This week we are celebrating College Awareness Week as well as Thanksgiving! As part of this, we will be celebrating lifelong learning by making a visual display of the journey of learning that the children are beginning when they join us at preschool, so we would like to invite families to send in/email photos of siblings, parents & family members from primary, secondary & tertiary levels of education. It doesn’t matter from how long ago or how recently, how many or how few – we will then make a road map of education using photos of the children, their family members & staff to show how learning is a lifelong process! Also, we will be talking about possible future careers with the children (to which there will doubtless be no limits, and rightfully so!!) and giving thanks on Thursday that we live in part of the world where we have wide accessibility to education.

https://www.collegeaware.ie/events/celebrating-lifelong-learning-2

Thanksgiving Song (tune of Twinkle Twinkle)

Let’s be thankful for this day,
For our friends and for our play,
Let’s be thankful, let’s be glad,
For the food and things we have,
Let’s give thanks for you and me,
And our home and family!

If You’re Happy & You Know It (with Lámh signs)

If you’re happy & you know it clap your hands,
If you’re happy & you know it clap your hands,
If you’re happy & you know it,
And you really want to show it –
If you’re happy & you know it clap your hands,

If you’re sad / angry….

After last week’s enjoyment of learning about the water cycle and making our own rain clouds, this week we will be doing all about road safety! We will be practising how to cross the road – stop, look and listen, then walk across while still paying attention to look and listen for approaching traffic – and doing some road safety art, as well as designing our own road safety certs! We have high visibility jackets which the children will learn about the importance of wearing when going on walks – even in daylight, as it can be very dull and dark these days. We will also be learning the Safe Cross Code song, a real earworm of a song which might transport some of you back to the 70s if you remember it from the television ad….!!

Safe Cross Code

Remember – 1 – look for a safe place,
2 – don’t hurry, stop and wait,
3 – look all around you, before you cross the road –
Remember – 4 – let all the traffic pass you,
5 – then walking straight across you –
6 – keep watching,
That’s the safe cross code!

Welcome back to the first full week after Hallowe’en break – for those who weren’t in last week we hope you had a great mid-term! This week we will be learning all about the water cycle – how the earth recycles water by heating water in oceans, lakes etc so it evaporates as water vapour up into the sky, then it cools down in clouds during condensation, and eventually falls in the form of rain, hail, sleet or snow during precipitation – then the whole process starts again.

The Water Cycle (to tune of She’ll be Coming Round the Mountain)

Water travels in a cycle yes it does!
Water travels in a cycle yes it does!
It goes up as evaporation,
Forms clouds as condensation,
Comes back down as precipitation –
Yes it does!!

It’ll be a short week this week at The Children’s House, but a busy one nonetheless!! We will be talking about the new month November, and the new season Winter – hard to believe we’re at this stage of the year already – and we’ll of course be hearing all about everyone’s Halloween news!

We will also be doing some art appreciation this week, looking at Jackson Pollock and his different approach to art, and then providing the children with materials to create art in unusual ways – using anything except traditional tools like paintbrushes!! Doing activities like this shows how we can open our minds to approaching subjects in different ways, and that there is no right or wrong way to creating your own masterpiece!

If Your Clothes Have Any Red (tune of If You’re Happy & You Know It)

It’s all things Hallowe’eny this week at The Children’s House!! We will be learning about the origins of Hallowe’en this week, and talking about how we celebrate it, doing pumpkin carving and potato printing, and getting ready for our fancy dress party on Friday !

We are still holding parent observations and parent teacher meetings; for those who haven’t been able to schedule these in yet, we are available at any time during the year. We’d also like to ask you to think how you’d like to be involved throughout your child’s preschool year – whether it’s coming in to read a story at circle time, do an activity like baking or flower pressing, talk about what you do for a living, play a musical instrument, or simply bring in some photos of when you were a similar age and tell us all about your life, hobbies & interests as a 3/4/5 year old!! The possibilities are endless….

Witch Witch!

Witch, witch, where do you fly?
Up in the clouds and over the sky!
Witch, witch, what do you eat?
Little black apples from Hurricane Street!
Witch, witch, what do you drink?
Vinegar, blacking and good red ink!
Witch, witch, where do you sleep?
Up in the clouds where the pillows are cheap!

