It’s all go this week at The Children’s House! After our short week last week we’ve a lot packed into this week – we’ll be looking at road safety with the morning class in preparation for our school trip to Lullymore Heritage and Discovery Park on Friday, and both morning and afternoon classes will be looking at the animals on the Montessori farm, then doing drama pretending to be those animals by moving like them, and making sounds like them.

Then on Friday we’re off to Lullymore with the 2 morning 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 several 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.

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…

It’s hard to believe it’s May already!! At The Children’s House this week we will be welcoming in the month by making our own maypoles from hanging strips of crepe paper from the ceiling, and weaving in and out with them – through this we will also reinforce the concept of left and right.

As well as this, we will be looking at farm animals and what the male, female and young name of that particualr animal is (e.g. bull, cow and calf; ram, ewe and lamb; boar, sow and piglet). At the end of the week we will be doing some drama – a game called ‘The Magic Box’, where we mime passing around a box, one child takes an item out of it and does an action from which the other children can guess what the item is. For example, brushing teeth, putting on shoes, licking an icecream…drama is fantastic for building confidence in young children, and helps develop language and communication skills, among many other benefits as well as being great fun!!

Dance Around The Maypole Song

In and out, in and out,
Weave the ribbons tight,
Round the Maypole we will dance,
To the left and to the right.

It’s all about recycling this week in The Children’s House!! After a great week last week learning all about dental hygiene, this week we will be focusing on care of the environment and our earth, through educating ourselves on the importance of recycling and reusing. We will be looking at familiar objects that the children might see in their own homes and discussing how they can recycle or reuse them, e.g. a shoebox could store small toys, or be made into a puppet theatre, and later in the week we will be making our own paper!

Reduce, reuse, recycle (tune of The More We Get Together)

Reduce, reuse, recycle, recycle, recycle,
Reduce, reuse, recycle,
It’s easy to do.
For your world is my world,
And my world is your world,
Reduce, reuse, recycle,
It’s easy to do!

Anther busy week ahead in The Children’s House!! We will be learning all about teeth as our topic is dental hygiene, so we will be talking about the importance of dental hygiene and why we look after our teeth – and discussing what might happen if we didn’t do so. We will then be examining our giant tooth model (quite scary!!), and doing an experiment, as well as a puppet show at the end of the week.

We had a great time last week looking at land and water animals – with classification of vertebrates and invertebrates thrown in for good measure –  and very interesting discussions on why some animals are becoming endangered or have become extinct, with the children questioning the need for hunting….sometimes young children just get to the heart of the matter in a very direct and simple way.

Brush Your Teeth (tune of Row Your Boat)

Brush, brush, brush your teeth, brush the germs away,
Happy, healthy teeth you’ll have by brushing every day!
Floss, floss, floss your teeth, floss the germs away,
Happy, healthy teeth you’ll have by flossing every day!

This week in The Children’s House we will be learning more about animals! Following from learning about amphibians last week, we will we looking at land and water animals this week, and also at the different continents that they live in, we will be discussing why certain animals are becoming endangered or extinct, and finally we will be doing some drama acting out Noah’s ark to go along with our new song below!

The Animals went in Two by Two

The animals went in two by two, hurrah! Hurrah!
The animals went in two by two, hurrah! Hurrah!
The animals went in two by two, the elephant and the kangaroo,
And they all went into the Ark for to get out of the rain.

..the animals went in three by three, the wasp, the ant and the bumble bee…

..the animals went in four by four, the giant hippopotamus stuck in the door…

..the animals went in five by five, by eating each other they kept alive…

..the animals went in six by six, they turned out monkey because of his tricks…

..the animals went in seven by seven, the little pig thought he was going to heaven…

Welcome back everyone, hope you had a wonderful Easter!! It’s hard to believe it’s April already….and at The Children’s House we can’t wait to get back to school and start the new term! It’s going to be a busy week, between catching up with all our friends and hearing all the news, and the morning classes will be continuing their project about the timeline of the Earth, and this week will be learning all about the Paleozoic Era (from 542 – 251 million years ago!) During this time, life in the ocean developed and became more complex – the first vertebrates and fish with jaws occurred, and plants and insects appeared on land. Amphibians appeared, large trees and ferns developed on land, and winged insects and the first reptiles were abundant. Relating to this, the children will be making their own pictures of the era, and we will be doing some drama pretending to be amphibians emerging from the oceans onto the land. The afternoon classes will be learning about frogs this week (speaking of amphibians!), and all classes will be doing yoga!

5 Little Speckled Frogs

5 little speckled frogs, sat on a speckled log,
Eating some most delicious bugs – yum yum!
1 jumped into the pool, where it was nice and cool,
Then there were 4 green speckled frogs – glug glug!

4 little speckled frogs…
3 little speckled frogs…
2 little speckled frogs…
1 little speckled frog…now there are no more speckled frogs – glug glug!!

We will be closing for Easter holidays on Wed 16th March, reopening on Mon 4th April –

Happy St Patrick’s Day, and have a wonderful Easter everyone!!

We look forward to seeing you after the break!

This week in The Children’s House will be an extra busy one as it’s an extra short one – so much to do, and so little time….we will be making St Patrick’s Day crafts and decorating the classrooms, doing dressing up, and having a mini parade on Wednesday, as well as an Easter hunt!!

St Patrick’s Day Song (tune of If You’re Happy & You Know It)

If you’re wearing green today, dance a jig,
If you’re wearing green today, dance a jig,
If you’re wearing green today, dance a jig then smile and say –
Have a very happy St Patrick’s Day!

If you’re wearing green today, clap your hands…
If you’re wearing green today, spin around…
If you’re wearing green today, stamp your feet…
If you’re wearing green today, shout hooray…

This week in The Children’s House we will be looking forward to Easter and making some Easter crafts, as well as doing some cooking, drama and yoga – another busy and fun week ahead!!

Seachtain na Gaeilge continues for another week, and we had a great time last week learning the names of body parts, weather and animals in Irish, and it was especially fun trying our hands (or feet…) at Irish dancing! 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 we are trying to expand our Irish vocabularies greatly during Seachtain na Gaeilge!

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!!