Blog Posts

Friday 7th December

9/12/2018

Winter Walk 2018

I completely forgot to put up the photos of the Winter Walk last week. Thank you to all the parents for making such wonderful winter hats with your child. It was lovely to see so many parent able to join us on the cold but dry winter morning!

This week it's all about the circus!

As you're aware! The circus has come to Rm 6 this week! We've been exploring all our learning through the topic of the circus. The children are having great fun playing Circus during our aistear play. We've even set up our own ticket office and circus stage. Check out the video below where we practice our role-play while learning about time and money!

The Story of Time...

Homework for this coming week...

There will be no homework sheet this coming week. Each night please have your children practice their lines for the play. A sheet went home in their bag on Friday. I would also ask you to have them practice the song below A million Dreams. We have decided to do all of the verses below. I'll send a sheet home in their folder.
The children can also continue with their readers and tricky words. If you have time you could have them practice their spelling of the tricky words. Preparation for the play has meant I haven't had time to reassess their letter sounds but we have ben working hard in school and you have at home so I can see they are making good progress. I will assess them again when the concert is over.

Dress Rehearsal - Wednesday

Please wear correct underclothes for free rehearsal on Wednesday as well as Thursdays. Girls can wear tights and shoes. Boys can wear tracksuit and round neck t-shirts under jumpers.
Thank you.

A Million Dreams (video below)

We are looking forward to our Play on Thursday. Please arrive promptly as we will be one of the first acts. It is ok to collect the children after the whole show is over. Please have the girls wear colourful tights and shoes into school. The boys can wear round neck t-shirts under their track suits.

Thank you,

Regards,
Ms Murray

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Friday 30th November

30/11/2018

3 Comments

Christmas Play

Our Christmas Play will have a circus theme this year. We are doing an adaptation of The Greatest Showman. If you have any circus costumes that you could lend us, that would be great but please DO NOT spend any money. Please have your child practice the following song at home whenever possible.

A Million Dreams

Only the first 1.30 mins of the song below.

Join The Circus

Only the first 1.50 mins of the song below.

Come Follow The Band

Only the first 1.55 mins

Dictation

The children are getting really good at their dictation. This activity requires them to listen to me call out a sentence. They then have to recall all the letter rules I taught them to segment out the different letters in spell a words (throw in a few tricky words here!). At the same time, they also have to recall how to write these letters in written text. That's before we think about the sentence structure rules which require them to remember to leave a space between words, capital letter at the start of the sentence and full stop at the end!

Not as easy as you would think right!?

So credit to the children for working so hard in school. After Christmas we will be changing the homework around a little and dictation will be part of their home practice, but feel free to give it a go whenever you get a chance!

Science Week

Mr Mulcahy joined us for some super experiments to celebrate Science Week!The children were engrossed in the experiments as you can see in the video below.

Hope you're enjoying the weekend! Only Three school weeks to CHRISTMAS! ??

Kind Regards,

Ms Murray

3 Comments

Practicing Letter Sounds and Tricky Words.

19/11/2018

4 Comments

The children and I wanted to share some videos to show their grown-ups how we practice our letters sound in school. All the activities shown can also be a playful way to practice tricky words too. We hope you will find the videos helpful and supportive of your child's practice at home. While we do lots of these activities in school, some children really need a quieter environment to practice, with one to one support. This is not always possible in a busy classroom so please take the time to work with your child at home. It will be extremely beneficial to their reading development. Following an assessment, some children have been sent home with a list of sounds they need to practice. It's perfectly normal that they don't know some of the double letter sounds yet. But with plenty of practice they'll get them in no time. Also I just want to say a BIG WELL DONE! to all the children for being such super stars in the videos!

Activity One - Drawing and labelling words that contain the focus sound

Sometimes we tend to offer the children words that contain the focus sound. But having the children think up of their own words will help them retain this information in their long term memory. Drawing a picture and writing the word is a fun activity. Collect their drawing and staple them together to make their own sound book for them to read back over!

Playing Go Fish

Using the letter sound flash cards i have sent home have a go playing this game. This game will help your child to recognise and read the sounds or tricky words. The reason I ask the children to take a picture of the sounds (in this video) is to make sure that they look at the sound while they say it. This helps make a connection between the text and the sound.

Go Fish from Ms Murray on Vimeo.

