!
ID: Give your child the numerals. Mix up the numbers and point to each card and ask your child to name the number. This is a great way of making sure they know the numbers.
Numberline: Next, mix up the numbers and ask them to put the numbers in the correct order.
Missing Number: Repeat the above activity but this time ask you child to close their eyes and remove one of the numbers. Ask them to again order the numbers from smallest to biggest as well as asking them to figure out what magic number is missing.
Number After & Number Before: Give you child one number and ask them to find the number that goes next and place it after the number. If they are able you can also ask them to find the number comes before and place that number before the number.
Biggest Number & Smallest Number: Select a few numbers and ask your child to work out which one is the biggest number/ smallest number

Ordinal Numbers - 1st, 2nd, 3rd

Watch this video on ordinal numbers with your child (1st, 2nd, 3rd etc)

- Place some random objects from the house on the table and pretend they are having a race. Talk about which items won the race and came 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th 5th

Positive Affirmations

Try this each night before bed! It is so important that our children hear positive things about themselves every day. This helps them to feel self-confidence and in time will teach them to believe in themselves. In these times of stress especially, why not give it a try and allow your child to hear these lovely things each night before they sleep?

Use one of these pictures as your guide or simply make up your own. Let us know if you try these out!

Bubble Painting!

1. Mix some food colouring into your bubble mix.
2. You can make bubble mix with washing up liquid and water!
3. Blow a bubble and let it land on your page.
4. When the bubble bursts, it creates a cool bubble effect like in the picture!
5. Do this outside on a sunny day or on the kitchen table (But make sure it's covered fully!)
6. Email us some pictures of your bubble paintings! [email protected]

Let's Learn how to Tie our Laces!

This is a life skill that we might as well teach our children while we have this time. We want to take it slow.

For this week: Just the cross over knot
1. Separate the 2 laces
2. Cross over the laces
3. Take the lace that is on top and pass it under the other lace
4. Pull both laces at the same time to finish the cross over knot.

Practice this several times each day. We will add the next step next week.

SESE Activities

Geography: People who help us

There are loads of people in our community who are working really hard at the moment. Draw a picture to say thanks to all the helpers in our community right now :)
Perhaps, stick it up on a window in your home :)

Question Time:
Who works in a school?
Who works at an airport?
Who works at a fire station?
Work works in a hospital?
Did you know that some people work in outer space? What are they called?

Where would you like to work when you grow up?

Draw a picture of what you would like to be when you grow up on a blank page.

Send us an email of your child's picture if you try this out!! :)

Science: Will it change in Water?

Science Experiment:
What you need:
Sugar
Coffee
Dried Beans
Paper
Metal Spoon
Pick your own object to test.

Method:
Put these materials in water.
Test them out to see if they change in water.
Have fun!! :)

Can you think of anything else that changes in water? Test it out!!

Science: Light/Colour Hunt Make your own Lava Lamp

Go on a colour hunt around your home/garden. Find one thing that matches each colour. Draw a picture of each of the objects. What is your favourite colour? What colours are you wearing today?

Watch this video on how to make lava lamps at home :)
Send us a picture if you try this experiment out!!

DIY Lava Lamps:
What you need:
Water bottle or Clear Jar with lid
Vegetable Oil
Food Colouring
Salt
Glitter (Optional)

Instructions:
First, fill the empty water bottle about 2/3 full with water.
Now add some food colouring and glitter (optional) for extra sparkle.
Fill the rest with oil, leaving a little space at the top.
Notice that the water sinks below the vegetable oil. Oil and water just do not mix. The oil floats on the surface because the water is heavier than oil.

Now for the magic....
Pour salt into the jar until you see the cool lava lamp effect. When the bubbles stop, add more salt to see it again.

Have fun watching what happens! You can even screw on the little plastic cap and break it out a few days later for fun.

History: My first day at school

Draw your memories from your first day at school.
Who did you sit beside on your first day?
What did you do? Did you play with play dough? Did you play with lego? Did you do any colouring?

Week 5 At Home Activities 20th April 2020

This week we've added English Literacy activities (Sounds, Writing, a Poem and a Story), the Aistear theme of Garden Centre with Roleplay, Sensory play, Construction play and Junk Art. Maths Activities (Continued and new) have been added. We have added SESE activities (leaf art and mini-beasts)and we have also included some extra ideas you could try with LEGO. Show us if you try anything at home!

Literacy / English

This week we've included new activities for you to do with your child for their sounds, tricky words, letter writing and language. You can continue using the activities from last week if you wish! Each game activity can be used with tricky words or sounds.

Egg Carton Game (can be played using sounds or tricky words)
What you need:
1. Egg carton
2. Pen and paper
3. Stones (big and small or two different colours)
4. 2 people or more!

How to play:
1. Each player gathers stones - Player 1 big stones, Player 2 small stones or different colour stones
2. Write 6 sounds/tricky words on paper and cut them out
3. Place sounds/tricky words in egg carton
4. Player 1 goes first by calling out a sound/tricky word
5. Player 2 must place one of their stones on the correct sound/tricky word
6. Player 2 calls out a sound/tricky word
7. Player 1 places their stone on the correct sound/tricky word
8. Keep playing until all the sounds/tricky words have been covered, player with the most wins!

Writing letters in food - c, o ,a , d
What you need:
1. Plate
2. Food - cereal/rice/pasta
3. 2 people

How to play:
1. Spread food on plate
2. Player 1 calls out a letter for Player 2 to write in food (children have only learned to write c, o, a, d)
3. Spread food back together again
4. Player 2 calls out letter for Player 1 to write in food (if playing with older sibling they can write other letters)
5. Children can then do a page in their workbook for the letter c, o, a or d

Poem to practice rhyming

You can create actions with your child to go with the words of the poem. You can explain to your child that people sow seeds and that's how flowers grow. If possible you could plant seeds with your child!
Ask your child questions such as ; which words sound the same - ground and round or sun and round? Can you hear the s sound / d sound in the word seed? Is the sound at the beginning or end of the word?

