June
It was all about the theme of summer for the month of June here in Primary 1A and lots of fun was had by all particularly with the lovely weather we had. We kick started our theme with a group activity looking at different pictures associated with summer.
On Wednesday the 6th of June we went by bus to Waterford to join St. Joesph's school for their sports day. We had such fun and participated in all the races.
Our achievements were awarded at the end and we were all presented with medals and a lovely goody bag. We would like to thank St. Joseph's school for inviting us down for a day of great fun which was thoroughly enjoyed by all.
For a group maths activity we took to the outdoors as the weather was so nice and we played a game of number fishing with the paddling pool.
Of course we couldn't resist a bit of a splash around in the pool when the game was finished, after all, it was a fabulous day!
It was time to go back to the cookery room again, this time to make some lovely banana bread which we all enjoyed helping to make.
Next up was our school sports day. It was a lovely hot day and we had great fun outside taking part in the various races and activities.
We all took turns at being "Dooby Wop" as we enjoyed having him around so much.
Below we are deep in concentration getting our robot themed do-a-dot activity done. We are all now able to complete these activities independently.
Our first theme craft was making our own " Dooby Wop" robot craft just like our new friend.
Lots of fun was had with our robot themed squishy bags. We had to move the buttons around to give the robot a face.
We took part in the whole school technology museum which was set up in the hall. We had lots of fun looking at technology through the ages.
We put our creativity to the test and used recyclable materials and lots of tinfoil to make our own standing robots. It's amazing what you can reuse when put to the test!!
Below we are using CD's to create very colourful snails. We put pva glue on them and covered them in nice colourful buttons.
We took to the cookery room to turn some very plain buns into delicious robot cupcakes using icing, marshmallows and jelly tots. Of course we also enjoyed sampling all of these delicious ingredients!
In the picture below you will see a collection of all our robot themed art and crafts proudly displayed on our classroom walls.
Our next theme was the theme of food and who doesn't enjoy exploring all things food? Our first activity was a game of food themed bingo which was so much fun. We were very good at matching the food items on our bingo cards. This was a great group activity.
Our first food themed craft involved paper plates cut into a doughnut shape which we painted and enjoyed decorating with hundreds and thousands.
The pictures below show us enjoying another group activity where we had to match food items to their colour. We were fantastic at this and got them all right.
For cookery we decided to make our own cupcakes from scratch and what fun we had helping to do this. Below you will see us putting the buncases into the tins for Ms. Dunford and measuring out the caster sugar.
We then helped Ms. Dunford count the eggs as she cracked them into a jug and we all took turns to help beat them with a fork.
Next up was the part we all enjoyed the most, mixing all the ingredients together in a bowl with the hand mixer. We were brilliant at this and had so much fun watching all the ingredients come together.
While the buns were cooking in the oven we whipped some cream which we then used to decorate our buns.
Just look at us all busy decorating our buns with fresh cream and chopped strawberries. We were very proud of the finished products and we took them home to show our families.
We joined up with Ms. Wall and Ms. Whelans class and enjoyed a fabulous picnic outside in the glorious sunshine. We even got to SuperValu to do our own shopping for the picnic.
Our next food themed craft was a tissue paper carrot craft. We traced around our hands on green card for the stalk and we scrunched up orange tissue paper for the carrot itself. Below you will see us busy at work.
Sue kindly provided us with some lovely clay pots which we painted in a colour of our choice and then we planted some colourful flowers in them. We also learned that flowers need food to grow too, just like us.
We mad the most of the lovely sunshine and got out and about in the yard on the balance bikes. We were fantastic for our first time on these in school and really enjoyed ourselves. Ms. Dunford, Georgie, Alan and Breda were very proud of us.
With all the lovely sunshine we've had Primary 1A are very excited to see what the theme of summer brings next month. Check back in at the end of June to see what we got up to.
April
April was another busy month for primary 1A and we had lots of fun exploring the themes of Spring and The Farm. First up we made some lovely ducks and used lovely textured padded envelopes for the umbrellas.
Below we are busy making some stained glass flowers with different coloured tissue paper. Georgie kindly made a lovely vase for us to put our colourful flowers into so we could display them nicely on the window.
