It’s all about growth this week at The Children’s House!! We’re going to be looking at photos of the children when they were babies (if you can send one in to school with your child or email them to us) & discussing how much they’ve grown since then, & all the things they can do that they couldn’t when they were babies. We’ll be measuring our heights as well & talking about how we’re all different measurements. At the end of the week the children will be helping to put together their All About Me books with the photos, & looking at how they’ve grown even since September!!

Head, Shoulder, Knees & Toes

Head, shoulders knees & toes, knees & toes,
Head, shoulders knees & toes, knees & toes,
And eyes & ears & mouth & nose….
Head, shoulders knees & toes, knees & toes!

We’re celebrating Spring this week, with a vengeance!! We’ll be dancing around the Maypole on Tuesday after the bank holiday, as well as doing our sponsored walk for Barnardos down to the GAA pitch with all our little superheroes, then we’ll be learning about birds & which ones to look our for during Spring, as well as making bird feeders at the end of the week to put in our own gardens or balconies.

We are also very lucky to have 1 of our parents, Gavin, from the Sallins Biodiversity Group ,(https://sallinsbiodiversitygroup.wordpress.com/) coming in to talk to the children about making art from nature which will then be added to a Map of Life; the idea is for the community – from pre-school children to adults of any age – to draw the wildlife of Sallins. Each artwork will then be uploaded to a website which will add the drawing to the Map of Life, coinciding with International Biodiversity Day on 22 May. Let’s all get involved in this wonderful community project!!!

2 Little Dickie Birds

2 little dickie birds sitting on the wall,
1 named Peter, the other named Paul,
Fly away Peter, fly away Paul,
Come back Peter, come back Paul!!

Welcome back after the Easter break everyone, we hope you had a really lovely 2 weeks, & we’re glad to see you back & hear all your news! This week our overall topic is ‘All About Me’, as we will be continuing on the children’s photo books about themselves, but also linking into their group project about the universe/their world – this week the focus will be on the county we live in & looking at their map of Kildare. As well as this, we will be doing our handprints & footprints, talking about what makes us feel sad & happy, & doing lots of yoga, so a busy fun-filled week ahead!!

All Of Me

My hands are for clapping,
My arms can hug tight,
My fingers can snap,
Or turn out the light.

My legs are for jumping,
My eyes can help me see,
This is my body,
And I love all of me!

Happy Easter everyone!! This week we’ll be doing a lot of arts & crafts, using watercolours to make cards – it’s all about the process & the enjoyment of it, not so much about the end product – & baking, making Easter nests, as well as a science experiment & at the end of the week a fun Easter egg hunt!

We will be closed for holidays from this Friday April 8th until Monday April 25th – have a lovely break everyone!!

Hop Little Bunnies

See the little bunnies sleeping til noon,
Shall we go & wake them with a merry tune?
Oh so still…..are they ill?…
Wake up bunnies hop, hop, hop,
Hop little bunnies hop, hop, hop!

We will be learning all about the farm this week at The Children’s House, always a popular topic! During the week, the children will make mud slime (using cornflour, washing up liquid & brown paint), & do farmyard vegetable painting, as well as doing MOOvement to music!! Following on from last week’s very successful grandparents theme, we would like to reiterate that grandparents – or any family members for that matter – are always more than welcome to visit the classes throughout the year, we would be delighted to see them at any time!

Old MacDonald

Old MacDonald had a farm, E-I-E-I-O,
And on that farm he had a cow, E-I-E-I-O,
With a moo moo here, & a moo moo there,
Here a moo, there a moo, everywhere a moo moo…
Old MacDonald had a farm, E-I-E-I-O!

