Welcome to Ms. O’Brien’s class!
Senior Infants and First Class came back to school in September full of energy and ready to learn!
May
Summer has begun and we are getting outside for more and more lessons and activities. We discussed the differences in weather in the summer months, how the work of the farmer changes from season to season. We have also begun a new challenge- 50 touches of a ball a day. This is an idea given to us by our local GAA club. We have learned about the Great Barrier Reef, we created under the sea pictures and sang the song Under the Sea. Two books we really enjoyed are Commotion in the Ocean and Rainbow fish. This month we focused on letter writing. We listened to the stories of Louisa the Pig, Louisa was not happy with the farmer’s yard. We wrote a letter to farmer Giles. In Drama we acted out the story. We are fortunate to have both GAA and Music Generation this month.
April
This was a very short month in school as we had two weeks off for our Easter Holidays, nonetheless it was a very fun month. The Easter Bunny came to visit and left eggs in the garden. We couldn’t believe our luck when we came back inside and there was a tower of eggs waiting for us. Ms. Plunkett finished her teaching practice, we had such fun learning about the zoo. Have a look at our aliens. We had to use our imagination to create very different aliens. The only two things we could use were googly eyes and a sheet of paper, after that it was completely our own ideas and work. Didn’t we produce some very strange aliens!
March
If you walk into our classroom this March you are stepping into Spring. From tadpoles to daffodils, St. Patrick to Mother’s Day, there were lots of signs of Spring. We are very fortunate that GAA has returned and we look forward to Rob developing our football skills. Ms. Plunkett set up the Zoo as an Aistear area this month. Each day we take part in different areas from role-playing of the vet and zookeeper, building enclosures in lego and creating animals with junk art. We learned about An Tornapa Mór in Irish and took part in a little drama. There was a loose Gorilla in Drama Land and the children had to look for clues to find him. At the end of March, we started to prepare for Easter. Have a look at our Mother’s Day Art, our Gorilla art and more.
February
First Class and Senior Infants were very busy this month. We made Valentine cards for those we love. We learned about Oisín in Tír na nÓg. This is a legend of old, we performed this in drama in our groups. Ailbhe continued to come to school for Music Generation. First Class also had guitar with Paul. They have learned how to play Twinkle Twinkle. Spring has Sprung was the title of our First Class story. It has sprung in our class too. We went on a Spring walk, looking at flowers and any other signs of springs. We learned about the weather also. There are lots of future weather reporters in the class who reported on Storm Dudley and Storm Eunice. Have a look at our vases of Spring flowers!
January
We are very fortunate to have Ailbhe coming in each Thursday from Music Generation. We love to sing songs and clap beats. This month First class have worked on their tens and units. Senior infants are learning all about the number 10. We were very lucky and got to use a new whiteboard, we are hoping we might even get to keep one. This month in SESE, we were looking at the difference between cities and towns. Have a look at our lovely art showing some beautiful cities. We read the story of the Town Mouse and Country Mouse. We compared living in a city to living in the country.
December
Our Christmas celebrations began on Toy Show Day, when we wore our Christmas jumpers and colours to raise money for a little girl in Uganda. It was a great success, we had a Christmas disco, put up our decorations and created Santa’s in art. This month our hallway and classroom are full of Christmas Art. We are learning different dance moves in PE, have ventured off to Drama Land which was full of snow and Christmas characters this month. Each day in December we read a story from our Advent library.
November
In November, we remember all those who have gone to Heaven. We visited the Church and recited prayers for some special people. We spoke about our families in History, discussing the different people in our families and studied our role within our families. We also learned about Nocturnal animals. First class created very interesting projects on nocturnal animals.
October
This month we went on a nature walk to look at trees and seeds. We made a báirín breac. We sang Halloween songs and recited some poems. Our class dressed up for Halloween. Take a look at our pictures, we played traditional Halloween games and had great fun. Our classroom was an absolute mess afterwards but that was a sign we enjoyed ourselves.
September
All twenty nine pupils made their way into school, new school bags, new pencil cases, new classroom and teacher for some. September was a very busy month as we settled back into a routine. We played playground games, Seamus the GAA coach came to play some football games with us. We are so lucky that Ailbhe also visited from Music Generation, Ailbhe began teaching us at the end of this month. We collected apples from the apple tree, created handprints, spoke about ourselves and our families. In September our theme for Aistear was School. We visited Drama Land each Monday in September, sorting our Humpty Dumpty’s problem and even meeting three trolls.