We will be discussing all about growing up this week, with the school year moving on swiftly & a lot of the children getting ready to go to primary school next September. With this in mind, we have arranged for the older children to go on a visit to Sallins primary school where we get a little tour of some of the school – we are shown the library, fish tank, the playground full of children at break time, and we get to see one of the junior infants classes and learn vital information such as where the toilets are! Children can often become nervous at the thoughts of transitioning from the safety of preschool, and we find the visit to ‘big school’ really does a lot to reassure the children about this change, and opens up lots of conversations about it. Also, learning seemingly unimportant facts such as the location of the toilets can take the stress away from children about having to ask their teacher in school if they are shy or embarrassed about these sort of things. It is an exciting time for your children and we always focus on the positivity of this step in their journey in learning, even though we are dreading them finishing up with us as we will miss them so much!!

Also this week we will be focussing on being healthy – having just received our Healthy Ireland Smart Start award in recognition of the work we do promoting the children’s health and well-being, physically & emotionally! So we will be talking about how the children are all growing, what makes them special, and we will be making healthy smoothies with spinach and fruit during the week. We will be continuing on with the group project of the children’s own maps, and also their All About Me books.

I Am Special

I am special, I am me (point to self proudly)

I have two hands and (raise hands)

two eyes to see (point to eyes)

A nose to smell (point to nose and sniff)

and my ears hear well. (cup ears)

A mouth to talk (mimic talking)

and two legs to walk. (walk in place)

But that’s not all because you see,

I am SPECIAL, I am ME! (point to self proudly with both thumbs)

I am special as I can be because no one looks or acts like me.

I am one person, myself, me and that’s the way that it should be