Booterstown News

It has been a wonderful few weeks in the infant classroom. I have had the pleasure of working alongside and learning a wealth of knowledge from Mrs. Lyons and from the fantastic junior and senior infants in Booterstown National School. Every day we learned something new and I would love to share some of the highlights from the last few weeks. 

In maths we covered loads of new topics such as time, money data and number. In data we learned lots of new skills such as sorting and classifying bears into different categories. We had a lovely vote in the class to choose which pet the children like the most in the classroom. We kept our bar chart in the classroom for us all to learn from. 

In English the infants have been producing amazing book reviews. The children can retell the most important aspects of the story and they can express what they liked most about the stories. Over the last five weeks the children have become more confident with sharing their writings and they are eager to share their thoughts and opinions about the story with the class. They are so fascinating to read. I have had the pleasure of completing writing workshops with the class, it is always great to hear what they have to say about a story.

In SPHE we have been discovering our five senses. We tested out our sense of touch by using a magic bag with various feeling objects inside the bag. The children were encouraged to stick their hand in the bag without looking and try to describe what was in it. It became a great game of trying to guess what was in the magic bag. To test our sense of smell, three volunteers came up to stand in front of the class, with their eyes closed while I held an orange up to their nose. The children had to take a big sniff in to try to guess what they were smelling. The orange got passed around the class and the children could all smell the orange. Testing our sense of taste was the most fun. Each table received sugar, lemon juice, honey and a cracker. The children could taste all of the different flavours and decide whether they liked them or not. It has all been great fun during SPHE. 

Art has been great fun as we explored using clay. The class all got to make a clay monster. The children got to decide whether their monster was good or evil, decide whether they had arms/ears/legs etc. It made for a very interesting and creative lessons as every child made their own individual clay monster. Also, in art we experimented with using sponges as a medium for painting to create a sea creature silhouette. These silhouettes turned out amazing and are hanging outside the classroom on display. 

Our SESE (science, history and geography) lessons have been great fun with lots of learning! We learned all about the water cycle and we had the opportunity to make our very own water cycle in school. Our water cycles are hanging on the window absorbing the sunlight. We also learned about different types of energy and forces. We learned about wind energy by having our very own boat race in school. We also tested out our predicting and observational skills by testing the rate at which jelly melts by using cold water and then using warm water. The children have created amazing scientific drawings of every experiment that we have done. 

In Gaeilge, we have learned loads of new vocabulary about Naomh Pádraig, An Cháisc agus Éadaí. We used the magic bag again to pull out different articles of clothing. The children had to come up and pull out different articles of clothing such as a hat, jumper, pants, top, socks. It made learning the vocabulary a bit more interesting as the children never knew what article of clothing they were about to pull out. We completed lots of fun games such as spot the difference, drawing clothes on Bluey, bingo and a matching game. It has been a pleasure to teach such an enthusiastic bunch. 

Happy New Year to everyone! It has been an excellent start to the year in the Infant room.

In Science we did a cool experiment with ice to discover where the hottest part of our classroom was and we also observed the weather for a week and recorded it on a weather chart. We also had a brilliant visit from Adele in SEAI and she taught us very important lessons in saving energy at home and in school.

The Senior Infants were measuring anything and everything in maths with straws, lolly sticks, cubes and bricks! We paired up in our Salt and Pepper partners in Maths to do six bricks activities and to make sets of numbers.

We also made our very own 2D shape pictures.

In Buddy Art we made the coolest caterpillars from toilet rolls and also in Art we printed with them to make our own pictures.

All the boys and girls are really enjoying the mindfulness classes on Tuesdays with Nicole and it gives us space to breathe and be present in the moment. Also in SPHE we are learning a lot on how to solve problems like when we have a row with a friend / sibling and we wrote our solutions on the petals of a big flower.

The pupils are still enjoying Gaeilge DEAR time and we have introduced Nath na Seachtaine with a new phrase being learned each week and it is going brilliantly.

In Religion we have learned about the work of St. Brigid and we coloured her cross in and thought about ways that we can help each other too.

