Monthly Archives: March 2020

Social and Physical Distancing

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Dear Parents/Guardians and Children,

We have been asked to convey to you the importance of social and physical distancing at this time. We all need to minimise physical contact with each other to help avoid the spread of Covid-19.

Keep a space of 2 metres between you and other people.

Reduce physical interactions with people.

Reduce the number of people you meet every day.

Avoid crowded places.

Wash your hands properly and often.

 

For more information please visit:

https://www2.hse.ie/conditions/coronavirus/protect-yourself.html

Please find public health information notices in various languages at this link:

https://www.hse.ie/eng/services/news/newsfeatures/covid19-updates/partner-resources/covid-19-translated-resources/

Ms Dunne – Motor Skills Activities

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Fine Motor Skill Activities:

Practice Number Formation: Drawing 1,2,3,4,5 in sand/flour/sugar/soil from the garden/shaving foam.

Clothes pegs: Allow your child to practice pinching pegs open and closed. Keep it fun by having them make a long line of clothes pegs by pinning one to the other. Or they can use one clothes peg to pinch cotton balls from one bowl to another.

Playdough is great as it encourages a variety of ways to use hands.
Guide your child through simple activities with the play dough, then let their imagination take over. You can:
• give a plastic knife to “cut” the play dough into smaller pieces.
• help turn one play dough into smaller balls.
• show how to roll the play dough into “snakes”/
• mix different-colored play dough together to form new colors.
• flatten the playdough into pancake shapes.
• squeeze, stretch and pinch the play dough.

Scissors: Using a child friendly scissors is a fantastic way to develop fine motor skills. Use smaller pieces of card stock or construction paper to make for easier holding and cutting. Children can also use the pieces they have cut to create a collage.

Painting allows your child to use paintbrushes to develop fine motor skills. Experiment with different-sized paintbrushes, as well as a variety of things to paint on. One day children might paint on a large cardboard box, and another on finger paint paper.

Lego Toys: To start, give your child larger Lego blocks to practice building and getting used to locking and unlocking the pieces together.
Then, as they get better playing with those, offer the standard Lego pieces, small enough to truly hone in on their fine motor skills.

Buttoning: Buttoning and unbuttoning clothes or teddy/doll’s clothes.

Make a necklace: Using either cheerios or pasta, create a necklace by placing them onto a string.

Gardening/Planting: There are parts of gardening that require smaller muscle control. For instance, transferring seedlings into a garden requires hand-eye coordination skills to safely carry the smaller plant to the new hole. Your child will also need to be able to grasp a trowel to dig and to use a pincer grasp when picking up seeds to plant.

 

Gross Motor Skills Activities:

Dancing, either freestyle or through songs with movements, such as “Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes,” “I’m a Little Teapot,” “The Wheels on the Bus,” or “Popcorn,” provides lots of movement.
• Standing on one foot for 5 seconds
• Standing on tiptoes for 3 seconds without moving feet
• Hops on one foot 5 times
• Walks backwards on a line
• Target Practice: Toss a ball into a hula hoop
• Catching and Throwing a ball.

Move like an animal
You’ll need some open space, but this is a great way to get kids using new muscles. Here are some ideas:
• Move like a bird (run with arms outstretched)
• Move like a snake (wiggle on tummies on the floor)
• Move like a bear (walk on all fours)
• Move like a frog (get down on haunches and hop)
• Move like a kangaroo (take big leaps with arms in front of chest)
• Move like an elephant (with heavy stomping)
• Move like a penguin (waddle with ankles close together and arms pinned to sides)

Senior Infants

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Dear Parents / Guardians,

I hope you and your families are all keeping well and safe during this time.

I have been putting together a variety of activities that your child may have-a-go at if it suits you and your circumstances.

Here is a link to Suggestions for Senior Infants. There are a variety of activities to choose from. I hope you have fun sharing these interactive learning experiences together.

Best of all, enjoy playing and have lots of fun! I am looking forward to hearing all the stories about what you are getting up to. Stay safe.

Miss Reynolds

 

Ms Leonard’s Work

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Dear Parents / Guardians,

I hope you and your families are all keeping well in these strange times. The following are activities that your child may have-a-go at if it suits you and your circumstances. Any work suggested is practice and revision of skills and knowledge already introduced and covered in school. At this moment, I will not be posting new work. Please do not feel obliged to complete this work. These activities will simply provide opportunities for your child to develop their skills and to become more proficient and confident in doing them. Your child will not miss out on new areas of work or be behind his/her classmates if they do not take part in these activities. I’m very confident that your child has been practicing and developing a great variety of useful skills through everyday activities since we have been off school. Please do not put yourselves under unnecessary pressure. These are exceptional times we are experiencing.  I have included a few links to some websites that may be useful to support their learning. Please note: As always, for internet based activities please ensure your children are supervised while accessing the internet.

