Hi everyone.
I hope everyone has enjoyed the festivities and are now relaxing before we begin Term 2 next week.
Returning to school in January can be like September all over again in the infant classrooms. Take some time next week to revise classroom rules and expected behaviours.
I would also plan some revision for the first week of Term 2 and possibly some assessments towards the end of the week. In Junior Infants you could assess their phonics, whether its Jolly Phonics or another scheme you are using, revise and assess the sounds covered in Term 1. In Senior Infants you could also assess their sounds covered and also their Dolch Words depending on the scheme you are using. There are lots of ideas for assessment in my assessment pack.
A transport theme is often a nice theme for January. I have covered the Mechanic as a topic in Aistear. The children loved this theme. We set up a garage using the gazebo in the role play area. I was very lucky that members of staff were able to give us a loan of little tykes car, tractor and other forms on transport. We used these and the tool bench to create the garage. I also managed to pick up a mechanic overalls in the dress up section of Dunnes. Finally we added the office using a phone, cash register and laptop.
In small world we had lots of forms of transport for the children to play with. In construction we built cars using the play centre and blocks.
In art the children made cars using lots of different materials such as cereal boxes and other small recyclable boxes. Finally I changed the sand area to a science area and we investigated cars travelling on ramps of different heights.
The mechanic topic can be linked across many curricular areas for integrated lessons and discrete lessons. A January topic plan will be available on my Mash.ie store in the coming days.
As always if you have any questions about my January topic please email me.
A.M.
Aistear Múinteoir 