Junior Infants (Purple!) 2015-2016

Our Teddy Bears came to school!

On Friday June 24th we brought out teddies to school. We had to have a chat with them before they came explaining the school rules to them. They behaved very well, so much so that we were able to bring them out to the yard to play. We were hoping to have a picnic on the grass but the weather wasn't great .Instead we ate under the shelter. We shared our lunches with our teddies and they enjoyed their day at school!

Me and my Teddy!
​Aren't we cute!

Active school Week June 2o16

The week got off to a great start with our "Walk a Mile with a Smile". Thank you to all the parents who accompanied us on our lovely walk through St. Helen's and back via Booterstown Avenue. We were tired and hungry when we returned and we had early break. Active Annie came with us and she enjoyed it too!

Getting ready to set off!

Active Annie

Active Annie joined Junior Infants last week. She is a very energetic doll and absolutely loves doing all types of exercise. She also likes to eat healthily and always has a good night's sleep. She goes home with one girl every night. She has a scrapbook which goes with her so that whoever brings her home can record all the activities that they did together. She has been having a fantastic time so far!

Funky Feet Day

Tuesday was "Funky Feet Day" and we started the day with a "Wake Up And Shake Up" activity led by sixth class in the senior yard. It was a great start to the day. Who owns these funky  feet?

Having fun doing Playball with Elaine and Lauren!

Wednesday was "Style your Scooter" day. We started the day again with "Wake Up and Shake Up"and the parents and teachers joined in. Mrs. Benson allowed us to scoot in the yard at small break. We would love to do it everyday!

On Thursday the weather was very wet so we couldn't run our races in the field. However we had great fun in the hall doing activities at different stations that had been set up for us.

Our Relay Races - Monday 20th June

And believe it or not - we all won a gold medal! Mrs. McGovern was so proud of us!

​What a wonderful day down on the farm!

Look at these beautiful fairy doors we found when we were on our nature walk! Magical!

Time for a snack!

We had a great time exploring the woodland and admiring the animals. We especially liked the peacock with his beautiful feathers.

Can you spot the beautiful blue dragonfly on the leaf?

Can you see who got to the middle of the maze first? Clever girl!!

And the rest followed!

A Great Day out!

Junior Infants really enjoyed their day down on the farm. The sun shone all day and while we found the journey a bit long it was all worth it in the end. Thank you to Edith, Claire and Diti who helped us and minded us all day!

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Having fun with water!

We have been studying CAPACITY in maths. We have been describing containers as "full", "almost full", "empty", "almost empty", "half full", "overflowing". We brought in lots of cartons and  bottles from home. A lot of them have 2L on  them and this means that they can hold two litres. Other containers hold one litre and the big ones hold three! We had great fun estimating how many smaller containers it would take to fill the larger ones. We were very good at finding solutions to the problems. We all got a chance to predict, pour, measure and have fun with water. Mrs. McGovern filled lots of basins with water and put them on tables in the yard. We were split into small groups so that we all got turns at measuring.

Our sunflowers are transplanted!

On Tuesday May 31st we transplanted our sunflowers into the garden We planted them  right outside our windows so we can watch them grow. Martha and Aisling helped us to take them out of the little pots very carefully and plant them in the ground. We cannot wait to see the beautiful sunflowers. Thank you to Martha and Aisling!

Book Week May 9th - 13th 2016

During Book week we all brought in our favourite books. We had to tell the rest of the class why we loved it so much. Mrs. McGovern picks a few of them to read every day. She says she will get through them all eventually!

Our Sunflowers are Growing!

Inspired by a book we read about growing sunflowers we decided to plant our own. All of us got to plant seeds in little pots. We have them on the window sill and we keep them well watered. They get plenty of sunshine and are thriving. Some of them have grown so tall we will  need to put stakes beside them to support them. Very soon, when they are a bit stronger we will transplant them into the garden.

The Gingerbread Man

On Friday April 29th we performed our play "The Gingerbread Man" for our families and friends. We had worked very hard learning our lines and songs and practising our moves. It was a huge success and Mrs. McGovern said that all the hard work was worth it! We really enjoyed doing it. A big "THANK YOU" to Therese who created a wonderful backdrop for us.

Our Art Gallery

Look at what the budding artists in Junior Infants painted.  We just love our fantastic self portraits!

Our school garden in spring - a beautiful sight!