Storytime - The Very Hungry Caterpillar

Watch this video of the story being read with your child. After watching it a few times your child may be able to read along with it. Ask your child questions starting with who? what? where? why? how? when? Discuss what happens in the story, what is a caterpillar? what does a caterpillar turn into? etc.

Aistear / Play Time

Role Play - Garden Centre

Since nice weather has been forecast, I've chosen the topic of Garden Centre for you to pretend play outside with your child. Why not set up a Garden Centre shop that sells buckets, shovels, seeds, flowers, stones, pots, wellies, wheelbarrows - whatever you can find around your home. Take turns being the shop keeper and the customer. You could even put little price tags on the items in the shop (up to 20c is best). Your sensory box can be included in the role play too if you choose. Focus on making sure your child is using all of the new words and speaking in full sentences. Send us pics if you decide to give this a try!

Sensory Play - Soil and plants

You could use your soil box again this week if you have made one previously or you could introduce it this week if you haven't yet. Just get a tub and put in some soil, grass, flowers (like daisies or dandelions), grass, stones, seeds, shovels, trowels, pots, buckets - whatever you've got at home.
Go for a walk and pick some daisies and dandelions and you could add some to your box or sell them in your Garden Centre Shop!
You could show your child how to plant a real plant in your garden. Remind them a plant needs 3 important things to grow: Water, light and food.

Construction - Lego

You could make a garden centre out of Lego with your child, including all the different areas such as the entrance, the cash desk, the shelves, the outdoor area etc. This could be built from any type of blocks if you don't have lego at home. Check out the 'Lego' section below for more LEGO ideas.

Junk Art

Start collecting you recycling for some Junk Art! Kitchen roll inserts, egg cartons, cereal boxes, whatever sparks your child's imagination. The Junior Infants have experience of this in school. It is wonderful if they can imagine their own ideas of what they want to create, but if they need help with ideas that's okay too. Here's an idea of something you can make using recycling, tape and paint or markers.

Maths Activities

Continue..

Activities to continue Daily

Other Maths Activities you can continue

Counting: Revise counting up to and back from whatever number you child is able for. You can try and increase the number range by one so, for example, if you child can count up from 1-18 and back from 12-0, try to encourage them to count from 1-19 and 13-0.

Number ID and Writing: Revise identifying number 1-5 and writing numbers 1-5

Playing hopscotch
Filling the sink/ a basin and providing your child with a variety of cups and bowls to explore filling. Add food colouring or washing up liquid to the water to make it more exciting.
Match the socks: When you are sorting out washed clothes, asking your child to do the socks and to match all the pairs.
Play a game of snap
Cooking: Allow your child to help you in baking or cooking by measuring, pouring and counting where possible and safe to do so.

New activities..

Number work

The Number After: Ask your child what number comes after another number. Start off small eg. What number comes after 3? Increase the range within what they are able for.
The Number Before: The following day work on the number before. This is a lot harder so keep the range a lot smaller and give them lots of smaller numbers to allow them the chance to succeed eg. What number comes before 2?
- Remember to give them lots of praise when they get an answer right!
- Alternate each day, so one day work on what number comes after and the following day work on the number before.
Counting Items:
- Place a large handful of pasta/ cornflakes/ anything you have at home on the table.
- Ask your child to count you out 4 pieces. This sounds easy but lots of children rush and find it hard to take their time and get the answer correct!
- Again if they are finding this easy, ask them for a larger number or to count how many are there altogether.

Guess the Magic Number Game

Poem - Changing my Size

Write a number from 1-6 on a piece of paper to choose your magic number (use a higher range if your child can identify the numbers)
-       Cover the number and don’t let your child see the number
-       Give them clues about the number, e.g. its bigger than 3, its smaller than 6 etc
-       If your child is able, try telling them what numbers the magic number is in between. For example, for 4, you might tell them “the magic number is in between 3 and 5.” (This is tricky so don’t worry if they are not able for this type of clue)
-       Once they have guessed the number, give them the piece of paper to write a number and they have to give you the clue.

Spot the Difference!

Encourage your child to explain and describe the difference as much as possible using full sentences - what they see and where it is in the picture.

Lego Activities

Ask your child to make a picture of you or themselves or anybody else they like. Talk about their eyes, their hair, their face etc.

Add some LEGO at bath time and see if it helps to get them thinking and using their imaginations. Lots of talk about colours, size, floating and sinking and materials (plastic) too.

Make the numbers our of LEGO. If your child finds this difficult you could make a number and they could try and copy it.

SESE Activities:

Geography: Nature Walk

The weather is so lovely outside so why not go on a Nature Walk and collect some leaves of all different shapes and sizes and try some leaf rubbings? They are super easy and super fun!!
Collect some natural materials on your walk too e.g. sticks, rocks, leaves, grass and try make some cool patterns.
A natural material is anything that comes from plants, animals or the ground. See how many natural materials you can find!

On your nature walk, you can collect some natural materials and make some cool patterns. Look at the video to see some patterns made using natural materials.

Collect leaves of all different shapes and sizes. Place the leaves underneath a blank page and then colour the leaves using some crayons to make a beautiful nature picture. Watch the video below.

Science: Minibeasts

It's a bugs life!!
Can you think of any bugs/insects that live in your garden?
Lets have a look at the video with all the different types of minibeasts that live in your garden: worms, snails, spiders, slugs and frogs.

Listen to the story below of the very hungry caterpillar. A caterpillar grows bigger and bigger until it finally turns into a beautiful butterfly with beautiful wings. The video above explains how a caterpillar becomes a beautiful butterfly.

