Newcastle National School - Junior Infants

Junior Infants

Our first class photo in Junior Infants

More Fun in Juniors

This week we read Goldilocks and the Three Bears. We sequenced the story, acted it out with puppets and listened to a song about the story. We also learned some interesting facts about bears and created bear pictures.

In maths we made patterns and played more maths games. We also played maths games on the iPads.

We had great fun taking a class photo for the school newsletter.

Patterns and iPads

Maths games and drama activities

Our first two weeks in Juniors

We've had a fantastic and very busy start to the year. As there were so many photos I've put them together into a video to show all the fun we've been having in Junior Infants.

Newcastle National School.mp4

Welcome to our fantastic new Junior Infants

We've had a lovely first week in Juniors. On Wednesday we spent the morning playing and getting to know everyone. We read Monkey Puzzle and Ms. Fahy was very impressed with our rhyming skills. We played in the yard at breaktime and before we knew it it was home time!

On Thursday there was huge excitement throughout the school as Juniors went on a tour of all the classrooms. The children loved seeing their siblings, cousins, neighbours and friends. We also read a lovely story called 'The Kissing Hand'.

On Friday we worked on our fine motor skills. We coloured and cut Humpty Dumpty before putting him back together again with glue and plasters. We also played in the Fairy Garden.

Take a look at the photos below to see some of the fun we had this week.

We're looking forward to a wonderful year together.

Wednesday

Thursday

Friday

End of Year video

Click here for a video of our fantastic year in Junior Infants.

I hope everyone has a wonderful summer.

See you all in September.

Ms. Fahy

June in Junior Infants

Thanks Mags!

We were very excited to be invited over to gCroí Óg for their Sports Day celebration. Mags invited Junior Infants to come over for an ice cream and to see the children receive their certificates. It was a lovely day. Thanks to Mags and all our neighbours for being so welcoming.

Visit to the Church

We always ends the year with a visit to the church to light candles for our loved ones.

School Tour

We had a super time in Turoe Pet Farm.

Click here for our school tour video.

Active Week in Junior Infants

Take a look at the video below to see all the fun we had during Active Week.

Active Week

PE

We had great fun using giant elastic bands in PE lessons this week.

Our Class Butterflies

We have been eagerly watching our butterflies (Messi, Luigi, Nobody, John Cena, Kissy Missy) grow and change over the past few weeks. On Friday it was time to release them in our school garden. We think they enjoyed their time on our classroom as they landed on our hands, clothes and shoes before they flew away. We waved them off and hope they will visit us in the yard soon.

Baking

We baked brown soda bread in small groups. Everyone took turns weighing, measuring and mixing the ingredients. We then enjoyed our yummy bread with butter and jam. We're looking forward to trying more recipes before the summer holidays.

Outdoor Chess Table

We love the new chess/draughts table in the yard. We're now spoiled for choice at lunchtime with all the lovely new resources in the infant yard.

Jersey Day

We had a great time on Jersey Day. Not only did we raise lots of money for the school but we also had a great time taking part in stations led by Mr. O'Looney and some of our school committees.

Lego League

We loved seeing the Lego projects 5th class completed recently.

Maths

We took our maths lessons outside this week. We used a variety of resources to measure each other.

Big Friendly Guide to the EU

To celebrate completing our BFGtoEU project we decorated cupcakes to look like the EU flag.

Land Art

We studied the artist Andy Goldsworthy. Goldsworthy uses natural materials to create art in forests, fields, cities and lakes. This is called land art. We collected materials from our fairy garden and around the yard and created pictures and sculptures with the help of some of our friends from 6th class.

Sport

We continued our super hurling sessions with Cian this week. We also welcomed soccer champions from older classes. Everyone in Junior Infants loved seeing their medals.

In PE lessons we are enjoying playing tennis.

Music

We had lots of fun in our music lessons this week. We used pieces of string to work on our vocal pitch. We also worked on understanding tempo with a great game called Giants and Fairies.

Camping

Our topic for the month of May is Camping.

Take a look at our super campsite pictures.

Road to Paris

We love being active in Junior Infants. To celebrate the upcoming Olympic games Junior Infants are taking part in the Olympic school challenge 'Road to Paris'. This challenge is all about getting active, having fun and joining Team Ireland on the road to the Summer Olympics in Paris. So far we have completed work outs led by boxer Kelllie Harrington, gymnast Rhys McClenaghan, hockey player Shane O'Donoghue, athlete Nadia Power and swimmer Ellen Walshe. In PE lessons we are working on being encouraging teammates and good sports. In history lessons we are learning about the history of the Olympic games. We love to see and learn about the wide variety of sports that are represented at the Olympic games. We're looking forward to trying some over the coming weeks in our PE lessons.

