Welcome back to the Junior Infants page!

What a term our new Juniors have had! We didn’t think as we said goodbye for our Christmas holidays, that we would not see each other again until the 1st of March! The Junior Infants worked incredibly hard engaging with their remote learning for the months of January and February and Ms. Balfry was so proud of them! We started blending our sounds and reading with the help of all the super parents at home. We engaged in experiments, cooking and art projects, some of which you will see in the photos underneath. We enjoyed seeing our friends on our zoom catch ups but were so happy to be reunited with them in person!

We may only be back at school one month, but what a month it has been! Junior Infants got straight back to work and have been blending and reading everyday using our word lists and whiteboards. We are practicing our handwriting everyday also and are getting very good at forming our letters. We re-established our friendships and enjoyed quality time chatting and playing together. We got back to our movement breaks in school each day and have learned a few new dances! We enjoyed dressing up to celebrate Saint Patrick’s Day and learned all about Saint Patrick’s life through our Grow in Love lessons. We have chatted about spring, gone on spring walks around the school and made beautiful spring flowers for display in our school corridor and as a treat for Mum for Mother’s Day. We have had great fun using our numicon shapes as part of our Maths lessons and are now learning our story of 5. We love reading in Junior Infants and have story time each day before we go home. As a result, we really enjoyed our first World Book Day and made an amazing effort to find characters from our favourite books to dress up as.

Juniors displayed a great interest and curiosity as we learned all about the story of Easter over the past few weeks. We made Easter chicks in art and listened to Easter stories in school. A big thank you to Mrs. Wixted and Catherine for helping us each day. We hope everyone has a safe and happy Easter and can’t wait to see each other again on the 12th of April.

Beannachtaí na Cásca oraibh go léir!

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Happy Christmas from Junior Infants!

Juniors have worked so hard this half term and are looking forward to a well deserved break! We have finished learning all our Jolly Phonics sounds and learned new sight words. We read our first reader called ‘The Picnic’ and have learned to put our finger under each word as we read and move across in the reading direction. We enjoyed reading all about the Wandsville characters’ picnic and how GG accidentally ruined it! We love reciting rhymes together each day. We have learned lots of new vocabulary and Ms. Balfry is so proud of how much effort we have put into our work at school and at home!

We love our art lessons and have created art pieces based on stories we read in class. We made paintings using clothes pegs and pom poms from the story ‘Owl Babies’, paper plate paintings based on ‘The Gruffalo’ and maps from ‘We’re Going on a Bear Hunt’. We had lots of fun this month making reindeer using our hands for antlers and special 3D snowmen. We mixed PVA glue, paint, glitter and our special ingredient...shaving foam to make our snowmen! We also painted beautiful Robin Redbreasts and learned how to switch between colours when we paint. We enjoyed learning all about the primary colours and even did some colour mixing and made the colour brown using the three primary colours!

We have had great fun doing PE in the astro turf every week and always ask to play the bean game! We enjoy movement breaks in class every day and Ms. Balfry thinks we are super dancers!

We learned about the Beatles in music and listened to ‘Yellow Submarine’ and ‘Octopus’ Garden’. We also explored musical traditions in other countries at Christmas time and sang Christmas songs together.

We had a surprise visitor to our class this month in the form of Santa’s elf, Jingles! Jingles has been hiding around our class everyday; having tea parties, messing with the toilet roll and even painting! Ms. Balfry is so proud of how we use our Kind Words, Kind Hands and Kind Feet everyday in class and knows that Jingles has reported this back to Santa!

We have loved learning about Christmas and Daidí na Nollag in our Gaeilge lessons this month and want to wish everyone a very safe and happy Christmas. We look forward to seeing you all again in 2021!

Nollag Shona Daoibh from Juniors!!!!!

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Welcoming the new Junior Infants is always special for us in Kilcornan National School, but this year was extra special! Our new Junior Infants entered a school unlike any pupils before them and we are so proud of how they have adapted! They entered their new environment and very quickly became experts at washing their hands, sanitising and remaining in their pods,as well as adapting to the school rules and routines that every new Junior Infant has to encounter. We are so proud of them!!

It has been lovely to see new friendships being formed between the pupils themselves as well as relationships developing between our new pupils and the staff. Juniors are now very familiar with the teachers and SNA’s in their lunch group and the staff they encounter on a daily basis. A special word of thanks to Mrs. Wixted and Catherine who help us in our classroom each day!

Junior Infants have worked extremely hard since beginning their school journey and have earned a rest for the Mid Term! We have been learning sounds each day as well as new sight words. We have learned lots of rhymes and are building up our Oral Language vocabulary on different themes such as School, The Doctor, Autumn and Halloween. We love engaging with the Stay Safe programme and exploring our feelings and friendships.

We learned lots about autumn and the changes that occur during this season. We engaged in autumn art including autumn handprint trees that we finger painted using autumn colours, acorn men and scarecrow faces using paper plates. We also created amazing self portraits using wool for our hair and made some spooky spiders for Halloween! We are learning how to hold our pencils correctly and are practising our cutting skills. We are really enjoying our Bua na Cainte Irish programme and are using our Irish words throughout the day!

We also have great fun playing together, showing off our moves when we are dancing to Go Noodle and listening to stories everyday. Ms. Balfry is so proud of how we use our manners, especially 'as gaeilge' and remember our ‘Kind Words’, ‘Kind Hands’ and ‘Kind Feet’ everywhere we go!

Have a safe and enjoyable Mid term and check back in with us for more updates soon!

Slán from Junior Infants!!

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Kilcornan National School's Open day for new entrants for the 2020/21 academic year takes place on Friday 6th March at 2.00 pm. All interested parents and pupils are very welcome to come and visit us for a chat and a tour of the school. If you would like an invitation for your son or daughter to attend, please contact the school and give our secretary Lorraine your details. Looking forward to seeing you all there!

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