Well, what a great year of fun and learning it has been. The children have made great friendships in Early Start. They had lots of learning and experiences throughout the year and have grown in independence. This year has flown by. It has been a pleasure to teach this class. We wish them well starting junior infants.
Have a great summer holiday.
Teacher Karla and Karen
Sports day.
The children enjoyed their sports day. We were very lucky with the weather. They had sprint races, egg and spoon, sack race, relay races, bean bag tray race, water challenge, shoot into goals and an obstacle course.
They felt very proud receiving medals and certificates.
Thanks to everyone who came to watch and support.
Enjoy the slideshow below
School tour to Newbridge Farm
The children had a lovely farm visit, a picnic and time in the play ground.
A big thank you to all the parents that joined us. We hope they all enjoyed their first school trip.
We used a paddle pool to play fish games..... The rule was the kids had to wear swim hat and goggles..... Just a bit of fun
Splashing our feet
We have a beach in our classroom
The children are loving the beach. They can take their shoes and socks off and really sit and have a great play. Below is a slide show of the fun on the beach.
Our chicks have hatched. We only hatched 2 out of 7 eggs.
Welcome LUCY and ROSIE
Slide show.... Meeting the chicks
Ice cream parlour
This weeks theme is an ice cream parlour. There are cones and lots of icecream flavours and some ice lollys to sell. The children go into the tent to eat their ice cream. Below is a slideshow of the kids enjoying this theme.
Making Fathers Day cards
Blowing bubbles is so much fun
Working hard in class
Free painting.
We made a blackout tent with our tuff tray. We put a colourful rotating light projector inside. The children loved this den space. Below is a slide show .....
Matching numbers activity
Hair themed activities
Playdough hairdressing set
Cutting activity
The Salon is now open for business
The aistear theme for the next 2 weeks will be a hairdressers. The children are loving it so far. We have a receptionist, someone who washes hair and then a stylist. We have lots of wigs if the children want to change their hair.... They take turns being the customer and the hairdresser. Great style going on here in the classroom. We also have 2 doll heads to practice on....
Below is a slideshow of the fun they had this week. Enjoy
EGGciting News
The eggs are now in the incubator. This takes 21 days. The children cant wait.....
The children had a lovely teddy bears picnic. We played some games, had lunch outdoors and had fun rolling down the hill.
Insect printing
Blowing bubbles is fun
Alex and Noah doing their jobs for the day.
FARMERS MARKET
The Farmers Market has arrived in Early Start.
These are all real vegetables. The children are learning about food and where it comes from. They have a trolley and baskets and can come buy veg in the shop. The shopkeeper puts them into a bag and the children go into the home area to cook it.
This set up is great for language skills, working together and very practical for the children.
We passed each vegetable around in circle time so each child could look, feel, smell, touch and name each veg.
Taking time to do this helps the childrens memory and experience.
Below you will see a slideshow of their play this week.
CHICKEN COOP
The children painted some lovely hens. We set up the coop and waited a few days..... The children were very excited to see the ...hens...had layed eggs.
Now they can collect the eggs and sell them in the market.
NEWS FLASH
We will have some more exciting news regarding real chick eggs next week
Number game on the white board
Number 2
Slideshow
These are our seeds we planted weeks ago. There are peas, chard and spring onion. We water them in our classroom. Soon we will replant them in our bay in the garden.
Planting seeds with Sharon
Alex and Varnik are digging the soil to plant some peas....
Alex very carfully spaced the seeds out and covered them over with the trowel. Varnik actually loved the soil and sat in it, used the trowel to cover his runner ....
Playground fun
Rainbow Number 1
We are concentrating on our numbers for the next few weeks. We are playing white board number games, using cubes and counters for visual prop number games, chalk boards, dice games and singing lots of number songs.
Practical, hands on games are great to reinforce number learning.
Below are a few photos of number 1 learning
Happy Easter to all our Early Starts. Hope the Easter Bunny comes x
Easter Bunny came to visit
Bella feeling very relaxed
Bella came to visit us. We watched her hop around, eat some lettuce and hay. The children took turns in pairs to come pet her to feel how soft she is. We learned about the litter tray, what she eats, what she likes to play with and how to take care of her.
