Tips:

• Give your child 5 seconds to identify the word. After 5 seconds, say the word for them and ask them to repeat it after you. Then, move on to the next word. 
• Use the full group of words to play sight word bingo and sight word matching game. This will help to develop your child's visual discrimination skills as they are  learning how to differentiate between words, their shapes and sizes. It is ok if they don't know all of the words in the bingo game, they are becoming more familiar with them by playing the game with you and by repeating the words after you. 
• 10-15 minutes a day working on sight words is plenty of time! 

Choose three words from the sight word group(she, he, can, call, little, like, what, where, new, me, we) that your child isn't sure of yet to focus on for this week. For example: she, like and me 

Here are some more hands-on/fun activities to do with the three sight words you have chosen for this week - you could try a different activity each day if you like! 

• Design your own sight word carpark or print the attached template. Write the 3 sight words in the car parking spaces. Ask your child to take out their favourite toy vehicle. Call out a word and your child must park their car into the space with that word.
• Go large! Make an outdoor sight word carpark using chalk. When you call the word, your child can park their gokart/bike/skateboard/remote control car in the correct space. 
• Sight word bowling: Stick the 3 sight words on to plastic bottles. Call out a word for your child to knock over using a ball (see picture below) 
• Build a word: Stick each letter of a word on a different block. Use the blocks to build the words (see picture) 

It is hard to believe we are on week three already. I hope you are all keeping safe and well. I hope you are finding the updates useful and easy to access. There is no pressure to complete everything, just do the activities that work for you and your family. If you need anything or have any questions, please don't hesitate to contact me: misstansey2020@gmail.com. You are all doing a brilliant job and your child will have such lovely memories of spending this extra time with you at home. 

Have a good week everyone, stay safe and well! 

Ms Tansey 

I just love getting your pictures and hearing what you have been up to! 

Malachy Óg and Emily have set up school in their kitchen, it looks like they have been working very hard (and Annie!). Well done everyone! 

Conall made his cereal box sight word game and his big sister Róise hid them around the garden and Conall had great fun finding them! Now Conall is hiding them for his Daddy Seán to find! 

Good morning everyone,

I hope you are all keeping well and that you enjoyed a lovely Mother's Day yesterday. If there is anything you would find helpful that you don't currently have - please let me know: misstansey2020@gmail.com

Please don't feel under any pressure to use these activities or to get everything covered, you are your child's primary educator and any activities you can do with them will be beneficial. Junior and Senior Infants' school days consist of playful and game based learning, along with an hour of play a day. Playing outdoors, learning life skills like gardening and cooking, creating junk art, building constructions and make believe play are all brilliant for the development of language, problem solving skills, social skills, creativity...the list goes on! 

Here is some content and ideas for literacy and numeracy this week, the activities can be spread out over the course of the week!  

1. Sight Words 
At school we had just started working on this group of sight words in preparation for our next reader 'The New Pet': she, he, can, call, little, like, what, where, new, me, we
I have attached a video of how the children can make their own sight word game from a cereal box, you can keep the cards and use them every day to revise this group of sight words. 
**Some of these words are new to the children, if they are unsure or having difficulty - reduce the number of words in the set or they can repeat the words after you** 

2. Phonics 
Junior Infants: New sound: L 
- Jolly Phonics songs: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Qpn2839Kro&list=RD1Qpn2839Kro&start_radio=1 'l' song is 3mins 30secs into the video 
- How to make the sound: It is important that the children learn the correct pronunciation of the sound. I have attached a video clip to this post. Get the children to look at themselves in the mirror while making the l sound. What does your mouth do to make the sound? 
- Sounds like Phonics is now free to access online - lots of nice games on this site, many of the activities are similar to what we do in class. To access: https://slp.cjfallon.ie/ click into activity book A -> unit 2: The Market -> Letter l (or any letter you wish to revise) 
- If you want to avoid screen time: search the house/garden for items that start with l, make a poster and draw pictures of things that start with l, writing capital L and lowercase l, making L and l out of PlayDough or out of stickers, finding L and l in books and in the newspaper. 