Using some playdough, you could make one of your favourite bugs. You might make a butterfly, caterpillar, a lady bug or you can even make up your own insect and give it a funny name. You could put your bug into your garden centre that you built too!

Lets have a look at the video with all the different types of minibeasts that live in your garden: worms, snails, spiders, slugs and frogs. Have you ever seen any of these bugs before? What did they look like?

You could take a walk outside and see if you can spot any of the minibeasts. Draw pictures of any of the minibeasts that you saw on your hunt.

Week 4 (More Easter Holdays Activities) 15th April 2020

This week we have added some more Sensory Play ideas, some Story Time ideas, some Yoga ideas and some Religion ideas. If there is anything you would like to see us post next week or if you need help of any kind email [email protected] or ring the school mobile 089 number, which you receive texts from. Hoping you all have a lovely week.

Aistear / Play Time

Your child can discover so much through sensory play and it is easy to set up at home with things your may already have. Here are some ideas of sensory tubs you could set up at home for your child. All you'd need is a basin and a few kitchen utensils. Do this outside in the garden to avoid mess.

Sensory Play boxes

Soil

Put some compost in a basin or tubs with a shovel, rake, (Spoon, fork) whatever you have in your house. Add in some stones, seeds, grass, flowers (daisies, dandelions etc.), toy insects if you have them. You have a Spring Nature box for your child to explore.

Sand

If you have a small amount of sand at home, put it into a basin or tub with a bucket and spade, some stones collected on a walk and let them play! Add in some water to make the sand easier to build up or add a smaller bowl or basin of water inside to be the sea.

Story Time! Monkey Puzzle - Asking Questions

This is one of Junior Infants' favourites! They have heard it before to let them re-tell the story to you with the help of the YouTube Videos. Pause the video and ask them to make up questions about the story using the words: Who? What? Where? When? Why? How? You can do this using any other story book you have at home also. I have included the Monkey Puzzle song that you could learn together,

Yoga

Yoga and meditation are skills that will benefit your child throughout their life. It gives them a way to cope with stresses, worries, difficulties. It also teaches them to look after their body and their mind. If you do not know any yoga, don't worry. Your child can do guided yoga routines or meditation on YouTube. A nice way to pass half an hour at any time of the day.

Click here for the link to Cosmic Kids Yoga YouTube Channel.

There are different playlists for younger children, older children, calming, bedtime, energising, whatever you might want! Your child can simply watch and follow it along.

You could connect it to or play it on your TV if you are able to.

Here is one for before bed.

Religion - Easter Story

We do teach the story of Easter in Junior Infants. It is important that they know what Easter really is, not just Easter Eggs from the Easter Bunny, if this is what you believe in in your family. We try not to dwell too much on the upsetting parts and focus on the fact that Jesus has Risen again. Here are the Grow In Love stories of 'The Last Supper' and 'An Easter Surprise'. This is the same programme that we do in school.

Week 3 (Easter Holidays) - Activities for at Home! 6th April 2020

This week we have PLAY ideas, MATHS ideas, COOKING ideas, MEDITATION ideas and ART ideas. Enjoy and let us know if you tried any of these ideas out! We hope you have a lovely Easter, Rachel, Ruth, Chloe & Shannon :-).

Aistear / Play time

Play is so important for the development of your child is so many ways: Language, social skills, logic and Mathematical skills, Science, Geography, Art, you name it! So just letting your child play is still helping so much them in their education. Our Aistear theme in Junior Infants for March and April would have been the Garden Centre and the Farm.

Sensory play - touch, taste, smell, sight, hearing

Jelly

Set 2 packets of Jelly into a tub - throw in some small toys and you have a taste-safe sensory box.

Water - Washing up

Washing babies (dolls!)

Put some shampoo, flanels and baby dolls in a tub and wash the babies - good lesson for your child on caring for themselves.

Ice

Life Skills - Teach your child how to do the washing up! Put some rubber gloves, soap (gentler on their hands than washing up liquid!), scrubbers, cutlery, pots etc. into the tub of water. Tea towels for drying up after!

Ice sensory play! Ice-cubes, freeze small toys or bits and bobs (LEGO, flowers, leaves etc) in small containers. Add water and let them play. This is Science - the properties of water frozen and melting.

Maths Activities

Stretch out your Easter egg hunt!

Put the eggs in difficult places and give clues/ use directional language to tell your child where the eggs are
- E.g. there is an egg under the radiator, behind the curtains.
- E.g. try looking near a packet of what you eat for breakfast.

How many claps can you do?

This game is great for their PE skills and counting skills so make sure they are the ones to do all the counting

1. Give your child a ball/ teddy/ toy. Ask them to practice throwing the ball up in the air and catching it.
2. Set a challenge to throw ball in the air, clap once and catch it.
3. Once this is mastered, move onto two claps, three claps etc.
4. Set this as a family challenge and count how many claps each of you can manage before catching the ball!

Snap!

Teach your child how to play snap. If you don’t have playing cards at home, make your own! You could cut out some cards from a sheet of paper and write two of each number on them to play your own game

Easter 2-D Shape Pictures

Look at the following activity and talk about the shapes you can see with you child.

If you would like an additional activity, use some paper or cardboard from a cereal box and draw the different shapes for these Easter items. You can then ask your child to cut the shapes out and make the egg/ chick/ bunny

Well-Being Activities

Easter Art Activities

Painting Stones

Go on a nature walk around your house or in your garden and collect some stones.

Clean them and let them dry and give them a coat of white paint.

Decorate your stones as Easter Chicks or Easter Eggs!

If you haven't got paint at home, use markers or stick on pieces of paper or glitter in a design.

Easter Shadow Art

Get an old cereal box and cut out the outline of an Easter Bunny or an Eater Egg.

