Our last outing this year as a class group with our teacher was on our SCHOOL TOUR!
On the morning of the 6th June 2018 we embarked on our school tour to the amazing and educational W5 in Belfast. It was a very exciting day and one I don't think any of us will ever forget. Teacher has included a slideshow below to give to all a glimpse of the fun we had discovering, playing, learning, exploring, and examining various scientific concepts. We also had the opportuntiy to participate in a music workshop which really was great fun. Keep scrolling for the photos.
We hope you enjoy them it was a great tour and a great way for us all to end our school year and look back on all we have learned and all we memories we have made......
Have a great Summer,
We hope you enjoyed watching our page, 
Miss Marron and her Junior and Senior Infants 2018. 

We received our green flag for Biodiversity and even the Ice-Cream man came to visit Scoil Mhuire to help us celebrate. ​

In May we learned about the King and his very Magical Musical box.

Through the story of the magical musical box we learned that there once was a king who loved music, but one day he got a sore head from all the loud sounds the instruments were playing and so he decided to use a box to teach people about dynamics as a musical concept. 
We learned about and explored dynamics which means louds and softs in music by watching the box......if the lid opened wide we played our instruments loudly and if it only opened a little bit we had to play softly. Some of us also took turns to be king and queen. We had so much fun. 
​
​We really enjoyed Tennis this year.
We learned new skills and really enjoyed the fun with teacher and our tennis coach. Here is a look at us in action...................

​April in Infants
We had another very exciting trip to the Garage Theatre!
We were so excited to be going on the bus again back to the Garage Theatre but this time we were not on stage. We were going to enjoy the fabulous musical production of 'The Wonderful Tune'. The performance weaved together traditional music, puppetry and animation which brought us into a musical world of singing mermaids, dancing sea creatures and a tune that we loved singing along to. Here is a little look at what we got up to that day...........

Aistear in April: The Post Office 
We had so much fun this month exploring and learning about the post office. We learned new vocabulary, got a chance to work in our class post office, posting letters, collecting saving stamps, designing our own stamps, addressing envelopes and scanning parcels........we even had a visit from the Postman himself!

​March in Junior and Senior Infants

​Write a Book Project 2018 
Miss Marron decided to give us the opportunity to participate in the write a book project 2018 which gave us all the chance to be the authors and illustrators of our very own books. 
Firstly we came up with ideas for a title, we did ask our families to help us with this and when we had the ideas and the title we could get to work. At the beginning of the process we were not really sure what to expect as we had to draft and redraft but we soon understood that it was ok to make mistakes and that was what our first draft was for. One of the many important elements to our stories was that they had chronological order, therefore our stories had to have a beginning, middle and an end as well as a gripping story line. We succeeded and we are so proud of ourselves at such a young age having written our own books. Miss Marron says that she hopes we will remember the experience in years to come. 

​Our big performance in the Garage Theatre to celebrate Seachtain na Gaeilge 2018.

On the 14th of March we set off on a journey to the Garage Theatre after so much preparation and practice to preform our play 'Na Trí Mhuca Bheaga' on the big stage in the Garage Theatre to celebrate seachtain na gaeilge. 
Some of us were a little nervous preforming in front of almost 300 people but we did it and we were so proud of ourselves. 
Teacher was in the front row to encourage and help us if we got stuck with our lines but we were fine when on the stage and teacher was so so proud. We had a party in our class to celebrate our success. Ms. Marron got a plaque for our school as a memory of our performance. Memories of the day we will have for years to come. 

​Great excitement planting our watercress seeds.

As part of our Biodiversity plans and learning about living things this month, we planted watercress seeds and watched as they grew. Before we could plant seeds we had to learn the steps required. First we wet some cotton wool and placed it into our individual pots, then we sprinkled some seeds onto the cotton wool and placed our watering tray in a window as teacher had taught us that seeds need sunlight and water to grow. We checked them everyday to see if they required water. We are excited to take them home and eat our watercress with our salads and meats with our families.

Meet Freddie Frog who came to visit us!

