Welcome back, we hope you all had a wonderful St Patrick’s Day! This week the 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 the first amphibians emerging from the oceans onto the land.

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,
Now there are 4 green speckled frogs!

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

Beannachtaí Lá Fhéile Pádraig daoibh!! Happy St Patrick’s Day to you all – this week in The Children’s House we will be continuing to celebrate Seachtain na Gaeilge, ending up with having St Patrick’s Day festivities at the end of the week; we will be making flags and headbands, making green playdough, and celebrating St Patrick’s Day on Friday with a parade!

As well as this we will be continuing on with our project from the Big Bang and Azoic Era, to learning about the Proterozoic Era when life was just beginning on earth in the oceans – for example worms, sponges and jellyfish; the children will be making pictures to represent the era, and we will set up a sponge painting area.

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)

This week in The Children’s House we will be marking Shrove Tuesday by making pancakes (yum!!), celebrating World Book Day on Thursday by asking the children to bring in their favourite books to read with us – they can also come in dressed up as their favourite character from a book or film if they like – & if any family member is free to come in to read with us, all the better!! We will also be doing more Irish as it is the start of Seachtain na Gaeilge, so we will be learning animal names and doing Irish songs throughout the week.

Roille Roille Ráinne (Ring a Rosie)

Roille roille ráinne,
Timpeall linn an bhfáinne,                               Around together in a circle,
Ríleo ró! Ríleo ró!
Suas san aer le mo choisín ó!                           Up in the air with my feet!

Welcome back – hopefully everyone had a lovely mid-term break and are all energised, as it’s all go this week in The Children’s House!! We will be resuming our group project on the timeline of the eras, so after learning all about the Big Bang, this week we will be unrolling our timeline and learning about the Azoic Era, when earth was newly formed and no life existed; the children will be making pictures to represent the era. Following that, during the week we will be making volcanoes and carrying out an experiment using baking soda, vinegar and red food colouring to simulate the volcano exploding!

As well as this, we will be having Pet Visit Day on Friday- this is a VERY exciting day, where children are invited to bring their pets into school – under their parents’ supervision! We have previously had all sorts of animal visitors, from dogs to hens to lambs to lizards…!!! The children who don’t have a pet visiting can bring in their favourite animal teddy, and at circle time each child can tell us about their pet or teddy. This is a really wonderful day, and everyone gets such enjoyment out of it, so we’re really looking forward to it!

Monsieur Pouce (Fingerplay)

Toc toc toc, Monsieur Pouce, es-tu la?          Knock knock knock, Mr Thumb, are you there?
Sshhh, je dors!                                                    Sshhh, I’m sleeping!
Toc toc toc, Monsieur Pouce, es-tu la?          Knock knock knock, Mr Thumb, are you there?
Sshhh, je mange!                                                Sshhh, I’m eating!
Toc toc toc, Monsieur Pouce, es-tu la?          Knock knock knock, Mr Thumb, are you there?
Sshhh, je bois!                                                    Sshhh, I’m drinking!
Toc toc toc, Monsieur Pouce, es-tu la?          Knock knock knock, Mr Thumb, are you there?
Oui, je sors! Bonjour tout le monde!!             Yes, I’m coming! Hello everyone!!

This will be a very short week in The Children’s House, as it’s mid term, but that doesn’t mean we’ll be any less busy!! On Monday we will be creating obstacle courses outside using what we have – logs, slide, seesaw, picnic table, chairs, brush, hula hoop….it’ll be interesting to see what the children come up with! Then on Tuesday we will be making indoor obstacle courses, which will be very exciting – using everyday furniture to move our bodies over, under and around in different ways – prepare for your houses to be restructured!! We will also be revising the Big Bang before we start moving on with our project next week, and last but definitely not least we will be having a party to say goodbye to Jess as she finishes up for her maternity leave on Tuesday – very exciting times ahead for her and her little baby!

The Children’s House will be closed for mid-term break from Wednesday 20th until Friday 22nd February inclusive, re-opening next Monday 25th February.

Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes

Head, shoulders, knees and toes, knees and toes,
Head, shoulders, knees and toes, knees and toes,
And eyes and ears and mouth and nose…
Head, shoulders, knees and toes, knees and toes!

It’s going to be a big love-in this week 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. We also encourage children to ask their friends what might help them feel better if they’re upset about something – the answer is usually hugs!!

During the week we will be making Valentine’s crafts, creating a Love Tree, decorating the classroom with hearts, and on Thursday having our annual Valentine’s 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!’

Gong Xi Fa Cai!! It’s the Chinese Lunar New Year on Tuesday, 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 Pig, the children will be making pigs from paper plates, as well as Chinese fans, cherry blossom trees with thumb prints, and decorating the classrooms for the week.

Happy New Year (action poem)

Happy new year, hop hop hop,
Happy new year, stop stop stop,
Happy new year, jump jump jump,
Happy new year, stomp stomp stomp.
Happy new year, touch your nose,
Happy new year, touch your toes,
Happy new year, turn around,
Happy new year, now sit down!

This week at The Children’s House we will be starting to learn about the beginning of the universe, and doing an experiment to demonstrate the Big Bang almost 14 million years ago, and we will be talking about how we are all made of stardust! Later in the week the children will be making their own pictures of the Big Bang, we will do some philosophising and have a discussion about what everyone imagines the world might have been like in the very beginning….then we will also be doing some drama – moving to music with different coloured ribbons to represent all the particles swirling about after the Big Bang.

As well as this we will be talking about the change of month from January to February, which also means that Spring is officially here!! We will celebrate St Brigid’s day on 1st March by making St Brigid’s crosses, and listen to Spring from Vivaldi’s Four Seasons (there is a beautiful reimagining of it by Max Richter, here is the link for anyone who is interested – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WaCib0B8T24); so a busy week ahead!!

93 Percent Stardust – Nikita Gill

We have calcium in our bones, iron in our veins,
Carbon in our souls, and nitrogen in our brains,
93 percent stardust, with souls made of flames,
We are all just stars that have people names.

Twinkle Twinkle Little Star

Twinkle twinkle little star,
How I wonder what you are!
Up above the world so high, like a diamond in the sky,
Twinkle twinkle little star,
How I wonder what you are!

After a great week discussing dental hygiene and learning all about our teeth, we will be continuing on to do a healthy eating theme this week at The Children’s House – we will start off the week with a discussion with the children on why they might think it’s important to eat healthily, talk about what our bodies need from food and which foods are best for us, and continue from there to look at the food pyramid. After this we will introduce practical activities such as matching sample jars of food to the food pyramid, art activities, and sugar experiments, as well as doing some healthy cooking of soup!

We emphasise the importance of having a good balanced diet and a healthy relationship with food – to know which foods are healthy and which are not, but to stress that having a treat is not a bad thing either!

Oh, Do You Eat Your Vegetables (tune of Muffin Man)

Oh, do you eat your vegetables, vegetables, vegetables?
Oh, do you eat your vegetables, each and every day?

Oh, yes we eat our vegetables, vegetables, vegetables;
Oh, yes we eat our vegetables, each and every day!

Another 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 – in a non-scary way, we don’t intend to add to anyone’s fear of the dentist!! We will then be examining our tooth model and looking in the mirror at our own teeth and learning the names of them, as well as talking about why we lose our teeth and learning about the parts of the mouth.

We will also discuss how to brush our teeth using toothpaste & brush, and finally talk about foods that are healthy for our teeth – especially crunchy foods like apples and carrots, and calcium-containing foods which strengthen our teeth such as milk, cheese and yoghurts – and foods that aren’t.

Brushing Song (tune of Twinkle Twinkle)

Brushing, brushing, brush this way,
Keeps our teeth clean every day.
Once in the morning, then at noon,
And at night when we see the moon.
Brushing, brushing, brush this way,
Keeps our teeth clean every day!