Welcome to the webpage for Junior and Senior Infants. Here we will keep you up to date on class news and post some work from the children.
In recent news……
April news
We are looking at the theme of The Zoo in AISTEAR this month. We have been basing fine motor skills activities, maths lessons and literacy around this.
We created a map for our imaginary Zoo. We got some help from sixth class and we are now going to build a version of that outside in our digging area.
We created mini habitats and lion heads.
March news
We read to our puppet friends today! The junior infants are sounding out their words now. Daily reading practise is really important for us and we get lots of help from our Senior Infant friends too!
We designed a playground for Engineering week. The 6th class children came in to help us with our ideas. We used a lot of the new STEM toys to design our playgrounds.
The children had a fantastic time at the AISTEAR based play centre in Tullamore yesterday. Here are some photographs of our trip.
School tour
The children were so well behaved and had fun engaging in roleplay. We were DJs, beauticians, builders, policemen and women, robbers, prison guards, chefs, vets and doctors! Ms Parle got her hair done by Danny and Aoife painted Kevin’s nails!!!!
We are looking at the theme of ‘The Restaurant’ this month. The children are having great fun making food in junk art, engaging in role play in the restaurant, writing menus, making playdough food and constructing a restaurant using the Crazy Forts!
Land art:
We looked at the work of Andy Goldsworthy and made some land art whilst working with 6th class. Some of us made ‘pictures’ others made patterned-based designs and some even made structures. We were very proud of them.
February news
The Garden Centre
We looked at the theme of ‘The Garden Centre’ this month. We built our own garden centre, had great fun in the sociodramatic play area, and made homemade flowers.
We bought new STEM toys out of the money raised by the PA. They include a giant marble run, two hut building kits and a wide variety of construction toys. We LOVE them!
Tricky words:
We practise writing our tricky words in many different ways! The children are ‘writing’ using Lego!
Spring stories:
We read some stories associated with Spring. We enjoyed Rosie’s walk. Here is some writing we did in response to the story.
We marked St Brigid’s day by designing a cloak for her! Ms Parle made a St Brigid’s cross using reeds.
Relax kids is a fun class where we get to learn how to relax, breathe and think positively. Ms Flanagan is lovely!
We made feeders for the birds, we want to look after them during cold months. We used apples and sunflower seeds. This is also good exercise for our fingers and hands.
January news
December news
Happy Christmas to everyone, near and far, from all the children in Junior and Senior infants! Thanks to 6th class for putting up the Christmas tree.
The parent’s association kindly gave us a treat of hot chocolate with marshmallows. Thank you SO much to Fiona Kenny-Shine for spoiling us!
We made Christmas tree decorations, using recycled materials.
The Student Council organised an Christmas themed art competition. We made snow cities, tracing and cutting out colourful squares and rectangles. We used paint for our backgrounds and are very proud of our pictures!
and the winners were…………………………..
November news
We used old scraps of paper to make a collage of a flower. They really brighten up the corridor.
Tommy and Micheál are our two linesmen during football matches. They make sure that everyone knows the rules and plays fairly.
We made shape pictures using a variety of shapes around our classroom. The children constructed robots, spaceships, landscapes and monsters, whilst also learning the skill of tracing around shapes.
In November, we remember people who are no longer with us. Each day, we light candles and talk about these people, recalling memories of / stories we have been told about them.
We listened to the story of the three little pigs as Ghaeilge.
We went outside and constructed three houses made from different materials.
We have been looking at Light in Science and made a stained glass window for our class.
PE:
We have been learning lots about throwing and catching. We played lots of games using balls and even tried to juggle.
Science and Nature
We looked at the topic ‘Whatever the weather’ and made suns, clouds and raindrops for a weather display outside.
We wrote letters to Santy!
October news
We all dressed up for Hallowe’en! Leah and Bláthnaid won the pumpkin design competition and Sadness (from the film Inside out) gave them a carving of their design. Well done girls!
We are looking after a fly trap plant in our room. It is a boggy plant and so likes to sit in a saucer of water, otherwise it becomes too dry. Ailbhe is in charge of looking after it and is doing a super job!
SESE Science: Light
Reading buddies:
The children love it when the older children help them. We read together, talk about pictures, complete art projects and play games outside on the soft play area. It also teaches the 6th class children valuable lessons about responsibility, which they will take with them to secondary school.
Paddy Madden visit:
The Heritage in Schools expert, Paddy Madden came to our school for a day, during which he taught the children about the local natural environment. We studied Rowan and Sycamore trees, looked at a wasp’s nest and planted mustard and cress.
Numeracy / patterns:
September news
We are always busy in the garden but September is particularly busy! We cut back the dead wildflowers and saved their seeds to replant: poppies, calendula, cornflower and sunflowers. We gave seeds to parents to help pollinators all around the local area.
In the classroom:
We use Jollyphonics on the Smartboard to help the children learn and reinforce phonological awareness.
In September we will look at the theme of birthdays. The children will be making decorations, cakes and cupcakes, singing and playing party games.
Art
We made borders for our name mosaic art, using A4 paper and chalk. We blended the different colours together to make new colours.
We created self portraits using paper, pencils and pens. We cut and stuck strips for our background.
Fine motor skills:
We use playdoh a lot! It helps to make out hands and fingers strong, and helps get us ready for writing. We made snowmen and made outfits for them!
SPHE:
We read the story ‘The Colour of Happy.’ The children used colour to describe different feelings and wrote about their own experiences with these feelings.