It is not every day that we have a frog arriving in the school grounds to visit so we took the opportunity to get to know Freddie a little better. We were so excited and after we saw him teacher taught us a little about the life cycle of a frog. 
​
Nature Walk Ready!
As part of our preparation and learning about Biodiversity, we went on a nature walk around the church grounds. 
We arrived in school that morning and it was wellies on and time for our adventure. We learned  a lot about living things. We could hear the swallows and see their nests in the tall trees above our heads. We played a game by pretending to build our own nests with twigs and leaves. It was a really cold day but it did not rain so we enjoyed the experience. Teacher told us that we were so good and listened so attentively that she will take us on another nature walk soon. 

YES! Watch this Space RTE.........Junior and Senior Infants in training and reporting from Scoil Mhuire Magherarney.
We really enjoyed sharing our news with the class using the real RTE microphone we see on television. Future news reporters in the making for sure. 

History: Houses and homes long ago
We were very lucky this month to have our very own historian in class to share, show and tell us some very valuable pieces of information about items in the past. 
In February, our topic of learning and discovery was houses and homes and during our history lessons we had been learning about homes long ago and homes today. We also looked at pictures to explore the interior of homes long ago to give us a greater insight. 
Our historian was so interested in the topic that the decided to take in some items from the past that he had at home, we learned lots of new information and enjoyed being able to handle the items from the past and examine them in detail. 
Here is a closer look at the fun we had!

February in Junior and Senior Infants

A Music Lesson with a DIFFERENCE......
We were all so excited for our music lesson last week as Miss Marron took her guitar to school to teach us not only guitar skills but we also explored the guitar as a musical instrument and pitch as a musical concept. A student from Senior Infants also took his guitar to school which was really enjoyable. 
Teacher taught us so much about the guitar as a musical instrument. She showed us a pick and how to strum correctly on her guitar. We loved every minute.
Miss Marron played different chords for us and as a result we learned that pitch is a concept which means high and low sounds. We all listened really carefully as she played and we were able to identify if sounds were high or low. 

​

History Workshop 2018

On Tuesday last we had the most educational and funfilled morning in the hall with Mike as he told us stories about the Irish legend Cú Chulainn and Setanta as well as Queen Méabh and many other characters that played a huge role in history and Irish Methodology. We all listened attentively as he told the stories so energetically. 
At the end of our time at the workshop we got the opportunity to explore some historical artefacts and enjoyed trying on some Viking costumes and even some guns used long ago. 
I think our faces say it all.............


Pancake Tuesday only meant one thing......
It was time for us to test our prepared pancakes at our party in class. We even added sugar and some yummy Canadian maple syrup. The results were really good and it was thumbs up from everyone........

Happy Pancake Tuesday from Miss Marron and her Junior and Senior Infants
​
​

Preparation for Pancake Tuesday
We were very busy in the lead up to Pancake Tuesday ensuring we had all ingredients required for a Pancake Party in our classroom. On Monday we all worked together to prepare our Pancakes. We used sugar, eggs, flour and milk. We all took turns to help teacher. She told us she would take our mix home and cook our pancakes at home on Monday evening and bring them to school on Tuesday Morning.........We were so excited to see our pancakes. When we had finished our preparation, Junior Infants completed a piece of procedural writing on how to make Pancakes while Senior Infants completed a piece of Recount Writing based on the experience. 
​

​Junior Infant Maths: 
This month, Junior Infants have been focusing on the number three. We have learned to match a set to the number and the correct numeral to a given set. We also learned number formation for the number 3. We now also know the number story of three and that there are different numbers we can use to make 3. We love maths in Junior Infants.......We learn even more through active and collaboratively engaging in our maths tasks.
​
​

A very busy January which ended with some relaxation and beautiful singing.

We all worked so hard during the month of January and we have to admit we were quite tired so Miss Marron decided to give us some time out of our busy infant routine to just chill out and take some quality time to listen to some of our favourite songs while colouring. 
Taking time to relax is just as important as working to the very best of our ability. 
We hope you enjoy this video that teacher managed to capture of us when we were relaxing........
She told us what was meant by the title of the song and that we should always be ourselves.....if we are, we will shine and make a difference to others. 

