Welcome to Ms. Keogh's Class Blog. This will be a hive of activity this year and we can't wait to show you all the learning and fun we get up to. Check us out on our first day of school! Be sure to check in regularly. ​

Welcome to Mr. Geaney's Class Blog. This will be a hive of activity this year and we can't wait to show you all the learning and fun we get up to. Check us out on our first day of school! Be sure to check in regularly. ​

What a busy last term we have had here in Senior Infants. As we finish our last couple of days in Senior Infants we look back on all the learning we haver achieved and the fun we have had together. Although we are a little sad to be finishing and moving into different classes next year, we had so much fun together. 

We love maths in our class and have done brilliant work in it this year. We loved the topic of Money and did so many activities. We did stations in money and worked with real coins to help us understand. We are now experts at identifying and using coins up to 10c. We used a shop scenario to buy and sell items, sorted coins, used piggy banks and played some fun money games! 

We did many topics in maths this year. We explored weight and were very good at identifying items that were heavy or light. We also used pan balances and a variety of items to see which weigh heavier or lighter. We also explored capacity and really enjoyed using water with some miwadi and lots of different utensils. Check us out in action!

We love art in our classroom! One of our favourite pieces was our Crazy Cow art pieces that we did all on our own. Mr. Geaney drew it step by step on the board and we followed. We were so impressed and proud of ourselves. We had a second go at clay also and made some cool aliens to use in our space station for Aistear. We also explored Claudé Monet's water scenes and attached a bridge to make it into a water scene! Check out our creations below!

Father's Day was a special occasion that had to mark in our class. We made some cool cards that folded out very big. We hope all the Dad's loved their cards!

One of our Science topics this term was Magnets and we think we are experts now at recognising items that attract a magnet and those that do not. We had a wide variety of items in our sharing tray that we had to first estimate before testing. We noted our results in our copies. We then explored our classroom environment with our magnets and were surprised with some of our finds!

One of our favourite Aistear topics this year was Space. We had so much fun pretending to be astronauts working in the space centre. We also used our clay aliens in our small world area. We made amazing solar systems and rockets that we were so proud of. We now know some amazing facts about space, are able to recall the order of the planets and even which is the smallest largest and closest to the earth. We could have future astronauts at NASA among us! 

As we are coming to the end of our time in Senior Infants, Mr. Geaney has organised a 10 day countdown with a special activity each day. We have 10 balloons which are filled with activities that we get to pop each day and it is so exciting. So far, we have played quizzes on the IPads, done chalk art on the yard and even make chocolate biscuit cake in our pods. We had an amazing breakfast morning with cereal, toasts and fruit. We visited the playground for the first time and we so excited. We also completed a maths trail in the car park and some very clever children found out which car was Mr. Geaney's. We had a virtual school tour of Dublin zoo and had some pop corn to enjoy the videos. It is so exciting to pop the balloon and see what the special activity is each morning. 

A big well done to all the boys and girls in Senior Infants. They have worked so hard this year and should enjoy a lovely summer break before they go into First Class. 

Hi everybody! Welcome back to our final Class Blog of the school year. We really made the most of our last term together, as a lovely class. Have a look at some of the fun activities we did throughout the term. 

In the month of April, we worked on the Aistear theme "People Who Help Us." At the Cut & Paste station, we read "scenario" cards and chose the best person to help with the matter. We learned a poem called "Firefighter" and at the Art station, we created a fire scene attended by a firefighter. Also, at the Art station, we drew a picture of the occupation we would like to have when we are older. It seems like we will be very helpful adults working as vets, teachers, chefs, guards and working in many other important roles. We played matching games and completed worksheets to consolidate our learning. At the Playdough station, we read instructions to create certain pieces of equipment, specific resources and vehicles needed by various workers.

​Throughout the month of May, we worked on our favourite topic to date in Aistear: "Under The Sea." At the start of every Aistear session we happily sang along to the song "Under The Sea." We learned the names of many sea creatures and watched videos of them in their natural environments. At the Play station, we played with sand in the sand pit and water in the water basin. At the Cut & Paste station, we cut out sea creatures and stuck them onto blue card to make a sea scene. At the Playdough station, we created lovely sea creatures. At the Art station, we drew pictures of colourful and varied sea creatures. We also created a picture of a sea horse in the ocean. The Senior Infants used paper plates and paint to make bright and vibrant fish. The Junior Infants used paper plates, paint and string to create beautiful jellyfish. At the Writing Station, the Senior Infants wrote a poem that we learned called "Scary Shark" and the Junior Infants labelled sea creatures.

