5th & 6th class have been using an app called Storybird on the ipads to help them write Animal Picture Books especially for Junior & Senior Infants. They really enjoyed reading their stories to the infants today ahead of World Book Day tomorrow.
See the 5th & 6th Class page for more photos ...
We had great fun in Junior Infants this year for Activity Week. This is a week when the parents come up with wonderful ideas to share with the children. We had Weaving with Isaac's Mum Niamh, Magnet Pictures with Karolina's Mum Asta, Heart decorating for Valentine's Day with Jenny, Leaf Arrangements with Grofu's Mum Ann-Marie, Spring Nature Hunt with Eimear, Paraic and Suzanne, Head massage with Tomomi. The Singing Mermaid Story with Aline, Alphabet Scavenger Hunt with Arron's Mum Ann-Marie and last but not least a Valentine's Day Cup-Cake Decorating Party with Sam's Mum Marina. Thank you so much to everyone who helped to make this a brilliant first Activity Week. They all said it was the best one they ever had!!!! ; )
Pop over to the Junior Infant page for more photos on this theme. I would like to thank Geraldine for donating the Star Wars ship, the beautiful Space jig-saw and for all her help with getting the role-play area ready for January's Aistear. Also thank you to Clara Corless and Anne Hester for lending us the astronaut costumes. Thank you also to Ann-Marie, Yuliya and Niamh (3 parents) for giving up their free-time to come in and help with Aistear Stations and Damien for organising getting the bee-bots for me. The bee-bots help to teach the children about computer programming in a fun child friendly way.
On Tuesday, Junior and Senior Infants enjoyed a Winter Walk to Rinville Woods. They have been learning all about Winter, winter weather and winter clothes during their S.E.S.E lessons so we decided to top it off with a lovely walk and picnic to Rinville Woods.
The Senior Infants and the Junior Infants buddied up together and the Senior Infants showed the Junior Infants how to tick the items off on their Winter Hunt Checklist.
We were very lucky with the weather. Although it wouldn't have mattered as the Infants were prepared for whatever weather was thrown at them. They were fantastically decked out in their Winter Clothes- wellington boots, waterproof coats and pants and hats, scarves and gloves.
We had a lovely picnic just outside the playground and although the picnic benches were wet, that didn't faze our Infants, they just put took off their coats and sat on them and none of them got wet.
They had a fantastic time together in the playground. It was such a great outing - a lesson to us all that whatever the weather, we should wrap up in the right clothing and get out in the fresh air and enjoy nature.
They spotted pine cones, holly leaves, brown leaves, bare tree and evergreen trees. We didn't get to tick off the frost and ice as the weather was so mild.
Ethan Corless gave the trip 10/10. Thank you Ethan! We are looking forward to our Spring Walk in March or April.
Great way to wake us all up on a Monday morning!
We have have been having great fun in the Junior Infants classroom learning all about animals. The children have completed five activities based on the theme. They made an enclosure for a zoo animal using boxes, scraps of material, bottle lids, pine cones, etc. The enclosure had to have a place for the animal to sleep, interesting space to roam around that would remind him of his natural habitat, something to drink and eat and an area for humans to view the animal.
In the role play area, the children were pretending that they were a family visiting a zoo. The parents had to come up with riddles and the children had to guess what animal they were thinking about and then they would visit that animal. The visit ended with a visit to the gift shop and the children could buy a souvenir if they were "good".
They also made long snakes, short snakes, fat snakes and thin snakes out of play dough, used animal play dough cutters, played "The Greedy Gorilla" memory game with Hilary and Suzanne and constructed their own zoo's using small world materials eg small animals, wooden tracks, small people and safari cars. This activity was great for sorting animals and counting etc.
Thank you to all the parents who helped out. We will be starting our next Aistear this Tuesday. The new theme is Winter/Winter Clothes/Weather.
We were delighted to welcome some of the Claregalway football team and management ahead of their Connacht intermediate football championship final tomorrow in Hyde park, Roscommon.
We were to delighted to have had Stephen Cunniffe teach with us the past few weeks as part of his teacher training placement. We wish Stephen and all the team the best of luck tomorrow from everyone here at Claregalway Educate Together.
We have recently held our 2017/2018 Green School Committee Elections and there are 6 newly elected representatives on our Green School Committee. Well done to Evita and Darragh from Siobhan's room, Muireann from Niamh's room, Saibh from Daniel's room, Molly from Damien's room and Kate from John's room. Well done to all the children who went to the effort of preparing a speech for the elections. It is a sign of your enthusiasm and energy.
Our first job was to choose our Green School Motto. All the classes were working on coming up with a catchy slogan. The Green School Committee have made a short list of the entries and we will announce the winner on Tuesday.
We had a visitor Catriona from Green Schools on Tuesday, 7th November and she gave an excellent power-point presentation on " Climate Change" to the Green School Committee and 4th, 5th and 6th Class. She got the children up dramatising Climate Change and it was very informative and interesting. Now, 4th, 5th and 6th Class are working on Climate Change Projects for the next few weeks. We will then choose 5 Projects to be displayed in Tuam Library for one week on 28th November.
Thank you to all the parents who came in to help with our first Aistear this year. Pop over to the Junior Infants page for more photos and a video!