January in the Junior and Senior Infants
We arrived back to school on January 8th and we knew that a new year and new month meant a new theme and an opportunity for new learning. It took us about a week to settle back into our school routine after the Christmas holidays because there was so  much excitement with Santa's arrival and the enjoyment we had and precious memories we shared with family over the holiday season but........ 
We were delighted to be back at school to tell Miss Marron and all our friends our news stories from the holidays. 
Our new theme for the month of January was clothes. Miss Marron linked this theme across a number of curricular areas so that we were continuously building upon our knowledge on this new topic. 
We learned about various weather conditions in geography and the various clothes we wear to keep us warm and dry. We even explored materials that were waterproof. During English time, we read a story about  Sir Charlie Stinky socks and learned some rhymes and poems about clothes. In maths we focused on the various shapes and patterns we sometimes see on fabric. 
For Aistear this month, we had so much fun in the clothes shop. Some of us completed an activity by packing a suitcase correctly for a holiday to Lapland where it is really cold and a holiday to Portugal where it is really warm. We also designed and decorated our very own clothes book where we identified clothes we wore when we were younger, clothes we like to wear now and our favourite costume for fancy dress.  When we were constructing the clothes shop, some of us were building Dunnes Stores which even had a multi- story car park particularly if our clothes shop was in a shopping centre. We were very proud of ourselves as we were able to use new vocabulary like entrance and exit when telling teacher about our construction. Have a look at our slideshow below where you will see how much fun we had. Miss Marron seemed to enjoy it too as we all know how much she loves fashion........... 

December in Junior and Senior Infants
Our trip to the Christmas Panto. 
We were all so excited as this was our first school trip away together as a whole class!

On Tuesday the 19th of December we embarked on our first adventure this year as a whole class group to the Garage Theatre Monaghan to share in the wonderful experience of Little Miss Muffet's Christmas Capers.
We were all so excited for our first trip away together. The panto was fantastic and told the story of Little Miss Muffet in nursery land who had a magic tuffet but Ditzi Devilola the Dim Witch wanted it! It was stolen but things worked out alright in the end because even though Miss Muffet was very distressed, she got help from a very handsome prince and also from Jack and Jill. 
We left school and headed off on the bus quite early to be in time for the Panto, we sang Christmas songs all the way to the theatre and even on our return journey to school. On our way back to school teacher sang her favourite song for us. Teacher captured a lot of really nice pictures of our first trip, she commented telling us we were all so good and caring towards each other which was lovely to see as having good friends is important in life. ​


Great excitement as Zippy the Elf arrives by post to the Infant Classroom. 

December was a very busy but exciting month in our classroom. The month began with a very important delivery which came in the post and was just for our class. Ms. Payne arrived into our class one morning with a big red box which had very special stamps and information on it. On the box it read............ special and express delivery all the way from the North Pole. It was only then that we got so excited as we knew the parcel that came to our school here in Magherarney was from Santa Claus. You will see from our faces in the slideshow below that we really could not contain our excitement. 
Some of the children in our class opened the box very carefully and to our amazement we found that Santa had sent us a very special elf whose name was Zippy. He also sent us a letter to tell us all about our elf and that he wasn't the kind of elf to stay in the workshop making toys but instead he wanted to join to good girls and boys in our class. Teacher read the letter as it was a little tricky for us to read. Santa used a lot of big words in his letter. We think he did this to show us that he knew we were very clever children and could work out their meaning. We had a lot of fun with Zippy in the lead up to our Christmas holidays. Every day before we went home we wished him a safe journey back to the North Pole and told him that we would see him in the morning. 
Zippy wasn't a very tidy elf and got up to all sorts of mischief, some of which Miss Marron was not at all happy about because we all know that she loves a very tidy classroom. If you look closely at our slideshow you will see that Zippy broke all of teachers chalk and stood on it and made a mess on the floor. We left the dustpan and brush beside him and eventually he did clean it up. 
Another morning we arrived into school to find Zippy taped to the clock, he had written on the tape but we think he was trying to trick us by asking us for our help to escape! Santa had requested that we do not touch Zippy as we did not want to ruin the North Pole magic so we had to say sorry to Zippy but told him we couldn't help him!
On the day of our school holidays, Santa had written us another letter telling us how proud he was of us and all the hard work we were doing in Junior and Senior Infants. He said he had a very special treat for us..............we all waited eagerly as teacher read the letter to find out what this treat would be. We were so overjoyed as Santa exclaimed that he would remove the North Pole magic for a few minutes so that we could get to hold and say our goodbyes to our wonderful, mischievous and magical elf who brought so much joy, excitement and learning into our classroom during the month of December. We learned so much from him. We were sad that he had to leave but knew that he had to return to the North Pole to help Santa pack up his sleigh in time for his visit to Monaghan on Christmas Eve. 