Spotting the sounds in your environment

Looking for the focus sound in books, on cereal packets or anywhere throughout the day is a great way to reinforce the focus sounds or tricky words. It also helps put the sounds they have been learning into context.

Read it, Write it, Check it!

Your child may be able to recognise the sound when shown letter/s. But they also need to be able to write the sounds/tricky words when dictated. Follow this simple activity to practice writing the sounds/tricky words and when you feel your child knows them well. Try having them list down the sounds/words as you call them out. Please make sure your child uses the correct letter formation for writing.

Look, Cover, Check! from Ms Murray on Vimeo.

Smooth Blending

It is really important to say the sounds just right if your child is going to be able to blend smoothly. Make sure you do not add an "uh" sound to the end of letter sounds. Your child will explain to you how some sounds are stretchy (continuous sounds) and some bouncy (stops sounds). Look at the list below to see which sounds can be stretched when enunciated correctly and which cannot.

The children are getting really good at their blending so they will probably fly through these word boxes but there's no harm in going over them again.

Some children will have a focus flashcard pack in their homework folders this week. They do not have an extra homework sheet until they know their sounds fluently and are confident blending them in words and writing them. Please practice one or more of the above activities every night for homework. Other children are asked to continue with homework sheet for now and focus on their readers. I will be sending everyone home tricky words next week.
Thank you for your support in your children learning and should you have any questions about your child's homework, just ask!

Kind Regards,
Ms Murray

4 Comments

Friday 16th November

18/11/2018

1 Comment

This week we developed our learning about our community by looking at all the different people who work in our community. This topic is one that offers the children lots of scope for their Aistear role play.

Learning about money and data in our play!

I hope everyone managed to get a book from the visiting book people. These fantastic children have such a love for books!

Check back to the blog on Monday for a special post on practicing letter sounds, reading, blending and tricky words at home.

Have a great weekend,
Ms Murray

1 Comment

Friday 8th November

11/11/2018

3 Comments

This week we stared our new theme ‘Community and people who help us’. To introduce our new theme we took a virtual trip around our community and explored the different buildings. Together we learnt how to map our own community and learnt the aspects of mapping.

Bringing all our learning into our play.

GAA with Gerry this week! They adore him 🤗

Great homework this week everyone! Well done 👍

We will be having GAA for the next 6 eeek in Thursday so please wear tracksuit and runners. We will be doing dance lessons on Monday for the next weeks so please wear tracksuits on these days.
Have a great weekend,
Ms Murray

3 Comments

Friday 26th October

25/10/2018

1 Comment

Hallowe'en Madness!

A picture speaks a thousand words...

Untitled from Ms Murray on Vimeo.

I promise you it's all extremely hard work!!!

Have a happy and safe Hallowe'en break everyone.

Kind Regards,

Ms Murray

1 Comment

The Scarecrows' Wedding!

23/10/2018

4 Comments

Thanks so much for coming to the premier of our movie this morning! It really was so nice that everyone made the effort and certainly one of the highlight of my job, sharing our work all together! It really was a special moment. I know you all enjoyed it as much as I did! Make sure you download the movie to keep!

Kind regards,

Ms Murray!

4 Comments

Friday The 19th October

21/10/2018

4 Comments

The Scarecrows' Wedding!

We have been very busy the past fortnight in school. We have immersed ourselves in Julia Donaldson's story The Scarecrows' Wedding. If you don't know this story ask your child to tell you about it. Watch it together in the video below or visit the library and borrow a copy.

Planning a Wedding...

After reading the story we decided that we wanted to make our own version of the Scarecrows wedding and looked to our own autumnal collection to see how we could substitute the scarecrows' list for what was available to us.

So we got straight to work!...

Cakes for the wedding

Lots of Writing...

We wrote guest list, party plans, venue design and more...

So, once we had our plans in place and all our props ready we set about rehearsing for the Movie. A massive well done to all our actors. A special well done to Isobel, Antek and Sarah who place their demanding roles with such enthusiasm and confidence!

So here is the trailer! Just a taster of what the real movie is like... you are in for a special treat!!

The full movie is so good that we would like to invite you to its' special premier in school this week. The exact day I will have to confirm with you but it will be 9.05am (maybe Tuesday). If you can make it, your child and I would be thrilled!