Big Friendly Guide to the EU

Every year the Junior Infants complete the Big Friendly Guide to the EU programme. The programme allows children to learn about but also question the EU and Ireland's role within it. It is about empowering the children to make informed decisions to improve the world they live it. It also fits perfectly into the Social, Personal and Health Education (SPHE) curriculum.

In the first lesson we focus on Ireland as a country which is part of something bigger. We use maps and pictures to show the local, national and European levels. We also learn about the design of the EU flag.

The second lesson discusses the concept of a club and the creation of the EU. The children love this lesson as they make EU smoothies to discover that countries coming together make something new.

In the third lesson we play shop to learn about the Euro and other currencies.

Finally, in the fourth lesson, we focus on the positives and difficulties of working together. We read the story 'The Day the Crayons Quit' and the children work together to create towers. In this lesson they take ownership of what team work really means.

Matisse Inspired Art

We learned about the French artist Henri Matisse. We decided to create collages inspired by his work. As the weather was so nice we went outside to complete this lesson.

Gymnastics

We had a lovely gymnastics lesson in the sunshine this week. The children worked on holding paired balancing poses.

Chalk Art

We experimented with using wet chalk to create pictures. We noticed that the texture and shade of colours is different when we wet the chalk.

Hurling sessions with Cian

We love our Tuesday hurling sessions with Cian from St. Mary's GAA club. So far Cian has worked on the ready and lock positions. He teaches the children basic hurling skills using lots of fun games and drills.

Art

We created famous landmarks using art straws. We examined pictures of famous landmarks (London Eye, Empire State Building, Leaning Tower of Pisa, Tower Bridge, Golden Gate Bridge) and learned some interesting facts about them. Then we chose which one we would like to create using art straws. Everyone was very proud of their creations.

More new playground equipment

Everyone loves the newest additions to the infant yard. Our wonderful new shop and Garda station, along with the school bus and sand boxes, provide the children with endless playful learning opportunities and fun.

Castles

Our Aistear theme in April was Castles. We learned lots of fascinating facts and had lots of fun playing in the role play area. We also did lots of art lessons based on castles- we built them using junk art, followed a guided drawing lesson and even created our own versions of Paul Klee's famous 'Castle and Sun' oil painting.

Learning Through Play in Junior Infants

Our Potatoes

We planted potatoes in the school garden with Mrs. Magnier recently. We enjoy checking on their progress.

New Playground Equipment

There was huge excitement when we returned to school after the Easter holidays and found a surprise waiting in the infant yard. The children love their new bus and have already been on trips to Australia, Mayo, Spain and space.

Easter Fun in Junior Infants

Easter in Junior Infants.mp4

Planting Potatoes

We had lots of fun planting seed potatoes with Mrs. Magnier in the school garden. We gave them a little pat and told them to sleep tight. We're looking forward to watching them grow.

Lá Glas

Oró Sé Do Bheatha Bhaile

Sand Boxes

Thank you to John, our fantastic caretaker for repairing the sand boxes. The children absolutely love them.

World Book Day 2024

Magnets

Our topic in science this month was magnets.

Playing and Learning Together

Our topic this month is Space. The children are enjoying sharing their knowledge and learning new facts.

During play sessions some children choose to explore the topic in our role play and small world areas. Some choose to play games such as chess, work on their coding skills using the beebots, colour or play in the sand and construction areas.

Incredible Edibles

Junior Infants are taking part in Agri Aware's Incredible Edibles programme. We have been learning about where our food comes from and have even planted some strawberries and potatoes in our classroom. In the coming weeks we will learn about identifying Irish produce and we will also plant onions and more potatoes in the school garden.

Happy Mother's Day

Huge thanks to our wonderful 6th Class Buddies who heped Juniors make gorgeous cards for Mother's Day.

Picker Pals

Junior Infants are taking part in the Picker Pals programme. This is a programme for 6-9 year olds focussed on environmental stewardship, learning and fun!

Every child in our class will get the opportunity to bring home the Picker Pack and go on a litter picking adventure in their local area. They will then share information and photos with the class using the Report Album. The children are really enjoying the programme., learning and fu

Valentine's Day

Pancake Tuesday

Learning Through Play in February

Wellbeing Week

We had a super time during Wellbeing Week.

We started with yoga and meditation on Tranquil Tuesday, followed by mindful colouring and partner games on Wellbeing Wednesday. On Thankful Thursday we made cards to thank all the wonderful people in our lives and on Funky Friday we enjoyed lots of outdoor games and dances led by the Wellbeing Committee.