We took to the cookery room once again, this time to make some rashers, sausages, puddings, scrambled eggs and toast. We all enjoyed taking it in turns to cut the pudding, beat the eggs and toast our own slice of bread.
Our next task was to make some bubble wrap sheep. This was great fun and we loved painting the bubble wrap and bursting some of the bubbles while doing so. We painted some lolly pop sticks black for the legs of the sheep. Just look at how effective they turned out!
Below we are engrossed in a science experiment. Here we helped Miss Dunford to make a rain cloud in a jar by adding some shaving foam to water and dropping some blue food colouring onto the shaving foam. We really enjoyed watching the food colouring travel down through the shaving foam and down into the water swirling around as it did so.
Next we worked hard over a number of days to put together our very own colourful five senses spring book. Here you can see us decorating the front cover with some lovely flower and butterfly foam stickers. On the right you can see one of our finished symmetrical butterflies which we added to one of the pages and the bottom picture shows us doing some fork painted tulips for our books.
Our next theme was The Farm and our theme song was Old McDonald had a farm which we enjoyed learning. Below we are making some lovely cows just like Old McDonald had on his farm. We even gave the cows some grass to eat when they were finished.
To enhance our learning Miss Dunford used some picture visuals of animals while we were singing Old McDonalds had a farm. When we became familiar with the different sounds the animals made Miss Dunford would hold up a card and we would make the sound of that animal. This was a fun activity and kept us very engaged.
Below we are making a chicken craft and a lovely colourful bird craft to display on our walls. The colourful feathers we used were very effective.
Here we are busy completing one of our farm animal do-a-dot activities.
One of our favourite farm themed activities was finding out what animals Old McDonald had is his barns. We had to use sponges to wash off the painted barn doors to reveal the animal behind it. We really enjoyed this task.
Old McDonald also had some pigs on his farm so of course we made some lovely pigs of our own too. We used different shaped card to make our pigs.
Some of our finished products below.
On Friday we took some well deserved r&r time. During this time we enjoyed some sensory play on the gym balls followed by some time relaxing with the foot spas and the wobble cushions.
We got together with Miss Walls class for an afternoon of fun farm themed activities. We took turns sticking cotton wool balls on to a sheep made from clear contact until he turned out lovely and woolly. We tried our hand at herding sheep into a pen with lovely white balloons that Georgie transformed into sheep for us and we also turned our hands to some sheep shearing. We had such an enjoyable afternoon with Primary 1B.
In the pictures below we are having great fun herding sheep and putting them into the sheep pen.
Below we are working on our pencil control with our fun farm themed pencil control sheets.
We created some lovely paper doily sheep to add to our farm animal display.
No farm would be complete without a farmer. Here is lour attempt at making our very own "Old McDonald".
March
We had a very busy few weeks in March before our well deserved Easter holidays. We kick started the month with a sensory activity where we explored some snow that Miss Dunford brought in from home and we even built a mini snowman.
We enjoyed learning the I'm a Little Leprechaun rhyme with the help of puppets and a Leprechaun Teddy.
We listened to a piece of music played on the harp - a traditional Irish musical instrument and made our own harp craft afterwards. Here we are busy painting our harp templates gold.
We took to the cookery room to make some traditional Irish scones.We enjoyed helping to beat the eggs, mix the mixture together, rolling out the dough and cutting the scones out with a shape cutter.
We thoroughly enjoyed our Irish dancing session with Helen. Below are some pictures of us all dressed up in our Irish colours for the occasion and also some pictures of us in action in the hall.
Our shamrock men very easy to make and looked lovely when they were finished.
Below we are enjoying a sensory activity where we had to find gold coins hidden in shaving foam and count how many we found.
It was back to the cookery room again for some Saint Patrick's Day themed edible activities. We made some chocolate shamrock bark by melting some white chocolate on to shamrock shaped parchment paper which we decorated with green skittles and m and m's. While we were waiting for it to set, we made some fanta floats. We loved making these and watching the fanta froth up when added to the ice-cream.
Below are some pictures of us modelling our very own Easter Bonnets that we designed ourselves. Don't we look fabulous!
A selection of our completed Easter Crafts that we took home.