​This month, during Aistear, we worked on the theme of "Summer." We learned all about the seasonal changes when Summer arrives. We made jigsaws and played with the sand pit in the Play Area. We picked our favourite flavours to make ice-cream cones at the Art station. We also drew a summer scene in our Art Notebooks. We added to summer pictures with playdough on the playdough mats. At the Cut & Paste station, we cut out pictures and stuck them to a background to create a Summer beach scene. In S.P.H.E., we learned how we can keep safe in the warm weather during summer time. Check out our performances of the poems "Summer Time" and "5 Scoops of Ice-Cream."

​We covered various Maths topics throughout this term. We enjoyed working on the topic of "Weight." We weighed various objects using a pan balance. We also had lots of fun working on the topic of "Ordinal Number." We chose vehicles from the play area to race against each other. Two children held the finish line at the end of the classroom. We held a race to see which vehicle would place first, second, third and last. "Addition" was another fun and hands-on topic to work on. The Senior Infants created a large numberline and worked out the answers to addition sums by jumping along the numberline. The Junior Infants used maths mats to practise adding two numbers together. We all practised addition sums by writing them on our whiteboards and played addition games. Another Maths topic that we worked hard at was the topic of "Money." We used coins to purchase items in our Class Shop and played many games to help with our learning.

Our Gaeilge has really improved this year. Each morning, we say poems, sing songs and create dramas during our Gaeilge lessons. Have a look at the videos of us singing and performing.

​We thoroughly enjoyed learning all about percussion instruments in Music. We learned that we can hit, shake and scrape these instruments to make a sound. We had the opportunity to play different percussion instruments. We explored how we can make a sound with each instrument and categorised the instruments into three groups: instruments that we hit, shake or scrape. The best part was getting to play many instruments over a few Music lessons. It was so much fun as well as being very very loud!

​Our Sports Day was one of our favourite days this term. We had the BEST day and the weather was fabulous. Our day started with dancing and Zumba in the classroom. Then, we went outside and completed an Obstacle Course many times. We absolutely loved it! After break time, we played many games on the AstroTurf. We loved playing games using the parachute. After that, we did many races, including a relay race, egg & spoon race etc. We all went home that day feeling tired but very happy after a great day.

​We reached a big milestone when we earned 30 leaves on our Achievement Tree! Ms. Gaire couldn't believe that we earned that many leaves and she was so proud of us! We celebrated our achievement by having playtime in the PE Hall and lovely ice lollies. A few weeks later, we earned 5 extra leaves, making the grand total of 35 leaves! Of course, we had another party to celebrate our very last leaf. 

Throughout our last term, we did lots of nice activities as Ms. Gaire wanted to reward us for being kind to each other and working very well. We paid visits to the school garden, we had extra play time in our classroom, had fun yoga sessions, played in the school playground and had a visit from the Ice-Cream Van. We really enjoyed the fun activities together.

​We had such a lovely year together in Junior & Seniors Infants. We can't wait to start another school year after the summer holidays. We will check in with you again then! But, for now, SLÁN!

We had great fun on our first ever sports day!!

We started our day off at the amazing obstacle course. We had to army crawl under chairs, jump through tyres, balance on blocks, have quick feet through the ladder and shoot at the goals! We did this course many times and got quicker each time we did it!

We then moved onto the novelty races. We had so much fun with the egg and spoon, relay races with batons, the crawling race and the very funny wheelbarrow race!

We did some cardio drumming and zumba in our classroom to keep our energy levels up at break time. 

We did some orienteering outside which made us use or brains and think on the spot. We then moved to the astro where we had our first ever turn of the parachute. We played so many games and we loved when the parachute when really tall and we could run underneath. 

Our last part of sports day was circuits in the hall. This took up so much energy and included burpees, shooting at the hoop, step ups, squats and jogging. We were so tired after it but a lovely ice cream outside on the green helped us cool down and get ready to go home. Well done everyone :)

In the words of our fabulous Senior Infants, Sports Day was the “BEST DAY EVER!”

