Early Start Class

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We would like to welcome all the boys and girls who have started school in the Early Start Classroom, September 2019.  We are looking forward to a year of fun and learning through play.  This is where your children will start their journey through education.  AISTEAR ( meaning Journey )

Ms Karla Kelly (Class Teacher) and Mrs Karen Hoban


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                HAPPY NEW YEAR TO ONE AND ALL.
We would like to welcome back everyone after the Christmas break and look forward to lots more learning and fun in 2020 !!

Thank you , Thank you  for coming to see our First Nativity !!!
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Congratulation and a big well done to Early Start who performed ' Our First Nativity play '.  The children looked great in their costumes, said their lines and sang out really well. No stage fright here !!!!  It was a great success and the children enjoyed learning the Nativity Story. Thanks to all the parents and family members who came along to support them. We hope you all enjoyed the show. 

Santa came to Early Start

The children were surprised on party day with a visit from Santa Claus.  He rang his bell coming down the corridor and the children couldn't believe he was here.   He came with a large sack of presents and each child was called up to receive their gift and have a photo taken.  We sang a song for Santa and then the children opened and played with their presents.  There was great excitement in the Early Start Classroom !  Below are some photos of the day. 

Christmas in Early Start.

The children are busy making lots of Christmas arts and crafts. They painted and decorated Christmas trees, made reindeer/trees using lolly pop sticks, a glitter Christmas stocking and created their snowmen using chalk for the outline and glued on white paper cuttings.
Nativity
Our First Nativity Play is well under way. The children have been learning their lines, practicing songs and trying on costumes in the run up to next Wednesday. We hope you can all come support the children and enjoy Our First Nativity.

Messy/Sensory play

Dont you just love sensory play?? Children get to experience orbeez water beads, baking soda slime, kinetic sand, water, playdough, paint, clay, rice trays, and sand. They enjoy pouring, filling, feeling, making, creating, building and using their imagination. Sensory play is very hands on and tactile and is an Early Science Activity.

Hard at work

Some of the afternoon children working on following trails. These handy pouches allow children to use special markers that wipe off easily so they can repeat the exercise a few times before moving on to the next sheet. This exercise helps with pencil control and hand and eye co-ordination.

Halloween activities

The children enjoyed many activities during the Halloween week.  They made ghosts and Frankenstein footprints, enjoyed making potions in the potion lab, exploring hidden items in goblin guts, freeing spiders from frozen skulls, carving pumpkins,  building houses for witches, reading scary stories, scary pumpkin poems, matching Halloween shadows,  painting and sticking activities, singing songs and watching Halloween songs on the white board.  They finished off the week dressing up, a party with some goodies.  
Here are a selection of photos taken during the week

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Halloween

We hope you all had a wonderful spooky Halloween.  Here are photos of the children in their costumes.  
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Activity Time

We have lots of activities in the classroom such as painting, sticking, colouring, fine manipulative activities, hand and eye co-ordination, jigsaws, construction play, Imagination/creativity, playdough, role play and sand.  The children are loving all activities and getting a wide variety of play experiences.  Click below on the slideshow and have a look !!

Fun in the yard

Here is a collection of photos of the children having fun out in the yard.  The children love the freedom outdoor play gives them.  We played in the bark covered areas for the first few weeks.  Children enjoyed the new mud kitchens, pots and pans and small spades for scooping.  They used their imagination to make mud and bark dinners ! Some children enjoyed playing with dinosaurs and cars and some relaxed on the bench.  We played hide and seek and hid various items and enjoyed catching some bubbles in the wind.  

Group work in Early Start

Every day the children get to work in groups.  This is very important as children will learn how to work together with peers , turn take, share and get valuable language practice as groups are small.  We use various visuals, props, songs, stories, posters and games to teach the children about the themes. Our first theme is all about ourselves and our body.  The children enjoyed decorating their own character and we displayed them outside the classroom.  Please stop and take a look !  We learned all about feelings and the children had fun creating and drawing faces on templates using whiteboard markers.  We practiced drawing happy, sad and cross faces ! 

​Each week the children explore a colour table.  we play colour games to recap and reinforce language around colour.  We have explored the colours red, yellow, blue and green. 

Free Play

Here are some photos taken during the first few weeks.  The children are free playing and have the choice to move freely around the classroom, engaging in play, making friends, exploring, discovering, laughing, and most importantly......having fun !!!

Making friends and settling in.

The first few weeks can always be unsettling especially when children don't know their surroundings.  We set up the classroom with a variety of toys, small world, cars, sand, construction, home corner and different tabletop activities.  This gave the children lots to choose from and the freedom to choose what they liked and where they felt most comfortable.  Some children took a week to settle and there were a few tears so a big thank you to the parents for being patient and trusting that given some time, their children would settle and feel safe and happy. We begin with a WELCOME SONG each day and each child puts up their photo.  The children are getting to know one another and getting use to the daily routine.