February
January
A big welcome back to everyone after the holidays and a very happy new year to you all. Primary 1A have been very busy for the month of January exploring the themes of winter and space. First up was the theme of winter. Our theme song for the fortnight was the winter hokey pokey and our theme story was the Little Lost Penguin. Below is a selection of some of the lovely art activities that were completed.
Lots of fun was had by everyone making puffy paint with PVA glue and shaving foam to create the melted snowman masterpieces below. Didn't they turn out just lovely?
After the holidays it was time to get back into the cookery room to make some winter themed treats. Just look at how well out polar bear paw cupcakes turned out.
Next up was our bubble wrap winter trees. We had lots of fun painting the bubble wrap before pressing it down on to our trees to create these lovely snowy effect trees.
The next theme of the month was our space theme which we really enjoyed. Our theme song was the Spaceship song which we enjoyed listening to and singing along where we could. We particularly enjoyed counting from 10 down to 1 before we had to shout "blast-off". Our theme story was a lift the flap book all about space. The first of our activities for this theme was an astronaut craft which we added our pictures too so it looked as if we were all dressed up and floating above planet earth.
We enjoyed having our feet painted silver and stamping them onto white card to make rockets . It was very tickley and caused a lot of giggles.
Our next task was to make some aliens in flying saucers to decorate our space themed classroom display board. Take a look at us in action below busy gluing and sticking. Lots of tinfoil was used for our space themed crafts. We enjoyed working with it as it has a lovely shiny texture to it.
Check out our flying saucers on our lovely space display board.
The space theme brought a lot of sensory based activities and crafts for Primary 1A which we just love. Below are some pictures of us getting our hands painted to make hand print aliens. We enjoyed the texture of the paint on our hands and liked to squish it in our palms before pressing them on to card.
Off to the cookery room again, this time to make some star and moon shaped sandwiches. Take a look at us all helping to butter the bread and put the fillings of cheese and ham onto the bread. If you look closely you will even see some of us having a sample of the tasty sandwiches.
The next activity was lots of fun. We got to master the art of marble painting with real marbles to create these fabulous planets. We enjoyed shaking the box with the marbles in it to get the desired effect and we also enjoyed watching the marbles going from side to side as we shook the box.
Below you can see us making some sun catcher planet earths made from clear contact and tissue paper. This was tricky as our hands kept sticking to the contact but we enjoyed it all the same.
Here we are very busy with our playdoh and space themed playdoh mats.
We put our fine motor skills to the test and used some spaghetti to put some moon craters on to. This activity was lots of fun and we also got to practise our counting skills too.
We used a selection of big and small star shaped cookie cutters to make some lovely starry sky images.
As we had shaving foam in abundance for all the different crafts we needed it for we decided to have a sensory play session with it. This was great fun and we all enjoyed get our hands stuck in. Some of us were like snowmen when we had finished!
Here we are making a lovely "S is for stars" craft using both gold and silver stars.
Next up was another lovely sensory based activity that we enjoyed. We started by mixing equal amounts of PVA glue and shaving foam to make a lovely puffy substance. Take a look at us hard at work mixing it all up.
We then added some green and blue paint to the mixture and used a paintbrush to swirl it all up. We then got a paper plate and pressed it down into the mixture to make lovely puffy planet earths. This activity was so much fun.
All of our masterpieces on display in our classroom.
December
What a busy month we had in Primary 1A in the lead up to the Christmas holidays. We had such fun preparing for Christmas while also enjoying some very special outings. We got very creative this month and with the help of Georgie we made our own Christmas Tree to display in the classroom. We also made the decorations for our tree. Below you can see us helping to paint our wooden Christmas Tree.
In PE we enjoyed throwing snowballs at the lovely wooden snowman Georgie kindly made for us. Take a look at the fun we had with this lovely game while improving our ball throwing skills.
We had a special visitor in our classroom for the last two weeks before the holidays. Buddy Elf paid us a visit and we had lots of fun trying to find him every day.
As the weather turned a bit colder we were good to ourselves and we made some hot chocolate in class ans we also added some marshmallows for extra deliciousness.
We enjoyed making hot chocolate so much that we also made our very own hot chocolate craft. Check it out below.
