February and March have been busy and exciting months in Junior Infants, full of fun, excitement and learning!

During Kindness Week, we talked about the importance of being kind to one another and explored simple ways we can show kindness every day. The children made a special effort to put this into practice in the classroom, which was lovely to see.

For Valentine’s Day, we created beautiful cards and clay hearts for the people we love. We also learned about the story of St. Valentine and why we celebrate this special day.

We continued working on our Stay Safe programme, helping the children to learn important skills and identify their feelings.

We celebrated Pancake Tuesday with a wonderful pancake party. The children had great fun making their own pancakes and, of course, enjoying eating them too!

A highlight of the term was our trip to Collins Barracks Museum, where we took part in a fascinating workshop called “Safari in Silver.” The children really enjoyed exploring and learning in a new environment.

We were also delighted to welcome Joan from the Heritage Council, who has been working with us in our school garden. The children love getting involved in outdoor learning and discovering more about nature.

Another exciting outing was our visit to Cabra Library, where we took part in a creative workshop focused on using our imagination with everyday objects. The children showed fantastic creativity and enthusiasm.

World Book Day was a huge success! The children dressed up as their favourite characters and enjoyed a range of activities including story sack reading, DEAR (Drop Everything and Read) time, creating portraits of themselves reading, writing book reviews, a special story time in the senior library hosted by Ms. Condren and Ms. Fahey, a fun book quiz, and even a book-themed dance class!

We also had a fantastic time celebrating Seachtain na Gaeilge. The children made a great effort to use their “cúpla focal” each day. We read stories in Irish, enjoyed a lively brush dancing session in the library with help from some of the older students, and listened to traditional Irish music. We learned the song “Péigín Leitir Mór” and proudly performed it as part of a whole-school assembly. For Lá Glas, we dressed in green and had a wonderful céilí in the hall.

The children also took part in our whole-school referendum and really enjoyed using laptops to answer the questions—it was a very exciting experience!

As a reward for filling our Best Line Award chart, we transformed our classroom into a cinema and watched Toy Story, complete with popcorn and juice—such a treat!

Finally, the children showed great support for our school bake sale, which raised funds for Children’s Health Ireland.

Well done to all the boys and girls for their enthusiasm, kindness, and hard work over the past two months. We are very proud of them!

December was a very busy month in Junior Infants. We were very excited to welcome a class elf who visited us each day and left a letter behind. Some days he set us challenges, other days he left surprises, and he even asked us to write letters to Santa. We posted these at the local post office, which was a highlight for many of the children.

The class worked extremely hard preparing for the Christmas show and performed brilliantly on stage. 

As a reward for filling all three marble jars, the children enjoyed a well-earned trip to the playground.

We began our class DINA programme and met the principal of Dinosaur School, a puppet called Dina, who helped us learn about school rules. 

In Maths, we explored length, capacity, and the numbers 6 and 7, which led to plenty of predictable but very popular 6–7 jokes. We finished the month with our winter maths assessment.

In Literacy, we focused on the sounds l, f, and b, while revising all previously learned sounds. We continued to develop our blending and sounding-out skills. 

We were very lucky to get a visit from Santa himself.  He answered lots of our questions about his trip on Christmas eve. Santa brought an early Christmas present with him for each child in the class. 
 

The children also enjoyed lots of winter-themed art, including making snowflakes, creating Christmas character portraits, and designing a class advent calendar for our elf to use.

We also spent time learning about the story of the Nativity and how Advent is celebrated. 

After winning “best line” 20 times, the class celebrated with a movie afternoon complete with popcorn and juice. 

We finished the term on a high with a festive disco on the last day before the Christmas break.

November was a busy and exciting month in Junior Infants. We were especially lucky to have Ms. Ormond in our classroom, who helped us with lots of our work.

Our theme for November was “The Home.” The children enjoyed exploring our home corner in the classroom, where they played with baby dolls, prams and cots. We created crafts based on the people in our families and used blocks to design and build our own houses. The dolls’ house was very popular with the boys and girls during play time. We read a variety of stories about different homes and had some interesting class discussions about out own homes.

In Gaeilge, we learned plenty of new words linked to éadaí and caitheamh aimsire, and we are trying to use these words each day in school.

In Maths, we focused on counting and ordering numbers 1–5, using our “special powers” to recognise amounts without counting (subitising), and making and using number tracks.

We introduced the sounds m, d, g, o, u, and l through songs, actions, and stories. This month, we also began writing in our copies by spelling short words that were read aloud. Alongside this, the children have been practising blending and sounding out words using their body boxes.

As part of our Religion programme, we spoke about the theme “In November, We Remember.”  We used this month to discuss our loved ones who have passed away.

In PE, we focused on the athletics strand. The boys and girls practised a variety of skills including running, walking, relay races, hurdles, skipping, jumping, and throwing.

We have also begun preparations for our Christmas performance, and the children are very excited to share their singing with their families.

October was a very busy and exciting month in Junior Infants! The children have settled so well into school life and continue to impress us with their enthusiasm for learning and trying new things.

Maths:
In Maths, we explored the numbers 3, 4 and 5 and enjoyed making and continuing patterns using colours, shapes, and objects. 

We continued with our Ready, Set, Go Maths programme in small groups with support from the SET team. The children worked hard on important early maths skills such as sorting, counting, number recognition, understanding relationships and operations. Before the Halloween break, we completed our first written maths assessment. This was a big milestone for our class!

Literacy:
We made fantastic progress in Phonics this month, completing Group 1 (s, a, t, i, p, n) and starting Group 2 (c, k, e, h, r). The children practiced using their body boxes to sound out and segment simple three-letter words, and enjoyed writing them down. We played lots of fun games, sang songs and read plenty of lovely storybooks to help reinforce our new sounds.

Gaeilge:
In Irish, we learned new vocabulary around An Bosca Lóin (the lunch box) and Oíche Shamhna (Halloween). The children enjoyed learning through games, songs and stories as Gaeilge. We also practiced our colours (buí, dearg, glas, dubh) and learned how to introduce ourselves by saying hello, asking names and telling our own names.

SESE (Science, History, Geography)
We learned all about the seasons, focusing especially on Autumn. We went on a lovely walk in the school garden to look for signs of autumn and talked about the weather and how it changes at this time of year.

Art
In Art, we worked on drawing and colouring, and enjoyed some Halloween-themed art.

PE
This month in PE, we focused on the Games strand. The children practiced ball skills, balancing and throwing beanbags, and played a variety of simple group games that encouraged teamwork and coordination.

Special Highlights
Our Students of the Week did a wonderful job giving their presentations about their weekends with Deadeye. Everyone loved hearing their stories!
We also had a fantastic Halloween Catwalk to show off our amazing costumes and finished the month with a fun Halloween Disco.
During Fire Safety Week, we learned all about keeping safe around fire. We had a fire drill, watched educational videos and even played with fire safety toys like fire trucks.

It was a month full of learning and lots of fun. Well done to all of the Junior Infants for their great work and enthusiasm!