Junior Infants (Miss Hartnett)

First Day of School
The first day of school
Can be hard for Mom and Dad.
Part of you feels excited,
The other part feels sad.
For many years you’ve held their hand
And have been their loving guide.
Now you know the time has come
To leave them by my side.
But it is only for a little while,
As your child will learn and grow.
And at the end of every day
They will share with you all they know.
So as you walk away
Don’t worry anymore.
I’ll take care of your little one
When you leave them at my door.

From Ms. Hartnett

Meet the class!

February

STEM Week - March 2nd - 6th 2020

Please see menu of activities for STEM week for Junior Infants. Please choose at least one activity to complete.

Menu of STEM activities

Make a maze on cardboard using straws and blow a small piece of paper through the maze
Humpty Dumpty – build a device to prevent Humpty from cracking – cushion his fall
Little Miss Muffet - Make a spider trap
Make the three beds for Goldilocks
Make the three chairs for Goldilocks from Lego
Build a bridge – cardboard/Lego
George’s Marvellous Medicine – make the potion
Create a puppet
Make a zipline for a character at home – string/eggcup/teddy
Make a rocket
Make a famous building using Lego/spaghetti and marshmallow/matchsticks and blu tack
Design a costume/waterproof outfit for doll or teddy
Make a pirate ship
Make a carriage for a princess
Make a bridge
Make a cover to keep a drink warm/make an outfit to keep a snowman cold
Make a fort at home and take a picture/draw a picture of what you made
Create a musical instrument
Create a gift
Create something from paper/nature
Teach Your Monster to Read - download app on Ipad/tablet – phonics based app (free for February)
Use a device to take a picture and print it out
Go on a number hunt around the house e.g. count windows/door, find numbers on labels
Weigh toys on a weighing scales – which is the heaviest/lightest
Sorting toys into groups
Mixing colours
Blow painting
Create an obstacle course
Design a basket for Little Red Riding Hood
Make butter/Bake something
Plant something
Surprise us with your own ideas!

Useful Websites for STEM activities:
www.teachoutsidethebox.com
https://www.sfi.ie/engagement/discover-primary-science-and-maths/activities-search/
www.avonmore.ie/superscience
https://innocentbiggrow.com/
www.engineersweek.ie
www.topmarks.co.uk
https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize
www.scoilnet.ie
http://www.haveyougotmathseyes.com/
www.pinterest.ie
www.sciencekids.co.nz/projects.html
www.schooldays.ie/articles/Primary-Maths-Resources
https://www.nasa.gov/stem/forstudents/k-4/index.html
https://kids.nationalgeographic.com/
www.scratchjr.org/ - Scratch Junior

JANUARY

Rhyming: We are continuing to learn rhyming words in Ms. Hartnett's class.
Sounds: We have learnt lots of sounds in Junior Infants.
Have a look at the games below.
Can you find the rhyming pair? Can you match the picture to the correct sound?

December

Ireland V The Arctic!

We looked at the differences between Ireland and The Arctic. We found both places on the map. In Ireland we live in houses. In the Arctic the Inuits live in igloos in the winter and tents during the summer. We travel from place to place in cars, buses and trains. In the Arctic, huskies pull sleds for the Inuits to get around. Most of the food they eat has been hunted for or fished. We get most of our food from the supermarket. We saw Arctic polar bears, Arctic foxes, Arctic wolves and seals that live in the Arctic. They keep warm by growing more fur.

All set for the Christmas Display! We were very excited....

Buddy Time!
We swapped cards with our buddies before Christmas. They read some books for us in the hall. We really enjoyed listening to the stories.

Digital Literacy In Action

This term we learned how to turn on/off an Ipad and open an app. We really enjoyed it. Ms. Hartnett never saw us so focused!!

ART/Science

We learned all about the life cycle of the Robin. We sequenced the life cycle and made beautiful robins in Art.

Planting Daffodils

Our Trip to the Post Office!

We posted our Christmas Cards to our families.

Fun with our Buddies!

November

Art
We made lovely pictures with wool. For Advent we created the Christmas scene.

Science Week

For Science week we learned about the life cycle of the Horse Chestnut Tree.

Geography

In Geography we have been learning about the different rooms in houses and the items in each.

Watch these videos to learn how to blend sounds to make words. Practice blending these sounds on your arm to make the words.

October

Games for practising sounds!

Phonics game

Rhyming game

We are learning to hear rhyming words. Play the game below to practice. Say the words together. Identify words that rhyme/odd one out.

Autumn Walk

We went on a walk with our Buddies to look for signs of Autumn. We saw fallen leaves, conkers, conker husks and acorns. We each made a special wish at the Hugging Tree with our Buddy. We couldn't tell anyone our wish as then it wouldn't come true! We collected our signs of Autumn in a bag and examined our bags when we came back to school. We recorded what we found back in the classroom and drew pictures of what we saw, smelt, felt and heard. We really enjoyed our day and can't wait to go back to the Hugging Tree for our next walk.

Making Patterns

Science - Shades of colour

In our Science lesson we looked at the different shades of red, blue, green and yellow. We sorted the shades from darkest to lightest.

We investigated how to make tones of colour by adding white to the paint. If we want it very light we have to add more white!! We can't wait to try this at home!

Some of our displays from this month....

Fun with our Buddies
Every Wednesday our buddies come to our classroom to do some activities. We made aliens from clay and rockets using toilet roll holders for Space Week. We learned about day and night. We also made Monsters for Halloween and Mosaic Acorns. Take a look at the fun we are having....

Colour Hunt
In our Science lesson we went on a colour hunt around the school. We marked off the colours as we saw them. We were looking for red, green, yellow, blue, purple and orange. We also passed some objects on the way and we had to remember what colour they were when we came back to the classroom.

We have started to learn our sounds. Listen to the songs here...

You can listen to the sounds here: https://www.jollylearning.co.uk/resource-bank/learn-the-letter-sounds/

Taste - SPHE

We investigated our sense of taste using our tongue. We tasted a lemon (bitter), natural yoghurt (sour), crackers (salty) and jelly tots (sweet). You will never guess what our favourite taste was?!! Take a look at our facial expressions.....

Gymnastics

We are enjoying gymnastics every Wednesday! We are learning lots and improving each week.

Our School
This month we are getting to know our school and the people who work in Scoil Bhride.
We met Anke our secretary, Cathal our caretaker and Ms. Dorgan our vice principal. We stopped at Mrs. Howard's office too.
We saw the staffroom where the teachers have their lunch. We were very excited to see all the classes upstairs.
We saw St. Brigid's cross and our teacher read us the Golden rules.

What sound does a snake make?

September

September in photos....

Take a look at some of our class displays!

We have been learning the days of the week.