We sang bunny songs and made our own bunny tails
Look at our cute bunny tails
Easter egg hunt
Easter Art... The children used a wooden stick to etch a pattern onto their egg.
Easter Threading Activity
Feather Chicks for Easter
Patterns
The children are taking turns to follow trails and patterns on the easter egg. We try it on the white board first and then everyone gets their own sheet to try.
Alex found a ladybird and we all went over for a look. Oziel put it on his hand for a better look.
Super climbing out in the rainbow playground...
SEACHTAIN NA GAEILGE
Here we are performing our song in class. We are singing 2 little dicky birds in irish. Dha Einin Deasa.
They did a great job.
We had great fun in the hall. Each class performed an Irish song. Then we had a cheile dance.
The wind blew away Leprechaun Fionns gold. We went on a treasure hunt to find his gold in the yard. We even found a bridge and some magic dust.
The children enjoyed colouring rainbows and making leprecaun handprints.
Things are turning very green for St Patricks day.....
Hard at work
Blowing bubbles is fun.... But even more fun, is bursting them with your nose....... Pop..... Pop..... Pop
World Book Day
We are participating in a school running challenge. Its called run around Europe. Here we are doing 2 laps of the big yard.
HAPPY MOTHERS DAY
We have started some St Patricks day art. We are enjoying learning leprachaun dances and songs.
The children were so excited to go outside and play in the snow
Happy snow day
Mindfulness
The children are enjoying gymnastics in the hall. We are learning different types of rolls. Pencil roll, egg roll and a forward roll.
Here are some photos of an egg roll
The children made their own chef hats. This was a good cutting activity.
PIZZA SHOP
The aistear theme for the next few weeks is a pizza shop. We have chefs outfits, pizzas and an oven.... We even have pizza boxes and do deliveries. We are the best pizza shop in Ballymun. Our staff are highly trained. Enjoy the slideshow.
We have also enjoyed pizza bingo, pizza songs, making pizzas with different toppings.
Slideshow
Have a lovely mid term break everyone. See you on Monday 19th February.
HOOK A DUCK
We are getting messy making pancakes. The kids had fun trying to flip them over
Alex flipping his pancake over
We are on to our next shape..... Ricky Rectangle. This week we will sing songs about rectangles, include this shape in activities to get to know it and find rectangles in the classroom.
Finger painting around the rectangle shape
Happy Valentines Day to all
BEE my valentine
Lots of construction and building going on in Early Start
We displayed our transport art work on the corridor.
Our aistear theme is transport. We built this hot air balloon. The kids can buy tickets and take a ride......
We also built a rocket and added lights and windows.
Below is a slideshow of more photos
Anyone for tea
We got some new tea party toys so we set up a nice table with a table cloth and the kids set up their own tea party. They really enjoyed this.
We are learning shapes. This weeks shape is Cindy Circle. The children enjoyed printing circles.
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all . Looking forward to more fun and learning in 2024.
Santa came to visit.
Our First Nativity
We are very proud of the children. They spent the last 2 weeks learning the songs and lines for our play.
They loved dressing up in costumes.
Well done to all for a great performance in church today.
Below are a few photos of the children
Getting very Christmassy in Early Start. We have a santas grotto in the classroom. We filled our trough with fake snow. We made clay decorations and painted them. We painted green glitter christmas trees. We are busy learning our Songs for our Nativity play. We decorated our christmas tree in class and the elf moves every day so the children are excited to find him.
The children made these candy canes using patterns. They had to try follow the pattern
Winter wonderland on the corridor
The children are visiting the crib
Winter Hats
Counting activity
Arts and crafts with Sharon
Making Christmas tree decorations using clay. The children went to the poly tunnel and made crafts with Sharon out of clay.
Slide show
Christmas Art
Noah enjoying some painting
The afternoon group love this construction activity. They are very good at using screwdrivers
Making a Gruffalo
We read stories about the Gruffalo, sang the song and made him from paper plates. The children stuck on all the accessories
Science Experiment.... Magnets
Is it magnetic or non magnetic
Each child came up to test an object and had to place it on the correct tray.
We also found lots of magnetic things around the classroom
Clothes Shop
We sell lots of things in our shop. The children try on clothes and buy them. They love the high heel shoes and the hats
We are learning the first letter of our names this week.
