Senior Infants Blog
Snow woman Insulation Experiment ☃️
We have been learning all about winter and discussing the changes in weather. We discussed why we need to wear our winter clothes, to keep us warm.
The girls were shown two blocks of ice (snowwomen). We discussed whether a coat would keep one colder for longer or would it speed up the melting process.
Experiment: A snow woman with a coat
Fair test: Snow woman without a coat
The children are excited and hoping for snow so they can build a snowman and put a jacket on it so it will last longer and not melt in the sun!
Houses and Homes with Ms Whelan🏠
In history, we have been learning about homes in the past. We explored real evidence, looking at video tapes, vinyl disks, cassette tapes, telephones etc. It was exciting, as some of the girls had never seen a vinyl or a video tape before!
We compared these household items from the past with what we use today. 
👻🎃 Happy Halloween! 🎃🦇
The Senior Infant classroom was Super Spooky today and all the girls looked fantastic in their costumes! Well done to all the mams and dads for helping the girls dress up this morning. We had great fun.
Wishing all the girls a safe and happy mid-term break. 😃
🧹Room on the Broom🧹
We read Julia Donaldson’s book ‘Room on a Broom‘ and completed a guided drawing of the witch on the broom. We tried to remember all the details in Axel Scheffler’s illustration such as the plait in her hair, a brooch, cape etc. Did we remember all the details in our pictures?
Morning Literacy Stations
Station 1: Create words from play dough based on the story ‘Room on a broom’.
Station 2: Practice our writing skills, writing sentences about Halloween.
Station 3: Search for sounds amongst the witches green, gooey hair and form CVC words.
Halloween 🎃
Exploring our five senses in Science.
Sight: We discussed what pumpkins look like, their colour and shape.
Hearing: We dropped the pumpkin to hear what sound it would make.
Touch: We felt the hard outer layer and wet, gooey inside texture of the pumpkin.
Smell: Some of the girls said the pumpkin smelled fresh and sweet.
Taste: We discussed meals we could taste pumpkins in such as pumpkin soup.
Making Spells and Potions in English 🧪⚗️🧹
Griselda the Witch came to visit us and she encouraged us to write some spooktacular spells. We brainstormed some ingredients in our copies.
Griselda came back with the ingredients ready for a bubbling potion: vinegar, washing up liquid, baking soda, food colouring.
We mixed the ingredients together whilst saying: “Double, double boil and trouble. Make our potion boil and bubble”.
You can recreate the potion at home, by following this YouTube video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HLY72a3nSgc
A focus on ‘Reading at Home’ for the month of October.📚
For the month of October, we would like the girls to take out their favourite books and nursery rhymes and read them for 10 minutes every evening.
- Cover of the Story– Start with a conversation. What is this book going to be about? What does the title suggest? What do the pictures suggest? These questions help children to read with purpose.
- Discuss the pictures in the story. Who are the characters? Where are they? What are they doing?
- Prediction– Ask your child what she thinks will happen next in the story.
- Allow your child to sound out and blend some words in the text.
- Search for tricky words and rhyming words in the text.
- Finish the session with discussion and praise. Even if you have only succeeded in reading a few pages in your session, talk to your child about the meaning of what you have just read. This conversation extends vocabulary, aids comprehension and you both will then be excited for the next reading session!
Ways of Reading with your child
Paired reading is when a parent reads with a child to help model good reading and to support the child’s own efforts. There are several kinds of paired reading – try them all to see what works.
* Assisted reading
Read a part of the text and let the child take over at an agreed point. You read every second page, for example, or, if the going is very slow, every second paragraph. This can alleviate frustration.
* Chorus reading
Parent and child read together out loud. This way the child gets a sense of your tone and cadences, where you stop and pause and how you add expression.
* Echo reading
This is very effective for children experiencing significant difficulties with fluency. First you read the sentence. Then you and the child read the sentence together. Finally the child reads the sentence alone.
Nursery Rhyme- ‘Hey Diddle Diddle’🐈🎻🐄🌙🐕🍽️🥄
We have been focusing on the nursery rhyme ‘Hey Diddle, Diddle’.