Place the template onto a page (any colour) and draw around the shape with chalk or crayons or markers (whatever you have).

When you lift off the template, there will be a shadow left!

Meditation for Kids - The Balloon

Junior Infants have loved short meditations in school. They can be so still if the right environment is created. Close the curtains, turn down the lights and lie down on the floor. The last video I posted in Week 1 was 3 minutes. This one is 6 minutes. All they have to do is listen to the person telling them what to do. Give it a try if it feels like things get a bit too much. This is good for the whole family.

If you are looking for more just search 'Peace Out' on YouTube (That's the name of the Channel) or click here.

Cooking

Why not use this time at home to give your child a love of cooking home-made, healthy food? There is so much language your child could learn from cooking also. This is a wonderful skill to give your child, but it also helps keep everybody motivated and feeling productive (kids and adults). Here are some recipes I have tried and tested at home! Send us your recipes that you make at home! We will post more recipes next week.

Pancakes - Who doesn't love Pancakes? Great for Easter Morning

Ingredients.
8 heaped dessert spoons of flour
2 Eggs
3/4 Pint of milk
Pinch of salt
Butter
Toppings (Lemon, sugar, fruit etc.)

Utensils
Mixing bowl
Spoon
Ladle
Non-stick pan
Spatula

Method
1. Heat your hob to a high heat.
2. Put all ingredients into a mixing bowl and mix together
2. Put some butter in a non-stick pan and let it melt
3. Spoon 1 ladle of mix into the pan and let it spread around the pan
4. When you see little bubbles forming on the pancake - it's time to flip!
5. Let the other side cook for about a minute
6. Serve and put on your toppings - yummy!

Lemon Buns - Change to any flavour you like! Fun to decorate.

Ingredients: (This recipe makes 12)
150g Butter
150g Sugar
175g Flour
3 eggs
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
2 Lemons
200g Icing sugar

Utensils:
Mixing bowl
Electric mixer or whisk
Weighing scales or measuring cup
Spoon
Grater
12 x Bun cases
Bun tray

Method:
1. Heat your oven to 180 degrees
2. Put your flour, eggs, baking powder, butter, and sugar into a mixing bowl and beat together until smooth.
3. Add the juice and rind of 1 lemon into the bowl and mix.
4. Spoon a small amount of mix into each bun case.
5. Bake in the oven for about 20 minutes. (Stick a skewer into a bun when you think it's done. If the skewer comes out clean, then they are done.)
6. Take the cakes out and leave them to cool completely.
7. When they are cool, make your icing by mixing together the icing sugar and the juice of 1/2 lemon. Add more lemon juice if needed.
8. Spread your icing onto the cooled buns with a butter knife. Decorate the top with a little bit of lemon rind (or any decorations you like!)

Week 2 - Activities for at Home! 30th March 2020

Maths Activities

Counting:
Continue with counting forwards and backwards as often as possible (same as week 1)

Hopscotch game:
·      Use chalk/ some kind of marker if available to draw a hop scotch game like the one pictured below. This is great for identifying numbers.
-       Each player starts standing behind number 1 and tosses a stone/ button/ some form of counter to number 1. They must then hop over square 1 to square 2 and continue hopping on to number 10, turn around an hop back, collecting their counter on the way back.
-       On their next turn, they must throw their counter to number 2 and hop over number 2, continue to number 10 and collect the counter on the way back.

SESE Activities

Geography: Let's have a look at the weather.....

Can you keep a weather diary?

Can you draw a picture of the weather for the week?

Question Time:
What season is it?
What's the weather like today?
What do you think the weather will be like tomorrow?
What season is mostly sunny?
What season is mostly snowy?
What clothes would you wear in the Summer time?
What clothes would you wear in the Winter time?

History: Create a Timeline....

Can you get photos of you as a newborn to now and make a timeline?

Question Time:
What did you need when you were a baby?
What did you eat?
What do you eat now?
What was your favourite toy when you were a toddler?

Are you ready to see how much you've grown?

Well-Being Activities

Arts and Crafts Ideas

Toilet Roll Art
Click on the image for instructions but these are easy art ideas to pass an afternoon. All you need is toilet roll inserts, markers and paper or paint.

2D Shapes printing - Mould the roll into a shape and dip it in paint. Print the shapes onto a page to make a shape painting!

Draw a face on your roll. Give him or her a cool hair-cut using your small scissors. Decorate however you like!

Cover your roll in coloured paper or paint it. Draw on monster face or stick on stickers, eyes, whatever you have at home! Don't forget to give your monster a name.

Keeping Active at home.

It's important that we look after our physical health by doing as much exercise as we can. Here are ideas that you can do with your child at home to keep up with their physical education.

PE With Joe
Joe Wicks (The Body Coach) is doing Live workouts every morning at 9am on his YouTube channel. You can go on and do them at any time though, as he saves them in his 'PE with Joe' Playlist, find it by clicking here.

Week 1 - Activities for at Home! 23rd March 2020

English Activities

Jolly Phonics and Tricky Word activities

The Jolly Phonics app is fantastic! Unfortunately they have started charging €5.50 if you want to look at sounds after n. But not to worry! I've found vidoes on youtube which demonstrate the sound, action and song for your children to sing along to!

So far, the children know the sounds s, a, t, i, p, n, c, k, e, h, r, m, d, g, o. They also know the tricky words I, the, you, and, like, here.

Play this game with any sounds or any tricky words that we already know!

What you need:
1. A ball 3. A partner
2. Pen, paper, cellotape 4. A Wall

How to play:
1. Write some sounds / tricky words on pieces of paper.
2. Use tape to stick the paper to a ball.
3. Pass the ball to each other by throwing or kicking, when you catch the ball you must say the sound or tricky word it lands on!
4. The first person who gets 5 in a row correct, wins!