Sand play
Alex buried his hand in the sand...... He didnt like sand in September but we are so proud that he is getting use to this texture.
Gardening with Sharon
The children enjoyed planting daffodil bulbs this week. Each child got to bring a pot home.
The children are using hammers to put golf Ts into a pumpkin. This is a good activity for hand and eye co ordination and for building strength and muscle in the fingers and arms.
Happy Halloween Everyone
Spooky Frozen Skulls
The children used pipetts and warm water to melt the ice and free the spiders and rats inside.
Congratulations to our 2 raffle winners...Oscar and Charlotte.
Halloween Fun
The childrens green hands turned into witches.....
We painted the childrens feet to make frankensteins and ghosts.....
Green Goblin Guts.....
Hard at work..
We have been doing lots of activities for Halloween. Halloween bingo, shadow matching, sorting Halloween pasta, I spy, finger painting, hand and feet painting, colouring, using tweezers, cutting and sticking. We have been very busy.
Our home corner was turned into a haunted house.
The children are enjoying Halloween songs and stories.
We set up our pumpkin and sang a scary pumpkin man song.
Below is a slide show of some things we got up to last week.
Autumn Activities
Noah enjoying some table top activities
Painting activity
The children are using forks and brown paint to create prickles on the hedgehogs back
Making hedgehogs from clay.
The children enjoyed this activity. They rolled the clay into a ball shape. They added eyes and a button nose and coloured sticks for the prickles.
They will dry and the children can take them home
Below is a slide show of the hedhehogs they made
HALLOWEEN ACTIVITIES AND ARTS AND CRAFTS
Painting our feet to make Frankensteins and ghosts.....
The school corridor is very spooky... We have a dark tunnel.... Below the children are walking through having a look at all the scary Halloween things.
Outdoor fun
Doctors Surgery
Our theme in Aistear is the Doctors.
The children are taking turns to be doctors and patients. They can dress up. They are learning about all the equipment that a doctor uses. We have a receptionist who shows them to the waiting room.
We also have a chemist where they can buy medicne...
We will keep the doctors theme for 2 weeks.
I brought in a real blood pressure monitor and a few of the children tried it out.
Below is a slide show of the children at play
Slide show of the Doctors Surgery
Planting with Sharon.
We used shovels to dig the soil. Sharon showed us some vegetables that were growing.
We got to see a pumpkin that was growing.
During circle time each day, the children learn about the date, the days of the week and the weather. We have a job chart. Every child has a job to do. We tell our news and dress our weather frog. We sing songs and play games. Some of our jobs are.... Leader of the line, ring the bell, pick a song, calendar, turn off the light.
Our story this week was The Three Little Pigs. After the story, the children took turns coming up to the board and completing a trail.
The children also enjoyed a sticking activity where they made a straw house, a stick house and a brick house.
Water play this week is washing the dolls.
Play Dough
The afternoon group are enjoying play dough activities. They are using roller, cutters, scissors, shapes and extruders.
Painting
The children are busy making a wall for Humpty Dumpty. They are using a sponge to create the bricks.
Colouring, painting and sticking activities
Playground
The children are enjoying yard time. They can run, climb and balance on the various climbing frames.
Lunch time.
The children get to choose water or milk and from a selection of sandwiches which include chicken, cheese, ham and plain. We have also introduced fruit this week.
This week we are practicing our line and will go out to play in the yard. Fresh air and physical activity will be part of every day. Fingers crossed for more sun.
Will post some outdoor photos next week.
Painting
The morning children have painted their hand prints which they enjoyed. We will display them on the corridor
Having fun
Slideshow of more fun and learning
Circle Time
We have started our basic routine. After activities and play time the children are learning to clean up. They get a turn to ring our bell and then we clean up. We all sit on a circle bubble on the mat. At the moment we are singing a welcome song for each child, using their photo. They come up and place their photo on the chart. This is a great way for them to learn each others names and also to learn to wait and turn take
Our afternoon group are learning to sit for a short period of time. We are taking things slowly and at a pace they are able for. We are enjoying the song 5 little ducks this week.
We are teaching the children how to line up. They are getting the hang of it already....
Making friends