…And on that farm he had a pig…

…And on that farm he had a duck…

…And on that farm he had a horse…

…And on that farm he had a dog…

This week at The Children’s House we will be celebrating grandparents, and the women in our lives!! The children have brought home a project to do about their grandparents, which they can either do with their grandparents themselves if they are lucky enough to have them in their lives, or with their parents. They will be asking questions about when their grandparents were their ages, 3/4/5 years old, e.g. what was their favourite game or toy to play with, did they have any pets, what was their house like etc… If any grandparents would like to come in & speak to the children we would be delighted to facilitate this!

Later in the week the children will be drawing family pictures, & then doing an art activity about the women in their lives, & we will be celebrating Mother’s Day. We will also be practising some yoga & mindfulness!

When I See my Grandparents

When I see my grandparents this is what I do,
I hop up & give them a great big hug or 2!
I’m glad to see my grandparents, they’re glad to see me too,
I give them each a big smile & tell them ‘I love you’!

Happy St Patrick’s week everyone!! It’ll be a short week, as we’re closed for the bank holidays on Thursday & Friday, so we’ll be doing a lot of preparing for the celebrations by decorating the classrooms, learning about why we celebrate St Patrick’s Day, listening to traditional Irish music, colouring our maps of Ireland, & making flags! ☘️🇮🇪

In a gesture of solidarity with our Ukrainian friends both home & away, we are asking the children to come in dressed in blue & yellow, or green, on Wednesday for our St Patrick’s Day party & we are also doing a collection to help send medical supplies through 1 of our parents. Thank you for your support in this 💙💛💚

Lámh, lámh eile

Lámh, lámh eile, a haon, a dó,           (Hand, other hand, one, two)
Cos, cos eile, a haon, a dó.                  (Leg, other leg, one, two)
Súil, súil eile, a haon, a dó,                 (Eye, other eye, one, two,)
Cluas, cluas eile, a haon, a dó,           (Ear, other ear, one, two,)
Ceann, srón, béal, smig,                      (Head, nose, mouth, chin,)
Agus fiacla bána i mo bhéal istigh.   (And white teeth inside my mouth.)

We are learning all about the food pyramid in The Children’s House this week, & will be doing a lot of activities about healthy eating along with it – we will start off the week 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, making super smoothies! At the end of the week we will be philosophising with the children about ‘what if children were big & adults were small?’….should lead to some interesting discussions!!

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!

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!

Spring is definitely here at last, with March rolling in!! This week we have a lot of activities going on with the children – we will be talking about the new month of March, & looking at the life cycles of both frogs & butterflies, as well as learning about the water cycle, & making pancakes on Shrove Tuesday!! We are very lucky that our village of Sallins has recently set up a Biodiversity Group under the umbrella for the Tidy Towns group  (https://sallinsbiodiversitygroup.wordpress.com/), who have kindly donated shamrock seeds to the school so that we can sow them in time to have shamrock for St Patrick’s Day – a really wonderful activity for this week, illustrating to the children how they can plant & care for their own plants.

Little Bo Peep

Little Bo Peep has lost her sheep
And doesn’t know where to find them.

Leave them alone & they’ll come home,
Wagging their tails behind them!

Mary Had a Little Lamb

Mary had a little lamb, it’s fleece was white as snow,
And everywhere that Mary went the lamb was sure to go.

It followed her to school one day which was against the rule,
It made the children laugh & play to see a lamb at school!

Welcome to the shortest week in a long time at The Children’s House!! As we will be having our mid-term break from Wednesday until Friday we have only 2 days to pack in lots of fun! We will be talking all about the season of Spring, & what signs to look out for – the children might already have noticed spring bulbs like daffodils & crocuses starting to flower, & also may be enjoying the fact that the days are getting noticeably longer & the nights shorter. We will discuss the seasonal weather – all the storms at the moment should be very topical!! – & look at Spring animal matching cards, as well as listening to some appropriate music, Vivaldi’s Spring!

Spring Poem

The wind told the grass,
And the grass told the trees,

The trees told the bushes,
And the bushes told the bees,

The bees told the robin,
And the robin sang out clear –

“Wake up!
Wake up!
Spring is here!”