This week at The Children’s House we will be learning all about the life cycle of the frog! During the year, and usually in Spring time, we cover the life cycle of a particular animal or insect. It’s going to be loads of fun – the children will be doing art with green sponge painting, making their own life cycle on a paper plate, playing leap frog, & lots more amphibian related fun activities!!

I Had a Little Frog

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 gobbled up the soap
And when he tried to talk
He had a bubble in his throat!

Welcome back everyone, we hope you had a wonderful break over the last 2 weeks!! This week in The Children’s House we will be learning about the sense of sight, as well as celebrating the new month of April. We will be talking about various interesting & fun facts at circle time such as  – eyebrows & eyelashes protect the eye from dust, dirt & sweat; tears help wash away small particles; the eyes of some animals like deer, rabbits & mice are on the side of their heads so they can see in all directions to watch out for predators; it’s impossible to sneeze with your eyes open; dolphins can sleep with one eye open; chameleons can move their eyes in different directions at the same time! The children will be examining items with magnifying glasses, blindfolded & guessing what objects are, and playing games like I Spy.

I Look in the Mirror (poem)

I look in the mirror & what do I see?
A pair of eyes looking back at me
A nose, two eyes and eyebrows too
Two lips & teeth to say “I love you”
I look in the mirror & what do I see?
I look in the mirror & I see ME!

It’s all about Easter this week at The Children’s House; we will be doing Easter crafts – making Easter egg wishes for our class tree & painting hands & feet to make Easter art, & towards the end of the week the children will be doing fun activities like bunny bag races in the garden, as well as of course the traditional Easter egg hunt!! We hope you all are looking forward to a wonderful Easter break ahead!

Easter Bunny Poem

Welcome back after the long weekend everyone, we hope you had a great St Patrick’s Day & Mother’s Day! This week in The Children’s House we’ll be learning all about the sense of sound, & doing a lot of fun games, music & activities to explore this sense. We will be singing the Wheels on the Bus using Lámh signs (this is the hand signing system in Ireland), & learning about loud & soft sounds. The children will be playing games of ‘guess that sound’ – isolating the sense of sound & listening without seeing what’s making the sound e.g. from objects in a box. We will be playing musical instruments, using the sound boxes Montessori activity (matching sounds of different volumes) & making paper cup phones! The children will also be listening to different types of music to see what the sounds make them think of, or what feeling it gives them.

Happy Seachtain na Gaeilge everyone, agus Beannachtaí na Féile Pádraig! As we celebrate the Irish language this week in a lead up to St Patrick’s Day on Friday, the children will be learning an Irish poem about the body & enjoying doing Irish dancing. We  will also be talking about the story of St Patrick and doing arts & crafts for St Patrick’s Day as well as Mother’s Day on Sunday – a short but busy week ahead!

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’re learning all about the sense of touch this week at The Children’s House – the children will be learning about how things feel using our senses, e.g. hot or cold, rough or smooth, hard or soft…we will be looking at textures of things in our environment like clothes we wear and toys we play with indoors & outdoors. The children will explore & find different textures all around them, & we will be doing Montessori activities like the Touch Boards (graded sandpaper from rough to smooth), Touch Fabrics (matching pairs of fabrics with eyes closed), Geometric Solids (feeling 3 dimensional shapes with eyes closed & guessing if they roll or not). We will also be playing games like Feather Tickle, & doing a Sensory Walking Mat. It’s really lovely to isolate & use our sense of touch in this way, & promises to be such an interesting & fun week!!

Sense of Touch (poem)

Skin, skin, we’re covered in skin,
Skin gives our sense of touch,
Skin, skin, we’re covered in skin,
Skin can touch so much…

Touch is feeling,
Hot or cold,
Touch is feeling,
Rough or smooth,
Touch is feeling,
Hard or soft for me…

The theme this week at The Children’s House is farming, so we will be learning all about different aspects of growing & harvesting food, as well as linking in to the sense of smell! The children will be looking at the inside of different fruits & vegetables such as butternut squash, peppers, tomatoes, oranges & apples and will take the seeds out of them to plant. Later in the week, as well as celebrating the start of the new month March, we will be cutting up different herbs like basil, coriander, sage & thyme & discussing the different smells they have! Then to finish the week, the children will be doing a harvesting activity using different grain crops, & looking at where things like wool & milk come from.

Living on the Farm (poem)

The cows are in the meadow, the horse in the barn,
The hen’s in the henhouse, all living on the farm.
The cows give milk that we can drink,
To make us grow up strong,
The hens lay eggs for us to eat, on the farm where they belong!

Welcome back, we hope you all had a lovely restful mid-term break! This week at The Children’s House we will be starting a group project, all about the 5 senses – taste, hearing, sight, touch & smell. We will be learning all about the sense of taste this week – which tie in well with Pancake Tuesday!!! The children will be learning about how the mouth has different taste receptors that sense the tastes of sweetness, sourness, saltiness, bitterness & savoriness (or umami). We will be talking about which tastes & foods we like the best….no prizes for guessing the favourite!

Five Senses (tune of Frere Jacques)

Five senses, five senses,
We have them, we have them.
Seeing, hearing, touching,
Tasting and smelling –
There are five, there are five!

This will be a very short week at The Children’s House, but it will be full of love!! We will be talking about how important it is to show the important people in our lives that we love them, by telling them & also doing nice things for them. The children will be doing Valentine’s art on Monday, and on Tuesday we will be having our Valentine’s ball!! They can dress up as much as they like for this, & we will have lots of fun dancing & walking the red carpet!

The Children’s House will be closed for mid-term break from Wednesday 15th until Friday 17th February inclusive, re-opening next Monday 20th February.

Valentine’s Day

Red hearts, white hearts, pink hearts too,
I like purple hearts – how about you?
Green hearts, blue hearts, yellow hearts too,
I like rainbow hearts,
How about you?

Welcome back from the long weekend everyone, we hope you all had a lovely extra day off!! This week at The Children’s House we will be learning all about the water cycle. The children might be coming home talking about evaporation, condensation & precipitation – so be prepared!! We will be doing an experiment to show how the water cycle happens in miniature, & looking at the Montessori land forms – sets of land and water form plastic trays showing the pairs of island & lake, peninsula & gulf, isthmus & strait, bay & cape. The children get to pour water into the trays & see how the water & land make these different formations – really good fun and so educational at the same time, in the true Montessori way!

It’s Raining It’s Pouring

It’s raining, it’s pouring,
The old man is snoring.
He went to bed,
And bumped his head,
And couldn’t get up in the morning!