Hi everyone, can you believe we are into August already!!!!!!
Some of my followers have contacted me about the early days in Infants and what they could prepare for. Unfortunately there is no specific answer to this but hopefully these suggestions might help you in your preparation.
Classroom Organisation:
Previous posts have explained getting the classroom ready however in the first few days here are some tips.
Print the children’s names on labels, have a few sets printed so you can give them a new label each day if needed. Having a few sets printed is also helpful when it comes to organising books, copies and folders. Other bloggers recommend giving every child a number so you can easily discover whose books, copies are missing. This is ingenious and I can’t believe I didn’t do that myself in Infants.
Literacy:
Junior Infants
My tip for Literacy is focus on pre-reading and pre-writing skills for the month of September. When I had infants I focused on auditory processing and phonological awareness for September and often October and then I started Jolly Phonics with the class. There are so many resources for phonological awareness such as these from the PDST. The Curriculum online site also has tip sheets for teachers on developing phonological awareness which could also be used to focus your observations in the classroom.
Senior Infants
I would also spend some time on phonological awareness and rhyme with Senior Infants along with some revision of sounds in September. While I would make observations of the pupils, I would hold off on testing them for sounds and sight words for the first two weeks as they are settling back in. In late September you could focus on beginning your phonics programme and sight words depending on the scheme that is used in your school.
Maths:
I focused on sets and matching in the early days of Junior Infants. As part of the Ready Set Go programme I focused on sets with one property initially. It is important to let the child discuss the reasoning behind their sets as they may have made a connection that you might not recognise initially. I would spend the first few weeks teaching the specific language that you will be using if you are working with the Ready Set Go Programme.
Similarly in Senior Infants I would revise sorting for 1 and 2 properties. I would also focus on the language for Senior Infants and revise topics from Juniors for the first few weeks. Pattern work and sorting activities will also develop their reasoning and communication skills in Maths.
There is another post on my blog which outlines Ready Set Go in more detail.
If you have any questions on this blog post, please send me a PM.
A.M.
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