Autumn Art

Next week is Halloween week and everything will be turning spooktacular in rm 6. I would really appreciate any donations of pumpkins, halloween decorations or anything you feel will add to your child learning around our halloween traditions.

Many Thanks,

Ms Murray

4 Comments

Friday 5th October

6/10/2018

4 Comments

A week of Apples!

We have been learning about apples and the life cycle of apples tree through the seasons. Ask you child some questions about apple trees. Use our poster below as a prompt.

Here are some great pieces of copywork!

This year I am exploring flexible seating in my case in an effort to make the children feel most comfortable in their classroom environment. It also offers children the opportunity to assess for themselves where the might work best for different activities. It is working really well!

Ask you child to name the different parts of the apple. Inside and outside.

We have been exploring procedural writing. We made stewed apples this week!

Turns out stewed apples aren't a popular as we expected! Only six children choose to bring home an extra portion!

We have Ms Fallon and Ms Cronan visit us each week for in class support. We do maths and literacy throughout the week. Heres a few snaps of the children hard at work!

Have a great weekend!

Ms Murray

4 Comments

September 29th, 2018

29/9/2018

11 Comments

What a fantastic first month back to school! Having the same class has been super and we just got straight into things! I've lots of videos to share with you this week, we've done soon much! But first, Just a few notes about what has changed for your child this year now they've made the big move up to senior infants!

School finishes at 1.45 this year. This allows the junior infants a few minutes to get out safely before us. Delivering your children to you safely is my absolute priority. I am very grateful to the parents and child minders for your patience here. If someone else collects your child please take the time to explain this system to them. I take the children over to our line up area BEFORE they are allowed to be taken from the line. They must say goodbye to me before they leave and I have made eye contact with their parent/minder. if that mean the child hanging out of me to get my attention, I really don't mind ?
Homework. Reading practice is the most important homework you can do with your child each night. I have sent home readers in their folders and on Monday I will send home a reading tracker. If you could fill in the tracker when your child has read and re-read the book and is ready for a new one (they will need to ask me). Be mindful not to rush the readers, enjoy re reading them and asking questions about what they have read. Comprehension and fluency are equally important. I will also include tricky words that the children are to learn by sight. We will be moving onto the yellow set and doing two a week. If any parent of struggling readers wish to have a quick parent/teacher/child reading workshop with me please come talk to me. *Please keep readers and homework sheet in folders and return to their schoolbags everyday* Use pencil for writing activities and colouring pencils for colouring activities. Thank you!

So here's the fun bits...

Visit to the Botanic Gardens

It's always a treat to get out of the classroom to explore our local commnity and this month the Botanic Gardens were having a sculpture display.

A week of Sculpture

In this video the children were reviewing and retelling our Week of Sculpture inspired by the above trip. Our focus was on exciting the senses (sight, hearing, touch, taste and sound).

A week with The Little Red Hen

We had lot's of fun around the story of the Little Red Hen. We did some acting, movie making and bread making! Check out the movie below and ask your child to identify their role in the making of the movie. Each child participated in the voice overs and stage props. The improvement in child's articulation and language is very clear when compared to our last story production of the Smartest Giant last year. Well done girls and boys!

Of course no Little Red Hen week would be complete without making our own "Bread in a Bag!"

That's it for this week!

Ms Murray

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Ms Murray's Class Blog

Winter Walk 2018

This week it's all about the circus!

The Story of Time...

Homework for this coming week...

Dress Rehearsal - Wednesday

A Million Dreams (video below)

Christmas Play

A Million Dreams

Only the first 1.30 mins of the song below.

Join The Circus

​Only the first 1.50 mins of the song below.

Come Follow The Band

Only the first 1.55 mins

Dictation

Science Week

Activity One - Drawing and labelling words that contain the focus sound

Playing Go Fish

Spotting the sounds in your environment

Read it, Write it, Check it!

Smooth Blending

Learning about money and data in our play!

I hope everyone managed to get a book from the visiting book people. These fantastic children have such a love for books!

Hallowe'en Madness!

The Scarecrows' Wedding!

Planning a Wedding...

Cakes for the wedding

Lots of Writing...

Autumn Art

A week of Apples!

So here's the fun bits...

Visit to the Botanic Gardens

A week of Sculpture

A week with The Little Red Hen

Categories

Archives

Only the first 1.50 mins of the song below.