Infants

Welcome to

Our Junior and Senior Infants Page

2023/2024

Our New Infants:

A very warm welcome to our 9 new Junior Infants! We are so excited to have you in our school and we hope that you find it to be a welcoming, friendly and inspiring place to be!   Take a look at what they got up to on their first week in ‘Big School’. We were doing so well we even made the Roscommon Herald!

Link to more pictures here

Aistear:

Every month the pupils learn about a new topic in Aistear. Aistear is a curriculum framework for children aged up to six years. It is designed to provide enjoyable and challenging experiences so that all children can grow and develop as competent and confident learners. This is achieved by means of caring and considerate interaction with others.

Here are some of the topics that we have explored this term:

Hot Chocolate Stall:

Move over Butler’s Chocolatiers – a new hot chocolate team has arrived!

The Hospital:

Doctors and nurses had their hands full with the high number of patients who were admitted to our school hospital! Some patients needed much attention but they were very treated throughout their stay.

Link to more pictures here

Fun on the Farm:

It was all business down on Pumpkin-Pickin’ Farm. The pupils were extremely busy tending to all the customers in their farm shop. All produce was sourced locally here on Pumpkin-Pickin’ Farm! There was also much maintenance work to be carried out in order to keep the farm nice and tidy.

Link to more photos here

The Home Corner:

The students were very cleaning up the house, taking care of babies, building, fixing and maintaining a high standard of house-keeping!

Link to more pictures here

SESE

Our Five Senses:

We have been learning all about our five senses – touch, taste, feel, smell and sight. We focused on our sense of touch as the children used descriptive language to explain what they had taken from our ‘Feely Bag’. We then engaged in artistic exercises to help us remember some of our descriptive words – rough, smooth, bumpy, hard and soft.

The Squirrel:

While the squirrels were busy gathering their nuts for the cold winter, pupils were eager to learn some interesting facts about these fascinating creatures! Did you know? The name squirrel comes from the Greek skiouros. This is based on a word that means ‘shadow-tail’. It is believed that the first grey squirrel was introduced to County Longford in 1911.

A Walk in Aghrane Woods:

Junior and Senior Infants has a beautiful day for our Autumn Walk in Aghrane Forest, Ballygar. We are fortunate to have this wonderful amenity on our doorstep. Well done to all the pupils who showed off their explorative skills and distinguished many autumnal sights.

Link to more pictures here

Finger Gym:

We are working on building up our fine motor skills with our ‘Finger Gym’ morning workouts. We are very pleased with all the hard work – what a fantastic bunch!

Link to more pictures here

Maths stations:

We are in a privileged position to have Ms Mannion help us during our Maths stations. This gives the children a great opportunity to learn in a small, focused group.

Link to more pictures here

Art

Self-Portraits:

Junior and Senior Infants learned how to draw a self-portrait by using a mirror as an aid. What a fantastic effort by all. We have some budding artists here!

Name Collage:

The pupils honed their artistic flair as they tore paper into tiny pieces and created a wonderful collage in their names.

Jubilee Mass:

Students were extremely proud to be part of the celebrations of the Jubilee Mass this year. Take a look at the beautiful artwork created by out Junior and Senior Infants.

2022/2023

Art

Love was in the air this Valentine’s as the pupil’s made some beautiful ‘love birds’.

Valentines Art

Maths

We have been learning all about length in maths and to put our knowledge to the test we went on an excursion around our school ground measuring a number of different objects from our environment.

Maths Pics – Length

Aistear

There has been a number of wild animals spotted in Ballygar National School over the last number of days. The pupils have been having great fun in their new Aistear theme of the jungle and safari adventures.

Aistear Pics

Art

We made some beautiful art for Grandparent’s Day.

Grandparents Day Art

Bird Feeders

During the cold weather spell the pupils made some bird feeders and made sure that they had something to eat every day.

Bird Feeders Pics

Aistear

The pupils have been very busy in the estate agents, they have sold a lot of houses over the last number of weeks and they even built some new ones on account of the current housing crisis.

Maths

We enjoy our Maths lessons. We have lots of fun using practical materials and we even get to play some games. If you would like to see more pictures from our Maths stations, please click on this link: Maths Stations

2D Shapes

We were learning all about 2D shapes and Maths. We got to design a variety of items such as rockets, sailboats and flowers.  If you would like to see more of our designs please click: Here

Literacy

Senior Infants are working very hard on their ‘tricky words’ and are learning to spell and write them on their own.
We are enjoying our Reading Eggs Programme as part of our literacy development. Children are making great progress as they develop their reading skills with this differentiated online programme.