Our Nurture Day was hugely successful with all the pupils sampling hot chocolate, marshmallows and toast as well as doing art and hearing a special story.

We had an absolutely lovely December in the Infant room.

It was as usual very busy with fun filled activities.

We continued our module in Gymnastics with Alberto and some of the skills we worked on were core body strength, crawling, balance, tumbles and preparation of body for handstands and cartwheels! It was a very activity filled few sessions and the pupils thoroughly enjoyed it.

We were busy preparing for the Carol Service too and learned our two songs with actions so well and the performance on the day was outstanding!

The whole service was thoroughly enjoyed by all.

We also had Buddy Time and really enjoyed it- we made the coolest little snowmen from our handprint and the pictures looked amazing. We also did our Crann Nollag art through Gaeilge which was tricky as we included some length challenges from Maths in it too! The clay Christmas puddings were so much fun to mould and paint-they look good enough to eat!

Our Picker Pals clean up continued with Infant volunteers helping to keep Dublin clean by litter picking at the weekends and we're really grateful and proud of their hard work.

We also got to see our "reading dog," called "Luna," when she visited our school. She is exceptionally well behaved! 

Wishing you all a peaceful and happy 2024!

Since returning after the half term break it has been another very busy month in the Infant Room. 

We are in the middle of the Food Dudes programme and each day fresh fruit and vegetables  are delivered to the school for the pupils to sample. This encourages healthy eating and the pupils are rewarded with stickers and prizes. The pupils seem to be really enjoying it and are very enthusiastic about the new flavours and textures that they are trying.

We attended the most brilliant Science workshop during Science Week where we learned about currents, electricity, slime and solids, liquids and gases. We also made spinning snakes to demonstrate how warm air rises and they are hanging over our radiators in the classroom. As well as that we used static from rubbing a balloon on our heads to move tiny pieces of paper around. It was a very educational and fun week.

We made some beautiful leaf wreaths with our big buddies which are displayed in our classroom.

We had the most exciting visitor to our school too- Luna the 'reading dog,' visited us with her owner Catherine and she will be visiting us weekly to listen to our pupils reading to her. We are so excited to welcome her back soon.

Lastly we have begun a  programme of gymnastics which is really helping to strengthen and stretch our bodies. Alberto has taught the children some cool tumbles and crawls as well as trying out handstands and cartwheels!

Another very busy month has passed by in the Infant room!

We made the most beautiful tissue paper butterflies with our big buddies and stuck them on our windows.  We also had so much fun counting pretty much everything that we could during Maths Week and with our big buddies on a Maths Trail!

Our dojo eggs cracked and everyone is working very hard towards getting Dojo points for their little creatures! We even had an Art inspired painting lesson on Dojo points!

We presented our very first assembly which was thanking God for our wonderful bodies and learning how to take good care of them-we sang a really cool body song and really enjoyed it. We hope the other students and Mums and Dads did too.

As for Halloween we made the spookiest paper pumpkins to decorate the hall with for our School's Spooky Disco for Temple street Hospital!

We cannot wait to get our costumes on and enjoy the party!

We also made clay pumpkins and did a really good job on them.

Happy Half Term one and all!

A big welcome back to school to all our Senior Infants and a huge welcome to our new pupils in Junior Infants!

It has been a super September here in school; the new pupils have settled in so quickly,it seems as though they have been here all along!

All the pupils have been busy getting to know each other; they have a buddy in the classroom to help them and a big buddy in 5th/6th who visit them every second week for some fun 'Buddy Time!'

They made some self portraits for our Gaeilge theme of 'Me Fein,' as well as sharing all about their families in SPHE.

We have been using our hands to print pictures with paint in Art as well as talking about kind hands In Religion and drawing rainbows to remind us of God's Love for us.

In Maths we have sorted everything we could in our classroom according to its colour! We did a fun colour hunt and Senior Infants have been adding things together!

We are so excited as our Dojo eggs are about to crack very soon!

We also learned a lot of fun facts about hedgehogs and made some hedgehogs with matchsticks.

Aistear is well underway again and the favourite part of it is Junk Art where we make things from recyclable objects!

What a great month!