*****  THE CHILDREN’S HOUSE IS CLOSED FOR MONDAY & TUESDAY 16TH &17TH OCTOBER; WE HAVE FOLLOWED THE DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION’S INSTRUCTIONS TO ENSURE CHILD SAFETY & GIVE US TIME TO RISK ASSESS THE PREMISES AFTER THE STORM; SINCERE APOLOGIES FOR ANY INCONVENIENCE CAUSED *****

This week we will be getting ready for Halloween by decorating the classrooms and making some spooky Halloween spiders! We will also be celebrating Diwali, the Hindu festival of light, which begins on Thursday – we will be using modelling clay to make our own little clay lamps, and will celebrate in the school on Friday when we light our lamps together!!

Thank you to the parents who have been coming in to do observations and parent teacher meetings; for those who haven’t been able to schedule these in yet, we are available at any time during the year. It’s really lovely to come in and observe your children and their peers in the classroom, and to see how capable and busy they are! Following on from that, the parent teacher meetings are a time to discuss what you’re observed, if you’ve any questions, and for us to give feedback on how they’re progressing in the class and to exchange information with you – it’s always a very positive experience!

5 Little Pumpkins

Five little pumpkins sitting on a gate,                                       (hold up 5 fingers)
The 1^st one said “Oh my, it’s getting late!”                               (put hands to cheeks)
The 2^nd one said “There are witches in the air,”                     (flutter fingers above head)
The 3^rd one said “but we don’t care!”                                        (shake head)
The 4^th one said “Let’s run and run and run.”                         (mime running with arms)                The 5^th one said “I’m ready for some fun!”                               (thumbs up)
Then ‘Oooo’ went the wind, and out went the lights…           (clap hands)
And the five little pumpkins rolled out of sight!                      (roll arms)

Hibernation is in the air this week in The Children’s House…we will be talking about some of the animals that winter here and how they survive through the colder months, some by gathering food supplies and sleeping as much as possible; in particular we will be looking at the mouse, squirrel, frog, ladybird, bat and hedgehog – the last 2 being the only Irish mammals that truly hibernate, meaning they drop their temperature and heart rate and go into a type of coma for a few months to conserve energy! The children will be doing some mindful colouring of these animals and making their own mobiles, and at the end of the week we will make a bed for the model hibernation animals to sleep in our classrooms over the winter!

As well as this, we will be planting bulbs this week, which will also be over-wintering in the school! These bulbs should come up in the spring time, with a little love and attention from the children in the meantime, and we will be discussing what they might need to keep them alive and healthy e.g. air, light, water – then giving the children the responsibility to look after their bulbs themselves.

Hibernation Poem

Autumn is cold, there is frost in the sky                        (hug self & shiver)
The squirrel gathers nuts & the swallows fly                (mime gathering & then flying)
The spiky little hedgehog keeps himself warm            (curl up into a ball)
The bat is in her cave, sleeping through the storm      (pretend to sleep)

This week will be all about hobbies at The Children’s House! We will be discussing our various hobbies – things we like to do when we’re not in school, such as swimming, cycling, playing sport, reading, making jigsaws etc – we will talk about these at circle time, and during the week try out some different hobbies like dancing, running, football. We invite any family members who are available to come in and talk to the children about their hobbies; you could come in and play a musical instrument, do some baking, show us your collection of stamps, do some sport with us…the possibilities are endless!! We will also be talking about the change of month from September to October, and all the changes of weather that are happening as Autumn travels ever closer to Winter.

We have started learning some Lámh signs with the children (this is a manual sign system used by children and adults with intellectual disability and communication needs in Ireland), as there are some non-verbal children in the school this year, and we thought it would be a good idea for us all to learn how to sign to communicate instead of always having to use verbal words! The children are loving it, and so far we have been practising the sign for ‘more’ and are currently learning the sign for ‘thank you’ – be sure to ask your child to show you so you can use Lámh signs together.

10 Little Fingers

Ten little fingers, ten little toes,
Two little ears, and one little nose.
Two little eyes that shine so bright,
And two little lips to kiss you goodnight!