Another nice topic for Term 1 is The Creche.
Depending on the area you are in, the children themselves may have attended a creche. Before you begin this topic, you might need lots of discussion and oral language activities around the creche topic and specific areas in the creche, feeding, bathing, sleeping etc. This topic may appeal to the girls more than the boys too.
In socio-dramatic we set up the creche itself, another teacher kindly donated a set with highchair and a cot, and along with what we had in school and donations from parents we had different areas. During the course of the topic the children used a clear storage box for that area as the bath in the creche.
In small world, we also had the creche. Although it was harder to find small dolls for the dolls house. In construction they made different things for the creche along with the creche itself.
I changed the sand to water and we had an area for washing up and bathing the babies. In art we painted pictures of ourselves and what we needed when we were babies.
There is lots of opportunity for cross curricular integration for this topic from SPHE to History. The planning frame for this topic along with the parents newsletter will be available in my Mash.ie store soon!
Aistear Múinteoir 