Click HERE to download your child’s work as a pdf.

Week 1 School at home Ms Leonard

Best wishes to you all,

Sinéad Leonard.

2nd Class. Week 1 work.

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Reading: Create a reading hut using blankets, towels, jumpers, chairs, teddies, whatever makes it cosy. Reading can be done for 20 minutes in here then every day.

Spellings: “Ow” words. Get your child to write a list of as many ow words as they can. Challenge them to see if they can get the same words as the list Ms. Walshe has created. Here are the following words, 3 a day. They can put them into a sentence and also look up their meanings on an online dictionary. You can google one on your phone.

1.cow 2. clown 3. crowd 4. powder 5. brown 6. town 7. flowerpot 8. now 9. how 10. howl 11. owl 12. down 13. crown 14. shadow 15. tomorrow

Maths: Tables champion (1 column a day) written and orally.

2D shapes – Draw their bedroom showing all the 2D shapes that are in it.

Practicing counting in 2s and 4s. It is equally important to count backwards as it is to count forwards. You will be surprised how much practice is needed counting backwards. Even I find it challenging sometimes!!

Art/Drama: Create a mask using cardboard from a box or a cereal box. Then make a mini sketch (which is a small play) and act it out to your family. Pick a cool costume from your clothes. Make sure it is funny.

Project: Write a report on the following farm animals: a cow, a hen and a sheep. Include the following: Give the animal a name, describe how it looks, where it lives, what it eats and any other fun facts you can research about these animals. Don’t forget to try draw it. Remember to write full sentences using adjectives (describing words like big/ small/ blue).

PE: 10 star jumps every day, and create an obstacle course for your family and see if they can beat your time record. If you are inside it could include star jumps, rolling, throwing teddies into a bag from a distance. If you are outside it could be tumbles, running, skipping. Be imaginative. The more different the better.

Letter to 2nd class children

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Hey incredible,
I know we both love when Friyay comes but I wish more than anything I was back in class with you and the rest of my incredible 2nd Class. I know I tell you all a million times that you are my FAVOURITE class so I thought I could still be your teacher even though we are not in school for the next little while.
Here is my incredible plan (promise not to tell anyone except your parents because this is especially only for amazing 2nd class kids in St. Gabriel’s National School). Every Friday I will upload some work onto our school website. You and your mum or dad can make a really fun plan of what you are going to do each day. I know you all love PE, Art and Drama so I promise to include LOADS of the fun stuff. Remember our deal in class that “We work hard, we play hard” that can be a deal with your mum or dad for the next little while no problem.
If you are wondering what I am getting up to I am doing lots of reading because I have made a really cool reading hut out of chairs, blankets and teddies. I miss our one so I made one. I am doing lots of exercise. I love Go Noodle at the minute. I have drawn lots of pictures and I am experimenting with cooking. Some things I have cooked tasted incredible, then some, let’s just say the birds enjoyed.
How about you give our plan a go. I cannot wait to see you again!!
Stay cool,
Ms. Walshe the incredible.

Letter to parents

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Dear Parents/ Guardians,
Firstly, I hope you are all well and keeping safe. I love school holidays and time off but believe me I wish I was back in school teaching your fantastic kids. There is only so much house work I am willing to tackle!! I miss my audience of little people.
In order to help you and my 2nd class I am going to upload some work that you CAN do while schools are closed but you DON’T HAVE TO do it. I do however suggest you try keep some routine going with your kids as regards school work because they are so bright and capable and really enjoy learning. It also helps maintain some sort of stability during this challenging time.
I hope to keep the work fun and engaging. Each Friday I will upload the following:
• 15 new words; 3 words, Monday to Friday. We can keep it the same of putting them into sentences but instead of writing them out perhaps they could try look the meaning up in a dictionary and writing it down.
• Tables Champion: 1 page a day (Don’t worry if your child finishes the book… that’s a positive not a problem)
-Remember to change things up a little ask your kids the sums orally and get them to beat their previous day’s score. Similar sums can be written down if you feel your child could benefit from more. Or even better still, get them to write you some sums or their brothers or sisters and get them to correct them after.
• Maths: Thematic approaches for example 2D shapes. They will be topics the children have already covered. This is an excellent chance to revise certain topics and it will really help them for next year going into 3rd class.
• PE: I will suggest some activities.
• Art/Drama: I will try and combine both of these together to make it really fun.
• As you know your children do history, geography and science. Instead of focusing on them as individual subjects over the next few weeks instead I will be suggesting mini projects they can do. The project can last a few weeks and be built on each day.
• MOST IMPORTANT: Play play play. This is fundamental. I myself have board games on the go and lots of colouring.
I hope this is of some benefit to you. I have attached a letter you can read to your kids and make them feel like it is specifically written to them from Ms. Walshe. This can help get them on board with doing some school work.
Stay safe,
Ms Walshe