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Our Garden Centre is up and running. It's looking beautiful. Thank you pupils and parents for bringing in plants to make our set up look extra special.

We sowed our daffodil bulbs in November and look at what we have now. The pupils from Junior and Senior Infants were delighted to see fabulous daffodils this week. Super gardeners!

What a super World Book Day we had. We listened to stories and enjoyed talking about the many books that we love.

This month we created our very own Vet Clinic. Our Infant pupils really enjoyed, 'The Vets' and 'Pets' as a theme. At our role play station, the pupils took on roles such as the vet, receptionist, nurse and pet owner. Pet information forms were filled in by the pupils and the vet got to work. Mice, snakes, hamsters were all seen at the vets. At our water station, we created an aquarium. In the aquarium the fish were powered by batteries and the pupils had to wind up the turtles. Both these energy forms were discussed in class. At the Arts and Craft Station our pupils created a 'Doggy Bag'. This piece of craft was created for Valentine's Day. We made some lovely heart biscuits to put inside the bag. Yummy! We practised our scissors skills and cut squares and rectangles to complete our Dog Food Bowl. At the Puzzle Station, we sorted puppies by colour and size. We completed a cat and dog jigsaw puzzle. We practised our tic-tac-toe skills with Tony the dog and we learned how to play Shelby's Snack Shack game. At the Playdough Station, we created all sorts of pets and we completed activities on the playdough sheets. This month we had an Interactive Board Station, we played the construction game 'Animal Home Builder' with Arthur and we also designed a Talking Cat (lots of decision making in this game). The story that we focused on this month was 'Peter and the Wolf', a symphonic fairy tale. https://youtu.be/px8FakwGPDM In Gaeilge we completed a unit of work entitled, 'Pancóga'. We were then able to use all our Irish words when we made our pancakes on 'Pancake Tuesday'. In SPHE we worked on our 'Stay Safe Programme'. The pupils devised the saying 'hands to help, not to hurt' . See Stay Safe resources below. https://www.staysafe.ie/teachers/Infants.pdf https://www.staysafe.ie/StaySafe-Infants-Resources/index.html Thank you to St. Lazarians, Abbeyleix Club for completing hurling sessions with us this month. We all enjoyed developing our skills. Super work across the curriculum. Slán go fóill, Mrs. Mythen.

Over the course of term one fifth and sixth class were busy testing theories and carrying out various experiments during Science Week. One such experiment investigated whether or not sound waves travel through solid objects. The fifth and sixth class pupils were more than up for the challenge as you can see from the photos below!...

During October, First and Second Class really enjoyed learning a lot about the season of Autumn. We loved getting outside to collect leaves, conkers and acorns that could be found in our school garden. We’ve been really busy learning autumn words as Gaeilge, filling up our Nature Table, discovering facts about hedgehogs, squirrels and other creatures. We learned lots about hibernation and migration too. Maths Week was enjoyed by all; we had the opportunity to do a maths trail in our environment and played new maths games in our classroom too. We had Gymnastics on Tuesdays this month too which gave First and Second Class an opportunity to learn and practice new skills and we had lots of fun! We have been getting used to using our new interactive board a lot, especially during English, Maths and Gaeilge. We all love taking turns to use it and it is a fantastic way to help us learn through games, music, writing and much more. We’ve had a busy and enjoyable month and look forward to doing it all again after our Midterm Break!

We've had a busy few weeks during November and December preparing for our Nativity play! First and Second Class did an excellent job at learning the songs and sung them so well during practises and on the night. We have been counting down to Christmas with our class advent calendar and have enjoyed making some special Christmas art pieces too, which helped our classroom look a lot more festive! For a special treat, First and Second Class practised their baking skills, baking and decorating gingerbread people, which was lots of fun and they turned out really well! We have worked hard this term and look forward to a well deserved break, whilst looking forward to a new year and lots of new things to discover in our next term!

During the month of December, our pupils were busy in our classroom getting ready for Santa. During aistear, we worked in Santa’s workshop in role play, helping Santa to design and create fabulous wrapping paper. We also decorated Santa's Christmas Tree. All the elves worked together to help Santa out. At our playdough station we made Christmas decorations, Santa, reindeer, snowmen, cookies and all things Christmas. We created hanging Penguins for our Christmas Trees and cute reindeers at the Christmas Craft Station. At the Puzzle Station our pupils worked on a jigsaw puzzle, created cookies, had fun with some Christmas pop its and designed some Gingerbread Cookies. At the Construction Station pupils created Santa's Gingerbread House, pupils followed the instructions to build this house and they became super builders. At the Small World Station our pupils explored our Nativity scene and acted out the various roles of the story. In our Gaeilge class this month we learned all our Christmas Irish words and we enjoyed singing our Daidí Na Nollag song. In History, we studied toys from long ago. Canon Harvey brought his teddy, Ted into assembly and he told us all about him. We all brought our teddies to school too! In Science we investigated what materials toys are made from and in Geography we looked at Christmas Traditions from around the world. Our Music Classes and Story Study were very much integrated this month as we immersed ourselves in the story of The Nutcracker. A real favourite of all pupils. We danced to the music in PE and floated like the Sugar Plum fairy and marched like the Nutcracker soldier. It has been a very busy, but fabulous month of learning and fun in the Junior Room. All the pupils from Junior and Senior Infants wish you all a peaceful Christmas and a very Happy New Year!

