Outdoor Fun and Games 

Our Pre-Schoolers love to play and mess about outside we are very lucky to have out own little playground that can be made into another classroom for learning.

Outside we love to practice our gross motor skills as well as use our imaginations.

  

Montessori Work - Practical Life

Montessori Work - Practical Life

In Green park Road we have a Montessori classroom, equipped with a variety of materials that aid the children's development. There are five main areas: Practical life, sensorial, mathematics, language as well as Culture. 

Here we will show some pictures of the children working with the practical life materials. The main aim of these materials is to aid in the development of practical life skills such as pouring and cutting which in turns aids the development of the children's find motor skills, focus and concentration skills as well as working on their confidence when they are able to complete something new that they have learned. 

Using the scissors to cut hard textures

Spooning activity - this activity encourages the development of the grip needed to hold pencils as well as being able to use a spoon correctly 

Peg Board - Again encourages the development of the grip needed to hold pencils as well as building on focus and concentration levels. The children also get very creative with their patterns when working with the peg boards. 

Montessori Work - Mathematics

Montessori Work - Mathematics

In Green park Road we have a Montessori classroom, equipped with a variety of materials that aid the children's development. There are five main areas: Practical life, sensorial, mathematics, language as well as Culture.

Here we will show some pictures of the children working with the Mathematics materials. The main aim of these materials is to aid in the development of understanding numbers. The children start out with simple counting and then move onto more challenging activities such as matching the number with quantity, learning all about the concept of Zero, odd and even numbers as well as learning about weight and balance. There are also other ways in which we can include maths and numbers into our every day routine, making play dough and baking (measuring ingredients), counting our friends to see who is in as well as through building with blocks! So many different fun ways to learn all about maths!


Again with these activities, these all work on the children's focus and concentration as well as  encouraging the children's development of confidence and self esteem as they complete new activities.

Cards and Counters - matching quantity to the number whilst also learning about odd and even numbers, the counters that are by themselves are odd numbers and the counters that aren't by themselves are even numbers

Sandpaper numbers -  the children trace these with their fingers. The sense of touch is used to aid in the recognition of the number. The children also make rubbings of these

Spindles - using the spindles to match to the number 

Number rods - Starting off by counting the colours and then laying them out to go from - 1-10. The children can then use the number cards to match to them

 The boys here are using the concept of balance to make their structures! Not an easy task and they very much enjoy trying to make their structures as big as possible!

Spindle box - another activity that encourages the children to match quantity with numbers. The children count out the spindles into each numbered slot.

And of course making playdough and baking!! Another fun way that we like to add maths and numbers into our day! Weighing out the ingredients, counting them as they're added into the bowl and then watching the changes as they're all mixed together. 

Garda John came to visit - GP Road

Garda John's visit 

As part of our community theme, we had the community Garda, John, come for a visit!

The children were incredibly excited about this visit. They had been talking about it for days before hand and were working out what kind of questions they wanted to ask him. They also make him some pictures too that he could bring home with him. 

When he came in, he talked to us about road safety, stranger danger, how to sit in the car with our belts on as well as showing us how his walkie talkie worked. 

He was also very kind and let us try on his Garda hat and let us sit in his car and turn on the siren! Some of the children didn't want to do this and that was OK. 

Spring Planting - Beans - Greenpark Road

Spring Planting - Beans 

Lots of planting happening in the pre school these days!

With this activity the children placed broad beans in zip lock bags with some damp cotton wool so as to encourage the beans to grow! 

Again the children had great fun with this activity, and talking through the process of how to plant.

How much cotton wool was needed, how much water was needed as well as placing the beans into the bag. This is a wonderful example of a simple mathematics activity, as it involves measuring out water, counting out beans.  

Science Fun! - GP Road

Transpiration of colours onto flowers:

What an experiment this was!!!  This was an activity carried out by our Montessori teacher where by the children were able to change the colour of the white flowers and it was a really simple process. 

The children mixed some food colouring into water to get their desired colour. After this was completed they then placed the flowers into the water and waited patiently to see the colour change.