Thank you to Mr. Treacy and the Wellbeing Committee for organising such a fun week.

Grandparent's Day

Junior Infants really enjoyed celebrating Grandparent's Day on 2nd February. They sang songs, said a prayer, shared the many reasons they love their grandparents and presented their grandparents with little booklets they made in class.

After their performance the children loved showing their grandparents around their classroom.

Thank you to all the grandparents and parents who were able to join us. We hope you enjoyed the day.

Thanks also to our wonderful Parent's Association and parent volunteers for providing and serving the teas, coffees and treats. Thanks to Fr. Charlie for his lovely words and prayers. Thanks to 6th class who let us use their classroom, greeted grandparents on arrival and also shared their fantastic poems during the celebration. Thank you to Ms. Houlihan for recording the performance and to to Ms. O'Connor who organised the day.

Finally Well Done to all the children in Junior and Senior Infants. They performed brilliantly and made their families and teachers very proud.

See below for videos of the songs performed by the Junior Infants.

Granny Grandad Song

I Have A Family

Fields of Athenry Part 1

Fields of Athenry

St. Brigid's Day

6th class made St. Brigid's crosses for all the children in Juniors.

Huge thanks to Ms. Colleran and everyone in 6th for your kindness to Junior Infants.

Come fly with us ✈️

The role play area is now an airport. The children love flying all around the world during our free play sessions. Staff on board are very helpful, flights run on time and we're always back by home time. So far Junior Airlines has been a huge success!

Oral Language

The children in Junior Infants have wonderful imaginations. This week we worked in pairs to create stories and present them in front of the class.

On Monday we chose characters from our small world area, drew the setting and made up an adventure story. The children remembered to speak in loud, clear voices and always made sure they faced their audience.

On Wednesday we used some picture cards to help up create fantastic stories. We are working on using interesting sentence openers when telling stories.

🧸 Teddy Bear Hospital 🧸

Junior and Senior Infants had an amazing time at the Teddy Bear Hospital in NUIG on Thursday 25th January.

Take a look at the video below to see all the fun we had on the day.

Teddy Bear Hospital

Handwriting

Feast of the Ephiphany

Maths

Art

January in Junior Infants

We've had a busy start to the new year in Juniors.

Literacy: We started handwriting lessons. So far we've learned how to write the caterpillar letters c, a, o, d, g and the ladder letters l, t. We love saying our rhyme to help with letter sizes-

Some letters are small, some letters are tall, some letters fall.

Religion: We visited the church on 6th January for the Feast of the Epiphany to see the wise men in the crib.

SESE: Our play topic this month is The Arctic. The children love learning about all the different animals in the Arctic and know some fascinating facts about them. They enjoy learning about Inuit people and homes in the Arctic. They have been building igloos in the construction area, pretending to be animals and scientists in the role play area and playing with the snow and animals in the small world area.

Maths: We've been playing lots of maths games and working on adding numbers. We've also learned all about the number 3.

Art: We created lovely northern lights (aurora borealis) pictures using oil pastels.

We learned about the artist Wassily Kandinsky and abstract art. We used his work as inspiration when creating out own colourful paintings. We listened to music for inspiration, just like Kandinsky did.

We learned about different types of doctors before our visit to the Teddy Bear Hospital and designed bright and colourful scrubs for pediatricians.

Baking: We had three lovely girls from 5th class help us to make yummy brownies.

The Arctic

Baking

Our Christmas Play- A Wriggly Nativity

Junior Infants blew everyone away with their fabulous singing and wonderful acting in our Christmas play, A Wriggly Nativity, on Thursday 21st December. They made their parents, relatives, teachers and friends very proud. Well done to all the Junior Infant superstars. 🌟

Huge thanks to Michael for recording the performance.

A Wriggly Nativity

Dress Rehearsal

Christmas Art with 6th Class

Click here for video.

"The best way to spread Christmas cheer is singing loud for all to hear!"

Well the children in Newcastle certainly spread Christmas cheer on Thursday 14th December when Santa paid us a visit. Everyone was very excited to see him and sang Jingle Bells and Santa Claus is Coming to Town. Santa gave every class some treats and helped raise our new Cineáltas (kindness) flag outside the school. He knows the children in Newcastle are very kind.

During the week Junior Infants read the story Dear Father Christmas and afterwards we thought of lots of questions that we would like to ask Santa. The children decided to give Santa the questions and we're really looking forward to his reply.

Cad atá sa bhosca bréagáin?

