News of the brilliant Johnstown girls has travelled far and wide so the Minister for Education and Skills just had to come and see for herself. On Thursday 1st October, Minister Jan O'Sullivan came to visit our school and the girls gave her a great welcome. Mary made the girls lovely ribbons to wave as she arrived and then we listened to the Minister tell us about her job. Everybody gave a great cheer when she told us we could have a night off homework. Later the girls were still enjoying the pretty ribbons when some of them decided to wear them in their hair while we were painting.
Last week we were visited by our friend Aoife from Windyridge. She taught us about habitats and helped us plant daffodils which we were allowed to bring home. Aoife gave us a few tips to help our plants grow. If we would like to keep it inside and water it everyday our daffodils will bloom before Christmas. If we would like it to bloom in our garden then we can plant it outside and we should see it in February. Aoife also told us about a competition they are running so if the girls would like to enter you need to return the form to Windyridge on Rochestown Avenue in person.
Our class were very honoured to be asked to lead the junior sponsored walk this year. It was a big responsibility but the girls did a great job and showed the infants how important it was to walk in pairs and listen to the teacher. It was a lovely, bright day and we spotted lots of signs of Autumn along the way. If you still have your sponsorship card at home it's not too late to return it, just pop it in your daughter's bag.
Last week the girls were able to make the most of some sunshine and had PE outside. The girls are having lots of fun with our new PE teacher Hannah. They are developing technique, increasing fitness, building teamwork and social skills without even noticing. It's great to encourage exercise at every opportunity and not only has great physical benefits for the whole family but can provide some very valuable head space from our busy lives. So join them on the trampoline, get the scooters and bikes out, or just turn up the radio for a disco in the kitchen and you'll feel great.
One of the new additions to school life that the girls are adjusting to is more homework. As explained in the note that went home, the general homework tasks will include 2 spellings, one or two spelling exercises, some reading, 10 Mental Maths questions and some number facts/ tables, these are being gradually introduced. When learning to spell new words the girls should use the approach Look, Say, Trace, Cover, Write, Check. This strategy should be repeated as many times as necessary until your daughter is familiar with the word. From time to time you might like to take another look at words that your daughter previously found tricky. When doing Mental Maths homework the objective is to develop maths skills so its okay to help your daughter by reading the questions so that she can focus on the maths concepts rather than getting frustrated with her reading ability. Obviously if she is comfortable reading the questions herself then it would be great to encourage this.
Visitors to Room 11 have hardly recognised these giggling girls. They have grown up so much over the Summer holidays and now look fantastic in their lovely new uniforms. Don't forget to make sure your daughter's name is on her uniform and tracksuit jumper, just to make sure she looks as wonderful as this all year
The girls have been doing lots of revision and showing me all of the sounds they learned in infants. We've been having fun singing songs and playing some word games. Your daughter might like to teach you some of the actions we've been doing and maybe you could ask them to think of some words for each sound. Encourage them to think of words that include the sound at the beginning or end of words and remember that some words may contain the letter but not necessarily the sound e.g. "thank" starts with the letter "t" but the initial sound is "th" rather than "t" like in "tennis". In the first two weeks we have focused on the sounds s, a, t, i, p, n, c/k. In no time you'll be singing these songs in your sleep! |
AuthorMs. Lehane, 1st Class teacher. ArchivesCategories |