We loved listening and singing along to Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, so much so that we made a Rudolph craft to decorate our Christmas Tree with. Take a look at us making these and check out the finished products proudly hanging from our tree.
We had the best fun ever taking turns on Rudolph the Reindeer around the classroom while listening to the song being played. Just look at our happy faces enjoying this activity.
We also made made a Rudolph craft using our hand tracings on brown card. Our hands were used as the antlers.
The creative juices just kept on flowing in n Primary 1A, check out the fabulous Christmas Wreath we made for our classroom door. See also some pictures of us helping to make it.
We spent lots of time practising our song " Five Little Elves Jumping On A Sleigh" for the Christmas school variety show. Take a look at our dress rehearsal pictures the week leading up to the event. A big thank you goes to Georgie for making us our very own sleigh for our party piece.
We made delicious Santa's from cupcakes and fresh fruit in one of our weekly cookery sessions. Check them out below.
November
Our themes for the month of November were Houses and Homes and Shopping. We had lots of fun exploring both of these themes. Our theme story for Houses and Homes was the story of the Three Little Pigs which we thoroughly enjoyed. Below you can see us listening attentively to the story which was brought to life with story puppets.
After listening to the story we got busy making our own houses made from straw, sticks and bricks just like the Three Little Pigs.
In cookery we used cream crackers to make the Three Little Pigs houses from edible materials. Take a look below to see us all busy in action completing our masterpieces.
Our poem for this theme was Pigs In The Mud. We took to the physio room and used the gym mats to practise rolling around just like pigs do in mud. We had great fun doing this.
Below is a selection of the crafts that we made connected with our theme.
Some more cookery room fun. Here we are using pancakes to make pigs just like the ones in our story.
Next up was our shopping theme, which we enjoyed exploring. Our first adventure was a trip to Aldi with our very own shopping list. We all helped out to find all of the items on our list and take them to the checkout to pay for them.
We enjoyed playing the shopping list game together as a group. Ms. Dunford held up a picture of an item and we all had to check to see who had it on their list and then into our trolley it went.
In PE we enjoyed using the small trolleys for trolley races against each other. This was great fun.
We took a trip down to Butlers shop where we each got to buy our own treat. We all sat down together then to enjoy our treats.
We took to the cookery room again and made some delicious scrambled eggs on toast with some of the items we purchased in Aldi. We all took our turn to help crack the eggs into a jug, beat the eggs and put the bread into the toaster. Take a look below to see us in action.
October
Primary 1A had lots of fun exploring the themes of Autumn and Halloween throughout the month of October. We kick started our Autumn theme with an Autumn nature hunt where we went off in the search of nice coloured leaves, conkers and any other signs of Autumn that we could find.
We found some lovely orange, red, brown and even some yellow leaves that had fallen from the trees. We also found some conkers and some helicopters from a sycamore tree. We created a sensory tray from these items and we had lots of fun exploring their different textures.
With all the leaves that we gathered we made some lovely leaf hedgehogs that we proudly displayed in our classroom.
With all the leaves that we gathered we made some lovely leaf hedgehogs that we proudly displayed in our classroom.
Next up for Primary 1A was some fun sensory based leaf painting with some cinnamon, ginger and brown sugar scented paint. This activity was lots of fun and really awakened our sense of smell. We also enjoyed exploring the texture of the paint.
In the following picture we can be seen using our homemade apple pie playdough on our Autumn themed playdough mats. Some of us had to roll some spikes for the hedgehog and others had to make pumpkins and a hat for the scarecrows head from the playdough.
We took to the cookery room again this month and for our Autumn themed cookery session me made some cute slices of teddy bear toast. We took turns to help spread the nutella on the toast and to chop up the bananas.
Just look at our delicious finished products.
Over the fortnight we enjoyed some sessions of sensory based relaxation with different textured Autumn leaves. We enjoyed leaves being stroked on our heads, faces and along our arms while listening to Paolo Nutini's Autumn Leaves song. This was very relaxing and we all found what our sensory preference for the different leaves were. Some of us liked the dried crunchy leaves the most and some of us enjoyed the smooth textured leaves.