Last Saturday parents and children were invited to come and help tidy up the garden as it had been neglected during the cold winter months. We were blessed with a beautiful sunny morning and Mrs. Henry, who organised the clean up was thrilled with the number of people who came to help. Great work was done and the garden is once again a lovely space where we can enjoy the wonders of nature. This morning Junior Infants spent some time investigating the garden. We used our senses to hear, to feel, to smell and to look .We heard the birds singing and the children form a nearby school playing. We felt the barks of the trees and the catkins. We admired the daffodils and the tulips. We smelled the new bark mulch and thought it smelt like Christmas trees. We also smelled the rosemary which Mrs. Moloney said is nice on roast potatoes. When we returned to the classroom we wrote in our writing copies about our time in the garden. Mrs. McGovern was very impressed with our writing and our drawings. Some of us even made up our own sentences!

Happy Valentine's Day

We made these lovely cards to wish our families a Happy Valentine's Day. Thank you to Claire who helped us to scrunch up the crepe paper into little balls to frame our pictures.

Healthy Eating and living Week 2016

Healthy Eating and Living Week was held from January 18th - 22nd. It was a great week full of all sorts of different activities relating to eating well and doing exercise. We learned a lot about the food pyramid and about eating a balanced diet. We know about the vitamins that fruit and vegetables provide us with. We need to eat from the bread and cereal group in order to get carbohydrates which give us energy. Dairy foods are rich in calcium which we need in order to keep our bones and teeth strong and healthy. We loved The Skeleton Dance which we do to remind us about how important it is to look after our bones. Fruit and Veg. break was relaunched during the week but Mrs. McGovern said that it was more focused on the older girls as we are brilliant at bringing in fruit and veg for little break. These photgraphs tell it all......

Our Food Pyramids

We decided to make our own food pyramids as by doing so we would learn a lot about the different food groups and about eating a balanced diet. We worked in our groups and we learned the importance of teamwork. We all brought in pictures of foods which we had cut out at home. Mrs. McGovern drew the outlines of the pyramids on coloured card which represented the colours of the four teams. The girls from fifth class helped us to paste our pictures in the correct sections. We were very proud of our work which now hangs in the junior corridor. Please come in and have a look!

We also did plenty of exercise which included lots of activity breaks from the FIt 4 Skool website. We had great fun jogging around the yard. We started with one lap and now we can easily manage four laps. The week ended with a delicious buffet prepared by some of the parents for which we would like to say "Go Raibh Maith Agaibh". We really enjoyed it! Look at the colourful presentation of food!

Our Healthy Eating and Living Books

We finished off the week by putting all that we learned into a book which we are also very proud of. We are authors and illustrators of our very own books and we are only in Junior Infants!

Mrs. Berry's Hat

Mrs. McGovern has a friend called Mrs. Berry. She lives in a lovely cottage in the country. She lives alone as her husband passed away some years ago. She has a big garden and she spends many hours tending to her flowers and shrubs. She loves her roses in particular and is very proud of the red climbing roses that creep up the whitewashed walls of her cottage. Mrs. Berry wears a wide brimmed hat when she is doing her gardening to protect herself from the sun. A curious magpie has taken to dropping various bright and shiny objects onto this hat. Mrs. Berry, amused by the antics of her feathered friend, attaches these objects onto her hat using special fabric glue. Inspired by this wonderful story, we decided to create our own fantastic hats. Take a look!

Athbhliain Faoi Mhaise

Athbhliain Faoi Mhaise or a Happy New Year to you all. We hope you have all made your new year resolutions and are sticking to them. Here in Junior Infants we have got off to a great start by working very hard since coming back to school. We made lovely New Year cards for our families. We have them hanging in the classroom at the moment but we will bring them home very soon.

Santa's visit to Our Lady of Mercy School

We couldn't believe our eyes!! Santa actually arrived in a garda van. As you all know Santa is a very busy man at this time of the year so Karla's dad Jim Daly kindly stepped in and organised the special transport  for the special man. What a surprise we got when we saw him step out of the van. He was in great form as always and came to our classroom. We were delighted with the presents we got (a make up set and colouring books) and Santa promised to come to all our homes on Christmas eve.!

Christmas is Coming!

Christmas is coming and we have been very busy preparing to celebrate the birthday of Jesus. Advent is a very special time of year when we get our hearts ready to welcome the baby Jesus.

"Advent is a time to wait
It's not quite time to celebrate.
Count the days down one by one,
Until the Advent time is done.
Christmas day will soon be here,
Time for joy and time for cheer,"
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We have been opening a window on our interactive calendar every day and trying very hard to follow the suggestions on it. We also put a sticker on our beautiful wall calendar and one of us gets to colour a star on our star calendar.

. We have been learning lots of songs and poems and we have worked very hard on our special carol for the Christmas Carol Service in the church on Thursday December 17th at 7.30pm.

We love our sparkly Christmas classroom!

