Welcome to
​Suzanne's
​Junior Infant class.

Lámh Signs - Easter Egg Hunt

​Five Little Easter Bunnies

Intercultural Fortnight

South America
The children have been learning about the country of Peru in South America. They enjoyed learning a special Peruvian dance in P.E. class.  They also learned about South American animals and did collage art work based on the capybara, toucan, frog, bear and hummingbird. They even read a story about a very special bear
called 'Paddington' that comes from Peru.

Spanish lesson
​As part of our Intercultural fortnight celebrations, Veronica came to visit our class today. She taught us some Spanish phrases and we danced along to a Spanish song called ‘Como te llamas?’ She even read us a picture book called ‘Por cuatro esquinitas de nada’ which we really enjoyed! Veronica showed us some beautiful photos of El Salvador and pictures of the fruits that grow there and the delicious foods that are eaten. Muchas gracias Veronica!!

African story time

Signs of Spring
We went on a nature walk with our 5th class buddies and looked for 'Signs of Spring' and completed a Spring Checklist.

Cake sale
We really enjoyed going to the Cake Sale on Friday.
The cakes and treats were delicious!

Silvestry’s Visit
Silvestry visited our class today. We asked him lots of questions about Africa and what it was like growing up there. Silvestry told us he comes from Uganda, which is known as the heart of Africa. It is very hot in
Africa and is often over 25 degrees. Silvestry used to grow bananas, peanuts, sweet potatoes and millet in his garden. Silvestry has been on safari lots of times. He has seen antelope, elephants, leopards, lions, crocodiles, buffalo and hyenas. His favourite animal is the giraffe.
Silvestry has seen over 1000 snakes!! There was once a boa constrictor in his garden and he had to rescue his goat from being eaten by it!
When Silvestry was small he used to run to school in his bare feet.
He loved playing football. The children really enjoyed Silvestry's visit and had great fun dancing ​and playing the African drums with him! 

​Táimid ag tnúth le Seachtain na Gaeilge. Béimid ag foghlaim amhráin agus rannta nua as gaeilge agus beidh ceilí againn le Rang a 5 sa chlós. Beidh ceolchoirm mór sa halla fresin.

We are really looking forward to ‘Irish Language Week’.
We will learn some new songs and rhymes in Irish and have a whole school ceilí dance in the yard. We will also take part in a 'Ceolchoirm' (concert).
​
During ‘Seachtain na Gaeilge’ you might like to log on to Home Cúla4 | TG4 | Súil Eile (cula4.com) and the girls and boys could watch some of their favourite cartoons ‘as gaeilge’ (in Irish), such as PJ Masks, Clifford, Blocuimhreacha etc. 
​
Alternatively, you could download the Cúla 4 App and play some games (Spraoi) and watch some cartoons (Féach): 

Irish for kids:
https://youtu.be/LvBSZb6y5FA

Céilí dancing with our 5th class buddies

 Bodhrán recital by students
  from St. Augustine's school. 

                World Book Day Celebrations          We had a very exciting week! We made made origami bookmarkers with our 5th class buddies on Wednesday.
Then we drew pictures of our favourite books on
Thursday and met with our buddies in the Modular building
to read our books together. We enjoyed watching the story
book 'The Tiger who came to tea' with Lámh Signs.
On Friday we dressed up as our favourite characters and even
had a fashion show and danced with our buddies in the yard. 

The Tiger who came to tea (with Lámh signs)

Pancake Tuesday
We learned a poem and a rap about pancakes and
​then tasted some - they were delicious!!

Vegetable Tasting
We read the Charlie and Lola story called
'I will not ever never eat a tomato'
​and tasted some delicious Orange Twiglets from Jupiter (carrots),  Green drops from Greenland (peas), Cloud fluff from the Pointiest Peaks of Mount Fuji (potato) and some Moonsquirters (tomatoes). 
The children were great at tasting the vegetables.
Some even had seconds!!       

This is a Bar Chart showing our favourite vegetables.
'Green drops' were the most popular vegetable with 14 votes.
'Orange twiglets' were the least popular vegetable with only 4 votes.

We really enjoyed this story 'Eat your peas!'

    Chinese New Year   
​We are learning about Chinese New Year this week. 2025 is the Year of the Snake. The children made Chinese lanterns with their 5th class buddies and we made dragon puppets in class.   

Log on to this Website to learn more about Chinese New Year:
https://www.topmarks.co.uk/ChineseNewYear/ChineseNewYear.aspx

The boys and girls really enjoyed taking part in their first Chinese New Year parade.   
Thankfully they weren't too scared of the dragon!
It is a tradition in the school that 6th class are the dragon,
so they can look forward to their turn in a few years time! 

The children enjoyed participating in their first
‘Music Generation’ lesson with Joan in the hall today.

We went on a walk with our buddies and had fun
being out in the yard and exploring the effect of 
the cold icy Winter weather on the school grounds! 