3. Weekly Readers - Attached to this post 
Junior Infants 
1. Decodable reading to revise phonics and blending: Get the Pets 
2. Sight word reader: Where They Hid  
Make sure the children point to each word as they read. Discuss the pictures.
After a couple of days reading the books, if you want an extra challenge - print off the book and cut the sentences off the pictures, see if your child can match the sentences to the pictures, or choose one sentence to cut up and mix it up and ask your child to put it into the correct order. 

4. Maths
- Mental maths: counting 1 - 10 and 10 - 1, sums to 5 (What is 2 +3?, 3 +1? and so on), starting at different numbers and counting on to 10 (start at 3: 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10), counting to ten and skip no, 2 (1, __, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10) 
- Jigsaws 


5. Gaeilge
​We have covered lessons 1 - 21 in Abair Liom A 
To revise and access games: https://www.kilkerleyns.com/school-blog/free-access-to-abair-liom-online-for-all-classes 

6. Exercise
The Body Coach Tv on Youtube: Joe Wicks PE videos every day at 9am (can watch later on too!) 
Make your own obstacle course outside 
Cosmic Kids Yoga on YouTube 

Most importantly, I hope you are all keeping safe and well. I am missing you all! 

Take care, 

Ms Tansey 


​

Good morning!

Well done everyone on finishing week one of learning at home! I hope you are all keeping safe and well and enjoy a well deserved rest this weekend! If you have any questions or would like to send on any pictures for sharing on the blog my email is misstansey2020@gmail.com. 

Here are a couple of ideas for you: 
1. Make a time capsule with an adult or older sibling (See picture) 
2. Read sight word reader and decodable reader from Wednesday's post 
3. Play 'What's Behind my Back?'  Using a set of colours (five colours for Juniors, nine colours for Seniors) the children hide a selection behind their back and show the rest to their partner. Their partner must use their knowledge of sums and numbers to identify how many colours are behind the child's back. Here is a clip of us playing earlier this year: ​https://twitter.com/KilkerleySchool/status/1219943617177047040
Extra challenge: the children must write down the number of colours behind their partner's back instead of saying the number. 
4. Follow this link to access our Gaeilge programme online - Abair Liom. The children are very familiar with the games and activities on this site. https://www.kilkerleyns.com/school-blog/free-access-to-abair-liom-online-for-all-classes 

Have a lovely weekend, 

Ms Tansey 

I hope you all enjoyed a lovely St. Patrick's Day and that you are all keeping safe and well. 

Two resources here that might be useful: 
1. Sight word readers:  'Clean Not Clean'(Juniors)  'At the Library' (Seniors) -Revises reading and sight words
2. Decodable readers: 'A Nap and a Map' (Juniors) Have you Ever Seen a Fox? (Seniors) - Revises sounds and blending 

What to do with them: 
These could be used daily as readers while the children are not at school. I will upload new readers each week if you would like to use them. No need to print - the readers can be viewed and read from your device. 
Other activity ideas: 
Print the readers and colour, cut the sentences from the pictures and see if you can match the sentences to the correct picture. 
Copy the sentences from the reader to practice handwriting. 
Make your own book by copying the sentences and drawing your own illustrations. 

Look at this fantastic work, you are all so creative! The children designed and made their own leprechaun traps, they are absolutely brilliant! Tom and Harry McElroy planned their own St. Patrick's Day Parade. They made a plan, masks and posters and then performed the parade for their family. Well done boys - it looked like a wonderful parade! 

Good morning everyone,

I will be regularly checking in on the blog with ideas and activities based on the plans set out for Junior and Senior Infants. I hope this will be helpful for you all.

​Here are some St. Patricks Day inspired activities
​1. Maths, set up a rainbow hunt. Place small bundles of 1c coins for junior infants and 1c, 2c and 5c coins for senior infants in bowls around the house or outside. The children must find the bowls and count how much money the leprechaun left in the bowls.
2. Design and make a leprechaun trap using recycled materials or outdoor materials. See pictures below.

​If you make a leprechaun trap, please send a picture to misstansey2020@gmail.com and I will upload the pictures to Twitter and the blog so you can see what your friends are up to.

​Keep safe everyone and enjoy St Patricks Day tomorrow.