Category: Seachtain na Gaeilge

Hello to all the boys and girls in Senior Infants. It’s Miss Rooney here. I hope you have had a nice break  and that you have had some fun at home with your families since last week. Even though we are not back together at school today there are lots of things that you can carry on with at home for the next week or so.

Our trip to the local playground last month

Miss Marren and I have included lots of ideas here which you can work on with the help of your parents. The work is mostly continuing on the good work you have been doing since September. If you have no copies then just use pencil and paper for the drawing and writing. Make sure to spend time reading with an adult every week day. If any of the work is too difficult then move on to another activity. The main thing is to try enjoy the time with your family and to keep safe. I hope you are all remembering to wash your hands well and to cough or sneeze into a tissue or your elbow. Also, make sure to ask your parents for jobs to do at home every day so that you are helping them.

Maths

• Talk about the month, season and what day it is today, yesterday and tomorrow (good start to the day’s work) and count whenever you get a chance e.g buttons on coat, big/ small spoons, straws, cups etc.
• Compare who has more or less items and by how many.
• Use meal times to discuss – how many plates/cups/ spoons do we need to put on the table?  Have we enough apples to have 1 each?  Share out the sweets so we have 1 each or We have 4/5/6 people for dinner – There are 4 plates on the table/ There are 2 cups on the table/ There are 3 knives on the table – How many more do we need?
• Practice making numbers 1-7 in different ways such as with markers, pens, playdough, pencils.

The next two links should bring you to number games for the children to try (0-10 to begin with):

https://www.topmarks.co.uk/ordering-and-sequencing/caterpillar-ordering

https://www.topmarks.co.uk/learning-to-count/teddy-numbers

The following  needs an email address to get started. Select the level as ‘Kindergarten’:

https://www.education.com/games/kindergarten/math/

English

• Child tells you the news they have for the day. Stick to things in their own life rather than focusing on the news on the radio or TV.
• Write down what they tell you on a whiteboard or piece of paper.
• Child either types out what you’ve written or copies it down in a copybook or sheet of paper.
• You can create your own little newsroom on the kitchen table or you can use Green Screen apps on an iPad and record your child reading their news.
• You can send the video to loved ones to keep in touch.

Homework Folder:

• Continue with the readers in your homework folder – read them a few times and talk about what happened, funny parts, characters etc.
• Practice sounds in sound book and try saying them backwards too.
• Use the sound cards to ‘build words’ – parent tells child simple 3 or 4 letter words to make when cards are all laid out on table/ floor.
• Challenge them to make another word by just changing one letter or a word that rhymes. Maybe do a few examples for them and later, they could copy some of the words onto paper. This is a great activity to do together.

If you run out of books to read or just feel like a change then check out these websites with read-along stories:

https://www.storylineonline.net – listen to books being read aloud, maybe even by someone famous! Select grade level k-1st.

https://www.starfall.com – the read-along stories here are a good ways to practice phonics and sounds.

SESE

Topic of Spring

• Weather permitting, children go on a walk to try find signs of spring. Have a talk beforehand about what you might find and then take pictures as you find them on the walk. Focus on simple signs of spring such as daffodils, buds on trees, baby lambs/ calves, frogspawn, warmer weather, longer days, shorter nights etc.
• After the walk, have children record what they found by drawing and/ or writing. Colour in.
• If you have picked any spring flowers then children could try drawing them by looking closely and then painting/ colouring. This could be a picture to display!
• Look for stories about spring/ frogs/ baby animals on the storylineonline website (see link above) to listen to.
• Talk about the stories and listen to their favourite ones again and again. Encourage them to join in!

A website that I love to use when teaching about the seasons is https://www.topmarks.co.uk  Enter the word ‘spring’ in the search bar and you should find loads of activities. Just make sure you’re using the ‘Key Stage 1’ version as it is suited to Senior Infants. In fact, Topmarks is a great website for just about every subject so I would recommend getting familiar with it. It has a parent’s section too.

As well as the above, the children could use the RTE junior website to complete exercise for ten minutes each day. It’s called 10 at 10 and the children are well used to doing it in Room 7. It might be a good start to the day or as a movement break between activities. I am also including a simple grid with activities suited to infants to maybe try too:

Finally here are just a few photos from last week, Seachtain na Gaeilge, which show how hard you all worked! Take care everybody, stay safe and hopefully see you soon.