We are holding our open day on Monday 2nd September, from 10am – 12pm, & 7 – 8pm

All are welcome to come in, view the school with your children and meet the teachers…

Can’t wait to see you there!!

Classes will be resuming on Wednesday 4th September

Well it’s the last few days of the school year and we just can’t believe how fast it’s gone by!!! We’ve had such a wonderful year with your fantastic children – thank you all so much firstly for entrusting us with your children, it’s been a real privilege to facilitate them in their learning, and secondly thank you for all your ongoing participation and support in that learning, and for all the input you’ve given to us in the school! We’ve had so many visits from family members – parents, grandparents, siblings & pets!!, you’ve been a big part of your child’s year whether heping out with our school trips and excursions to the GAA pitch, or coming into school to be part of your children’s birthday walk, pet visit day, music week, reading stories or coming in for observation days – it’s meant so much to the children as well as us staff, so thank you, as it has added hugely to all of our experiences this year!!

So onto this short week – we will be having sports day on Tuesday and a party on Wednesday to finish up the year with, and in between we’ll be spending precious time with your children before they head off for the summer – it’s not an easy thing to say goodbye to all the little people who are moving on to ‘big’ school after spending the year or 2 getting to know them and being part of their wonderful journey of growth & learning, but they’re ready for that step, and it’s an exciting time for them and for us all! If you don’t have a child returning in the near future, we hope that you & your child will continue to visit any time – and this year we had 4 secondary school students on work experience who were ex-pupils of the Montessori, so there’s no excuses – we can always find a space for your children!!

The Children’s House will be closing on Wednesday 26th June for summer holidays,

re-opening Wednesday 4th September

– have a wonderful summer everyone, and thanks for another amazing year!!

It’s hard to believe that we’re at the last full week of this school year!! We’ll be taking time with the children this week to talk through the change that is coming for them next year – some children are moving to different classrooms within the Montessori, while some children are moving on to primary school, so we will be discussing this change with them in a positive way and their feelings around it – encouraging children of this age to verbalise their emotions is hugely important for them in order to support them in regulating their emotions (discovering why they are feeling a certain way, & what they can do to help themselves feel better about it) – it all leads to building resilience.

The main focus of the week will definitely be our annual Pyjamas Party which will be this Friday!! This year it will also be a HB Fundays ice cream party in conjunction with Down Syndrome Ireland, so we will be having extra fun in our pyjamas! All donations received will be given to Down Syndrome Ireland so will be gratefully received!

We will also be going down to the GAA field to do some exercising after being indoors so much with the bad weather recently, using the puppet theatre, doing yoga and finishing off the All About Me books – a busy and fun week ahead!!

Mr Sun (with Lámh signs)

Oh, Mister Sun, Sun, Mister Golden Sun,
Please shine down on me.
Oh, Mister Sun, Sun, Mister Golden Sun,
Hiding behind a tree.

These little children are asking you
To please come out so we can play with you.
Oh, Mister Sun, Sun, Mister Golden Sun,
Please shine down on me.

This week all the classes will be having a teddy bears picnic as well as doing drama and dress up, so we’ll be having a lot of fun! The children will also be making worry dolls – very small and colourful dolls traditionally made in Guatemala, which the child can tell their worries to and put under their pillow before going to sleep, and according to folklore, the doll worries instead of the child who can then sleep well and wake up with their worries gone! While the child is making their worry doll we always emphasise that they should always tell their parents or teacher if they have any worries – the doll is just an extra help during the night! As well as this, we will be making cards for Father’s Day at the end of the week, so it’s going to be a busy one!!

D.A.D.D.Y.

I know a man so big and strong,
And Daddy is his name-o
D.A.D.D.Y., D.A.D.D.Y., D.A.D.D.Y.,
And Daddy is his name-o!

It’s a new month, and the start of the last one of the school year here at The Children’s House, hard to believe!! 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 important 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 such basic facts like 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 type of things. It is an exciting time for your children and we always focus on the positivity of this step in their journey of learning, even though we don’t look forward to them finishing up with us as we will miss them so much!!