Weather
We made 'Weather diaries' and drew pictures in response to the painting called 'The Umbrellas' by Pierre-Auguste Renoir. 

Winter Lámh Songs.

Story time in the Library.
        We really enjoyed the two stories that Clodagh read to us.           
We particularly liked 'The Dinosaur that pooped Christmas.' 

We had fun learning these
​Christmas Lámh Signs!

Aistear theme of Santa's Workshop.
​The children are enjoying dressing up as Santa and his elves
and reindeers. They make toys and wrap presents and then put
the sack of toys into Santa's sleigh, which the children
made ​using large construction. 

The children enjoyed practicing their
Winter Performance. 

Click on the link to play
the Snowman Game.

https://www.starfall.com/h/holiday/snowman/?sn=main

Me as a baby.
We had fun trying to guess who the baby in each photo is. 
​Aren't we cute?!

Baby Elena
As part of our project based on the theme of 'Myself' and  'Me as a baby' baby Elena and her mom visited our class today.
We asked Sarah (Elena’s mom) lots of questions about her and she showed us some of Elena’s baby things (her blanket, toys, book etc.) We sang and signed a ‘Hello’ and a ‘Goodbye’ song
​for her and gave Sarah a special book of wishes for Elena.  

Thanksgiving 
As part of our B.S.S.E. subject the children have been learning about Thanksgiving
    which will take place on 28th November.         We enjoyed reading "The Thankful Book"
​by Todd Parr and we also made
​Thanksgiving turkeys with our buddies.   

Science Week
We had fun doing lots of experiments ​during
Science Week. We did a Balloon rocket activity,
a Dancing raisin experiment and a Skittles rainbow activity. 

This month’s Aistear theme is ‘The Hospital’.
 We have set up a role play hospital department. The children love to take turns acting in the roles of the receptionist, patient, nurse or doctor and role playing different scenarios.

Diwali
As part of our B.S.S.E. subject the children are learning about Diwali, the Hindu Festival of Light. Diwali comes from the Hindu word Deepavali which means “row of lights.”
The Festival of Diwali begins on October 31st / November 1st and will continue for 5 days.           We are learning about some of the customs and traditions associated with the festival.
    We are going to colour in Rangoli patterns and make Diwali cards.             
We will also make Diyas out of clay.  

            We coloured in Rangoli patterns and made Diwali cards.                    We also made Diyas out of clay.  

Halloween fun with the 5th class buddies!

We had fun learning these Halloween Lámh Signs!

Halloween Pumpkin Art.

Halloween:
Sing along to some of our favourite Halloween songs!

Click on the link below to complete the
​"Pick the Pumpkin" activity that we played in class.
more2.starfall.com/n/holiday/halloween/load.htm?f&n=main​ 

We are looking forward to doing lots of fun maths activities together every day this week. ​​​We hope you enjoy doing the Maths Week Counting Challenge at home together! 
You might like to watch an episode of Numberblocks
or Numberjacks during Maths Week.    

Have fun playing these Maths Games
​by clicking on the links below!

Learning to Count up to 15 with Teddy Numbers Interactive Maths Game (topmarks.co.uk) 
Learn to Count up to 10 with Underwater Counting Maths Game (topmarks.co.uk)
Ladybird Spots - Counting, Matching and Ordering game (topmarks.co.uk)

Photos of Maths Week:

Grandparents Day:
We celebrated 'National Grandparents Day' on Friday 4th October. Many thanks to you all for sending in photos and information about the childrens' grandparents during the week. The children really enjoyed talking about their grandparents and it was a lovely opportunity to celebrate grandparents who live near and far away and to remember those who are longer with us. We hope you enjoyed your visit to Junior Infants!   

Rosh Hashanah:
We have been learning about the Jewish New Year
festival of Rosh Hashanah.
During the festival people go to the synagogue to pray and
the shofar ​(a trumpet made of a ram’s horn) is sounded.
Apples and honey are eaten for a sweet New Year!!!
We tasted apples dipped in honey in class.

Our first visit to Ballywaltrim Library:
We enjoyed walking to the library together.
The librarian gave us a tour of the library
and then we chose a book to borrow. 

Seasons Song:

P.E. time
We had lots of fun playing games together -
Flush the toilet, Four corners and Parachute games. 
We also really enjoyed our first
​G.A.A. session on Thursday! 

We meet up with our 5th class buddies
​every Wednesday.
This week we played with chalk together. 

Click on the link below
to read a copy of the revised
LEARN TOGETHER ETHICAL EDUCATION CURRICULUM.

Educate Together’s revised Learn Together Ethical Education curriculum is launched - Educate Together

Our 5th class buddies.

Yard time!
The girls and boys really enjoy playing in the yard
and are delighted to have two yard times now. 

Sing along to some of our
 favourite Nursery Rhymes.

          The girls and boys have been learning about how to stay healthy.
               They are very good at doing The Vampire Cough!   

​We have been learning how
​to be soaper-heroes!