Citywest & Saggart

Community National School

Junior Infants Room 2: Classroom Maps

Over the last two weeks, the children in room two have been putting great effort into drawing maps of their own classroom. They have identified all of the different items they might include in their maps and taken time during aistear to draw, colour, and share these maps with each other. Drawing maps of familiar environments is an excellent way to develop the children’s spatial awareness and observation skills, which are key components of the national geography curriculum. Maybe you might ask them to begin to draw maps of rooms at...

Junior Infants Room 2: Human Rights Month

Last Friday, the children in room 2 joined all of the children in the school for a human rights assembly during which the children shared their work from the past month. The children in junior infants learned a lot about gender equality at an age appropriate level reading the stories My Princess Boy and Princess Smartypants. After reading the stories, the children engaged in discussion around boys and girls clothes, and came to the conclusion that it doesn’t matter what they wear and that every boy and girl is free to choose to wear whatever they would like to wear without worrying about what others might say. Have a look at their display hanging in the PE...

Junior Infants Room 2: Materials

This month, the children in room 2 have been exploring the properties and characteristics of different materials in science by investigating whether different types of materials, such as paper, plastic, cardboard, and tinfoil, are waterproof or not. In visual arts, the children have also been exploring fabric and fibre by creating patterns and textures on clothes. Examples of their work can be seen in the pictures below. It was has been wonderful to see them integrate their learning in both of these areas over the last few weeks....

Junior Infants Room 2: Human Rights Month/Math

This week is human rights month. In room 2, the children are beginning to discuss this topic at an age appropriate level. This week, the children started their discussion on human rights by comparing wants and needs. Initially, the children were asked to identify the things they would bring with them on a holiday. As you can see from the picture below, mostly toys and pets were mentioned.   However, when the children were told that they could only bring one or two things with them, they began to discuss which things were more important than others. Finally, the children were invited to participate in a classroom survey during which they would each decide which one of three things they really needed to take on holiday. They were asked to choose between clothes, their pet, or a suitcase. Most of the children chose to bring clothes, and moved away from the need to bring their pets and toys. It was so wonderful to see the progression in their ideas from the beginning to the end of the lesson, and how well they started to distinguish between wants and needs. This lesson also allowed us to integrate our learning with maths, where we are focusing on data.    ...

Junior Infants Room 2: Maths 4 Fun Week 2

Maths 4 Fun proved to be very successful again in room 2. The children learned so much from new and returning parents. We are thankful to have so many parents willing to give up their time to come in and work with the children, as it is vital for the children to see the connections between learning at home and in school. We look forward to seeing more parents again next Tuesday.    ...