Junior Infants

Junior Infants love learning all about people who work in the local community.   So we were delighted to welcome Kate-Anne to our classroom in January to tell us all about her work as a hairdresser.

She answered lots of questions we had about her work and showed us some of the equipment she uses on a daily basis.  This included rollers, hair straighteners, hair dryers, and a wide selection of combs and brushes.  She showed us sample books of all the different colours of hair dye!   She even brought in a practice head, which is used by trainee hairdressers.  It was great fun trying this out.

After Kate-Anne’s visit, we had some great ideas for our own hair salon!  Thanks a million Kate-Anne for taking the time to visit and chat with us about your work!

Kate-Anne with the Junior Infants.

Just some of the equipment a hairdresser uses!

We loved all these bright colours!

We had fun trying to put rollers on the doll’s head!

We put some of Kate-Anne’s words of wisdom into practice in our own salon!

Hair extensions were popular!

Hard at work!

Can you tell who this customer is?

All hands on deck!

Having fun with our Brideog dolls!

Junior infants made Brideog dolls for St Brigid’s Day.  Long ago, on the eve of St Brigid’s Day, “Biddie Boys” would travel from house to house with a doll dressed in white called the Brideog, to represent St Brigid.  Householders would welcome the Biddie Boys with bread and butter.  They liked to see the Brideog dolls coming, as it was supposed to bring St Brigid’s blessing to the house.

The Biddie boys would say something like this as they went from house to house:

Something for poor Biddy! Her clothes are torn.

Her Shoes are worn.

Something for poor Biddy!

After reading the book Mouse’s Christmas by Alan Baker, Junior Infants drew some fantastic pictures based on their favourite parts of the story using chalk pastels and black paper!  We used the pastels like pencils and also smudged and shaded with them to get some great effects!  See for yourself……

Happy Christmas!

Happy Christmas from all the junior infants!

We have  been very busy preparing for Christmas in our classroom.

During role play, we acted out the Nativity and made up our own Christmas stories, lots of which included Santa!

The Nativity

Christmas just isn’t Christmas without Santa and a Christmas tree!

At the creative table, we made snowmen, Christmas wreaths and paper chains.

We also made Christmas tree ornaments from clay and painted them beautifully!

Painting our snowmen!

We had to give them two coats of paint!

We were very happy with the results!

We made a winter wonderland full of snowmen on the windowsill!

Making paper chains!

We used glue to stick the hoops together for the chains!

Making a Christmas wreath!

Some of our clay ornaments!

We mixed paint to create nice colours for our ornaments!

They will look great on the Christmas tree!

We really enjoyed the Christmas disco as we love to dance!

Disco dancing!

The disco was great fun!

Nollaig Shona agus  Athbhliain faoi mhaise daoibh go léir!

Junior Infants worked very hard at creating a restaurant in the classroom lately.

In the role play area, we set up the kitchen and the tables and took turns working and eating  in the restaurant.  We had expert advice from professional chef Yann Delalande, who was kind enough to come in and explain his work to us.  He showed us his tool box of kitchen tools, which included whisks, spatulas, Parisian spoons and some very sharp knives.  He explained how he sharpens the knives using a stone or a steel rod.  Yann told us about the long day worked by a chef, starting to prepare food in the morning and finishing up late at night.  Finally, he also brought us in a duplicate book, which is the notebook used by a waiter. He showed us how to fill in the order page and then give the white original sheet to the chef and retain the yellow for helping to add up the bill! We learned a lot about the workings of a restaurant from him.  Thanks Yann!

At the creative table, we made food from playdough for the restaurant, as well as placemats, menus and tasty pizzas!

We made our own menus!

Menu creation!

A completed menu!

A márla meal….yum!

These builders were starving!

Having a bite to eat!

Taking down the order!

The Pizza Factory!

Food preparation!

What a nice restaurant!

A real chef’s tool box!

Yann explained the work of a chef to us!

We tried out the duplicate book used by real waiters!

Thanks a million Yann!