Bun Making

The children have been learning about procedural writing in literacy. They worked extremely hard and wrote out some lovely recipes. As a reward for their fantastic efforts we decided to make some delicious chocolate buns. To see more  pictures from our bun making please click: Here

SESE

Instruments from around the World

Junior and Senior Infants have been learning about sound in their SESE. They learned about instruments from around the world such as the Australian didgeridoo, the Spanish castanets and the Scottish bagpipes. We designed and made our own maracas. Drawing from what we learned in our Science lessons, we investigated different materials to discover what materials made the loudest or softest sounds. Click here to see more pictures: Instruments from around the world

Picker Pals Ireland

We are delighted to be teaming up with Picker Pals Ireland. We are learning lots of ways to help improve our environment and we are looking forward to our big clean-up day.

Art

‘Humpty-Dumpty had a great fall’ but don’t worry, the infants of Ballygar N.S. put him back together again using fancy band-aids!

Christmas Art

As part of our Christmas artwork, the children made some beautiful hand-printed reindeer and pictures of Santa getting stuck in the chimney.

Number Art

As part of Maths week, the children designed some novelty characters using numbers. Take a look at their amazing work here. Click here to check some more of our fantastic work: Number Art

Aistear

School Theme

We had lots of fun playing teacher in our school role-play area. We had lots of fun designing and building a new school, teaching important lessons, making and receiving phone calls in our school office and dealing with ‘administrative work’. We also got to design our own school bags. Unfortunately, we also had to deal with lots of ‘injuries’ on yard duty! A super time was had by all. Click here to see more pictures: Aistear School
The Witches’ Den
The children had great fun in the witches’ den for our Halloween-themed Aistear. They made some inventive potions, built a witches’ den, dressed up in their costumes and cast a magic spell turning Ms Hanley into a frog! Click here to see more pictures: The Witches’ Den

2021/2022

Halloween Dress Up!

We got to dress up for Halloween and had a little party. It was such a fun day. Click on the link to check out some of our scary costumes! Halloween Dress Up

Maths Week

We had lots of fun for maths week! We explored lots of 3D shapes using marshmallows and matchsticks, we got to play some fun maths games and go on a maths trail too. Please click here for more pictures on what Junior and Senior Infants got up Maths Week Pictures

Butter Making!

In Aistear Junior and Senior Infants have been busy on the farm and selling lots of fruit, vegetables and dairy products at the farmers market! We put our knowledge to the test and we made some delicious butter. We learned all about how people made their own butter years ago using churns and we watch a fun video to see the process in action. Unfortunately we had no churns on the day but we had lots of powerful muscles and we made some deliciously smooth butter! Click on the link to see some more pictures Butter making

Leaf Hunt!

Junior and Senior Infants had great fun in the wind collecting lots of different leaves for our squirrel art. We tried to identify the leaves we had picked. We also learned lots of interesting facts about squirrels. Did you know that  the word squirrel is derived from the Greek word ‘Skiouros’, which means ‘shadow-tail’ . Check out some of our fun pictures here Leaf Hunt

2020/2021

World Book Day:

To celebrate World Book day the children dressed up as their favourite characters and gave a short presentation on their favourite book. During our presentations we read a short extract from the book and had a look at some of the fantastic illustrations. Take a look at some of our amazing costumes and presentations here 

https://animoto.com/play/Wn7s6nQCmYaMzc16Jmeo8w

Engineers Week:

To celebrate Engineers Week we researched some of the tallest buildings in the world. We then designed and created our own version of that building. We certainly have some budding engineers in the making! Take a look at some of our fantastic work here

We also designed and made our very own wind powered cars. We worked very hard on them take a look at our inventions here

https://animoto.com/play/Wn7s6nQCmYaMzc16Jmeo8w

We are a very talented bunch!

We are learning all about the importance of our many talents. We are all good at lots of different activities and this is what makes us such a special class. First we did a lovely mindfulness activity called ‘Treasure Island’ we then discussed and drew pictures of our many talents. Take a look at our work here

Distance learning

We have all been working so hard from home and Ms. Hanley is so proud of all the work we have done! Take a look at our STEM challenges, art projects, bird feeders and how we celebrated international Lego day! Distance Learning Pictures

Santa’s workshop

We had great fun in Aistear! We were working very hard in Santa’s workshop

Click here to see some more pictures Santa’s Workshop

Santa visits Ballygar National School

There was great excitement when Santa took some time out of his very busy schedule to come and talk to the boys and girls in Junior and Senior infants.

