Junior Infant - Work for School Closure

Dear parents/guardians,

We hope you and your families are all keeping safe and doing well during this time. As the school will remain closed for the next while, we have prepared suggested activities to assist you with your child’s learning and to continue positive engagement with learning remotely.

Please remember there is no expectation to cover all of these activities.

A lot of the work is self-directed and your child should enjoy engaging with it, but some of it may need adult support depending on your child’s ability.

We are happy for work to be completed on a copybook, notebook or loose paper you might have at home. If you are using templates or worksheets from the internet, we would love to see them when we are back in school.

These are suggested activities to be covered over the next three weeks (not including Easter holidays). Revision of topics we have covered is very important, and we would ask you to introduce some new topics to keep the children progressing.

English:

• Revise saying/singing alphabet every day. Point to letters and ask children to say the name/sound. Alphabet songs on YouTube.
• Continued practice of writing their names – ask them the letters in their name. Please ensure they are forming the letters in their name correctly.
• Revise letters covered to date (S A T P I N C E H) – ask the name/sound of letter. List 3+ items beginning with that sound. YouTube has letter songs to reinforce this work. The Jolly Phonics App has songs, stories and formation games based on every letter.
• Formation sheets based on all letters can be downloaded off www.twinkl.ie.
• ‘I spy’ games – ‘I spy with my little eye something beginning with S..’. ‘Sock’ etc
• Odd one out games – ‘which word is the odd one out and why?' - Example ‘sock, sandwich, ant’ – ‘ant because it does not start with S’
• Blending letters together to make simple words out of the letters covered (S A T P I N C E H) *sat *pat *tap *hat *pin *hit *hip
• Writing cards/postcards/shopping lists - can be modelled and written by adults first and copied by children
• Continue reading Nursery Rhymes in folder – focus on Little Miss Muffet, Hickory Dickory Dock, One Two Buckle my Shoe.
• Look for letters we have learnt. Find words that rhyme etc.
• Continue reading for enjoyment with your children – talk about pictures, ask them to predict the ending, ask children did they like/dislike story and why. Look for letters we have learnt in the books
• Oxford Owl website – register online for access to a range of wonderful books.
• Dolch words/ ‘tricky words’ – Continue work on words we have learnt to date. Draw awareness to them in books and nursery rhymes.
• Words we cover in junior infants are – I, see, a, love, like, the, want, my, it, is, look, at, here
• Continue work on rhyme – list words that rhyme with cat (fat, rat, sat etc)

New letters to be covered – ‘r’, ‘m’ and ‘k’

• Cover only one letter a week, and repeat same activities for each letter.
• Please introduce the new letter sound – say the name and sound.
• Think of words starting with ‘r’.
• Practice forming the letter ‘r’ – trace it on loose paper or a notebook.
• Download ‘r’ writing sheets from www.twinkl.ie.
• Collect ‘r’ things around the house – remote, ruler, rubber, rectangle, rice, ribbon, rabbit teddy etc
• Draw and label ‘r’ things on a piece of paper – adults brainstorm this first, can draw and write , and children copy
• Explore the ‘r’ song and story on the Jolly Phonics app, or YouTube - ‘jolly phonics r song’
• YouTube ‘letter r song’
• YouTube - ‘Alphablocks letter r’
• www.starfall.com website – letter r

Maths

• Continue counting 1 – 10, and backwards
• Games with numbers: ‘What number comes after 6? What number comes next? What number comes before 5? What number did I forget – 1, 2, 3, ___, 5?’
• Put number cards in order (can write numbers on paper and ask children to sequence them)
• Revise counting objects up to the number 5.
• IXL website has a broad range of games and maths topics
• Revise formation of Number 1 on paper/copybook (Rhyme – ‘Number 1 is like a stick, a straight line down that’s very quick’)
• Revise formation of Number 2 (Rhyme – ‘Like a swan, go all around. Draw a line on the ground’.)
• Revise formation of Number 3 (Rhyme – ‘A curl for you, a curl for me. That’s how we make the number 3’.)
• Numbertime and Number Jacks videos on YouTube exploring the numbers 1, 2 and 3
• Continue free play with money and making amounts up to 5 cent.
• Look at shapes around the house and in the environment – analyse corners and sides (Example – The car wheel is a circle. It has no corners and 1 curved side)

New number of the month- 4

• Please introduce the number 4
• Ask them facts about the number 4 (Examples: I am 4 years old. My house number is 4. There are 4 people in my family. A dog has 4 legs. A car has 4 wheels. 2 and 2 altogether makes 4. A square has 4 corners)
• Youtube ‘Numbertime 4’ and ‘NumberJacks 4’
• Formation of the number 4 (Rhyme: ‘Down, across, and down once more. That’s the way to make a 4’.)
• Collect 4 items around the house
• Look around the house/garden for things that have 4 of something (Examples – our car has 4 wheels. The television has 4 corners and 4 sides. Our cat has 4 legs.)
• Games on Topmarks website. Search ‘topmarks early years number 4’ into google, and games will come up practising counting and formation skills.

Gaeilge

Try and speak a few words of Gaeilge if you can!

There are plenty of educational cartoons and programmes on TG4 and RTE 2 on the television. Cúla4.ie is a great website with Irish video clips and programmes.

You can also find lots of children’s cartoons in Irish on YouTube – examples include Garfield, Spongebob Squarepants and Cat in the Hat.

Religion

The Easter story.

• There are many lovely PowerPoint based on the story of Easter on www.twinkl.ie.
• Read books relating to Easter
• YouTube ‘beginners bible Easter’, where you will find a lovely video of the Easter story.
• Draw/ paint/ decorate an Easter egg
• Make Easter Egg nests with melted chocolate and All-Bran cereal (same idea as Rice Krispie buns). Show them how the solid chocolate becomes a liquid when heated in a microwave.

PE/Mindfulness

• Joe Wicks online fitness videos for children
• YouTube ‘Cosmic Yoga for kids’ – lovely videos for children to exercise
• YouTube ‘Just Dance’ videos for some fun!

Fine Motor Skills work

• Scissor skills – cut Easter egg or Easter bunny (templates on www.twinkl.ie.
• Colouring – Easter egg mindfulness sheets online and on www.twinkl.ie.
• Games – Jenga, Operation, Connect 4, jigsaws
• Daily living skills – using zips on clothes, getting dressed, folding clothes, hanging up clothes, setting table, helping with jobs around the house
• Baking

Finally, our advice to parents is to spend this time together: talk, read, cuddle, do a puzzle, build something with Lego/blocks. Look at photos of when you were a child. Though this is a scary time, it could be a time they remember as the best time in their life too. If you have any queries or concerns, please contact us on the following email addresses.

Stay safe and well,

Junior Infant Teachers