November in Junior and Senior Infants

Science Week 2017
For Science Week this year we explored and learned about the differences between day and night. We watched a short video and looked at the globe, identifying various parts of the world. Teacher told us when it is day in some parts of the world, it is night in others. She told us that we all live on planet earth and that it spins on something called an axis. We did an experiment to explore the concept of day and night. We used a torch and shone it on part of our classroom globe. This led us to the understanding that it was day in this part of the world and it was night on the part of the globe where there was no light. It was very interesting!
We also discussed things we would see during the day such as blue sky and sun and in complete contrast things we see at night which would include the moon and stars. 
When we developed greater understanding we then participated in a really fun art activity by colouring the sun and using tin foil to cut and paste to create the moon and some stars. 
We also explored sound as part of Science week and explored the different ways we can make sound by making and designing our own musical instruments using recyclable materials. 

​


History: Exploring and learning about objects past and present
As part of History in the month of November we examined and explored some objects from the past that were used many many years ago before we were even born. We discussed and identified the differences in these objects both in the past and now.
Here is a closer look at some of us exploring and examining the objects that teacher got in an antique shop especially for our history lessons. 
We really enjoyed these lessons and we also loved asking questions and learning about how things were long ago. 
​

---

November: A time to remember..............
As part of our religion lessons this month, we learned that November is a very important month as it is the time of year that we remember those who have gone to heaven. We all had someone in heaven we wanted to remember so we decided to decorate individual flowers for them and place their flowers onto our classroom remembrance tree which teacher brought in from home. She also added some lights and we lit our tree every day in November as we prayed and remembered our loved ones knowing that God is taking good care of them. ​

We started our GAA Coaching in November
Here is a closer look at some of the learning we have been doing during our GAA lessons. We learned under and over-arm throw, catching skills and a variety of kicking skills. We had so much fun! Some of the skills were a little tricky but as Miss Marron tells us there is no such thing as can't. We developed that outlook and as you can see here we all tried our very best.

Aistear in November:
Our Aistear theme for the month of November was food, we spent the first two weeks of the month learning through play in the restaurant and the final two weeks learning through play in the Supermarket. 
During this month we used our play rota and worked at different stations on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. We acted in role through drama in the restaurant and the supermarket, we made chef's hats, made food from play dough, created shopping lists, completed cutting and pasting food activities using catalogues, we made pasta frames for our family photos and as a result learned lots of new vocabulary and can now recognise and name foods we did not know about such as aubergine, courgette, baguette, asparagus, passion fruit and so many more fruits and vegetables. We were also very imaginative and worked as part of a team to build both a restaurant and a supermarket at our stations. We linked some of our English stories which were also based on the topic of food to our Aistear theme this month. We completed story sequence strips for Goldilocks and the Three Bears and responded and expressed greater understanding of Handa's Surprise by drawing pictures during Aistear time. 
Here is a little look at what we got up to......We enjoyed learning about food.
​

October in Seomra na Naíonáin 
October was a very busy month in our class. We started the new month by learning 'The Butterfly Song' which we preformed with actions at our school mass. Our teacher Miss Marron was very proud of us because we had a lot of actions and words to learn and a lot of animals to learn about in order to sing our song confidently. We were a little nervous standing up in front of everyone but we knew that we would be alright because we were not alone we had our teacher and each other for support.  We decided not to tell our parents about our song. We wanted it to be a surprise for them when they attended mass. Some of the Senior Infants also completed some prayers of thanksgiving and we all thought that they did a fantastic job. We were very proud of ourselves after our school mass because we knew that we had listened to our teacher and followed her instruction and everything was just perfect on the day. 


