Junior Infants have been making some colourful weather art. They were learning about the different types of weather and how this can impact the plants and animals. 

Rainbows🌈

The class created beautiful rainbows using crepe paper. They tore and stuck the colours onto the different parts of the rainbow. They also added some cotton wool to make the clouds soft and fluffy! 

Umbrellas☂️

The children have also been creating some wonderful umbrellas to shelter from the rain! They tore various coloured paper to create a colourful umbrella. They then used their fingers to create the raindrops falling from the sky 💧

 

This month a new member arrived to Junior Infants.. Bó was her name!🐄 During the play groups, each table got to milk Bó (producing a paint and water liquid). They practised warming up their hands before milking Bó and discussed the different products that could be made from cows. Take a look at our upcoming farmers in Junior Infants! 🥛

This month, Junior Infants have been engrossed in learning all about the farm which they thoroughly enjoyed! The theme this month focused on what the farm supplies to the farm shop. They explored this theme through various activities in their play groups. In the farm shop the children acted in role as shop assistants, customers and the farmers who supplied the store with the fresh produce. Along with the farm shop play group there was a group playing with soil, exploring the onion bulbs and planting a range of other plants they learned about! The farm world play group got to create their own farm and look after the different farm animals!🐄🐖

Another group was creating paper plate cows and making their own art using recycled materials!

 

This week, Junior Infants are learning about eating healthy and how to keep our bones and teeth healthy! We discussed the importance of brushing our teeth as well as the best way to brush our teeth using our new bamboo ‘Moo Crew’ toothbrushes!

The procedure we talked about is below as well as some picture demonstrations:

• Brush two teeth at a time.
• Count to 10 for every two teeth you brush.
• Brush your gums and teeth with a toothbrush and pea- sized amount of fluoride toothpaste in a gentle circular motion.
• Brush top and bottom teeth.
• Brush outside of teeth and gums, inside of teeth and gums and biting surface.
• Spit out after brushing- no rinsing.

 

We have been as busy as bees working on the topics of Autumn, Halloween and People Who Help Us for the month of October.

We learned lots of interesting facts about hedgehogs – Did you know a baby hedgehog is called a hoglet?

We played some fun Halloween games including carving pumpkins on our Interactive Whiteboard and ‘Pin the Wart on the Witch’! We also decorated a pumpkin using white paint and our fingerprints which we turned into ghosts!

 

We also listed various ‘People Who Help Us’ in our communities and we discussed their jobs and responsibilities. As a class we decided to set up a doctors surgery in the role play area of our Aistear corner. The children act in role as receptionists, doctors, nurses and patients. The doctors and nurses have given vaccinations, bandaged broken legs, taken temperatures and cured lots of upset tummies. The receptionist inputs patient details, answers the telephone and organises appointments.  The remaining play areas for this Aistear topic are playdough, construction, small world and fine motor skills activities. The children in the small world group explored Autumn resources in the Tuff Tray including leaves, a hedgehog, soil, conkers and pine cones. The children at the fine motor skills group created healthy lunch boxes by cutting out pictures of nutritious foods and sticking them into a lunchbox.

Take a look at the fun we have while practising our new vocabulary, in an enjoyable and playful way!

 

 

We also went on a nature walk to Edenmore Park. We brought clipboards, pencils and checklists to see if we could spot fallen Autumn leaves, blackberries, pine cones, spider webs, acorns, helicopters and conkers! We had lots of fun exploring our local park.

 

 

 

The Junior Infants have settled very well into school life at Springdale. The children in the class have been getting on very well together and I’m looking forward to a fun and busy year ahead with them!

We have been focusing on the topics of ‘Homes and Houses’, ‘All About Me’, ‘Mé Féin’ and ‘My Family’ for the month of September.

 

Our Aistear theme is ‘The Home’, where the children act in role as members of a family. They set the table, cook dinner, dust the shelves, iron clothes, take care of the babies and wash the dishes!  The children in the other groups have been playing in the Playdough, Small World, Construction and Fine Motor Skills areas. For more information about ‘The Aistear Play Framework’ see the ‘Useful Resources’ page on the blog.

 

  

 

The children learn two letter sounds every week, so far, we have covered s, a, t, i, p, n, c and k. Please see the Jolly Phonics Parent/Teacher Guide in the ‘Useful Resources’ section for more information on how to help your child to retain these sounds and actions. We have also been completing a bank of work on the story of ‘The Three Little Pigs’, including retelling, sequencing, art work and hot seating the characters.

 

We have been very busy working our finger muscles by doing various fine motor skills activities including; play-dough, tearing paper, cutting and sticking activities, beading, tracing, lacing, pegs and boards and lots more!