On Tuesday, we had a fun-filled, active and sunny day. Our day began on the Astro where we played parachute games. All of the boys and girls were fascinated by the beautiful colours and the range of games that we played.
​
We then moved on to the Obstacle Course. This was not as easy are it sounds. We crawled under chairs, ran through tyres, bounced on the space hopper, and walked a balance beam, all before practicing our balls skills and hula hooping.

After break, we had a dance party. We worked on our Zumba moves, relaxed with some Yoga and danced to some of our favourite songs.
Following this, we raced… and raced… and raced again. We
did an egg and spoon race, relays races, wheelbarrow races and spider races, to name just a few.

Our final activity, saw us really push ourselves with circuits. There were 6 in total!
Our day ended with, a smile on every red face, tired bodies and of course, ice-pops to cool down.

​Hello everyone, and welcome back to Mr. Geaney’s Senior Infant Class Blog. What a very strange year 2021 has been already. We started the year learning at home but we are so delighted to be back together in the classroom. We have been back in school for a month now and we have our Easter Holidays. Check out some of the really fun things that we have been learning and doing since returning to school!
 
Since we returned to a new season, Spring, we have been busy learning lots of new things about Spring. Mr. Geaney taught us all about animals and their young and he even showed us some pictures and videos of cows, calves, horses and foals from his farm. We especially loved the video of the baby calves in the field. Also, we now know about all the different flowers that begin to grow in Spring. We are so good at spotting signs of spring that we went on a Spring Scavenger hunt in our amazing new school garden. This was our first time in the garden this year and we really loved it. Check out some pictures below of us searching for signs of spring with our partner and checking them off on our lists.

​This is a very busy time for special occasions and one of the most important special occasions was Mother’s Day. We really love all our Mammys/Mams/Mommys/Moms and we wanted to make some very special to surprise them with. We created a potted plant on paper using paint and card and we were really happy with our end result. Check out the process of painting using our hands and the finished products below.

Another important day on our school calendar was World Down Syndrome Day. On this day we were raising awareness of Down Syndrome and celebrating our friends in Scoil an Linbh Íosa with Down Syndrome. Everybody wore odd socks into school on this day and we proudly showed them off for a photograph. Check all the colourful socks below.

We love Easter in our classroom, not only for the chocolate but also because we get to spend time with our family. To celebrate Easter, we made some Easter clay pots. This was our first time using clay in school ever and we were so excited to get started. Using clay takes a lot of time. On the first day we moulded and shaped our clay pots. We made them smooth using our fingers and some water and then let them dry for a week. We had to make sure that we made very solid structures so they wouldn’t break when dry. A week later we were so happy with our results. Everyone’s clay pot looked amazing and were so solid. We then painted them whatever colours we liked. Some of us even mixed colours like we had done before in art to make our own shades. Once dry, we added some yellow shredded paper and some mini eggs for a cool finishing touch. We loved being able to take them home although it was very hard to resist the temptation to eat the eggs!

​On the last day before the holidays, the whole school dressed in yellow. We called it our Yellow Day which was also on daffodil day. We dressed in yellow and brought in a little donation for the Irish Cancer Society who have not been able to fundraise like normal due to COVID. Mr. Geaney had a special surprise of a daffodil and mini eggs left on our table when we got to school on the morning of Yellow Day. It was a really great way to end school and go on our holidays! Happy Easter Everyone!

​Hello everyone! Welcome back to our Class Blog. 

This school term has been quite different for us. We spent January and February working online in our homes. We really looked forward to the live calls twice a week with Ms. Gaire and our friends. Ms. Gaire was so happy with us and said we worked really well at home. As a result, she gave us another leaf for our Achievement Tree. Our Achievement Tree is looking very full now! 

We are so happy to be back at school again with all of our friends. Have a look at some of the activities that we did since we returned to school. 

