It’s hard to believe that December is here already later this week!!! We will be saying goodbye to November & learning about our new month December & the continuing effects of Winter! We will start to talk about Christmas this week, & will be hearing from the children on how they celebrate the occasion at home with their families – to this end, we are asking you to write down briefly how you celebrate Christmas, & maybe your child can draw a picture to go with it, & then we will be talking about all our different celebrations on Friday at circle time!

As well as this, we will be doing some fun activities, on Tuesday the ‘Christmas car wash’ – the children will be playing a game pretending to help Santa get ready for Christmas by washing all his vehicles which will be covered in shaving foam (pretend snow!) using spray bottles, & then on Wednesday they will be doing a ‘snow drive’ – the vehicles will drive through white paint onto black paper – lots of messy fun ahead! We will also be continuing to practise Christmas songs with the children outside in the garden.

Jingle Bells

Jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle all the way,
Oh what fun it is to ride on a one horse open sleigh – hey!
Jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle all the way,
Oh what fun it is to ride in a one horse open sleigh!

It’s our last full week in November, unbelievably, & it’s also College Awareness Week! So this week we are asking the children to bring in photos of their parents/siblings/grandparents at graduation time, from primary, secondary or third level education – we will be adding these to our wall as part of celebrating lifelong learning with the children, who are at the very start of their learning journey!!

Ceann, lámha, glúine, cos

Ceann, lámha, glúine, cos,                      (Head, hands, knees, foot)
Ceann, lámha, glúine, cos,                      (Head, hands, knees, foot)
Agus súile, cluasa, béal agus srón,        (And eyes, ears, mouth and nose)
Ceann, lámha, glúine, cos!                      (Head, hands, knees, foot)

Bualadh Bos (Jingle Bells in Irish)

Bualadh bos, bualadh bos,            (clap hands, clap hands)
Bualadh bos go léir,                        (everyone clap hands)
Tá San Nioclás ag teacht anois,    (Santa Claus is coming now)
Anuas an simléar;                             (down the chimney)
Bualadh bos, bualadh bos,            (clap hands, clap hands)
Bualadh bos go léir,                        (everyone clap hands)
Tá San Nioclás ag teacht anois,    (Santa Claus is coming now)
Anuas an simléar!                             (down the chimney!)

We will be learning all about our galaxy The Milky Way, & our solar system this week at The Children’s House! This is continuing on our group project after doing our Big Bang experiment a few weeks ago, and focussing on the part of the universe where we have our home, trying to give the children bit of an idea of the enormity of the universe & how tiny the earth is in it – hard to get your head around even as an adult! The children will be doing solar system art, and at the end of the week, planets hopscotch – another fun week of learning ahead!!

Solar System

There are 8 planets in our solar system,
We all revolve around the sun.
Join us to learn about the different planets,
Sing along & have some fun!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C_2KN8OGgyY

It’s all about migration this week at The Children’s House! We will be talking about the reasons why animals migrate at winter time (e.g. seasonal/weather changes, to find better living or breeding conditions, to access food easier), & specifically looking at certain animals that migrate to & from Ireland such as swallows, martins, swifts etc who go south to Africa for warmer weather in the winter, while geese & swans arrive here from northern latitudes like Iceland, Greenland & Canada as we are 1 of the most northerly countries in the world where the soil & water doesn’t freeze in winter time for long periods of time. The children will be making a bird crafts during the week, looking at the globes to see how far some animals travel, & talking about their own favourite animals!

Migration

In wintertime, many an animal moves,
To a warmer place til the weather improves.
This yearly change of one’s location,
Is known as seasonal migration!

Welcome back after the midterm, we hope you all had a wonderful Halloween! It’s hard to believe it’s November already, & winter is definitely starting to set in, so we’ll be talking about the change of month & season this week with the children, as well as Diwali, the festival of lights which originated in India, which starts this Thursday 4th November. This is a wonderful occasion which celebrates the triumph of good over evil, and light over darkness; we will be learning about all the different preparations and rituals that are practised at this time, & the children will be making Diwali candles with paper plates & crepe paper.

Cloudy Day

I see clouds, they look so puffy,
Big & little, light & fluffy.
Clouds block the sun, they bring the shade,
Look really closely, see what pictures are made!
I really don’t mind a cloudy day,
But look out – rain could be on the way!

Halloween has crept up fast, and this week at The Children’s House we will be making everything as Halloweeny as possible!! The children will be doing pumpkin carving, spider web art, learning about the parts of a pumpkin, making pumpkin soup, & at the end of the week having a Halloween party & lots of fun games!!

Don’t forget that your child can come into school dressed up on Friday, & have a great midterm break – Happy Halloween everyone, hope you all have a great & spooky time!!!

I’m A Little Pumpkin (tune: I’m a Little Teapot)

It’s all things gardening-related this week at The Children’s House! The children will be learning all about the life cycle of plants, as well as looking at our earth & the 3 elements of land, air & water, & classifying pictures under those 3 categories; then at the end of the week they will be planting their own bulbs – bring on the green fingers!!

This week we will be starting our group project, as well as focussing on our emotions for the week! Sometimes young children can find it hard to express how they are feeling, and naming and discussing those feelings, and how it is appropriate to deal with them, can be very helpful to them. For this reason, we will firstly be looking at different emotions (e.g. happy, sad, angry, lonely, loved, jealous), recognising them in ourselves and talking about what we do when we feel like that. We will be focussing on relaxation techniques like yoga, and deep breathing, expression of emotions through using puppets, and appropriate vs inappropriate ways of expressing emotions – emotional regulation is a huge thing for young children to learn, so we try to support them in this in preschool as much as we can.

Speaking of explosions (!!) we will be beginning our group project learning about the universe, so we will be talking about the Big Bang and doing an experiment to demonstrate how it happened almost 14 million years ago – be warned, there will be lots of glitter involved so be prepared for sparkly children!!

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

It’s friendship week at The Children’s House!! We’re going to be talking all about what makes a good friend – we even have a recipe!!! A pinch of happiness, 1 handful of kindness, 2 spoonfuls of gentleness, 1 litre of sharing, a tablespoon of helpfulness, 50g of smiles, a sprinkling of cheerfulness, & 100g of love – mix all the ingredients together & then you will have a perfect friend!!

The children will be doing baking with their friends, making stewed apple, and later in the week making a Friendship Tree in the classroom with their handprints. As well as this they will be having great fun playing ‘Duck, duck, goose’ outdoors in the garden – a lovely week ahead for all our little friends!

Hi everyone, this week is Fire Safety week at The Children’s House!! The children are going to learn all about what we would do if there was ever a fire, and we will have the first of our monthly fire drills – this is a really important thing to do in order to try & take as much fear as possible out of the idea of there ever being a fire. When the fire drill is practised regularly then it becames a routine, & the children automatically know when they hear the fire alarm that they stop playing, exit the building & line up to get their names called.

We will be making firefighter hats & doing fun activities like pretending to be firefighters & putting out a pretend fire in the garden!