Junior Infants

In April, we focused on the farm during playtime!  We made paper plate animals, played with the toy farm, built lots of farm machinery from lego and made a farm jigsaw!

We worked together to build a farm jigsaw!

We helped each other to cut the masking tape for sticking our farm animals together! We make a good team!

Egg boxes served as great noses for our paper plate animals!

We built roads for tractors to drive on!

We even built milking parlours with the lego!

Working on our animals!

It was fun to build farm machinery and buildings!

Linda Whelton introduced us to her dog Bruce!  She let us pet the dog and showed us his food.  It was a hot day, so we gave him a drink of water!

Linda introduced us to Bruce!

Finally,  Don and Katie Ward visited us with a ewe and her two baby lambs.  We got to pet the lamb and Don and Katie showed us the sheep nuts that the lambs likes to eat!  It was a lovely opportunity to pet  real life farm animals and learn a little more about farm life and how farmers care for their animals!

The lamb was so soft!

The Mammy ewe and her lambs!

We were extremely gentle when petting the lamb!

Thanks very much to Don and Katie for making springtime so special for Junior Infants!

The solar eclipse in March of 2015 happened to coincide with Aistear Space theme in Junior Infants!  We left the lights off in the classroom that morning and we  all noticed our classroom get darker and darker and darker before gradually brightening again as the sun reappeared from behind the moon.

Our Space play was fantastic.  We had our own rocket and command centre where technicians did the countdown before each launch using launch buttons, laptops and equipment made at the creative table.  The creative table also made space helmets for the astronauts.  The sand tray became a lunar landscape, as we made craters on the surface.  The lego table made fantastic rockets and space stations.

Astronauts preparing to board!

Making laptops and other essential equipment for the control centre!

Making craters on the moon!

10, 9, 8, 7, 6, …..

The lego table built rockets and space stations!

The creative table also made launch buttons and telescopes for the astronauts!

Busy creating!

One small step for man…..

Burning the midnight oil in the rocket control centre!

We watched a video clip of an astronaut showing how he brushes his teeth in space and another astronaut describing how she washes her hair.  A tricky business by the looks of things and absolutely fascinating!  Have a look for yourself…..

Junior Infants had great fun setting up an opticians in the classroom for Aistear (play) time!

In the role play area, children got their eyes tested.  The optician pointed to one letter at a time on the chart and the customer had to say ALL the letter names, even as the letters became smaller and smaller near the bottom!  There was a great selection of glasses available for people who needed them!

The eye chart was no bother really as we know all the letter names!

This customer was a bit unsure about the glasses on offer!

The opticians worked very hard!

Can you read this letter?

At the creative table, the children decorated their own glasses and also made binoculars!

Our designer glasses!

What beautiful frames!

Things look way clearer through these!

Making binoculars!

All the hard work paid off!

I spy with my little eye….!

Ever get the feeling you’re being watched…?

The Hospital was the theme for Aistear playtime in Junior Infants recently!

In the role play area, doctors and nurses worked hard to look after some very ill patients!

Hospital staff worked hard on this patient!

Doctors kept notes on their patients!

All hands on deck!

Nobody waits long for a consultation in our hospital!

Another patient on the mend!

Our hospital workers were excellent at their work!

Surgeons worked hard to operate using tweezers……it was very tricky indeed.

Surgeons need a steady hand for this work!

Easy does it!

A busy day in the operating theatre!

We also made little hospital beds from shoe boxes and opened up a doll’s hospital!

Decorating the little beds for the doll’s hospital!

There was a lot of cutting and sticking to be done!

Kerry Masarati a paramedic with the London ambulance service paid us a visit and talked to us about her work!

Kerry gave a very interesting talk on her work as a paramedic!

She showed us some equipment that she uses in her work, including a pulsex for checking the speed of the pulse and the level of oxygen in our blood.  She also demonstrated the use of a sling and bandages and let us try out a foil blanket which is used in emergencies to keep people warm!

We all got to try out the pulse reader, which clips onto your finger!

Kerry let us try out a real stethoscope!

She demonstrated how to put on a sling!

Sometimes, paramedics have to put on bandages!

Foil blankets come in tiny packets and open out to keep people warm in emergencies!

Kerry advised us that the main reason the ambulance is called for children is because of little fingers getting caught in doors (ouch!) and children banging their heads after forgetting to wear their cycling helmets!

Thanks Kerry!

Thanks Kerry for your visit and all the useful information you gave us!

The Police Station was the play theme recently in Junior Infants!

We set up our very own police station in the classroom, where every morning the gardaí were very busy, what with taking fingerprints, conversing on the walkie talkies and writing up notes.

The phone was hopping in the police station!

The Garda Station was a hive of activity!

Just some of the hard-working Gardai!

This situation looks very serious!

At the creative table, we made Wanted posters and also used our fingerprints to make some thumbprint art in the form of insects, birds and people.

Have you seen this person?

Does this person look familiar?

finger print art!

Look at all the wonderful things you can print with your fingers!

At the lego table, there were some great police boats and police stations on display.

Finally, Junior infants were lucky enough to have a visit from Garda Sgt James O’Donovan of Schull Garda Station! We asked him lots of questions about the work of the Gardai.  We learnt loads of interesting facts from him! Did you know that four gardaí are based in Schull Garda Station!  Garda James also told us that sometimes Gardaí have to herd cattle off the road.  He emphasised to us the importance of always wearing our seat belts!  Finally, he let us all try out his squad card!  We got to try out the seats and even press the siren and flashing light buttons on the dashboard of the car!  It was a very exciting occasion.  Thanks Sergeant O’Donovan!

Junior infants with their special guest!

Sgt Garda James answered some tricky questions such as how to catch a “baddie”?

He reminded us to ALWAYS wear our seat belt!

Did you know that Gardaí sometimes have to help herd cattle off the road?

The squad car was very exciting!

We got to try out the front and back seats!

What does this button do?

Happy with their new car!

Garda James explained what the buttons did!

The siren was REAllY loud!