Throughout the month of March, we worked on the theme of "Spring" in Aistear. We learned a lot about the season. We went on a Nature Walk around our fabulous school garden to look for signs of Spring. We noticed lovely daffodils, beautiful flowers starting to grow and buds appearing on trees. We sat in our class groups on the four benches in the Zen Area, closed our eyes and listened for the sounds of Spring. We heard birds chirping, water flowing from the wonderful water feature, the wind blowing and the beautiful noises created by the little chimes hanging from the trees. We did various activities during the Aistear sessions. The Senior Infants wrote a piece about the season of Spring and the Junior Infants created a Spring Montage by cutting out and sticking lovely Spring pictures onto colored card. After learning that many animals have their babies in this season, we were able to match the mammy animals to the baby animals. At the cutting station, we cut out the various parts of a flower, assembled them correctly and stuck them onto a page. The Junior Infants created lovely Spring flowers with tall, green stems and the Senior Infants made really nice little lambs. We all made fluffy, feathery little chicks. We learned a poem call "Spring." Have a look at the photographs of our work and at a video of our performance of the poem. (Click on the arrows to scroll across and see all of the photographs and videos.)

​In Science, we learned about the lifecycle of a ladybird. We completed various activities on the topic to consolidate our learning, including drawing pictures of the life cycle and taking part in games. We made vibrant ladybirds during an Art lesson. Each ladybird looked so different due to it's many and varied amount of spots.

​We covered a few topics in Maths this month. We enjoyed working on the topic of "Length." We focused on concepts, such as, tall, short, wide, narrow, long etc. We played with small cubes and large blocks to make various towers of different sizes and we were able to compare the towers using the Maths language that we learned. It was fun!

​We also liked working on the topic of "Capacity" in Maths. We were able to complete the pages in our Maths workbooks very well, but our favourite parts of the lessons were playing with various containers, beakers and water. Ms. Gaire poured Mi-Wadi into the water to colour it orange. It looked nice but we were not allowed to drink it! We experimented with containers of different sizes and estimated how many full containers would fill a large basin/ bowl etc. We tried not to splash anyone with water, and miraculously, we mostly managed to stay dry! It was Ms. Gaire that made the most mess!

​We celebrated World Book Day together on Thursday 4th of March. We brought our favourite book into school. Everyone got an opportunity to show their favourite book to the class, call out the title and explain why we like the book. We had the chance to read the book and look at the pictures for a while and also show the book to our friends at our group table. In the P.E. Hall, Ms. Gaire read a story called "Monkey Puzzle." We listened carefully for the different animals in the story and we embodied each animal by miming it's movements around the P.E. Hall. Ms. Gaire thought she was going to be attacked by lots of snakes, but thankfully, she was saved just in time! It was so much fun!

​During an Art lesson, we made gorgeous cards for our Mammies for Mother's Day. We know that many of our mothers really like flowers, so we created a pot with a colourful plant. We made it extra special as we used our hand prints to create the plants and finger prints to create the flowers. Out Mammies seemed very happy with our fabulous cards.

​We celebrated Saint Patrick's Day together in our classroom. In advance of the special day, we learned about Saint Patrick. During an Art lesson, we made a little dancing shamrock man. We tested his dancing skills by playing Irish music and dancing along with him. We learned an Irish poem called "Seamróg Ghlas" and an Irish song called "Lá le Pádraig." We had a little parade in our classroom. Have a look at the photographs and three videos below.

​On Friday 19th of March, we raised awareness for people with Down Syndrome by taking part in "Rock Your Odd Socks Day." We wore odd socks to school to show support for our friends with Down Syndrome. Ms. Hetherton came into our classroom to admire our odd socks!

​We are so excited for Easter Time! We designed lovely Easter egg wrappers at school. Ms. Gaire and Buddy the Bunny set up an Easter Egg Hunt in the classroom and devised clues for us to solve. We solved each clue with ease and were lead to yummy Easter treats! We learned a poem called "The Easter Bunny." You can listen to our poem below.

​We hope you have a brilliant Easter Break! Ms. Gaire, Buddy and Cuddles say "hello!" Happy Easter from all of the Junior and Senior Infants!

Hello! Welcome back to our Class Blog! 

We have been working very well over the last two months at school. Here you can see pictures of our work in action and samples of our lovely work. Enjoy! 

