Senior Infants have had a very busy few weeks since Halloween learning and growing and making friendships.

In November we took time to remember all our loved ones who have passed away. We chatted about all the special people in our lives who are here or in heaven and how grateful we are for everyone who cares for us and loves us. We light candles during our Grow in Love lessons for all our special intentions and we chat about what is important to us and everything that we are thankful for.

We also had our Anti Bully Week during November and this gave us a good opportunity to talk about how we treat others and how we want others to treat us. We talked a lot about respecting each other and each other’s differences. We are happy to say that in Senior Infants we are very aware of turn taking, being kind and sharing.

We have continued to enjoy Andrea joining us every Monday morning for music generation and we have been singing and dancing our hearts out in preparation for Christmas with the Aliens. We have really enjoyed seeing this fantastic production come together and the children are all gaining confidence as each practice passes. The angels and the shepherds have been so busy learning their lines, poems and songs ready to impress the lucky audience. We know that’s it’s a special time of year and have been chatting each week about the importance of Advent and preparing for Christmas and the celebration of the birth of the baby Jesus.

We have worked hard on our maths with lots of hands on materials to explore data, length, shape and partitioning. We have really enjoyed discovering what all these concepts mean to us. We discovered connections between 2D and 3D shapes and we learned through the use of folding geometric solids, magnetic 2D shapes and polydrons. It has been wonderful to see the constructions that have emerged through the creative use of concrete materials. It is a pleasure to watch the children develop critical independent thinking skills.

We are very excited for Christmas holidays and the children have been counting down the days to the 25^th Nollag Shona daoibh go léir!

‍

Welcome back to Seniors! We have had a wonderful two months getting settled back. We have a pom-pom jar in our classroom and we get rewards when the jar is half-full and fully-full! Our full-jar rewards have been to make and decorate buns and to bring a teddy in from home to play with. We also have our own stamp cards and we earn stamps every day. We get a prize when we get up to ten!  

We love to read stories and are reading more and more independently. We have started our first class reader of the year, ‘Ella Goes to the Airport’, and love talking about our characters and the adventures they get up to. We love writing in our copies and our books. Our writing has become much more mature, and we enjoy taking care when we are writing. We love having DEAR time where we get books from the library. We sit on the carpet and get comfortable with a book. We love following the pictures and telling the story ourselves.  

We love numeracy and learning with numbers. We do lots of hands-on activities both independently and collaboratively. We play with the resources when we have our work done! We really enjoyed ‘Math’s Week’. We did lots of different and creative Math’s activities during the week. We were each awarded with a certificate for taking part in Math’s Week. We have been playing lots of Maths games – Buzz, Higher and Lower, Blast off – which feel like too much fun to be learning! We love using concrete materials in our Maths lessons and we count every day.  

We learned about Autumn and went on a nature walk around the school. We collected fallen leaves and used them to make an Autumn wreath.

We love having Andrea join us from Music Generation. We have learned lots of songs together and she even brought a huge, big drum once and let us all have a turn playing it.

The build up to Halloween has been great fun! As part of a science experiment using magnets, we made paper ghosts which could hover in the air. We have been reading “Spookley, the Square Pumpkin” and “Room on the Broom”. We have been learning about the spider and we created beautiful prints of Halloween spiders. They were spooky!

We are all enjoying learning new things and building positive relationships and friendships. We are extending our literacy skills and enjoying lots of conversation where we valued everyone’s opinion and what they have to say. We are continuing to support each other and respect each other’s differences and uniqueness.  

Senior Infants is a great place to grow and learn and we are happy to enjoy what each day brings. We are looking ahead full of positivity to what the the next half term holds.

‍

What a busy term we have had here in the Senior Infant classroom!

Our best day ever was our school tour day! We went to Arena 5, to Jump Lanes and the soft play area. It was brilliant fun! It was exciting getting on a big bus and travelling with all our friends. On the way home we stopped and played at Mungret playground.

Music Generation helped us create our own song. They recorded it and played it back for us. They turned fruit and vegetables into a musical instrument and played them like a keyboard! That was especially exciting!

We completed another collective marathon! We had a marathon relay on Monday the 16^thof June. The Parents’ Council provided a fruit stand, which was lovely and refreshing.

We did a lot of work this term too! In maths, Seniors learnt all about capacity. We compared all our drinks containers and put them in order. It was a bit tricky, because some bottles were tall and some were wide. We started reading the time using o’ clock.

We completed our Stay Safe programme in SPHE. We visited ‘An Trá’ in our Irish lessons and enjoyed playing le buicéad agus spád! We made cáca breithlá and played bíongó.

We learned about Irish wildflowers and conducted many hunts in search of different varieties. We learned about different clouds and how the water cycle works. We observed the weather everyday.

Our reading and writing has improved wonderfully. We read many, many stories – some of our favourites were ‘Rainbow Fish’ and ‘The Giraffe, the Pelly and Me’.

We designed and created our own birthday cake. We made a 3D octopus using cheerios for the suckers on their tentacles. We made a summer scene with flying butterflies. We also created an outfit for George the giant from ‘The Smartest Giant in Town’. We used lots of different fabric and fibre to create different textures from his old gown and sandals to his ‘smart’ clothes and shoes.

It has been a great learning term. We are ready for our summer holidays!

‍

Welcome back to Seniors! We have had a wonderful two months getting settled back. We are delighted to have two teachers this year – we think we are getting twice as many rewards!

We have started our first reader of the year, ‘Ella Goes to the Airport’, and love talking about our characters and the adventures they get up to. We love writing in our copies and our books. Our writing has become much more mature, and we enjoy taking care when we are writing.

We are lucky enough to have a couch in our classroom! We use it when we have carpet time. The teacher chooses different pods or children to use the couch. We also use it when we have free play. It becomes part of the ‘house’.

We love having DEAR time where we get books from the library. We share our bean bags and cushions and get comfortable with a book. We love following the pictures and telling the story ourselves.

We love ‘Show and Tell’ on a Friday. We are allowed to bring something special from home, that we can show to our friends. The teachers like to challenge us to bring something other than a toy!

We really enjoyed ‘Math’s Week’. We did lots of different and creative Math’s activities during the week. We were each awarded with a certificate for taking part in Math’s Week. We have been playing lots of Maths games – Buzz, Higher and Lower, Blast off – which feel like too much fun to be learning! We love using concrete materials in our Maths lessons and we count every day. Our favourite, most recently, was the ‘Story of 6’ told through the Magic Muddy Puddle.

We learned about Autumn and went on a nature walk around the school. We collected fallen leaves and used them to make an Autumn wreath.

We love having Chloe join us from Music Generation. We have learned lots of songs together and she even brought a huge, big drum once and let us all have a turn playing it.

The build up to Halloween has been great fun! As part of a science experiment using magnets, we made paper ghosts which could hover in the air. We have been reading “Spookley, the Square Pumpkin” and “Room on the Broom”. We have been learning about the spider and we created beautiful prints of Halloween spiders. They were spooky!

‍