December in Junior Infants

A Super Surprise from our 6th Class Buddies

Last week 6th class surprised Juniors with some incredibly thoughtful presents. They made salt dough Christmas decorations and wrote a little note to their buddies on the back. Every year when the children hang their decorations on their Christmas tree they will remember their kind and caring buddies in 6th class. 🌟

Festive Art ☃️

Branar

There was huge excitement in Junior Infants on Tuesday 5th December as we travelled to NUIG to see Branar's production 'Grand Soft Day' . The children enjoyed a festive sing song on the bus and a little picnic before the show.

The production itself was a big hit with the children. They loved the set, the music, the playful characters and the colourful wellies.

Dogs Trust

We had a lovely visit from Ruth from Dogs Trust on Monday 4th December. Ruth brought her friend Murphy to deliver the Dog Smart programme to our class. This programme encourages children to adopt safe and kind behaviours towards dogs.

Everyone loved meeting Murphy and telling Ruth about their own dogs at home.

Ruth told us:

-Never disturb a dog while they're eating, drinking or sleeping.

-If you're uncomfortable around a dog, do the 'X Factor'

-Always ask the owner for permission before you pet a dog.

-Always let a dog sniff you before you rub them.

-Always treat dogs with respect.

Retelling the Nativity story

Snowman guided drawing lesson

Decorating the class Christmas tree

Music Generation

It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas ☃️🎄

Christmas has officially started in Junior Infants.

We're rehearsing every day for our Christmas play and the children are really looking forward to performing for everyone on Thursday 21st December.

This week we retold the story of Christmas in small groups. On Friday we wore Santa hats to get in the festive spirit. We drew snowmen in a guided drawing lesson, enjoyed a music lesson with Cian, decorated the tree, set up a North Pole small world area and enjoyed some hot chocolate and biscuits.

Hot Chocolate

Decorating the classroom

International Children's Day

Thank you to the Parents Association who organised a fundraiser for UNICEF last week. All the children dressed in blue on Monday 20th November to mark International Children's Day. The children enjoyed taking part in the 'Guess the number of sweets' competition. Junior Infants also learned all about children's rights with Mr. Cummins during the week. Thanks to everyone who donated to such a worthy cause.

November in Junior Infants

Junior Infants were delighted to join Senior Infants and 6th class for science experiments to finish off Science Week.

Huge thanks to Ms. Colleran and her amazing 6th class pupils for organising and explaining all the wonderful experiments.

Click here for the video.

Maths: Measuring length

PE: Gymnastics

Construction

The Restaurant

Phonics

Halloween Party in Junior Infants

Click the photo for a video of our party day.

We had a fantastic time at our Halloween party. We started the day with some playtime. Next it was time for our Halloween parade outside with the rest of the school. Everyone loved seeing all the amazing costumes. After that we played musical statues and musical chairs. After break we had assembly followed by a mummy dressing competition, this was very quickly followed by a tissue paper fight. After lunch we did a science experiment to make a vomiting pumpkin. We also had time for more play, more dancing and some treats.

Before we knew it it was home time and the beginning of our Halloween holidays.

I hope everyone enjoyed their first half term in Junior Infants. Have a super midterm.

Ms. Fahy

Halloween Art with 6th Class

We joined our buddies in 6th class again to create some super skeleton pictures for Halloween.

Click here to see all the wonderful work.

Clay Cauldrons

We explored clay this week. We love working with playdough and we really love messy play so decided to create a Halloween cauldron with clay.

Everyone had fun rolling and pinching the clay into shape. We then added patterned lollipop stick legs. We painted our cauldrons and added a sprinkle of glitter. We were very proud of our creations.

Maths Week

We had a super time celebrating Maths Week. We played card games, explored numicon resources, worked together to problem solve and did a fun art activity. Take a look at the video below.

Maths Week in Junior Infants

Getting ready for Halloween 🎃🧛🧙

Our role play area is now a potions lab with lots of horrible ingredients to make spells and potions.

We ordered pumpkins by size and weight in maths lessons. We also decorated them in our tuff tray using chalk markers.

We made ghosts and Frankenstein's monsters to display in the classroom. We also decorated the windows.

We've been building lots of haunted houses in the construction area.

We also drew fantastic vampires in our guided drawing lesson.

Signs of Autumn

We went on a nature walk around the school and the church to find signs of autumn. We found lots of seeds, autumn leaves, conkers, toadstools and berries.

Phonics lessons and maths games

We started phonics lessons and love learning new sounds.

We have also started adding numbers in maths games.

Fine Motor Skills

We used pipette droppers this week during our fine motor sessions. We loved using different coloured water to create different pictures.