See lots more pictures of Santa’s visit on our news page!

We were working so hard all year to celebrate we got to have a hot chocolate party : )

Christmas Art

We were learning all about polar bears and endangered Arctic animals in SESE.  Did you know that polar bears appear white but their fur is actually transparent?

Take a look at our furry polar bears!

We drew and designed our own Christmas trees : )

 We also got to make some cool snowglobes

Take a look at some more pictures here Snowglobes

Our Elf on the Shelf

Our elf was very naughty this year. Click here to take a look at some of the mischief he got up to! The Elf on the Shelf

Not forgetting the true meaning of Christmas

We know how important it is to remember the true meaning of Christmas, here we are visiting the crib and practicing for our online carol service.

Station Teaching

We love stations as we get to do lots of different activities at each station. We have literacy and maths stations four days a week. We are in groups of four/five and we get to work with our teacher. It is lots of fun and it makes learning new things a lot easier! Take a look at some pictures here Station Teaching

Making Shakers

We were learning all about sound and decided to investigate what materials made a loud/soft sound. We designed and made our own shakers. We discovered that our sugar shakers made a soft sound while the rice and dried peas made a louder sound. Take a look at the fun we had making our shakers! Shakers

Sound Walk

We went on a sound walk around our school we drew pictures of the loud/ soft sounds we discovered. See some more pictures here Sound Walk

Yoga

We love yoga

Did you know that yoga can help strengthen children’s growing bodies, manage anxiety, boost self-esteem and helps us with our concentration and memory. Here are some pictures of us practicing our yoga techniques Yoga

Art

We have art every week where we get to explore different forms of art. We have made some spiky clay hedgehogs and did some print work using different fruits and vegetables and lots lots more! Take a look at some budding artists in the making!  Art

Maths Week 2020

We had lots of fun for maths week! We explored lots of 2D shapes in our local environment and we got to play some fun maths games too. Please click here for more pictures on what Junior and Senior Infants got up to during maths week Maths Week

Science Week

What an exciting week we had for Science Week we had discovered how to blow up our own balloon without a pump, we made an erupting volcano and took on an egg drop challenge! See more pictures here Science Week

At The Restaurant

We were very busy in our class restaurant; we were taking orders, cooking food and dealing with some very rude customers! Click here to see some of our Aistear groups for the theme of ‘At the Restaurant’ At the Restaurant

Halloween/Autumn

Halloween Fun

We got to dress up for Halloween and had a little party. It was such a fun day. Click on the link to check out some of our scary costumes and to find out who won the fáinne in our bairín breac Halloween Fun

Ról Imirt

Our Autumn Garden

In Aistear we had great fun in our Autumn Garden. We had to rake up all the leaves, plant bulbs for spring and harvest all the crops. We were extremely busy! Click here to see some more pictures Autumn Garden

  A Visit to Aghrane Forest

We are learning all about autumn. We learnt lots of big words like hibernation and migration. We were learning so much Miss Hanley though it was time to put our knowledge to the test! We had a fun filled day in Aghrane forest. We discovered lots of signs of autumn and found all the items on our scavenger hunt checklist. There is so much to explore in this beautiful local amenity.

Take a look at some more pictures from our adventure here: Autumn adventure in Aghrane forest

Memory boxes

We were learning about growing and changing. We have grown up so much and we are becoming very independent in ‘big school.’ We made a presentation to our class with our very special memory boxes. Thanks so much to all our wonderful parents for sharing some very sentimental items with us.

Take a look at some more of our fabulous presentations here: Memory Boxes

Welcome to our new infants!

We would like to say a special welcome to our new infants. They are all settling in very well and coming to grips with being in “big school”! Here are some pictures of them on their first week of school. First week at ‘big school’

Gold Award

Well done to the Junior and Senior Infants class of 2018/2019 who won a gold rosette in the Incredible Edibles programme. We are one of a very small number of schools to be awarded a gold cert. The boys and girls worked very hard throughout the year. Thank you to all the parents who also got involved and sent in lots of lovely pictures of their children buy and cooking Irish produce.

Our Fairytale Land Nativity Play:

We had so much fun practising and performing our wonderful play for all our family and friends. Thank you to everyone who came to watch us perform.