Follow up activity:
1. Stick the sounds/words to a wall using tape.
2. Partner 1 calls out a sound or word and Partner 2 must throw or kick the ball at the correct sound or word.
3. The first person who gets 5 in a row correct, wins!

Writing

The children have been practicing writing the letters c, o and a in school. Practice makes perfect with writing so any chance the children get to write using pencils/pens/crayons/markers or even chalk on the ground would be great for them!

What you need:
1. Paper
2. Marker, highlighter or crayon
3. A different colour marker, highlighter, crayon or a pencil/pen

What to do:
1. Adult writes a letter in the centre of the page using a marker, highlighter or crayon
2. Child traces the letter as many times as necessary until they can do it themselves
3. Child writes the letter as many times as they want around the page!

Story Time!

Here are two of the stories the children have enjoyed the most in school. The children may be able to read along with the reader as they know the stories very well.

Maths Activities

Counting:
Count up as high as your child is able. Most children are able to count to 20+ at this stage but only count as far as they are able.
Count back from 12 (again go higher if this is easy for your child or start at a lower number if this is too tricky)
When you are cooking dinner or preparing food in the kitchen, try giving your child a handful of food (pasta, cornflakes etc) and ask them to count out a certain number of pieces for you: "Can you count me out 7 pieces please?". Great for their counting skills and might give you a minute's peace! :-)

Number formation/writing:
Practice forming number 1 -5. Here are the number rhymes that we use:
1 - Start at the top and down we run, that's the way we make a one!
2 - Around and back on a railroad track, two, two, two!
3 - Round and round, just like a bee, that's the way we make a three!
4 - Down and over and down some more, that's the way we make a four!
5 - Straight neck, big round tummy, hat on top. Five looks funny!

Shapes:
Draw some different shapes on a page and ask your child to colour them in and then cut them out. You should have a child's scissors that your child received earlier in the year. Have them name the shapes and sort them into piles (circle, square, rectangle and triangle).

Using water in the sink for Capacity.
Fill the sink or a basin with water and give your child some plastic containers (you can use plastic cups, spoons, containers- anything you have at home!). Allow your child to explore the water and filling the containers. Encourage them to measure, for example, how many cups of water it would take to fill a bowl.
If you want to make it more exciting try adding a few drops of food colouring or washing up liquid to the water.

Money
Gather any spare change you have in the house (it is a good idea to give the coins a wash before giving them to your child). Ask your child to sort out the coins into different piles, identify the number on the coin, count how many coins in each pile.
Encourage your child to set up a toy shop where they can price some toys they have and pretend to be a shopkeeper.
Extra Ideas
-Ask your child to help with the laundry by matching all socks that go together

-Play a treasure hunt- ask your child to bring you, for example one red sock, 3 spoons, 2 bananna etc
-Try some online games on your phone/ tablet/ computer. Check below for more.

· https://www.abcya.com/games/number_match
· https://www.topmarks.co.uk/learning-to-count/teddy-numbers

SESE Activities

Science: Does it Float or Sink?

Are you ready for a Science Experiment?
Get your thinking caps on......

Fill your sink with water..
Can you find 3 things that will float?
Can you find 3 things that will sink?

Question Time:
What do we mean by floating/sinking?
What objects floated in your sink?
What objects sank?

Well-Being Activities Section

These activities are designed to promote your child's well-being at a time that may be difficult for them to understand what is happening and why. They may feel uncertain or worried about what will happen. It is up to us as their adults, parents, carers and educators to look after their mental health, just as much as their academic skills. Enjoy completing these activities and if you have ideas for us to include do not hesitate to give your suggestions and get involved! :-)

Mindfulness - Rainbow Breathing & Safe and Calm

Click this image to see it on a bigger scale. Read the script to them as they lie down with closed eyes. This is very long so you might like to start with one of the shorter mindfulness ideas first and work your way up to this one.

You will need a picture or drawing of a rainbow for this! You could draw or colour a rainbow together or let your child do it independently as an art idea. You could then use the picture at times of the day where you feel your child needs a 'breather'.

You can listen to this short guided meditation with your child at any time of the day. You could choose a set time each day, before school work, before bed - whatever works for you and your child! Your child may be familiar with this video from school already, or it may be new to them. Find a place that is dimly lit, or close the curtains. Let them get comfortable and hit play! (this could be joined in by the whole family - we all need some safe and calm in our lives.) If you are searching for this on Youtube type 'Safe and calm for children' in the search box or follow this link:
Safe and Calm for Children Video Link

Online Resources for Screen Time

Click the Green Words to be brought to the website of your choice. All resources here are free, however you may need to register or set up an account in order to access some of the games and resources. You child may need your guidance while using some of these online resources. If you have a problem with any of the online resources do not hesitate to contact us for help.

English
Storyline Online - This is a website where you can choose a story and have it read to you with attractive illustrations. Click on 'All Books' and choose a story to listen to.

Teach Your Monster to Read - This is a website or App game that your child can play to learn letter sounds/phonics. You will need to create an account for your child, but once that is done, they can just click 'play' and create their little monster. The story goes that their monster crashed their spaceship and cannot read the instructions to fix it. They go through the game learning letter sounds and earning prizes. This is an excellent game.

Oxford Owl ebooks - This website has ebooks available for free to parents. This is a resource for you if you feel your child is ready to look at books, they may not be yet. You must register and create an account first. You then select 'Browse ebooks' and we recommend beginning with books for aged 3-4, as we have not begun reading books in school yet. There are other resources on the website such as phonics guides for parents, which you may find useful.

Jolly Phonics Resource Bank - If you or your child need help remembering what sound a letter makes or if you are not sure what action goes with the sound you can use these videos from YouTube to remind you or your child. There is a separate video for each sound. They also have the song for each sound on the videos. As you are aware, your child has already learned sounds: s, a, t, i, p, n, c, k, e, h, r, m, d, g, o, u. You can revise those sounds using the videos from YouTube and your child's sound book from their folder.

