Junior Infant january News

Junior Infant January News

Junior Infants have been very busy since coming back to school for the new year. This month, we are learning all about keeping healthy! We spent two weeks learning all about sports and exercise and now, we are learning about healthy foods.

We discussed different sports and games that we like to play. We learned about new sports also. Billy the Bear told us a story about his favourite sports and places that he plays them. We all picked our favourite place to play and drew a picture of it. Here is a picture of our beautiful drawings!

During Aistear, we completed lots of activity stations based on sports and exercise. Here is some of our class at the language station. Here, we explored lots of different sports. We played matching games and guessing games. It was alot of fun!

For this fortnight, our Aistear activities are based on Healthy Eating. We have been exploring foods that are good for us and that help to keep us strong and healthy.

 We made jigsaws that showed pictures of different food stands

We painted pictures of fruit bowls filled will all different kinds of fruit. 

We used playdough to make all kinds of food shapes. 

We completed cutting and sticking activities based on healthy foods.

Gaeilge
D'éisteamar don scéal 'An Tornapa Mór'. Chuireamar na pictiúirí san ord ceart agus ansin, bhí dráma againn leis na puipéidí.

S.E.S.E
As we learned all about food, we also looked at how people cooked food in the past. We looked at pictures of kitchens long ago and talked about how our kitchens today are very different. We looked at how butter was churned long ago. Then, we carried out our own experiment to see if we could make our own butter!

Maths tasks

We learned all about the number 4. We sang songs about the number four, practiced writing the number 4 in lots of different ways and played lots of counting games. Here are some pictures of us making groups of 4 using cubes, lollipop sticks and counters. We were very good at counting out groups of 4. 

We learned all about 3D shapes.  We played lots of sorting games, learned a song about 3D shapes and had a shape hunt. We even made our own cylinders and cubes!

Jolly Phonics

This month, we have started to learn our Jolly Phonics Tricky Words. We play lots of games to help us learn our new words. Every week, we learn two new words. We love practicing writing them on our smart pal boards. 

Special Events

Visit from the Defence Forces

We received our Irish flag from the defence forces this month. It was a very exciting day. We each made our own Irish flags in preparation for the day. We gathered with the rest of the school in the hall to welcome our special visitors and our national flag. 

History Story Telling

We had a special visitor in the school last week who told us lots of interesting history stories. We had lots of fun listening to stories with the Senior Infants. It was very funny and we loved the stories about Cú Chulainn.

Journey in the Jungle

This month, Junior infants have started an exciting programme to help develop gross motor and fine motor skills. We complete new activities every week for this programme. The programme is based on a Jnugle adventure story and children complete lots of activities and movements as part of the story. It is lots of fun and we are developing lotss of skills. 

Here we are reaching up high to get our suitcases which we need for our adventure! 

Here we are curled up for our rest before we begin our Journey to the Jungle.

We made our own jungle maps. 

We pretended to be animals playing in the jungle. We practiced rolling the ball and throwing and catching. It was lots of fun!

1st and 2nd Class News

Science

This week we were investigating magnets. 

We investigated if different things were magnetic: crayon, tin, wooden spoon, key, metal spoon, 5c coin and paintbrush.

First we had to make our predictions and then we took turns to test the different things.

We also tested how strong magnets were so we had to see if a magnet would attract a paperclip through lots of different things: book, plastic bag, ruler, jumper and a plate!

We had some more fun with magnets, paper clips and maze challenges! We had to use the magnet to bring the paper clip through the maze!

Gaeilge

Bímid  ag cleachtadh ár nuacht gach lá sa rang.

Music

 This week we were learning about tempo. We sang a song very slowly, normally and very quickly. 
Then we played our instruments to the beat of the song.
We have also been practicing our tin-whistle. We now know the notes B, A,G and F #. We can tell if a note has one beat, two beats or half a beat.

Down on the Farm Artwork

We were very creative and made our own farm animal using paper plates! Most of us made cows and pigs. Finn made a sheep and a few pupils made cats or dogs. We all had a great time making them and now they are on display in the hallway and outside our classroom.

The Farm

We already know a lot about life on the farm but we have been learning more and sharing our knowledge with the rest of our class.

We have been using our comprehension strategies of Predicting, Visualising and Making Connections' as our teacher reads the story 'Click Clack Moo, Cows that Type.' It is hilarious!

Here are some pictures of us using our hand signals while we are using the different strategies:

Making Predictions

Making Predicitons

Visualising

Visualising

Making Connections

Making Connections

Making Connections

Ms. McHale showed us an aerial map of her farm that she had drawn. We drew our own aerial maps and explained them to the class. Some of us made up an imaginary farm. It was really enjoyable.

We also learned about farm safety and read a story and talked a lot about how to be safe on the farm. We then worked with our partners to make a farm safety leaflet.

We have also been learning about tractors in the past and present and how milking has changed from using hands to machines. Keep an eye on our blog to see what we have been working on in art!




Science Experiment

We have been learning about mixing in science.

We were very curious when we saw our teacher put milk, washing up liquid and food colouring on the sink!! 

We worked in groups and each had a job to do. 

First, we poured a small amount of milk onto the plate.

Next, we poured different coloured food colouring onto the milk.

Finally, we used the cotton bud to add washing up liquid to the milk and food colouring.

We  were amazed at what happened! All of the colours mixed together and made cool patterns and shapes.

Celebrating the 1916 Easter Rising

We had great fun in class making Irish flags to wave in the GP hall. We also coloured and cut out bunting. 

We learned about the 1916 Rising and the meaning of our national flag.

We were very excited about our visit from the Defence Forces.