We’re back to a full week of school, & the last week of January – hopefully February brings better weather & less school closures!!! This week we will be learning about 2 important festivals – the Chinese New Year, & St Brigid’s Day! The Chinese Lunar New Year is on Wednesday 29th January, so this week we will be learning a bit about China – looking at where it is in Asia, learning about some customs & superstitions, and looking at some photos and objects from China. It’s the Year of the Snake, and the children will be making paper plate snakes during the week, as well as learning about the animal from the year that they were born!

We will then be celebrating St Brigid’s Day (which is on 1st February) by learning about the story of St Brigid , the patroness saint of Ireland, who was from Kildare, so especially important to us in Sallins! The children will then make St Brigid’s crosses.

Chinese New Year Song

Gung hay fat choy,
Gung hay fat choy,
Sing happy new year,
Gung hay fat choy!

The Children’s House will be closed tomorrow Friday 24th January due to the red wind warning which will be in place in Co Kildare – stay safe and take care during the storm 

This week at The Children’s House we will be continuing our world map project by starting to add our first continent – Asia! We currently have families who were originally from Japan, the Philippines and India, so we will be learning how to say “hello” & “goodbye” in their languages, and learning how to sing “Head shoulders knees & toes” in the different languages too! The children will be painting their continent of Asia and glueing it to their world map this week, learning about different animals that live in Asia & decorating their continent with some, and listening to Asian music.

Atama Kata Hiza Ashi (Japanese head shoulders knees & toes)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2aJ7dzeB3Ro

Head
あたま atama

Shoulders
かた kata

Knees
ひざ hiza

Toes
つまさき tsumasaki

Eyes
め me

Ears
みみ mimi

Mouth
くち kuchi

Nose
はな hana

This week at The Children’s House we are starting our group project all about our world – we are so lucky this year to have children with family members from all over the globe, so we will be taking advantage of this & inviting family members in to talk to the children about customs or traditions that you might practice at certain times of the year, to show us dress or foods that might be a bit more unusual, or to teach us words or songs in different languages, alongside learning about traditional Irish customs & celebrations!

The children will be starting to make their world map this week, sponge painting the oceans! We will be looking at the globe & continents & learning our continents song, as well as learning how to sign in Lámh the signs for “hello” & “gooodbye”. We would love if families who use other languages other than English at home would let us know how they greet each other in these languages, so please text us the words for “hello” & “goodbye” and we can all learn together!

Here We Go Round The World

Here we go round the world,
Round the world we go –
North America, South America,
Europe and Asia,
Africa, Antarctica….
And don’t forget Australasia!

Happy New Year everyone, we hope you had a wonderful couple of weeks & here’s wishing you all a happy & healthy 2025!

This week at The Children’s House we will be talking about the change of year and month, doing New Year art, snow & ice art (considering the weather at the moment!) and also mindfulness at the end of the week. We will also be doing a show and tell where the children can bring in something that they got over Christmas that they would like to show their friends & teachers.

Next week we will be starting our group project which will be all about looking at the world that we live in – we will be looking at the people, animals, culture, music, food, language all around the globe…so we will be asking for a lot of help from you the families!! Watch this space…

New Year Song (tune: The Muffin Man)

Now we have a brand new year,
Brand new year, brand new year,
Now we have a brand new year,
It’s 2025!