EARLY START 2024
Yoga.
Slide show
Egg Hunt
Feed the bunny maths game
Easter Bingo
EASTER BUNNY VISIT
Slideshow
This race track was a big hit this week.
Sponge painting
Easter Art has begun.....
BUG HUNT
Both groups went on a bug hunt this week. Each child had a shovel and a pot to collect insects. It was great fun.
We collected lots of different bugs and sat on logs in the fairy garden to talk about what we found. Thanks to Sharon for a great experience.
Afternoon group photos
Exploring water play
Lots of building going on this week
Welcome to Osaze who joined our afternoon group
Jumping hoops
Laura and Peter enjoying a walk in the sun
Blowing bubbles
SPRING IS HERE
We are learning all about Spring.
This week we looked at the life cycle of a frog. We played some early maths games with a dice where the children used their frog counter to hop the correct number of spaces across the lilly pads. Another dice game they enjoyed was ...feed the frog... They had to throw the dice and feed the frog the correct number of insects. We gave the children simple trails to work on using a wipe off marker.
The song we are loving at the moment is called....Spring is here.... By the Learning Station
HAPPY ST PATRICKS DAY to all our families.
Well done to all the classes for their performances at assembly today.
The children also enjoyed some Irish dancing.
Cutting and sticking activity.
Making an Irish flag
During our Irish week, we practiced some easy words and phrases with the children. Through out the week they earned green tickets for using these words. Everyone enjoyed some prizes on Thur and Fri. We learned an Irish song to perform for assembly on Friday.
Interactive games are such fun. The children enjoyed popping the leprechaun hats
Our hunt for the leprechauns gold .....
We collected all the gold and Fionn the leprechaun shared it with us. We found the bridge he lives beside in the yard and some magic dust that Karen sprinkled on everyone. It gave us magic FAST feet.
St Patricks Day Art
Painting shamrocks
Finger painting rainbows
MACDONALDS
We set up a MacDonalds restaurant for Aistear play this month.
The children love it and are taking turns to serve or be the customer.
Slide show of photos
Gardening with Sharon
Slideshow below
World Book Day
Well done to 3rd and 6th class pupils for coming to Early Start today to read with the children. This was beneficial for everyone involved. The older boys worked very well showing great patience, kindness and understanding while working with children so young. Well done.
Slideshow below
Learning all about rectangles this week
Completing a rectangle worksheet
Working very hard.....
Pancake Tuesday
The children enjoyed warm pancakes this morning instead of toast.
The children made pancakes, flipped them and tossed them.....catch them if you can.....
We sang some pancake songs and a story about a runaway pancake
Making pancakes
Gardening with Sharon. Planting Spinach seeds
Triangle week
Taking turns playing shape monster.
Enjoying turns on the interactive board.... Find the triangles.
Sponge painting triangles
HAPPY MID TERM EVERYONE.
HAVE A GREAT BREAK
The children had a fun morning. They had waffles with chocolate sauce and a Valentine disco.
Happy Valentines day ......
Sophie all dressed in pink, ready for the Valentine disco......
The children made cute cards.....
Shape theme... Printing circles
Noah enjoying one of our new activities
Wet sand for building....
Decorating hearts with stickers and stampers
The children are busy making valentines day cards
Sticking activity
Love is in the air.......
The children enjoyed this burst the love bubble on the white board.
Fun with magnets
Water play
Welcome Celine.
MULTI CULTURAL WEEK
The children danced to some Nigerian music. Girls danced with hankerchiefs and boys danced with sticks. We made green necklaces with links and beads and painted green on our face. We danced at assembly in the Hall.
P.E. We have been using the parachute for games this week.
Sticking coloured paper to decorate our letters
Matching letters
Finger painting
Letters
Using playdough to fill in the circles in our letter. At first we learn our starting letter of our name. Then we get to recognise other letters in it so we can pick it from a group of names. We will do lots of letter recognition games in the coming weeks
We are learning the start letter of our names.
A slideshow of super heroes...... More to be added as some children were absent. They children loved this idea.
Small world city....... A world of imagination
This is our Super Hero City.
Each child will pick a super hero and I will take their photo and cut out their face and make them into their hero.
Hulk and spiderman are very popular.
Blowing bubbles
We will be doing a super hero theme for aistear. We will keep it for a few weeks. This will build the childrens imaginative play, role play, creative skills, team work, confidence and social play.
Making Hulk Smash
Second super hero den..... There were only 2 children. They had their lunch in the den..... We skipped the jobs and made it a very fun day
Super Hero theme
The children are enjoying dressing up as super heroes. Each hero has a cape, magic bracelet and mask.
