This September we welcomed back our Senior Infants as well as 15 new pupils in Junior Infants. We have been so busy learning new routines, rules and expectations in school. The Junior Infants have met their 6th class buddies who keep a very close eye on their Junior Infant buddy throughout the day and come to visit them for activities in the classroom.
We have been learning all about our school, getting to know all the teachers/SNAs and areas that we visit in school each day including the library, sensory room, staffroom and other classes.
In maths the children have been using their maths eyes when learning about sets and things that belong and don't belong. We sorted items by different attributes like colour, size and shape etc. Senior Infants have been learning about the number 6 and Junior Infants have been learning all about number 1. We came up with lots of ways we see 6 e.g. six, 6, a dice with 6 dots, a cake with 6 candles, a 6 sided shape etc. To write the number six the children remember the rhyme "down we go and make a loop, number 6 makes a hoop" and number one "Number one is big and tall, stand him up so he doesn't fall". We have learned about 2D shapes and made lots of pictures using 2D shapes.
One of the stories that the children have loved so far is "Zog" by the author Julia Donaldson. We learned a comprehension strategy called "Making Connections" where we listened to the story and tried to make connections to another story the children may have read or if the story reminds the children of something that happened in their own lives!
For Halloween we learned about the traditions of the festival and made some beautiful pieces of Halloween spider web art! We learned a poem off by heart called "The Fat Old Witch".
We are delighted to have the school principal Ms Kehoe come in and work with the class for numeracy and literacy stations 4 times a week. It has been great fun and the children have been adapting so well to having two teachers in the room and dealing with the movement from group to group each day!
As part of our SPHE (Social, Political, Health Education) the children talked about what makes them special and unique and spent some time looking at their features and characteristics in mirrors and drawing self portraits!
We look forward to the second half of the term - November and December- where we will continue with the learning and fun in Monageer NS!