The months are marching on and we are already into the month of September. On Friday, we waved goodbye to Mrs Irwin, who begins her maternity leave.  We wish her a restful few weeks before the arrival of ‘Bump Irwin’ and we wish her the very best of luck.  Her timetable of music will be overtaken by Mrs Devlin and Mrs Cassidy who will join us this week.

On Monday, we announced our House Captains and Vice Captains.  Following a vote from the Primary 7 year group, we elected our House Captains and Vice Captains, to represent each house as the year progresses.  The children, chosen by Primary 7 are delighted to have been elected by their peers:

Douglas:  David McLaughlin (Captain) and Jaroslaw Konarski (Vice Captain)

Scanlan: Keir Harrison (Captain) and Amy Elkin (Vice Captain)

Thompson:  Liam Duffy (Captain) and Gabrielle Hindman (Vice Captain)

Devine: Charley Collins (Captain) and Brenna Kane (Vice Captain)

Gilmour:  Amanda Quinn (Captain) and Laura Findlay (Vice Captain)

Carey: Rachel Logan (Captain) and Stewart McBride (Vice Captain)

Shortly, all children in our school will receive their house badges, which should be worn every day.

On Monday, we welcomed Miss Corr on work experience.  She has spent time in P1, 3, 5 and 7, as well as our nursery and was very impressed by the warm welcome she received.  Thank you to the class teachers who welcomed her in their classrooms.

On Wednesday, we welcomed Fr Millar, along with many parents and grandparents of our Primary One pupils, for the Primary One Blessing.  The blessing, which marks the welcoming of our new pupils into the Faith community of our school is a wonderful celebration and we thank Fr Millar for celebrating this event with us.  We also welcomed Mrs Shields for the Blessing, which we’re sure was appreciated by the children.

On Thursday,  Jenny, our active schools co-ordinator has been in working with our Primary 7 pupils to begin their Young Leader training and she was very complimentary about the enthusiam and effort put in by the children. 

In class, our teachers and pupils have all been working hard together, using all areas of the school to enhance  learning and teaching.  On Thursday, Primary Five were all ‘out and about’ working on team building activities, as can be seen here in the photos of Primary 5c and Mrs McCulloch.

 Next week, we have our Meet the Teacher evening, on Tuesday from 6.00pm – 7.15pm.  This is an opportunity to meet your child’s teacher and browse the resources used in class.  A reminder though, that teachers will not be able to discuss your child’s progress at this event, this will be done soon at our first Parent Consultation evening in October.  We hope to see you all there.  We also have our first Coffee Morning on Friday – Primary Six pupils will be looking for donations of baking and raffle prizes for this event.

 

And now from the roving reporter, Mrs Murphy:
This week we continue getting to know our new children. We have been discovering all about their favourites toys, foods, feelings, the names of their friends at home and the new friendships they have already made in the first few weeks at nursery.

In the literacy area the children continued to make their own friendship book all about the nursery monkeys. They discussed words that make good friends and these can be seen hanging from the jungle leaves in the literacy corner. Discussing friendships led to another story of a great friendship called “If Only”.  The children used the puppets from this storysack and discussed their feelings and re-enacted the story about a butterfly and a bumble bee. They then went on to draw the characters from the story. Take a look at the pictures in the literacy area to see how well they did.

The children continue to learn the nursery routines and rules and in espressive arts they were following the picture cards to make their own playdough.  They used a mirror to paint self portraits and by the end of the week they were creating self portraits in finer detail.  In line with our family theme the children bathed the babies in the water tray and cared for them in the home corner, feeding and changing them.

In snack the children are starting to get to grips with the snack routine. Healthy options are available everday and the children choose the additional snack and help to prepare it.  The family tree in the heart of the nursery continues to grow with family photographs being added daily. It is not too late to bring in a family photograph to put on the tree.  In the home corner the children have been discussing who lives in their house and through their drawings we are getting to know the families. These can be seen displayed in and around the home corner.

In numeracy the children started off the week discussing who was the tallest and who was the smallest they then discussed what they could use to find this out. All of their ideas were recorded on a mindmap which can be seen on the wall. They then went on to measure a variety of everyday objects in the playroom using measuring tapes and rulers. By the end of the week they decided to make their own dinosaur height chart using collage materials. This is a work in progress and will continue well into next week. Look out for the big green dinosaur taking shape in the corner of the numeracy area. Just around the corner from this is our dinosaur display. The children have been discussiing the names of their favourite dinosaurs. Please take a minute to have a look at this fantastic display of dinosaur knowledge hidden away at the far end of the playroom.

Outdoors the children continue to learn the routine. Getting suited and booted all by themselves or with a little support and encouragement.  The children created their own obstacle course from the big wooden blocks and planks. They then took part in a listening activity where they had to follow the instructions such as “stop, start, stand on one leg, turn round and change direction”.  The children listened well to the instructions and then took turns at being the leader and giving out their own instructions. This led to the “Sticky Kids” cd always a favourite with the children. They sang, danced, pretended to be dinosaurs went jogging and driving in a car. This programme helps children to learn when to talk and when to listen.
Some of the children who had been measuring indoors got involved in a measuring activity outdoors where they used a wooden plank to make a ramp for the cars. They used a big measuring tape to see how far the cars went using the ramp. This was a very popular activity with the children.

Each groups weekly lending library is now up and running. This is a fabulous resource linking the nursery and the home. Please complete the evaluation sheet in the bag each week as the children get a chance to discuss the book they chose each week with their group friends and keyworker.

This week we look forward to meeting the next group of children who will be joining us shortly.

Thanks for reading our blog this week.  We would love to hear what you think of our blog, feel free to leave us a comment.

Mrs Campbell