​ 

Maths Week
Our plans for Maths Week 2017 were interrupted by storm Ophelia. We were a little disappointed but we still found time to learn some new mathematical concepts. 
In Junior Infants we learned that a set is a group of objects. We learned to match sets that are the same. We discussed sets that were different by focusing on the mathematical language of more or less, fewer, not as many, not enough. We also did lots of counting from 1-5
Senior Infants focused on combining numbers within 5 using concrete materials. They had so much fun combining sets using cubes of different colours to show their understanding of this concept. We found it difficult to begin. Using different colours was a bit confusing but as Miss Marron told us "practice makes perfect". Eventually after a lot of patience and a positive attitude to our work we got it!
​
Here are some pictures to show you how hard we were working during Maths Week 2017:

Halloween Art 
We were also very busy this month creating lots of lovely Autumn and Halloween pieces. We made pumpkins simply by using orange paint and gluing a picture of ourselves onto the middle. Miss Marron laminated them for us. Now our parents will be able to keep our art forever as a memory of our time in Junior and Senior Infants at Halloween. 
Here is a slideshow of some of our pumpkins we made for our parents: 
If you look closely you will see that each one says
"Happy Halloween from your Little Pumpkin."
We hope you like them!

We had a SPOOKTACULAR day on Friday last as we celebrated Halloween and participated in Trick or Treat for Temple Street Children's Hospital.
We had a Halloween Fancy Dress day in school on the 27th of October. You will see from the photos below that everyone worked really hard making their costumes.
We loved posing for the camera.......we had a Halloween boogie with all the other classes in the hall and after lunch we had a Halloween party with our teacher in our class. 

I think our smiles say it all.........Look at the friendships made, the bonds and the TEAM ethic that is clearly visible and we are just nine weeks into our new school year. 
​

Finally all that is left to do for October is wish everyone a Happy Halloween from Miss Marron who is now also known as Sister Holly Luya and her amazing little pumpkins..........

​

September was a very busy month in Junior and Senior Infants

We had a very busy but exciting month of September in the infant classroom. We welcomed our new junior infants as well as our new teacher Miss Marron.
It took us a few weeks to settle back into school after our Summer holidays but it wasn't long until we felt settled and ready to work to the best of our ability.  We have been working really hard and doing our very best to ensure we start the new school year off with the right attitude as we continue to strive to reach our full potential. 
Miss Marron has already taught us a new class motto for the year ahead. It goes something like this........
"The sky is the limit in Junior and Senior Infants, there is no such word as can't in our classroom because if we try, it really is possible to achieve anything."
​
​

---

Here is a closer look at some of the things we have been learning about: 
​

In maths we have been learning to match equivalent and non-equivalent objects focusing on the mathematical language of things that are the same, things that are different and also matching things that go together. In the photos above you will see some of us exploring and matching colours as part of our art lesson. We had so much fun. 

We were having so much fun matching things that are the same but we were also very proud of ourselves because we were learning to help each other and to wait to take our turn. 

Here are some of us matching things that go together!

We also started Aistear! Keep Scrolling to see our slideshow............

Aistear is an early childhood curriculum framework that promotes well-being, identity, belonging, communication and exploring and thinking. Aistear itself is a Gaeilge term which translated means journey and I am sure you will agree it is very appropriate as junior and senior infants is a very important time for your child to lay the basic foundations they will need as they go forward on their educational journey's . 
Aistear in our classroom is a form of structured play where the children are fundamentally learning through play. During the month of September the children were working from the theme of myself across various curricular subject areas and this in turn was also linked to Aistear as the children's learning was based on the theme of myself while they were working, exploring, thinking and communicating in the Doctors Surgery,  in the Reception area, constructing/building the surgery as well as various other activities. The children's imaginations and things they come up with make all the difference during Aistear. It is their time to explore their imaginations and abilities through play. The teachers role is to guide them as they play to ensure they are learning what is set out for them at a specific station and to assess them accordingly. Miss Marron likes to make sure that at the end of Aistear each day we spend time questioning, discussing and self-assessing what we have learned or perhaps something we could do better next time. 
We are looking forward to linking our Aistear themes to the new language curriculum this year. 
We hope you enjoy our slideshow which will show you some of the stations we have been working at based on our theme. 
If you look closely you may even see Miss Marron as a patient in the Doctors Surgery!
Enjoy!
​

​