It’s all about Easter this week at The Children’s House; we will be decorating the school for Easter and doing some lovely arts and crafts, & towards the end of the week the children will be cooking some yummy Easter nests. Finally on Friday our last day of school we will be having some fun games, and the traditional Easter egg hunt!! We hope you all are looking forward to a wonderful Easter break ahead!

We will be closed for holidays from this Friday April 11th, reopening until Monday April 28th – have a lovely break everyone!!

5 Little Easter Eggs (fingerplay)

5 little Easter eggs, lovely colours wore,
Mother ate the blue one, then there were 4.
4 little Easter eggs, 2 and 2 you see,
Daddy ate the red one, then there were 3.
3 little Easter eggs, before I knew,
Sister ate the yellow one, then there were 2.
2 little Easter eggs, oh what fun!
Brother ate the purple one, then there was 1.
1 little Easter egg, see me run,
I ate the last one, then there were none!!

April is arriving this week, and Spring is marching on!! At The Children’s House we will be continuing on our group project; this week the children will be adding Antarctica to their own world maps & learning all about the continent – interesting facts like it is the coldest, windiest continent, people don’t live there for long but scientists are always studying there, 5 million penguins live there, & there are only 2 seasons – winter & summer!

It will also be science week, so we will be doing a lot of experiments throughout the week – from doing sink & float experiments with different objects in water; making ‘gloop’ (mixing cornstarch with water to show how a mixture can have the properties of a solid or a liquid depending on the pressure exerted on it); using a weighing scales to illustrate heavy vs light; making ‘explosions’ using vinegar & baking soda….all this as well as going for a nature walk outdoors! Children are born with a natural curiousity about how things work in their world and they love to experiment and discover in their environment – their questions should be encouraged as their potential as scientists is unlimited!!

I’m a Little Penguin (tune: I’m a little Teapot)

I’m a little penguin, black & white,
Short & wobbly, what a sight.
I can’t fly at all but I love to swim,
So I’ll waddle to the water & dive right in!

Welcome to the last full week of March! This week at The Children’s House, we will be celebrating Spring – which seems to be trying to make the odd appearance!! – so we will be talking about the signs of Spring, e.g. days getting longer & warmer, baby animals being born, flowers starting to grow…the children will be making very cute cotton wool lambs, & cut & stick chicks! Towards the end of the week, we will be getting ready for Mother’s Day, & celebrating all the motherly figures in our lives; the children will be doing art & making cards to bring home for the weekend.

Mary Had a Little Lamb

Mary had a little lamb, little lamb, little lamb,
Mary had a little lamb, whose fleece was white as snow.
And everywhere that Mary went, Mary went, Mary went,
Everywhere that Mary went, the lamb was sure to go!

Hope you all had a really lovely St Patrick’s day!! Following on from our Irish week last week, we will be focussing on the continent of Europe this week in our group project, so we are again welcoming family members into the Montessori classes who would like to share a song, or story, or tradition from a European country with the children.

Apart from this, we will be looking at European landmarks & animals, the children will be tracing, painting & glueing their European continent onto their world map, & we will learn a bit about some European painters as the children do their very own still life paintings at the end of the week!!

An tUasal ordóg – Mr Thumb

Cnag cnag nag an tUasal ordóg, an bhfuil tú ann?                 Knock knock knock Mr Thumb are you there?
Sshhh, tá mé I mo chodladh!                                                         Sshhh, I’m sleeping!
Cnag cnag nag an tUasal ordóg, an bhfuil tú ann?
Sshhh, tá mé ag ithe!                                                                      Sshhh, I’m eating!
Cnag cnag nag an tUasal ordóg, an bhfuil tú ann?
Sshhh, tá mé ag ól!                                                                         Sshhh, I’m drinking!
Cnag cnag nag an tUasal ordóg, an bhfuil tú ann?
Sea, táim ag teacht! Dia dhaoibh mo chairde!!                        Yes, I’m coming! Hello my friends!!

The Children’s House will be closed next Monday 17th March for St Patrick’s Day,

re-opening Tuesday 18th March for classes

Happy St Patrick’s Day everyone, Beannachtaí Lá Fhéile Pádraig daoibh!

Beannachtaí Lá Fhéile Pádraig daoibh!! Happy St Patrick’s Day to you all – this week in The Children’s House we will be celebrating Seachtain na Gaeilge with St Patrick’s Day festivities at the end of the week; we will be decorating the classrooms, making rainbow art and leprechaun masks, and celebrating St Patrick’s Day on Friday with a céilí/disco – all the children can come in to school on Friday wearing green for this if they would like to! We would like to welcome in any family members this week who can play Irish music / instruments / do Irish dancing / sing Irish songs to show the children at circle time!

Within the classroom we use Irish phrases such as ‘faigh do chóta’ (get your coat), ‘dún an doras’ (close the door), ‘cé leis é?’ (whose is this), ‘anseo’ (here) etc on a daily basis, so this week we will be practising our Irish vocabularies greatly!

Óró, sé do bheatha ‘bhaile         Oh-ro You’re Welcome Home

Óró, sé do bheatha ‘bhaile,                 Oh-ro You’re welcome home,
Óró, sé do bheatha ‘bhaile,                 Oh-ro You’re welcome home,
Óró, sé do bheatha ‘bhaile                  Oh-ro You’re welcome home…
Anois ar theacht an tsamhraidh!       Now that summer’s coming!

