White class students have been enjoying their daily yoga sessions over the past few weeks and what progress has been made. We begin each session with a focus on our breathing; we breath in pretending to smell flowers and breath out pretending we are blowing out a candle. This helps everyone to focused and become centred. We then work through our poses starting with those which require the students to be close to the ground which include snake pose, downward dog, and airplane pose. After exerting lots of energy we then rest in child’s pose, listening to music and learning to be still! This is the most difficult few minutes of the session as white class students just love to move!!

It’s then time to stand up for moon, bear and tree pose and finically we finish with butterfly pose. What fun we have had mastering our yoga poses. After half term we are changing things up and starting circuit training – watch this space!

This term in Red class we have been exploring the world of food. we are working hard on grouping different types of foods, we have been using food as a basis for works of art, and also singing our own food related songs. We have been out and about in the community exploring supermarkets and the wide variety of foods that are available to buy. We have made purchases and used the ingredients to make tasty treats for ourselves!

We have been learning lots about food this term we have explored many different types of food using our sense of smell touch and taste. We have made stewed apple, some sweet treats and lots of different types of fruit. We have also used lots of food in our messy play activities. In art we have used the theme of food as inspiration for our activities.

We loved the theme ‘food’ in Navy class. We have taken part in a variety of numeracy activities, sorting and matching fruit and vegetables. We have also been busy developing our personal care and well-being through food and nutrition lessons. We have made lots of different healthy snacks during cookery. We really enjoyed going on a community outing to buy the ingredients to make healthy banana,blueberry and oat muffins!

We have really enjoyed our food unit so far in Pink class. We were the first in the school to produce “Fruity Friday” for the students. It was a real honour. 

In cookery we have made several healthy dishes as well as a mixture of smoothies. As part of our Personal Care PLU we have been:

• Sorting food into the different food groups
• Identified safe practice for food preparation and storage
• Demonstrated appropriate food hygiene and safety  

 Finally we even went on a trip to identify which countries our fruits and vegetables come from and looked at how far they have travelled.

Orange Class have been engaging in a variety of sensory activities surrounding the theme of food.

In SPHE, we are covering: Myself – Taking Care of My Body (Show an awareness of familiar foods; and Show an awareness of what keeps the body healthy and well).

We experienced food through a variety of multi-sensory activities:

• We explored real fruits and vegetables through touch, sight, smell, taste and hearing.
• We actively explored the difference between oats and custard before and after water was added.
• We made prints with paint using a variety of vegetables.
• We listened to the story ‘The Silly Waiter’ told through Lámh signs.
• We matched real foods to their pictures.
• We sorted real foods into sweet and savory.

As part of SPHE we are also covering ‘Myself – Growing and Changing – (Showing awareness of the care needed by small babies’). We all had a turn feeding the baby!

Yellow Class went shopping for fruit and vegetables to make healthy smoothies. Students were tasked with finding, scanning and packing the ingredients we needed. They did an amazing job and were rewarded with a delicious smoothie! Next week we are trying our hand at baking as we make porridge bread.

In Blue class, we have been investigating different food groups and the food we have in each of our different meals. We made breakfast with scrambled eggs, toast and orange juice. We used any leftover bread to create wonderful pieces of printed artwork!

We have also been using our fine motor skills to paint, cut out and make paper pizzas!

We have started our food theme in Black Class by making healthy snacks for the Food and Nutrition element of the Level 1 Personal care and wellbeing area of the Junior Cycle.

We worked on kitchen skills, tastes and using utensils correctly to produce a great healthy snack – home made beans.  I think from the empty bowls that you can guess if we liked it or not!!

3.11 – Use the senses to explore different types of food.

3.12 – Show preferences for foods.

3.14 – Use eating and drinking utensils.

3.15 – Participate in preparing food.

3.17 – Follow safety rules for using kitchen equipment.

3.18 – Participate in making a healthy snack.

As the last newsletter of the decade goes home on Monday, here is a sneaky preview for the blog followers…

Newsletter December 19

Head over to YouTube to check out our participation in GymAble on the Sligo Sport and Recreation channel.
https://youtu.be/jeGmuiYqb8E

This past half term White Class students experienced becoming a clown during our class drama. We read a book that taught us all about how a clown applies their make up and what clothes they wear. After reading all about becoming a clown the students just had to give it a try! Each week a different student dressed up and lead the class in our drama circus. We practiced juggling, throwing buckets of hay, dancing about to circus music, walking a tightrope and even jumping through the ring of fire!! Have a look at our photos to see how much fun we had ????

Yellow Class have really enjoyed our Art topic  of printing. We finished our topic with a fun activity, printing with a variety of construction blocks on playdough that we rolled out to make a flat surface. We created some great patterns and the effects are fantastic. Have a look!

We had a fantastic maths week. Along with the rest of the school we in purple class worked on something new everyday and had a great time along the way!! We worked on counting skills, number sequence, tangrams, dot to dot, colour by numbers and we even did a maths scavenger hunt where we went around the halls looking for different maths objects and for each one we found we had to do something from making ourselves Big/Small, counting, putting “apples” on a tree, finding shapes and loads more! To finish off the week we had great fun playing maths related games on the yard!!! It was a great week!