Our theme song for the theme of Autumn was the Scarecrow Song. We enjoyed getting up and performing the actions to this song. We also made some lovely paper plate Scarecrows of our own in Art.
We took to the hall with our stash of Autumn leaves that we collected and had some fun creating our own falling leaves with the parachute.
Next up was the theme of Halloween. Our theme song was Go Away Spooky Goblin, Go Away. We enjoyed the props that Miss. Dunford used for this song, there was a stuffed goblin, a big black stuffed spider, a big felt bat and a big plastic skeleton. We enjoyed the feel of the different textures of these items while singing the song.
Our theme story was Five Little Pumpkins which we enjoyed listening to. We made a lovely Art activity after reading this story where we put our own little pumpkins sitting on a fence.
Our theme story was Five Little Pumpkins which we enjoyed listening to. We made a lovely Art activity after reading this story where we put our own little pumpkins sitting on a fence.
We took to the cookery room again over the fortnight of our Halloween theme and created some Halloween owls using rice cakes and we also decorated some buns with icing and spooky Halloween silhouettes.
We put our fine motor skills to the test and enjoyed an activity where we had to put cheerios onto an uncooked spaghetti strand. This was very enjoyable and we also used our maths skills to help count the cheerios as we put them on. Some of also enjoyed nibbling on the cheerios.
The highlight of our year to date was our trip to the Fire Station with our friends in Primary 1B as part of fire safety week which was from the 2nd of October to the 9th of October. We got to try on a real Fireman's hat and Coat and we got to take turns using the hose too. We got to sit into a firetruck and we listened to the sirens going. This was a great outing for all of the students.
A big thank you from us all must go out to Georgie and his colleagues at the fire station who made it such a wonderful experience for all of the children. As a treat after the fire station we enjoyed a well earned trip to McDonalds before returning to school. It was a lovely social outing for Primary 1A and Primary 1B.
Our favourite activity for our Halloween theme had to be our spray paint bats where we got to squirt some silver paint all over some black card to create stunning bat silhouettes. Just look at how much fun we had and how our master pieces turned out.
No Halloween holidays are complete without a party before we finish up. Primary 1A enjoyed some treats to celebrate Halloween on the day of the holidays.
Once again we joined forces with Primary 1 and together both classes went around town on a witch hunt. We had great fun trying to find all the witches in the shop windows. We took a well earned break in the shopping centre and it was a perfect group photo opportunity.
The above is just a sample of the work that has been done in Primary 1A along with our daily sensory based hall activities and morning work stations. Both the students and staff in Primary 1A are looking forward to what the month of November has to bring.
September
A big welcome back to everybody after the summer holidays and a very special welcome to the two new boys in our class. September has been a very busy month setting up our routines and settling into our new classroom.
We love our activities in the hall every morning where we are learning to take turns and recognise each others names with pictures. We take turns at basketball, using a racket to hit two different coloured small balls and we also get a spin on the scooter boards which is our favourite activity. We take turns bouncing and counting to ten on the trampoline too.
We have our very own slot every Friday in the cookery room where we make some nice things and enjoy helping out where we can. We know how important it is to wash our hands upon entering the cookery room before we begin. Below you will see some of us washing our hands and just look at how good we are.
We helped to make some yummy rice krispie buns which some of us also enjoyed eating. We helped to put the bun cases into the tins, break up the chocolate into a bowl and mix the rice krispies into the delicious melted chocolate.
Our jolly phonics letters for the month were the sounds 'S' and 'A'. We love to listen to the songs and practise the letter sounds. We enjoy our do-a-dot letter activity, a letter craft activity and knock, knock, knock what's in the box activity to match each sound that we are learning. Below is a picture of the letter 'A' craft that we made.
Our school is taking part in "Beat The Street" and we have been very active clocking up points. We enjoy weekly walks around the lovely town of Dungarvan and are getting very good at using our fobs ourselves.
Sometimes the walking makes our legs a bit tired and we need to take a little rest. Here is a picture of us taking a rest in the park on one of our walks.
We love going to the sports centre every Friday afternoon to practise our basketball skills and soccer skills. We love the freedom of the big space and love to run around in it. This is also a lovely opportunity for us to mix with Miss. Ryans class and make new friends.