Rolaí Polaí (Irish rhyme)

Rolaí polaí suas, suas, suas,                    (roll arms and raise them up, up, up)
Rolaí polaí síos, síos, síos,                       (roll arms and lower them down, down, down)
Rolaí polaí amach, amach, amach,        (roll arms and stretch them out, out, out)
Rolaí polaí isteach, isteach, isteach!      (roll arms and bring them in, in, in, hugging yourself)

This week in The Children’s House we will be marking Shrove Tuesday by making pancakes (yum!!), celebrating World Book Day on Thursday by asking the children to bring in their favourite books to read with us – & if any family member is free to come in to read with us, all the better!!

We will also be progressing with our group project – the world map – and learning about North America this week! The children will be tracing their own continents & painting them, & then we are going to do some really creative art inspired by the North American artist Jackson Pollock; he was an innovative painter who introduced the idea of “action painting” by putting his canvases on the floor or leaning against a wall, & used a “drip technique” letting paint drip onto the canvas from the can, he also used knives trowels & sticks instead of a paintbrush. The children are going to make a joint group art creation together on Thursday, & then their own individual works of art on Friday – it will be wonderful process art!!

5 Little Ducks (using Lámh to sign)

5 little ducks went swimming one day,
Over the hills & far away,
Mama duck said ‘quack, quack, quack’,
And only 4 little ducks came back!

4 little ducks….3….2….

1 little duck went swimming one day,
Over the hills & far away,
Mama duck said went ‘quack, quack, quack’,
And all her 5 little ducks came back!

Welcome back everyone after our midterm break last week, we hope you had a lovely time despite the unpredictable weather! This week in The Children’s House we will be continuing our group project about the world and learning all about South America – the children will be tracing & painting their own continents to add to their map, making paper plate carnival masks, learning about the Amazon rainforest & the animals who live there, and then at the end of the week doing carnival dancing wearing their masks!!

The Noisy Animals in the Jungle (tune of The Wheels on the Bus)

The birds in the jungle go “Squawk, squawk, squawk”,
“Squawk, squawk, squawk, squawk, squawk, squawk”,
The birds in the jungle go “Squawk, squawk, squawk”,
All day long!

The cute jungle monkeys go “Oo, oo, oo”…
The fierce jungle tigers go “Grr, grr, grr”…
The crocs in the jungle go “Snap, snap, snap”…
The sloths in the jungle go “Snore, snore, snore”…
The bugs in the jungle go “Click, click, click”…
The snakes in the jungle go “Sss, sss, sss”…
The frogs in the jungle go “Ribbit, ribbit, ribbit”…

It’s the week of love at The Children’s House!! We will be focusing on emotions this week, and talking about what love means to us all – who we love, who loves us, and most importantly, what we love about our own selves! It’s sometimes hard for young children to recognise and verbalise their emotions, so we use a lot of strategies in the classroom to help them with this – for instance visual aids like emotion wheels, and naming feelings for children when they are upset e.g. ‘I can see you seem upset that it’s not your turn to give out the plates today’, and then giving them tools for improving the situation themselves e.g. ‘what do you think might make you feel better? Is there anything I can do to help?’ This helps children to develop their emotional literacy and well-being, and supports them to learn skills of resilience for later in life.

During the week we will be making Valentine’s crafts, creating a Love Tree, doing “The Best Thing About Me” page in the children’s All About Me books, and finally on Friday literally having a ball!! The children can dress up for our annual Valentine’s Ball and we will be having lots of dancing and fun!

Five Little Hearts (fingerplay)

Five little hearts all in a row ,
The first one said ‘I love you so’,
The second one said ‘will you be my Valentine?’
The third one said ‘I will, if you’ll be mine’
The fourth one said ‘I’ll always be your friend’
The fifth one said ‘we’ll all be friends until the end!’

Happy Spring everyone!! This week, as well as discussing the change of month & season, we are going to learn about dental health & the importance of looking after our teeth, tying in to the eating of healthy food – especially crunchy foods like apples and carrots, and calcium-containing foods which strengthen our teeth such as milk, cheese and yoghurts. We will be doing tooth brushing activities, and talking about visiting the dentist, as well as counting our teeth and discussing why we lose teeth! During the week we will be doing a science experiment to show what can happen if we don’t clean our teeth, leaving 1 egg to sit in a glass of vinegar and another in a glass of coke – the vinegar will show how acid can decalcify and damage the tooth enamel, whereas the coke will leave a stain on the egg shell.

Following this, we will then be looking at the food pyramid & doing a lot of activities about healthy eating along with it – we will start off with a discussion with the children on why they might think it’s important to eat healthily, talk about what our bodies need from food and which foods are best for us, and continue from there to look at the food pyramid. After this we will introduce practical activities such as matching sample jars of food to the food pyramid, and we will be making super smoothies! We emphasise the importance of having a good balanced diet and a healthy relationship with food – to know which foods are healthy and which are not, but to stress that having a treat is not a bad thing either! As well as this, we will be talking about using the energy that food gives us to exercise, and how important this also is for our bodies’ growth and development. We will be practising gross motor skills by making obstacle courses indoors and outdoors – should be lots of fun!!

Staying Healthy (tune: If you’re happy & you know it)

To stay healthy, you should always eat good food,
To stay healthy, you should always eat good food,
Eat some apples, eat some peas,
Eat bananas & green beans –
To stay healthy, you should always eat good food!