Welcome to the last full week of the year in The Children’s House!! The year has gone by so fast it’s hard to believe we’re at the end of the school year already, but we’re going to make the most of it and have a wonderful week – to start with, the Garda mounted unit are going to be at the GAA pitch on Monday so please make sure to come down if you can and see the beautiful, amazingly trained horses that are used by the Gardai, then we will be finishing off the children’s All About Me books during the week as well as finishing the music project, revising dynamics, and at the end of the week doing music exercises and games such as musical statues – it’s going to be a lot of fun!

This week at The Children’s House we will be having an awful lot of excitement as on Tuesday it’s Pyjama Day!! We will be raising money for Down Syndrome Ireland, which is a great cause and close to our heart. We will also be making crafts for Fathers Day, philosophising with the children about the importance of change – whether it’s changing classrooms for next year or transitioning to primary school – and then at the end of the week we will be making pizzas and having a teddy bears’ picnic!! It’s all go!!!

Teddy Bears’ Picnic

If you go down to the woods today,
You’re sure of a big surprise…
If you go down to the woods today,
You’d better go in disguise!

For all the bears that ever there was,
Will gather there for certain,
Because today’s the day the
Teddy bears have their picnic!

It’s all about language this week at The Children’s House; the children will be making nursery rhyme books, and we will be promoting language through songs, rhymes and stories – one of these stories will be about the worry dolls, which the children will then make. These are a traditional Guatemalan peg doll that the children can confide their worries in and the dolls are meant to take the worries away. We always reiterate to the children that they should always tell their parents/guardians/teachers about their worries, but if for instance they are awake in the middle of the night and need a bit of comfort, the worry dolls are a lovely support.

Sometimes at this time of year, some children might feel a bit worried or stressed about the imminent change on their horizon of transitioning to primary school, and this is a good way to bring up the topic of how we deal with stress and worries. All year long we have been promoting the idea of emotional self-regulation, for example by asking the children when upset ‘what might help you feel better?’, to encourage them to look for solutions themselves when they find themselves in emotionally stressful situations, and give them the confidence to know they can help themselves.

ABC Song

A, b, c, d, e, f, g…
H, i, j, k , l, m, n, o, p…
Q, r, s… t, u, v…w, x, y and z…
Now I know my a, b, c…
Next time won’t you sing with me?!

What a wonderful time we had last week visiting Lullymore Heritage and Discovery Farm – the school trips were a great success! We will be bringing the older children on a visit to Sallins primary school where we get a little tour of some of the school – we are shown the library, fish tank, the playground full of children at break time, and we get to see one of the junior infants classes and learn vital information such as where the toilets are! Children can often become nervous at the thoughts of transitioning from the safety of preschool, and we find the visit to ‘big school’ really does a lot to reassure the children about this change, and opens up lots of conversations about it. Also, learning seemingly unimportant facts such as the location of the toilets can take the stress away from children about having to ask their teacher in school if they are shy or embarrassed about these sort of things. It is an exciting time for your children and we always focus on the positivity of this step in their journey in learning, even though we are dreading them finishing up with us as we will miss them so much!!

Also this week the children will be doing more of their All About Me photo books, as well as participating in our annual Sports Day down at the GAA pitch, which is always the best fun!!

It’s school tours week this week in The Children’s House!! After learning all about road safety last week, we will be revising our safety rules on Monday and then the morning classes will visit Lullymore Heritage and Discovery Farm on Tuesday, while the afternoon classes will have their trip on Friday. Please ensure that your child brings a packed lunch, is wearing weather appropriate clothes…and it looks like you will have to apply sun cream before they go!

During their trip to Lullymore Heritage and Discovery Farm, the children will go on a train trip through the Bog of Allen, visit the pet farm to look at real live animals such as alpacas, pygmy goats, Kerry bog ponies, sheep, rabbits, chickens, pot-bellied pigs and Falabella miniature horses, have a guided tour through the wooded area and fairy village, and play in the outdoor/indoor play area as weather dictates, as well as picnicking there, and of course the main event – going on the bus!! We’ve been going 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.

This week we will be learning all about road safety in The Children’s House, in preparation for our school tours next week! We will be revising how we cross the road safely, using listening and visual skills, and playing ‘I Spy’ and listening games to practice using these senses. As well as this the children will be doing some gardening – planting a vertical garden!!

It’s also Grandparents Week this week, so we are asking any grandparents who have some spare time to come in and spend some of the class with your grandchildren – they would really love to have you in their classroom and show you off to their friends, as well as answer questions about your childhood – things like what your favourite toy or game was when you were their age, what your school was like etc – relating to things that are in their lives.

This Is The Way We Cross The Road (tune of Mulberry Bush)

This is the way we cross the road,
Cross the road, cross the road;
This is the way we cross the road,
We stop, look and listen.

We stand on the kerb and look both ways,
Look both ways, look both ways;
We stand on the kerb and look both ways,
Before we cross the road.

We stand on the kerb and listen hard,
Listen hard, listen hard;
We stand on the kerb and listen hard,
Before we cross the road.

It’s lifecycle week in The Children’s House this week – chickens, owls, butterflies, swallows, apples….we’re doing them all!! The children will be looking at the stages of different plants and animals, and examining how life begins and ends in the world around them, as well as doing some associated arts and crafts related to the lifecycles. For added excitement, we have some live additions to the classrooms this week – a ‘butterfly garden’!! This is an educational kit containing live caterpillars in a clear plastic cup which contains all of the nutritious food they need – the cup is placed safely away from direct sunlight, and the caterpillars will remain in the cup and will eat, spin silk and grow to TEN times their original size….After seven to ten days they will hang upside down and harden into chrysalides (chrysalides are also known as pupae). Once the chrysalides have hardened, we will move them to the pop-up butterfly habitat which is a cylindrical mesh container perfect for up close butterfly viewing! It will take about seven to ten more days for them to complete the transformation to adult butterflies, and will be a wonderful process for the children to observe!!

The White Birds (by W B Yeats)

I would that we were, my beloved, white birds on the foam of the sea!
We tire of the flame of the meteor, before it can fade and flee;
And the flame of the blue star of twilight, hung low on the rim of the sky,
Has awakened in our hearts, my beloved, a sadness that may not die.

This week in The Children’s House we’re doing a lot of different activities – we’ll be celebrating May Day & the start of summer on Tuesday using a home-made Maypole, then during the week we’ll be doing some yoga, and talking about at the importance of the sun (a really lovely Montessori lesson which continues on from our experiment last week examining why plants need water); on Thursday the children will make healthy smoothies using fruit and vegetables, and at the end of the week they will be doing some planting – a very productive week ahead!!

The Sun

The sun makes the world a warm place to play,
It makes the flowers grow each day,
The sun hides its face away during the night,
But during the daytime it shines oh so bright!

It’s all about looking after our earth this week in The Children’s House!! After a great week last week learning all about the farm, this week we will be focusing on care of the environment and our earth, through educating ourselves on the importance of using less plastic, recycling and reusing, and not littering. 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 doing a geography lesson on land, air & water, as well as doing recycling arts & crafts!

Finally, we will also carry out an experiment using celery in jars of coloured water, which demonstrates how plants absorb water through osmosis up through their stems and leaves; just like people have veins which makes our blood flow through our bodies, plants have veins (tubes called xylems) that water flows through. This water travels to all parts of the plant and is used during photosynthesis to make food for the plant, which is why it is so important to remember to water our plants!!

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!