We had great fun visiting the supermarket in our classroom for Aistear this month. Aistear aims to provide enjoyable and challenging learning experiences through play learning, so that all children can grow and develop as competent and confident learners. Firstly, we discussed everything we know about supermarkets. We had very interesting conversations about our favourite foods, different supermarkets in our locality and all the different things we might see in a supermarket. We practiced being shopkeepers and customers and learned lots of new words to use in our role play centre. We wrote shopping lists, counted money and filled our trolleys with lots of yummy food! Pupils were busy at the playdough station. They made fruits, vegetables and even pizzas. Lots of budding architects were seen at the construction station this month. Our pupils loved using lego to build a supermarket. At our puzzle station we focused on our mathematical skills. We balanced fruit, worked on our fine motor skills and sorted fruit by colour and number in our fruit pie. We completed super art work based on the book 'Handa's Surprise'. We learned lots about our senses too. We tasted things that are bitter, sweet, sour and salty! Slán go fóill, Mrs. Mythen.

The boys and girls in Junior and Senior Infants had great fun exploring the theme of Halloween during their Aistear sessions in October. There were 6 different activities to have fun with including the Role Play area (a 'Witches and Wizards Workshop') where the children cooked up a storm in the kitchen, stirring in all sorts to the Witches’ Soup. Everyone also loved the Halloween theatre with our witch and owl puppets. In the construction area the pupils enjoyed making some very creative monsters. In the playdough area the pupils made pumpkins, ghosts, witches and more! And in the fine motor skills area the students cut out Halloween pictures and glued them down to fill a Halloween Cauldron. At the Art Station, pupils used broccoli to create an Autumn Tree and we also made super cute Autumn Owls. There were lots of spooky puzzles at the Halloween station. Pupils made a skeleton, autumn tree and dived into an autumn sensory box. Lots of learning and oral language took place and most importantly they had lots of fun! We completed a book study of the story ‘Room on a Broom’. Take a look at our photos!

We welcomed back our Senior Infant pupils and our 10 new Junior Infants are quickly settling into school life. We started Aistear this month. We have been learning all about families, types of homes, areas within a home and body parts. Both Junior and Senior Infants participate in Aistear (Learning Through Play Framework). They created Paul Klee (Senecio) inspired portraits at the Creative Table. We had great fun using our new vocabulary in a variety of games and activities. We did activities such as construction, role play, arts and crafts and puzzles based on this month’s theme. We also learned how to work together. In the role play area we created a kitchen and took on different tasks - making dinner, setting the table, sweeping up and ironing and even washing the babies. We had a super puzzle table with jigsaws puzzles and much more. We have been building homes with blocks, lego and magna tiles and drawing pictures of our homes. We learned these new words also: roof, door, chimney, garden and window. After reading the story of the 'Three Little Pigs' we became builders and started designing and building houses. We also used the materials the three pigs used to make their houses. In history, we have talked about how our bodies grow and change. Our interests and our abilities change also. In science we investigated electricity and identified all the electrical equipment in the classroom. In Geography we discussed the various types of houses that people live in eg, the Inuit living in igloos and Native Americans living in teepees and wigwams. In our Irish class, we learned all about the Ó Sé family and the characters in our Abair Liom Irish Programme. We are learning the body parts as Gaeilge and love singing Heads, Shoulders, Knees and Toes as Gaeilge. In Maths Class, we have been getting used to our new interactive board. Junior Infants have been working on their matching skills and holding their pencils correctly. Senior Infant pupils have been revising numbers 1-5 and are building on their mathematical skills from last year. It has been a very busy month. We look forward to learning lots more next month.

At the beginning of September, First and Second Class created a fact file about themselves, including all their favourite things and how they like to spend their time. The highlight of the month was learning all about the Titanic. We really enjoyed learning lots of facts, watching videos, discussing survivors’ reports, writing diary entries, looking at pictures and researching our own facts outside school. We even had a visit from a Lego model of the Titanic! Everyone worked hard at creating a class timeline of the events that happened surrounding the Titanic. We also created our own view from the Titanic by making portholes with colour and paper plates. We also had great discussions about the wreck of the Titanic and what should or should not be done in the future to the wreck. We loved learning about this historical event and look forward to learning about more interesting topics next month!