First Half Term in Ms. Gaire's Class

Ms. Gaire’s Junior Infants & Senior Infants Class

The first half term in Ms. Gaire’s classroom has been a busy, fun and successful one! The children made new friends and discovered new talents.

During the first fortnight we focused on getting to know each other and making new friends. Have a look at the photographs taken on the first day at school and the photograph of the Junior Infants that featured in The Leinster Leader paper.

​Cuddles, our class teddy bear, has made lots of new friends. He spent many weekends visiting his friends and staying over in their homes. He took part in family activities, for example, baking, sports, trips to the playground etc. The children enjoy when Cuddles visits their homes, even though he snores quite loudly at night time! He is looking forward to more visits in November and December.

​Gerry, our school caretaker, took the Junior Infants outside one lovely morning to do some planting. Each child had a job to do and planted bulbs for blue bells. The Junior Infants can’t wait to see the beautiful flowers when they start to grow!

​The class love taking part in Aistear sessions each week. During September we focused on the theme of “The Construction Site.” The children worked at many stations. At the Role Play Station they dressed up as builders and worked with various tools and machinery. At the Construction Station the children built many buildings of various sizes and shapes. At the Shape Station they used 2D shapes to create houses and apartment blocks. At the Writing Station the children wrote a list of tools we need to build with. At the Drawing Station drawings were done of the buildings the children wished to build. At the Playdough Station the boys and girls made buildings and created various tools. At the Cut & Paste station the children cut out the parts of a house and stuck them onto card to create lovely houses.

During October we focused on the theme of “Houses & Homes” in Aistear. The children learned the names of many types of houses, the rooms in homes and the parts of a house. At the Role Play station the children created many rooms in doll’s houses and cooked delicious meals in the play kitchen. At the Cut & Paste station they cut out pictures of furniture and stuck them into the correct room in a house. At the Writing station they wrote the names of various household items into the different rooms in a home. At the Painting station the children painted a colourful picture of their own homes. At the Playdough station furniture and items were made for the house.

​The class really enjoy Art lessons. As a class we created our own designs using hessian. We read the story “Elmer the Elephant.” Elmer is a special and unique elephant. After listening to the story the children realised that they too are different from one another and that makes us all special. They created their own elephants. After learning about the season of Autumn, the class worked with their 5th Class partners to create owls. We usually meet with the 5th class children on Fridays to read together. However, on this occasion, the 5th class children helped us create a beautiful owl.

The class worked on various Maths topics over the past few weeks. They particularly enjoyed working on Patterns. Here are some photographs of their great work.

​We celebrated Halloween together throughout the last week in October. The children dressed up in impressive costumes and took part in the Witch & Wizard Walk. We had a class party, sang Halloween songs, played various games and drew a scary face on our class pumpkin. The boys and girls made Halloween arts & crafts.

​We look forward to the remainder of Term 1 at school!