We worked on many Maths topics over the last few weeks. We particularly liked working on "Patterns." We enjoyed creating our own patterns with lollipop sticks, links, cubes etc. The Seniors Infants worked on the topic of "Time" and can now tell the time in hourly intervals. The Junior Infants worked on numbers 1, 2 and 3. Have a look at some of our work!

​During November, we worked on the theme of "The Supermarket" in Aistear. We set up our own Supermarket in the classroom. We played in the Role Play area taking on the roles of customer, shop assistant, counter worker, manager, etc. At the "Cut & Paste" station, we sorted fruit and vegetables. We made items that can be purchased in a Supermarket with playdough. At the "Games" station, we played various games. The Senior Infants wrote their own shopping lists and the Junior Infants did a drawing activity. We designed some lovely cupcakes that could be sold in the Bakery section of a Supermarket. It was a lot of fun!

​We also focused on the theme of "Winter" in Aistear. We completed various tasks, activities and worksheets based on the theme. We created fabulous snow globes using the technique of pointillism. We made lovely winter caps and hung them from a clothes line outside our classroom. We made snow people and winter clothes from playdough. At the "Cut & Paste" Station, we sorted winter and summer clothes. We did beautiful drawings of a winter scene in our Art Notebooks. The Senior Infants wrote a piece about the season of winter and the Junior Infants completed a tracing activity.

​Throughout the last fortnight at school, we worked on the theme of "Christmas." This was a very exciting theme for us. With Christmas music on in the background, we helped Ms. Gaire to decorate the classroom. We decorated the little Christmas trees and set up the classroom Christmas crib. Ms. Gaire read us a story called "The Christmas Collar." Also, we learned all about The Christmas Story. We designed our own Winter/ Christmas jumpers. We love how different and unique each jumper looks. In the Play Area, we created the Christmas Story by playing with the figurines and pictures from The Nativity Story. At the "Cut & Paste" Station, we each created a fabulous Christmas tree. We made gift boxes, Christmas trees, baubles etc with playdough. The Senior Infants wrote a piece on the Christmas story and the Junior Infants created a Christmas montage. As a class, we created a lovely Nativity Scene using black sugar paper, chalk and pictures. We took part in various games and activities. We espcially enjoyed doing some Christmas themed yoga, watching the Helix Panto "The Sword in the Stone", singing Christmas songs and learning new poems. Have a listen to two poems that we learned.

​Our class took part in the school's Christmas Concert Video. We spent weeks practising the poem "I'm a Little Snowman" and the song "Christmas Time." We were so excited when the day came to record our performance. We hope you enjoyed the show!

​We have been working so hard at school and having fun while doing so. Last week, Edel, our school secretary, arrived at the door of our classroom with a special envelope that was addressed to our class. It was very exciting! Ollie opened the envelope and Ms. Gaire read a two page letter from Tinsel, Santa's no.1 Elf. Tinsel heard how well we are working at school. He knew that the Junior Infants are making fantastic progress learning the Jolly Phonic Sounds and he knew how well the Senior Infants are performing during Power Hour at school. As a result, Tinsel thought we deserved a little gift! He gave us a little riddle to solve in order to locate our gift in the classroom. Amelia solved the riddle and we found special activity books for everyone in our classroom Christmas stockings! We were so excited! In the second half of this school term, we earned another 10 leaves for our Achievement Tree. Ms. Gaire is so proud of us. We had a party to celebrate our success.

​We hope you all have a lovely Christmas! 
Lots of love,
Junior & Senior Infants

The run up to Christmas is always a busy one and Senior Infants were working hard for the last two months. 

Our Aistear theme for November was the Italian Café/Restaurant. We did role play like we were in an Italian restaurant. We were waiters/waitresses who took orders and delivered food, customers and chefs who cooked and really enjoyed this station. We also did lots of different art work based on books on our topics - Handa's surprise and the Tiger who Came to Tea. 

We have loved the anticipation of Christmas and we've been full of Christmas cheer in our classroom. We love our decorated classroom - our windows were painted with snowmen and reindeer to name but a few, we have a lovely Christmas tree and lots of lights around the room. 

We did lots of Christmas art which we really enjoyed and were so excited to bring them home. Our Aistear theme was 'The Nativity' this month and we really enjoyed using our new crib to act out the scenes. We also did role play with masks and sequenced the story.