Nursery Rhymes

Little Miss Moffet
Humpty Dumpty
Hickory Dickory Dock
Five Little Ducks
Incy Wincy Spider
Etc….

This week in The Children’s House we are celebrating grandparents, and asking if any of the children’s grandparents would like to join us during the week and tell us all about themselves when they were little – their favourite games, toys, nursery rhymes etc, maybe show us photos of when they were children – or read a story at circle time, or anything they like at all!!

Instead of 1 particular song/poem we will be doing lots of nursery rhymes as they are so good for language skills, and philosophising – to discuss that the school year is coming near an end, & how the children have all grown older & achieved many things, and try to get them to reflect on how they’ve changed or what they’ve achieved. They’ll do self-portraits during the week, & at the end of the week, the compliments game is where we go around the circle & take turns giving a friend compliments e.g. what does everyone think is the best thing about Siobhan? (!) She’s so kind to her friends, is great at singing, really good at sharing etc….it’s a lovely activity!

Nursery Rhymes

Baa baa black sheep
Dingle dangle scarecrow
Row, row, row your boat
Frere Jacques
Ring a ring a Rosie
Etc….

It’s music week this week at The Children’s House – we will be looking at different musical instruments e.g. drums (percussion), guitars (strings), so if anyone has any instruments please feel free to bring them in to show us!! We are also inviting family members in all this week to play instruments with us, sing songs or nursery rhymes, or anything musical at all!

Later in the week the children can bring in recyclables to make instruments out of e.g. plastic bottles, tubs, Pringles tubes…we’ll be using our imaginations! We will also be listening to different types of music to introduce the idea of how music can cause us to feel different emotions, and playing games like musical statues – it’s going to be a really fun week!!

The Music Man

Verse: I am the music man, I come from far away,
And I can play (what can you play?)

Chorus: I play piano – pia pia piano, piano, piano, pia pia piano, pia piano.

Verse…Chorus: I play the violin – vio vio violin, violin, violin, vio vio violin, vio violin,
Pia pia piano, piano, piano, pia pia piano, pia pian.

Verse…Chorus: I play the saxphone – saxo saxo saxophone…
Vio vio violin…pia pia piano…

Verse…Chorus: I play the big bass drum – big bass big bass big bass drum…
Saxo saxo saxophone…vio vio violin…pia pia piano…

This week at The Children’s House we are learning about the lifecycle of the frog, following on from the children’s interest in amphibians while we were doing our project of the Timeline of the Eras – which will be proudly brought home very soon! The children will be making their own lifecycles, making green frog smoothies, and practising mindfulness exercises – sitting still as a frog!!

Tiny Tim

I had a little frog,
His name was Tiny Tim,
I put him in the bathtub to see if he could swim.

He drank up all the water,
He ate up all the soap,
And then he BURPED from the bubble in his throat!

It’s school tour week this week at The Children’s House! It’ll be a short week but we’ve got a lot packed in – we’ll be going to Lullymore Heritage and Discovery Park on Wednesday with the morning classes and Friday with the afternoon classes, to look at real live animals such as alpacas, wallabies, pygmy goats, sheep, rabbits, pot-bellied pigs and Falabella miniature horses! We’ll also be going on a train trip through the Bog of Allen, and have a guided tour through the wooded area and fairy village, as well as having a picnic and a play in the outdoor/indoor play area! We’ve gone to Lullymore for many years on our school trip and find it a wonderful place to visit, with so many areas of interest to the children, and really lovely staff.

It’s all about the farm this week in The Children’s House! The children will be looking at animals on the Montessori farm, learning the names of baby animals, pretending to be different animals and acting out how they move, sound, etc….and preparing for one of the highlights of the year – our school trip to Lullymore next week!

As well as this, we will be doing some mindfulness, which is a great skill to practice and a good habit to get into no matter at what age, and we will also be making tasty pizzas later in the week!!

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!

Old MacDonald had a farm, E I E I O,
And on that farm he had a pig/sheep/horse etc…