Welcome back, we hope you all had a lovely break over the mid-term! This week we will be continuing on the topic of recycling, so we will be asking the children to bring in something from home that we can use for recycling arts & crafts – e.g. egg boxes, milk cartons, kitchen rolls, cereal boxes, newspaper, string – the list is endless! We will be doing yoga at the end of the week, and of course, on Tuesday we will be making stacks of delicious pancakes for Shrove/Pancake Tuesday, mmmmm…….

Ten Green Bottles (with Lámh signs)

Ten green bottles sitting on the wall,
Ten green bottles sitting on the wall,
And if one green bottle should accidentally fall…
There’ll be nine green bottles sitting on the wall!

Nine green bottles sitting on the wall…

As it’s the week of mid term break, it will be a very short week in The Children’s House, but we’ll still be fitting as much in as much fun as possible! We will be starting a theme of ‘recycling’; introducing the topic to the children and seeing what they think recycling means, how we can recycle in the school and at home, and then setting up a recycling station in their classrooms. We will be continuing on this theme next week!

The Children’s House will be closed for mid-term break from Wednesday 19th until Friday 21st February inclusive, re-opening next Monday 24th February.

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle (tune: The More we get Together)

Reduce, reuse, recycle, recycle, recycle,
Reduce, reuse, recycle, it’s easy to do…
For my world is your world,
And my world is your world,
Reduce, reuse, recycle, it’s easy to do!

It’s all about love this week at The Children’s House! We’ll be talking about how we should always tell that people we love them, and also about how the *most* important person to love is ourselves – building up children’s sense of worth and self-esteem will give them extra resilience for life. As well as this, we will be looking at who St Valentine & Cupid are, doing ‘Love Heart art’ and of course having our annual Valentine’s Ball on Friday, with a cat walk and disco!!

Love Your Friends (tune: Row Your Boat)

Love, love, love your friends,
Love them all year long,
Especially on Valentines,
As we sing this song!

I’m a Little Valentine (tune: I’m a Little Teapot)

I’m a little Valentine, red and white,
With ribbons and lace I’m a beautiful sight.
I can say I love you on Valentines day,
Just put me in an envelope and give me away!

As most of you will know, The Children’s House will be closed this Wednesday 5th February in order to join in the protest being held by The Early Years Alliance in Dublin city centre.

We apologise for any inconvenience caused, but this is an important day for us in the Early Years Sector as we try to bring attention to the ongoing crisis we find ourselves in, with a view to

1) making our sector an affordable, accessible one for parents & their children,

& 2) to ensure that staff can afford to work in the job that they love & are passionate about, while also providing a career with appropriate pay & conditions that recognises their profession as Early Years Educators.

Please come and support us if you can!!

We are following the children’s interests this week at The Children’s House, as many of them have been expressing a serious interest in dinosaurs recently! So as well as talking about the change in month and season, we will also be looking at different dinosaurs using a magnifying glass, digging for dinosaur fossils on a dinosaur dig, and doing dinosaur drama!!! We do a lot of child-led learning in our Montessori, which gives scope for engaging all the children on a topic as it comes from them, & for those who aren’t as interested as others in a certain topic, we bring in art, science & whichever types of learning excites them through the lessons.

Five Big Dinosaurs

Five big dinosaurs jumping in the trees,
One fell off and bumped his knee,
Mammy called the doctor and the doctor said…
“No more dinosaurs jumping in the trees!”

Four big dinosaurs jumping in the trees…
Three big dinosaurs…
Two big dinosaurs…
One big dinosaur…