Leaf Man

We read the story Leaf Man and then created leaf pictures with some of the leaves we collected on our nature walk.

Bake Sale

Junior Infants had a fantastic morning at the bake sale. Huge thanks to Ms. Colleran and her amazing 6th class for all their hard work and for helping Juniors to choose their treats. Thanks also to all the fabulous parents and students who baked such delicious cakes, buns and biscuits and for their support and generosity.

PE, maths, music and child led play

We had great fun running relay races in PE this week.

In maths we started learning about 3D shapes and revised sorting.

We can now play Row Row Row Your Boat on the tongue drums with Cian.

In our free play sessions we're showing our creativity by drawing and colouring and building pyramids, bridges and towers with our friends.

The Doctor's Surgery

We're having a great time in our new doctor's surgery role play area. The staff at the surgery have been very busy checking blood pressure, taking x-rays and prescribing antibiotics. Some children even made an ambulance to help with the queues at the surgery.

Art (Hedgehogs and Space Week)

We've been learning some facts about hedgehogs this week and used our cutting skills to create some spiky hedgehogs.

We also read the story 'Piggle Pongles on Planet Fizz' for Space Week and decided to draw our own Piggle Pongles using oil pastels and chalk.

Phonological Awareness, maths, PE, free play

Friendship Breakfast

Friendship Week

We had a super Friendship Week. We read lots of stories about friendship (Elmer, The Rainbow Fish, Peter Rabbit) and worked with our friends to create pictures from the stories. We talked about what makes a good friend and made a poster to hang in our classroom. We recorded a lovely song about friendship. During wet play we invited Senior Infants into our classroom to play with us. The highlights of the week were definitely working with our 6th class buddies to create friendship bracelets on Thursday (see video below) and enjoying our friendship breakfast together on Friday.

Friendship Bracelets

Class Photo

The Gingerbread Man

This week we read The Gingerbread Man. We enjoyed sequencing the story and performing puppet shows. In maths we counted out buttons to decorate some gingerbread men. On Thursday we baked and decorated our own yummy gingerbread men. Huge thanks to Mr. Cummins and the girls in 5th class who helped us to decorate them.

We love maths games in Junior Infants. This week we played Roll and Cover.

We're doing a super job in our daily phonemic awareness lessons. This week we focused on counting the number of words in a sentence.

In SESE we learned all about squirrels. We also learned a song called Autumn Leaves. Finally we completed a fine motor activity where we decorated a squirrel's tail using autumn coloured crepe paper.

We also started music lessons with Cian from Music Generation. We're having a great time learning the tongue drum.

Goldilocks and The Three Bears

PE and Free Play

More fun in Juniors

This week our story was Goldilocks and the Three Bears. In addition to reading the story we also learned a song, read other versions and acted the story out using masks, costumes and props. We had lots of fun putting on puppet shows for the class, learning some interesting facts about bears and creating wonderful bear pictures.

In maths we worked on making patterns and playing number games. We're enjoying the maths games so much that many children choose to play them during our Free Play sessions.

In PE we're working on throwing and catching. This week we also played Cups and Saucers and What's the Time Mr. Wolf?

Maths fun

Week 2 in Junior Infants

We've had a very busy week in Junior Infants.

Our story of the week was The Three Little Pigs. We read the story, painted pigs using different shades of pink (which we made by mixing white and black with pink), retold the story in the correct order and acted it out. We also had loads of fun reading different versions of the story and talking about our favourite, which version we believed and why.

Maths was all about sorting this week. Junior Infants are experts at sorting and can sort sets according to colour, shape and size. We also played a fun game called 'Don't Roll A Six'.

We do lots of fine motor activities in Junior Infants. We are working on building the muscles in our hands and fingers.

We are a very creative class. This week we created self portraits. We looked at our features closely in the mirror and used oil pastels to draw ourselves. Later in the week we used our imaginations to paint fantastic pictures. We made playdough monsters. We also started to learn a musical instrument and played Hot Cross Buns on the tongue drum.

We're really enjoying our PE lessons in the sunshine.

The highlight of every day is our free play time. This week our favourite activities were the sand, building forts and pirate ships and creating fantastic stuctures using lego and magnets.

Free Play

Playdough Monsters

The Three Little Pigs

Maths

Fine Motor Activities

Music and Art

Welcome to our wonderful new Junior Infants

We've had a lovely first week getting to know each other, exploring the classroom and playing with all the new toys. We've also read stories, sang songs, had a playdough disco and played in the fairy garden.

Click the link below to see all the fun we're having in Juniors. We're really looking forward to a wonderful year together.

First Week in Junior Infants

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