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, the necessity in life to love 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, making special Valentine’s playdough, and finally on Friday having a ball!! The children can dress up for this 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!’

After one of the children came into school recently very excited about the planets & telling us all about them, we decided to spend this week examining our solar system! We will start by asking the children why they think the sun is so important to us, & from there discuss the fact that it is a star & our earth is one of the planets which orbit it. Later in the week we will be examining the different planets in our solar system – only 8 of us now that poor Pluto has been demoted! – and learning some facts about them. We will be asking what the children think would happen if we had no sun, & doing some related drama activities. No doubt there will be some talk of aliens at some stage too!!

The Family of the Sun (tune: The Farmer in the Dell)

The family of the Sun, the family of the Sun,
There are 8 planets in the family of the Sun.

Mercury is hot, & Mercury is small,
Mercury has no atmosphere, it’s just a rocky ball.

Venus has thick clouds, that hide what is below,
The air is foul, the ground is hot, it rotates very “slow”.

We love the Earth, our home, its oceans and its trees.
We eat its food, we breathe its air, so no pollution please.

Mars is very red, it’s also dry and cold.
Some day you might visit Mars if you are really bold (we love this verse, the children think it’s hilarious!)

Great Jupiter is big, we’ve studied it a lot.
We found that it has many moons and a big red spot.

Saturn has great rings, we wondered what they were.
Now we know they’re rocks and ice, which we saw as a blur.

With atmosphers that swirl, & wispy white clouds too.
Neptune and Uranus are so cold that you’d turn blue

Pluto’s small and cold, it has an icy face.
We call it a dwarf planet now, but it’s still quite a place!

It’s going to a busy week in The Children’s House, celebrating the arrival of Spring, and looking at electricity as well as gardening and cooking! After the power cut a couple of weeks ago, some of the children were fascinated by the electricity going on and off, and what that meant in the classroom (no lights, the fish tank filter stopped working, no cd player etc) – so we decided we’d learn more about electricity this week. To this end, we will be discussing what we use electricity for in everyday life at home, then we will be doing an experiment to show how we can create static electricity using a balloon and our hair (prepare to see some frizzy hair styles!), looking at electric currents with a plasma ball, creating electronic circuits using circuit board & components, and finally at the end of the week philosophising about what would we do if we had no electricity?

As well as this, we will be making Rice Krispie buns, sowing water cress to celebrate Spring/February arriving and new growth, and dressing up & dancing – a fun week ahead!!

PS a huge thank you to Kayla’s mum Jianhua, as well as Emma, Jasmine and Daragh, who all came in on Friday afternoon to help us celebrate the Chinese Lunar New Year in style!!

The World

Great, wide, beautiful, wonderful world,

With the wonderful water around you curled,

And the wonderful grass upon your breast –

World you are beautifully drest.

by William Brighty Rands

Gong Xi Fa Cai!! It’s the Chinese Lunar New Year on Saturday, 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. As it’s the Year of the Rooster the children in the full time classes will be making rooster puppets, while the part time class will be creating firework paintings! At the end of the week we will be putting on a shadow puppet show, using the time-honoured combination of a sheet and a torch!! We will also be doing more yoga this week.

Gong Xi Fa Cai (phonetically: gowng zee fah chai)

Gong Xi Fa Cai, Gong Xi Fa Cai,
Sing Happy New Year, Gong Xi Fa Cai!

Clean up the house, get out the broom,
Sweep out the old year, bring in the new.

Gong Xi Fa Cai, Gong Xi Fa Cai,
Sing Happy New Year, Gong Xi Fa Cai!

The dragon dances, the lanterns light,
The firecrackers light up the night.

Gong Xi Fa Cai, Gong Xi Fa Cai,
Sing Happy New Year, Gong Xi Fa Cai!

This week we will be learning all about winter weather, and exploring it in different ways. The children are really interested in observing and talking about the weather every day at circle time, so we will be developing a new way of recording it, in weather charts. We will be asking the children about the types of weather we have in winter time, and from that each class will create their own weather chart. We will also be discussing the type of clothes we wear in the winter time and doing some art activities with that.

Each week the curriculum in The Children’s House is informed by the interests of the children, as we ask them for their input all the time on the activities we are doing and what they would like to do next, and we record their answers; if they don’t volunteer information verbally, we can gather the subjects they’re interested in through our observations of their play and activities. If you have any ideas or suggestions of subjects that your child might like to explore further, please be sure to let us know as we highly value your input too – and we will be asking you to join us in activities as the year progresses!

The Mittens on my Hands (tune: Wheels on the Bus)

The mittens on my hand keep me warm,
Keep me warm, keep me warm,
The mittens on my hand keep me warm,
All winter long!

The hat on my head keeps me warm…
The scarf around my neck keeps me warm…
The boots on my feet keep me warm…

(Make up additional verses)

Welcome back everyone, and a very Happy New Year!! It’s great to be back in school after the long break, hope everybody had a really lovely Christmas! This week we will be talking about the new year 2017 and the new month January, as well as making some winter crafts, practising yoga & relaxation, doing the puppet theatre and some winter drama!

We would also like to welcome the new children who are starting this week in the last spaces in the 1pm & 9.30am classes, in addition to the children who are joining the school in our whole new part time afternoon class starting on Wednesday from 1.30 – 4.30; it’s all go in 2017 at The Children’s House!!

Tá Mé ag Súil

Tá mé ag súil, tá mé ag súil,             (I am walking, I am walking)
Hé hó mo Dhaideo,                            (Hey ho my Daddy-o)
Tá mé ag súil.                                     (I am walking)

Tá mé ag ithe/ag ól/ag snámh…      (I am eating/drinking/swimming)

The Children’s House will close for Christmas holidays on Wednesday 21st December, reopening Monday 9th January

Welcome to the last few days of 2016 at The Children’s House!! It’s hard to believe Christmas is almost here, the time has really flown since Hallowe’en, but that’s probably because we’ve been so busy having fun and learning loads! This week each class will be putting on a show with some songs and poems that we’ve learnt since September, and then on Wednesday we’ll be finishing with a party and a visit from a very special jolly person…have a wonderful break everyone and we look forward to seeing you all again in January!!

Monday: 9am class Christmas songs @ 11am

Tuesday: 9.30 am class Christmas songs @ 11.30am

Tuesday: 1pm class Christmas songs @ 2.30pm

We Wish You a Merry Christmas

We wish you a merry Christmas, we wish you a merry Christmas,
We wish you a merry Christmas, and a Happy New Year.
Good tidings we bring, to you and your kin –
We wish you a merry Christmas, and a Happy New Year!!

Well it’s the last full week of school at The Children’s House for 2016, and it’s going to be a busy one!! This week we will be making some Christmas angels from doilies, making winter playdough & then modelling snowmen from the playdough, and also using the musical instruments and doing drama with the puppet theatre, as well as practising our songs & poems for next week’s shows! Thanks so much to everyone who’s given in their €1, we’re making a donation on the children’s behalf to Barnardos Children’s Charity to support vulnerable children in Ireland this Christmas.

Father Christmas

Father Christmas, Father Christmas,
He got stuck, he got stuck…
Coming down the chimney, coming down the chimney –
What bad luck! What bad luck!