Thank you to the girls in sixth class who helped us with some of the tricky parts of the decorations.

The Rainbow Fish

We loved the story of The Rainbow Fish and it's definitely one of our favourite books. Mrs. mcGovern has read it to us lots of times and we never get tired of it. We sometimes look at it online too. It's about a fish who is so proud of his beauty that he has forgotten how to be kind and caring. But one day he is persuaded to give away just one of his shiny scales. He discovers that this makes him feel happy inside and so, before long he has given away all his beautiful silvery scales. He is no longer the most beautiful fish in the entire ocean but he is very very happy!

We got the inspiration for our art work from this wonderful story. Thank you to Therese who created a magical water scene for our fish.

Look at our delicious looking lollipops!

We were learning about the "l" sound in our Jolly Phonics and decided to make this lovely colourful lollipops to help us to remember the sound. We chose two colours to work with. The sixth class girls helped us to roll the crepe paper into balls and then to glue them on. It was quite tricky at first but we soon got the hang of it.

"Lolly lolly lollipops
Sticky licky at the top"

Science Week 8th - 15th of November 2015

To celebrate Science Week 2015 we did some of our own experiments. We enjoyed colouring in our snakes and clowns and discovered some interesting facts in a fun way.

Experiment 1: Swirling Snakes - We coloured in our snakes very carefully and Mrs. McGovern cut them out. We usually cut out our own shapes but the snakes were particularly difficult. Lauren, who comes in to help on Thursdays, threaded the snakes. We held them up above a hot radiator and they swirled around. They looked beautiful. We discovered that hot air rises making the snakes swirl.

Experiment 2: Balancing Act - Again we coloured in our clowns carefully and Mrs. McGovern cut them out. She must have great patience! We glued two coins onto the hands. We were then able to balance the clown on its nose on our pencils. Mrs. mcGovern said it had to do with the coins shifting the centre of gravity. As long ad the centre of gravity is over an object the clown will remain balanced and not fall off. Anyway we just enjoyed getting our clowns to balance. We had to concentrate on the task. It reminded us of how we had to concentrate when balancing the beanbags on different parts of our bodies while walking around the hall in P.E.

Winter is coming!

Winter is approaching and very soon the trees will be bare and the weather will be colder. We decided to plant some winter flowering pansies in the lovely plant boxes that last year's sixth class so kindly donated to the school. They will see them when they come back to visit us. We planted the extra pansies outside our windows. They brighten up the garden and will cheer us up on those cold and wet winter mornings.

Don't they look pretty! We must remember to weed and water our beautiful pansies!

Happy Hallowe'en to all or families and friends!

Hallowe'en is Coming!

Hallowe'en is coming and the girls are getting very excited about coming to school on Friday in their Hallowe'en costume. We have decorated our classroom and we particularly love the bats that have been flying around it .

We have been learning some Hallowe'en Poems and songs and our favourite one is "There was an old witch". We have been making potions and thinking up all sorts of horrible ingredients to add to our cauldron.
"Double Double, toil and trouble!
Fire burn and cauldron bubble"

Paco the Pumpkin

Paco the pumpkin sits on our Nature Table. When we light the candle and pull the blinds down it looks really seasonal.

"Pumpkin, pumpkin, round and fat,
Turn into a Jack O' Lantern,
Just like that!"

Maths Week September 12th - 16th 2015

The girls are enjoying the various activities organised for Maths week. On Monday they went to the hall and had great fun playing maths games and working on the I pads. The girls from sixth class were there to assist and did a super job.

Our Maths Trail.

Harry the Hedgehog

Autumn is here and the girls have been bringing in beautiful leaves for our autumn display. We have been talking about the leaves falling off the deciduous trees and about the swallows migrating to Africa. We have noticed the nights getting longer and the days shortening. Animals are preparing to hibernate and the hedgehog is busy preparing for the long winter. We made Harry the Hedgehog with our hand prints and we were very happy with the result of our teamwork. We learned a song about Harry:
"I'm Harry the Hedgehog, everybody knows,
And I can feel the frosty ground nip my little toes.
So I think it would be best if I found a little nest,
Where I could lie and rest until the springtime."

 The girls absorbed in their maths activities! 
​September 2015

September Artwork

The girls in Junior Infants have settled into their new routines and are getting used to their new school environment. They are learning all about the letter sounds, have started picking up words and phrases "as Gaeilge" and are enjoying singing and reciting lots of songs and rhymes. They are especially enjoying making new friends and playing in the yard. They love "Colour, Cut and Paste" activities, especially when the sixth class girls come over to help. 
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Colour Cut and Paste
"I Am a Robot"