Maths
Top Marks Maths Games - This is a website that stores many different games on all areas of Maths for different age groups. Select 3-5 years and an area (Counting, shape, ordering etc.) and pick the game you would like to play. Choose games that have the correct number range for your child. This may be 1-3, 1-5 (usually) or 1-10.

Top Marks Number Stories - These number stories allow the child to focus on one number at a time. Click the link and then choose 'The Story of ________'. The 'Starter Activity' is the story that you can read for them and interact with. There are games available to play after listening to the story also called 'Main Session part 1/2/3' etc .We work within numbers 1-5 for Junior Infants.

SESE
The 5 Senses - This is a game teaches your child about their 5 senses (touch, taste, smell, hearing and sight).

Dressing for the Weather- This is a game that allows your child to dress the puppy for the weather that the game is showing. It teaches them about seasons, weather and clothes. You might like to using these YouTube video to go alongside this lesson: Winter, Summer.

Explore with me online resource - This is an online resource that goes with a school book for SESE. It has lots of little games and photographs to teach your child about topics for History, Geography and Science.

Well-being
Go Noodle - This website is full of indoor movement breaks for your children. They can explore and choose their favourite 'channels' on Go Noodle. It includes, dances, workouts, songs, Zumba, meditation and more.

Kidz Bop Dancing on GoNoodle - Children can choose their favourite songs and copy the steps of the dance. Great for physical exercise indoors.

Art For Kids Hub YouTube Channel - If your child enjoys art or drawing this may be of interest to them. Some of the drawings may be a bit difficult but they can give it a try with older siblings or with you. The instructor breaks the drawings into tiny steps and the child has to listen to the instructions and copy.

Cosmic Kids Yoga - Your child can follow a yoga instructor through a yoga routine. Great for an indoor movement break or to spark a love of yoga and mindfulness in your child from a young age.

Playing in the Courtyard.

Today we were being kind and understanding, so our teachers decided we would get some free play time in the courtyard. We had so much fun playing with the toys. We decided to use tyres and wooden planks to make a Garda Car, as we have been learning all about the Garda Station during Aistear time recently. Here is a picture.

Junk Art during Aistear

A speaker

A mobile phone and a speaker.

A speaker with a plug and a wire.

A robot.

A television.

We won an ice-cream party!

Junior Infants have been very kind friends in the yard this week. They have kept their hands to themselves and they have made sure that their friends always have somebody to play with. The teachers noticed this and at assembly, Junior Infants were given an ice-cream party for their kindness! Here are some pictures of our yummy prize:

A Special Visitor

Santa heard how wonderful our Christmas Play was and decided to visit us at school! He was so kind and gave us lovely presents. We had a magical day and are looking forward to celebrating Jesus' birthday with our families and friends over the Christmas holidays. Here are some pictures of his visit.

Practicing for our Christmas Play

Our Christmas play this year was called 'Whoops a Daisy Angel' We practiced for a long time to make sure we did our best performance for our families and friends. We loved singing our songs and wearing our costumes. We hope you enjoyed our show. Here is a picture of all the Junior Infants practicing together.

Aistear Time in Junior Infants

Junior Infants have been doing Aistear every day. Aistear is the structured play time where children get to learn and use new vocabulary and language. Children play in different areas centred around a theme. They play in the Role play area, the Construction area, the Sensory area, the Creative area and in the Small World area. Children of Junior Infant age learn meaningfully through play. When play is structured children learn so much including Oral Language, Mathematics, Geography, Science, History, SPHE, Gaeilge, Drama and more. We place a lot of value on Aistear time at St Joseph's JNS.

You might have noticed that your child has brought home creations they have made from recycled rubbish! This is what we like to call 'Junk Art' and has become a very popular station during Aistear time. Junk Art helps us to practice using our imaginations. We plan what we would like to make and then find junk that we can recycle to create our masterpiece! This is also a great way to practice our cutting skills. Junk Art is another example of how we can learn so much through play. We learn lots about Shape and Space in Mathematics, as well as Length, Weight and number! We practice our artistic skills of Construction and Fabric and Fibre. We help our friends when they need it and we get to show and tell about our Art during the review time at the end. Here are a few pictures of some Junk Art we have made.

Sensory Play during Aistear

We love to learn by using our senses when we are small. Sensory play helps us to explore and learn using our senses. We also learn lots of new vocabulary and get to practice using our language while playing in the sensory area. We play with lots of different sensory boxes including sand, water, rice, soil, slime, jelly, ice and lots more. It might seem messy but we love to learn this way. Here are a few pictures of us playing in the sensory area.

Playing with Jelly!

Making Slime

Antarctic Animals in the ice!

Aistear - The Doctor

Aistear - Home

St Anne's Park

In September, we visited St Anne's park for an Autumn nature walk. We walked through the woods and looked at the trees and the leaves. We saw the Autumn colours: red, orange, yellow and brown. We were even lucky enough to spot some squirrels! After out nature walk, we had a picnic and played in the play ground. We really enjoyed our first ever school tour. Here are some pictures from the visit:

School Year 2018-2019

Welcome to the Junior Infant page of our website. Our teachers this year are Nicola and Ruth. We will update our page with news and pictures from our classes.

The Garda Station

For the month of March we are learning about the Garda Station. As part of our topic we visited the local Garda station in Ballymun. We sat in the Garda car, visited the investigation room, tried on the uniforms and handcuffs, and when we were leaving Garda Dave gave us all a special Garda pencil to bring home. It was a great day.