Outdoor learning:
Sometimes we spent the afternoons in the garden. We have lots of wildflowers including poppies, cornflowers and sunflowers. We will learn how to save the seeds from the flowers, so we can even more next year. These flowers are really important for bees and other pollinating insects.
The children use playdoh to make their hands and fingers strong. Leah made a snake with features. The Juniors learn SO much from the big Senior Infants in their class!
Welcome to our new children!
Myself and Caroline had a busy first day at school; it was so lovely seeing all the new (and not so new) faces! We played some games with Ms Kavanagh, sang songs, had a chat and told each other about the Summer holidays.
Phonics and blending: Junior Infants
Phonics bloom: There are loads of great games on this site (pick Phase 1 and 2 for Junior Infants, Phase 3 upwards for Senior Infants)
Sentence scramble: This is more for Senior Infants, where they rearrange mixed up words to make a sentence.
Fine motor skills: Below is a blog with ideas for helping your child develop fine motor skills in fun ways. There are lots of other blogs on Pinterest.
We care for each other in our class.
Useful website for Junior and Senior Infants
For some great websites for Junior Infants, click here:
May in our class
We are looking at living things in our school environment. We went on a minibeast hunt and found worms, slugs, ants, spiders and woodlice.
April in our class
ART: We have been looking at using fabric and fibre in art this month. We have been focussing on birds this month in our class so we linked this into our Art lessons. We had great fun making our birds and practised weaving onto the card.
Making our rolled up flowers was not easy but we kept going and think they look beautiful!
Fruit feast!
We listened to the story Handa’s Surprise. We tasted most of the fruit in the story. We were very brave and tried lots of new fruit; mango, pineapple, plums, pears, bananas, melon, avocado and tangerines.
March in our class
We made suet bird feeders!
We planted wildflower seeds
We learned about trees
We made shadow art using chalk!
Easter egg hunt!
Back to school!
We are so happy to be back in school with all of our friends. Our caretaker Harry made a beautiful bench to surround our tree.
The children have been working SO hard with remote learning. Many thanks to them for their efforts and to their parents for all of their help and support.
February in our classroom
January in our classroom
December in our classroom
We put up our Christmas decorations. Caoilainn put the star on the top!
We were looking at the theme of Day and Night. We looked at nocturnal animals and made owls.
We have learned so many sounds! We make a collage of each sound twice a week.
We have been using Khan Academy kids app on the iPads. We love playing logic games on Math Playground.
We are looking at a Winter theme in AISTEAR this month. The children made their own homemade snow. They are using a variety of materials to make people and structures in their village.
We wrote a letter to Santa, asking him to stay safe.
November in our classroom
The junior infants are starting to write numbers now. We can practice them using the pegboards, then our whiteboards and finally our maths copies!
We have been looking at different types of vehicles this month. We carried out a traffic survey to link in with recording data in numeracy.
We made collage portraits using a variety of different media: photographs, paper, glitter, pencil and paint. We used lots of different techniques: resistance painting, printing, cutting and sticking. We think they look lovely!
We have been looking at what it means to be a good friend, using the Stay Safe programme. Ava did a beautiful picture.
We looked at the different parts of a plant. We did some weeding in the garden and were able to identify the leaf, stem, petals and roots.
We use playdoh a lot to develop our fine motor skills. Oisin made a skeleton!
We did a construction challenge to see which pod could build the tallest tower, using paper cups, in 3 minutes. It was very difficult but lots of fun.
October in our classroom
We had great fun dancing with Miss Harris this week. She taught us some scary moves to go with the Ghostbusters song. We performed it in the yard and made a video. It is on the homepage.
We gathered natural materials and made some pieces of land art. The weather was pretty windy though, so we didn’t get any photos!
Alisha is our in-house hairdresser, so was able to plait the leaf stems!
We have been looking at land art. We made a big circle out of fallen leaves.
We rolled a marble around a box filled with glitter and paint to make a painting.
We looked at different types of weather in October. Conor is our weatherman each day.
We use the Smartboard and Maths Playground to play Logic games. The children completed some of these puzzles for Homework on Google Classroom this month.
We went on a leaf hunt. We were able to find leaves from the Oak, Hawthorne, Sycamore, Holly and Rowan trees.
September in our classroom
Numeracy:
We used a variety of 2-D shapes to copy and then make our own puzzles.
PE:
The children are looking at different ways of travelling, and each pod designed an assault course using sidewalk chalk.
GAA training is back!
Training started back for all classes last week, we really enjoyed our session with David.
Engaging with Nature: Rearing Caterpillars
We are keeping caterpillars in our classroom this month and made a home-made caterpillar habitat. Thanks to the children who brought them in! We will be able to see the caterpillar change to a butterfly.
We made caterpillars, using natural objects like leaves and twigs. When it was done with threw all our materials back into the garden!
We went on a leaf hunt! We found lots of different leaves of native Irish trees, including sycamore, oak, Hawthorn and Rowan trees.
We went on a leaf hunt! The children searched for leaves from native Irish trees including Hawthorn, Oak, Sycamore and Rowan trees. We then made leaf rubbings from the different leaves.
Art: land art constructions
We are developing our fine motor skills each morning, to warm us up and prepare us for writing.
We use the iPads to help us practice letter formation, and both junior and senior infants practice writing their names every day.
Lining up safely in the yard
We walk like Superman, to help us give each other space when walking.
Our first week at school
The garden got a little overgrown during the holidays, so we did some weeding with Ms Parle. It looks a lot better now!
We saved some seeds
We saved seeds from cornflowers, poppies, marigolds and scabiosa. We will plant them for the bees in March.
