This month our theme was The Garden Centre! This has definitely been one of our favourite themes so far because we have been able to play with mucky soil, plant seeds, play with real daffodil bulbs and gardening equipment like watering cans, trowels and rakes too! We have been reading stories like The Very Hungry Caterpillar, Ten Seeds and The Cautious Caterpillar that teach us all about how all living things grow and change when they are cared for and loved. 

We also learned how seeds grow when they have enough water, soil and sunlight. Each day we watch to see how our strawberry and potato plants are growing thanks to the free materials sent to our school by Incredible Edibles! They sent some seeds, plants and gardening equipment to our home-school teacher Linda who kindly shared them with our class. We have become fantastic gardeners in the process! We want to say a very big thank you to the Incredible Edibles team and to Linda for giving us all the equipment we need to be excellent gardeners! 

In January we were told that schools would be closed and we would have to learn from home until schools could reopen safely. Luckily, children and parents had been using our online learning platform 'Seesaw' for homework since the start of the year. While the transition to home learning was a daunting one, it was made a little easier by the familiar layout of Seesaw that families and teachers had used since September. 

Parents became overnight teachers and helped their children with tasks, challenges and learning activities online and at home. It was important for parents to remember that they knew their child best and that we understood that each family and home situation was different. We were blown away with the consistent engagement and responses from families during the school lockdown. It was a very difficult time for families and they still managed to submit work, take photos, join Zoom calls and take part in weekly challenges. Thank you once again for your brilliant involvement. The photos and work submissions we got were absolutely wonderful and helped to keep up the connections with children from afar. 

We had weekly class calls on Zoom that did not include any formal learning. These calls were purely to socialise, chat, play games and have fun together. We played Simon says, Spot the Difference, engaged in Show and Tell, exercised with GoNoodle video routines and even talked about our pets, toys, hobbies and past times during the lockdown. 

Our whole-school Learn Together Assemblies also took place on Zoom each Friday. In school we have assemblies each Friday as part of our Educate Together Learn Together curriculum. This was a great way to keep connected and catch up on news and interesting projects taking place. The highlights were the birthday shoutouts, Susan's weekly outdoor challenges, the OWL nominations (Outstanding Weekly Learner) and of course Colm's Intercolm jokes!! 

You can rewatch some of the Learn Together Assemblies here: https://www.eskeretns.ie/learn-together-assemblies

Also, have a look at the Home Learning Hub for Susan's weekly outdoor challenges: ​https://www.eskeretns.ie/esker-home-learning-hub.html

On December 18th our school had a silly hat day fundraiser that was organised by the PTA. We had a splendid collection of hats and headgear on display... just have a look at some of the photos! 

Well done to all who took part and thank you to the PTA for the great fundraiser for our school! We had so much fun and loved dressing up in our silliest hats. What a great way to end the term!

We want to say a big thank you to our wonderful SNA Milena and our fantastic caretaker Barry for designing and painting our lovely sensory maze in the Junior Infants yard! 

Now we have hopscotch, froggy jumps, loop the loop tracks, ladders and lots more to keep us busy during our breaktimes outside.

It's been tried and tested by the children in Junior Infants Green and we love it! Bualadh bos agus go raibh míle maith agaibh!! 

The CLOVER initiative (Children LOVE Reading) has been a fantastic incentive in our school and we didn't let Covid restrictions stop us from promoting and encouraging a love of reading in Junior Infants! Linda, our home school liaison teacher, kindly gave each child an exciting reading pack at the start of the year. In the goody bags were story books, stickers and crayons to encourage and promote reading at home. 

Normally, as part of the CLOVER initiative parents are invited into the classroom to read stories to the children. Even though parents weren't allowed to come in this year, they still read stories to the class by sharing videos of themselves reading stories from home! 

The children loved watching and listening to their parents and guardians reading to them and their friends in school. When a child realised it was their parent reading the story that day they were so proud and excited to tell the whole class! They listened to every word and laughed at every joke. It might have been a small task for parents, but it meant so much to the children and the excitement they had after listening to the CLOVER videos from parents lasted the whole day! 

Thank you to Linda and all parents and guardians who got involved. It was really lovely to see how excited and eager the children were to read once they saw their families taking part. Well done to all involved!

You can learn more about our other literacy and numeracy initiatives here: ​https://www.eskeretns.ie/literacy--numeracy.html

Have a look at some of our photos from the Winter Showcase! Our Aistear theme for the month of December was 'Winter Wonderland' and we learned lots about the coldest season for Ireland and about animals who live in arctic climates. 

We learned how to wrap gifts and dressed up as arctic animals at the role play corner, played in the icy, bubbly water at the messy play station, built igloos with the polydron blocks and made beautiful winter arts and crafts too!

Our poem was called 'I'm a little penguin' and we all performed it together to create a video that our class watched live on Zoom with our families and the other children at Esker ETNS. Even though we were apart, we still celebrated the festive season as a whole school community! 

You can watch our full performance and the videos from other classes here: https://www.eskeretns.ie/learn-together-assemblies/december-17th-2020