Term 2

After a lovely, relaxing Christmas break, it's straight back into the swing of it for Junior Infants. We are doing amazing work, our teachers are so proud of us. We have been learning all about Antarctica, and during our playtime we have been constructing igloos. Have a look at our pictures!
We had lots of fun painting the snow, and after all of our hard work, we earned a hot chocolate party! It was so delicious :)
In late February we went on a walk to Poppintree park and looked for signs of Spring.

Christmas Fun

We have been very busy in the build up to Christmas. We are learning lots of new Christmas songs and rehearsing for our Christmas play. In Aistear we are learning about the Post Office, and we made our own North Pole post office to help Santa deliver some of the letters. We designed our own Christmas cards and posted them ourselves. We met a post man int he post office in Centra who told us all about his special job helping Santa at Christmas.
We visited the Axis to watch a Christmas play about Winter, the actors encouraged us to sing and dance along with them, it was so much fun! We also went to the Christmas Fair in the Senior School.
And just before we broke up for the Christmas holidays, there was a visit from a very special man who came with lots of gifts for the boys and girls in our school. Santa was so impressed with our hard work all year, he had to come and see it for himself!

Halloween in Junior Infants

We had lots of fun in Junior Infants in the week leading up to Halloween. We made chocolate apples, sang Halloween songs, carved a pumpkin, made sparkly Halloween playdough and had a fancy dress disco.We wish it was fancy dress everyday!

Pumpkin carving:

Spooky disco

Fancy dress:

Chocolate apples:

Spooky Sparkly Playdough:

Learning through Play: Aistear

In Junior Infants we learn about different topics through play. Our play time is a hugely important part of our daily routine. Our teachers set up different areas of play and we play in a different area every day. On Friday we decide where we would like to play-we call this Free Choice Friday.

Learning through play helps the children develop a deeper understanding to the topics they are learning about. For example, instead completing a colouring sheet about Autumn, the children might play in a sensory area with pine cones, acorns, leaves, twigs etc. The children are taught the vocabulary and are encouraged to use the specific langauge during play. This hands on experience offers a more meaningful approach to learning.
Ask your child what they are doing during their play time- our topics change each month!

A visit from Bumbleance!

The children's ambulance service, Bumbleance, paid Junior Infants a visit recently. John and Tom were the paramedics who work on the bumbleance. We found out that bumbleance is a very special ambulance for very sick children. To make their journey to hospital more comfortable there are lots of fun things on board e.g; an ipad, books, a t.v, games, colouring books and lots more. Tom and John , the paramedics, gave the children a special sticker and a treat before they drove off to collect their next patient.

A Visit to St. Anne's Park

Junior Infants visited St. Anne's Park in Raheny recently. We went on the slides and swings, and we spotted some squirrels in the woods.
We gathered some Autumn leaves, acorns, pine cones and horse chestnuts for our Autumn table. We finished our day with a picnic, we had great fun.

School Year 2017-2018

Welcome to the Junior Infant page of our website. Our teachers this year are Nicola and Sinead. We will update our page with news and pictures from our classes.

Newbridge Farm and Playground

Junior Infants went to Newbridge Farm and Playground for their end of year school tour. First they visited the farm, they saw lots of animals including; cows, sheep, pigs and horses. Then they had a picnic outside on the grass, it was a lovely sunny day. Lastly, they went to the playground and had lots of fun with their friends.

Maths is Fun!

We have been creating our own patterns in Maths. We hope you like them!

The Garden Centre

We are learning about the Garden Centre in Aistear. In our role play area, we enjoy being the manager, the shop assistant, the gardener and the customer. In the small world and construction areas we like to create our own Garden Centres and in the junk art area we like to make flowers and plants.

Pancake Tuesday in Junior Infants

We enjoyed celebrating Pancake Tuesday in Junior Infants. We had jam pancakes, chocolate pancakes and lemon and sugar pancakes.

A Visit From Bumbleance

We were learning about the doctors surgery during Aistear and our teachers organised a visit from Bumbleance, the children's ambulance. We had a look inside the ambulance. It was really cool. It had a games console, DVD's, games and reading and colouring books. Have a look at our pictures....

Autumn Walk

Nicola's class went out for an Autumn walk around the school grounds. They were looking for signs of Autumn. They found orange, brown, yellow and red leaves and lots of twigs that had fallen from the trees.

The Doctors

Nicola's class are learning about the doctors surgery. Here they are in role play as the receptionist, the doctor, the nurse and a patient.

Hello!

A big hello from our new junior infants. They have settled in well and made lots of new friends. Here are some pictures of them having fun in school.

School Year 2016-2017

A visit to Ballymun Garda Station

We went to visit Ballymun Garda station to meet Garda Dave and Garda Mairead. We are learning about the gardai in school and Dave and Mairead invited us to visit the station. We had a great day visiting the cells, dressing up in uniform, watching our teachers being handcuffed and sitting in the car with the siren on. It was really loud.

The Airport

We have been learning about the airport in Aistear and were very lucky to go on a bus trip to Dublin Airport to watch some planes taking off and landing.

Maths Outdoors

Mary's class decided to make the most of the recent sunshine. They took their maths lesson outside. They were learning about the story of 5 and were making 5 frames.

The Post Office

Junior Infants have been learning about the Post Office in school. They have been working in the Post Office, writing and posting letters, building their own Post Office. They also wrote a postcard to home, put it in an envelop with a stamp and walked to the local postbox to send it. It was then delivered to their homes by a real postman.

A visit to Newbridge Playground.

We went on a short trip to Newbridge Playground as a reward for always trying our best in school. We had great fun with our friends.

Fun in the hall.

Junior Infants have great fun in school. Here they are playing cups and saucers in the hall.

Autumn Walk

Ruth's class went on an Autumn walk around the school. They looked for signs of Autumn and collected leaves of different colours.