We made a hero den and there is a password to get in the door.....
There are coloured lights , a roof and soft mats on the floor.
We give them missions to complete, such as freeing a barbie who is tied up, find her using hot and cold cues. We are singing super hero songs.
Below is a slide show of all the fun
Happy new year to all in Early Start
MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL THE FAMILIES IN EARLY START. HAVE A GREAT BREAK AND SEE YOU BACK ON MONDAY 6TH JANUARY.
HAPPY HOLIDAYS
KARLA AND KAREN
The children had a great performance in the church. Everyone sang well and participated. They looked so cute in their costumes. We hope you all enjoyed it and all the other classes who sang.
We are so excited . Getting ready to go to the church for our first Nativity.
Scratch Art
We were delighted to see Mary Ann dress up as she was reluctant at first. But she joined in over the last few days
Choices choices.... Santa or an elf... Who should I be....
Santa came to visit today. The children sang songs for him , received a present and got a photo taken. Santa says they are all on his good list.....
Santas sleigh
Our santa sleigh is being packed up with presents and ready to go. The children role play santa, elves and rudolph. We are singing lots of Christmas songs. Below is a slideshow of all our fun this week
Painting stockings
Snow trough.....
Santas Grotto
The christmas grotto is great fun. The children take turns being Santa , the elf and the customer.
Some children even put on a santa voice.... Great role play. Below is a slideshow of the week
Sponge painting snowmen
Making tree decorations
Decorating our Christmas Tree
Slideshow
Archie is busy reading a story to some of his friends while they are munching on some morning toast... Well done Archie.
Winter hat and mittens sticking activity
Making neck laces from links
WINTER CLOTHES SHOP
Our aistear theme is a clothes shop, selling warm jumpers, trousers, socks, gloves, scarves, shoes, coats, hats, etc
The children take turns to be the shop keeper and customers. The children have really loved this shop and are learning what language we use when shopping. The customer service in this shop is outstanding.......
Below is a slide show of our 2 weeks.
Do you like our new hats, shoes and boots.........
Harper Mae is all ready to go to a party... Full outfit
STORY TIME
The children really enjoyed the story
Aliens love underpants.
They laughed when I wore some pants on my head. So a few children loved this idea and wore some on their heads to the yard. Great fun
Gymnastics
The children are enjoying gymnastics. We are teaching the pencil roll and the egg roll first. We are strengthening our core muscles and practicing balance skills on benches. Below is a slideshow of some rolls and bench work.
Preparation for our Nativity.
The children are busy learning the Nativity songs. They will be given the words to bring home so you can help them get to know each song. We recorded the children singing the songs so you can hear the tune. Below I will put up videos of each song.
The children will be given roles and costumes. We will send home any words they need to learn. Some roles dont have any lines to learn so dont worry if you havent been given any lines etc
Here are the morning groups videos......
OUR FIRST NATIVITY
IM A LITTLE ANGEL
TO BETHLEHEM WE GO
DO YOU HAVE A PLACE TO STAY
THREE LITTLE SHEPHERDS
RIDE YOUR CAMEL
Here are the afternoon groups videos
OUR FIRST NATIVITY
IM A LITTLE ANGEL
TO BETHLEHEM WE GO
DO YOU HAVE A PLACE TO STAY
THREE LITTLE SHEPHERDS
RIDE YOUR CAMEL
SCIENCE WEEK
As part of floating and sinking, the afternoon group made boats from tinfoil and tested to see if they would float
Science week
This week was science week. The children enjoyed a science experiment each day. We covered magnets, floating and sinking, colour mixing, magic pictures and skittle experiment. Below is a slideshow of science week
Magnetic or non magnetic
Floating and sinking
Colour mixing.... Blue and yellow make green
Magic pictures. Draw your picture with candle wax...... You cant see it. Watch it appear when you paint the page
Skittle experiment. Rainbow colours
Slideshow of science week
Concentration skills , trying out a new activity
FEELINGS
This week the theme is emotions and feelings. The children learned about happy, sad, angry, surprised, tired, excited etc. We sang songs about feelings, played feeling bingo and every morning the children placed their photo on the feelings chart. Arts and crafts included making funny faces, and making a little character
How are you feeling today......
The children used all kinds of stickers to decorate their animal.
HAPPY HALLOWEEN EVERYONE
ENJOY THE BREAK
We dressed up for Halloween.
Have a look at our costumes below
Guess who.....I am a Mummy.... But who am I
We sang and watched lots of Halloween songs
Pumpkin carving
The children helped take out all the seeds and flesh from the pumpkin. We cut out the face, turned off the lights and lit a candle. We sang ...The pumpkin man song.... Very scary BOO at the end
Slideshow.... Taking the inside out of the pumpkin is a messy job.....