We are having lots of fun in school. We have met lots of new friends too. :-)

Junior Infants 2023-2024Welcome to our page. Our teachers this year are Karen and Rachel.We will update our page regularly with news and pictures.

Junior Infants 2022 - 2023​Welcome to our page. Our teachers this year are Rosemary and Karen.We will update our page regularly with news and pictures.

Traveller Culture Day

We are continuing to learn our new sounds each week. We are working hard counting forwards and backwards to 10 and beyond.Don't forget to check out the kids section of our website for games and websites!

St. Patrick's Celebrations

Reading BuddiesTo celebrate World Book Week, we had our lovely friends from 2nd class visit us to read to us. Have a look at the beautiful pictures.

Newbridge House

Halloween Pumpkin Carving​We loved having our parents in before the break to help us carve pumpkins for Halloween. We song some scary Halloween songs for them and some of the nursery rhymes we have learned.

Autumn WalkWe went on an Autumn walk around the school grounds. First we found red, brown, orange, green and yellow leaves. Then we found conkers and pine cones that had fallen from trees.

HurlingWe started hurling on Wednesday with coach Liam. We are learning to follow instructions and work as part of a team.

We have been hard at work.......

Our First Day on Yard

School Year 2021-2022

Newbridge Farm​We went on our end of year school tour to Newbridge Farm and Playground. We saw lots of animals such as; pigs, cows, sheep and horses. Then we had a picnic and fun with our friends in the playground.

Wellbeing Week

Art Gallery

School Year 2020-2021

Look at some of our art work....

Our First Day on the Yard!

Junior Infants School Year 2019-2020

Update for Parents 22nd June 2020

Week 14 At Home Activities 22nd June 2020Send us an email to [email protected] if you would like a message back from you teacher! :)

Take Care of Your Mind & Your Body!

Relaxation for better Sleep!

Sing a song!

Play Time: The Beach/ Summer Holidays!

Watch Peppa Flying on Holiday

Trip to Beach/ Sand Box

We're all going on a Summer Holiday, Sing along!

Pack a suitcase for a pretend Summer Holiday!

SESE Activities:

Week 13 At Home Activities 15th June 2020Send us an email to [email protected] if you would like a message back from your teacher! :-)

English/Literacy

Maths Activities

Counting

Game: What Number Did I Miss?

Game: What Two Numbers Come Next?

5 Frames

Baking and Counting

Counting for Fun

Keeping Active!

Banana, Banana, Meatball

The Cha Cha Slide

How To Floss

Dance Monkey Dance Along

Week 12 At Home Activities 8th June 2020Send us an email to [email protected] if you would like a message back from your teacher!

English/Literacy

SESE ActivitiesSend us an email to [email protected] if you try out any of these activities :)

Week 11 At Home Activities 1st June 2020

Maths Activities

Capacity

Nature Art Activities

Painting Leaves

Painting Branches

Week 10 At Home Activities 25th May 2020

English/Literacy Activities

Maths Activities

5 Frames

Number Formation

What Number Am I? Game!

Length

Nature Walk Art Activities!

Nature Trees

Fairy Wings

Make Your Name!

Rock Pictures!

SESE ActivitiesDon't forget!! If you do any of these activities, your teacher wants to see your fantastic work! Send us a picture to [email protected]

Story Time Poem of the Week

How to Make Jungle Slime

Make your own DIY Jungle Binoculars

Make your own jungle in your home...

Week 9 At Home Activities 18th May 2020

Just Dance!

Let's Tie our Laces

Step 1: X knot

Step 2: Loop

Step 3: Wrap

Step 4: Double Knot

Maths Activities

Pattern

Junior Infants 2023-2024
Welcome to our page. Our teachers this year are Karen and Rachel.
We will update our page regularly with news and pictures.

Junior Infants 2022 - 2023
Welcome to our page. Our teachers this year are Rosemary and Karen.
We will update our page regularly with news and pictures.

We are continuing to learn our new sounds each week.
We are working hard counting forwards and backwards to 10 and beyond.
Don't forget to check out the kids section of our website for games and websites!

Reading Buddies
To celebrate World Book Week, we had our lovely friends from 2nd class visit us to read to us. Have a look at the beautiful pictures.

Halloween Pumpkin Carving

We loved having our parents in before the break to help us carve pumpkins for Halloween. We song some scary Halloween songs for them and some of the nursery rhymes we have learned.

Autumn Walk
We went on an Autumn walk around the school grounds. First we found red, brown, orange, green and yellow leaves. Then we found conkers and pine cones that had fallen from trees.

Hurling
We started hurling on Wednesday with coach Liam. We are learning to follow instructions and work as part of a team.

Newbridge Farm

We went on our end of year school tour to Newbridge Farm and Playground.
We saw lots of animals such as; pigs, cows, sheep and horses. Then we had a picnic and fun with our friends in the playground.

Week 14 At Home Activities 22nd June 2020
Send us an email to [email protected] if you would like a message back from you teacher! :)

Week 13 At Home Activities 15th June 2020
Send us an email to [email protected] if you would like a message back from your teacher! :-)

Week 12 At Home Activities 8th June 2020
Send us an email to [email protected] if you would like a message back from your teacher!

SESE Activities
Send us an email to [email protected] if you try out any of these activities :)

SESE Activities
Don't forget!! If you do any of these activities, your teacher wants to see your fantastic work! Send us a picture to [email protected]

SESE Activities
If you try any of these activities out, please email [email protected] and send us some pictures. We would love to see your lovely work!! :-)

English/Literacy
Please continue to read stories, practice your tricky words, sounds and writing! :)

SESE Activities
If you try any of these activities out, please email [email protected] and send us some pictures :)
Happy Experimenting!!

English/Literacy
Please continue to read stories to your child, practice sounds in their sound book and practice writing letters in their workbooks

Literacy / English