Halloween week
We played Halloween bingo, cut black paper to make witches hats, played with green goblin guts, made spiders out of playdough, sticks and eyes, completed mazes, played a shadow matching game, and enjoyed spooky things to find in our sand tray
Photos in a slide show below
Spiders made from hand prints
Goblin guts... Use the tweezers to find the spiders
Making Frankensteins with our painted feet
This week we got a tour of the Glas Garden. We saw a fairy fort and wishing well, a magic bridge, a pond with lily pads, plants, veg and flowers. Sharon showed us some cucumbers and peppers growing in the warm poly tent. We planted onion bulbs in the ground. Some of us picked rasberries and ate them. Here is a slideshow of photos
We shook the poppy pod to get seeds and planted them
We picked apples to eat from the orchard
We got to feel this soft furry leaf called Lambs Ear
Laura is painting Peters hand green.....I wonder why.... Can you guess what we are making.....
Job chart.
Each day the children get jobs such as the weather, calendar, days of the week, turn off and on the lights, pick a song, dress the frog, tell some news, leader of the line, count the kids etc
Each day the jobs rotate.
Here is Noah. The countdown is on for Halloween
TOAST PARTY
Every morning the children will be offered toast between 8.50 and 9.10
This delicious snack will set them up for the day and warm their tummies on these cold mornings.
DONT BE LATE..... YUM YUM
Creating spikes for his hedgehog using a fork
The children did finger painting. They painted Autumn leaves.
They also used a fork and paint to create spikes on their hedgehogs
Playdough hedgehogs.
Sponge painting a hedgehog. The children had a template of circles to use their sponge to go down and up.
AUTUMN HAS ARRIVED
We are learning all about Autumn. Our activities, songs, stories and circle time will be based on this theme. The children are enjoying songs called Autumn Leaves and Grey Squirrel.
Noah enjoying sand play.
Peter enjoying some messy tactile play.
Gardening with Sharon
Every Friday the children enjoy gardening with Sharon. Today they were picking and collecting green tomatoes. Below is a slideshow of photos. Enjoy.
PAINTING AND STICKING
Water play....washing the babies
We practice cutting skills every week.
Painting 2 little dickie birds.
Our Blue Den
We put a light in our blue den. The children use the timer to take turns. 2 kids at a time. Dens are great fun
Here are some photos of the children enjoying the den they painted.
This weeks colour is blue. We are making a blue den out of a cardboard box. I cut some windows and a door into it. The children are all helping to paint it.
Welcome to our new friend Archie
Keeping busy.....
Here is a little video of a new song we are learning called... Shake your sillies out
Here are a few photos of this week
RED is our colour of the week.
We have a red table, red activities, colouring, sticking and songs.
Red crayon rubbing
Welcome to our new friend Arlo
Action song.... Elmo. If your happy....
Hurray ..... Hands up....
Finger painting.
We are finger painting balloons today. Using our fingers instead of a brush. Tactile activity for the children
Fun in the rainbow playground
Below is a slide show of the children in the rainbow playground. Lots of climbing, running, balancing, reaching. Fingers crossed for more sunny days
Learning to walk in our line out to yard...
Circle Time
The children gather on the mat. They pick a bubble spot to sit in. At the moment we are singing a welcome song to get to know each others names.
You might hear your child talking about Sooty, he is the teddy dog. He helps us sing our song.
We say hello to Karla
We say hello to Karla
We say hello to Karla,
Were glad you came today.
You might hear your child talking about Sooty, he is the teddy dog. He helps us sing our song.
We say hello to Karla
We say hello to Karla
We say hello to Karla,
Were glad you came today.
When its time to clean up, we all go over to the door. The children put their hands on their heads and we ring a bell. They are learning very quickly.
PAINTING ACTIVITY
We are singing Twinkle twinkle little star this week. Here are the children enjoying painting a star. We watched a lovely song on the white board and did the actions.
The children painted their handprint. We will keep it and start a journal of art in a scrapbook for each child.
Slideshow
Here is a slideshow of the fun we had this week
First Day Photos
Starting school can be a nervous time for some children. The children will start with reduced hours. These shorter hours will give children time to settle in and get to know one another. There will be lots of different fun activities in the classroom for the children to enjoy.
We would like to welcome all the children and their families to Early Start 2024
Our classroom is all about fun and learning through play. This is where they begin their journey. X
Karla and Karen
Our classroom is all about fun and learning through play. This is where they begin their journey. X
Karla and Karen