Martina McDonnell Martina McDonnell

Love is in the air

Valentine’s activities this week:

-Making playdough hearts and adding beads to decorate

-Story- K is for kissing a cool kangaroo

-Making playdough sweets

-Making Valentine’s toast and adding our favourite toppings

-Making hearts using Magnetic Tiles

-Practicing our sight words, spelling and writing using magnetic letters and whiteboards

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Martina McDonnell Martina McDonnell

Science Experiment- Pencil through a bag

Today we investigated two different types of plastic; a balloon and a ziploc bag. We predicted what would happen if we pushed a pencil through both types of plastic. The balloon popped immediately. We filled the bag with water and made predictions. Some people expected the bag to pop but to our surprise it didn’t. We repeated the experiment with varying results each time.

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Martina McDonnell Martina McDonnell

New month, new learning- First week of February 2026

We are still working on following procedures in Cairde 1. This week we followed our visual recipe for chocolate rice krispie buns. Everybody loved this activity. We made foamy bubbles with a food mixer for our sensory play. It was too wet to use the outdoor playground for reverse integration this week so we played parachute games in the hall instead. Some pupils are working on spelling and using a calendar. We are continuing to work on communicating using AAC devices (Augmentive and Alternative Communication).

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Martina McDonnell Martina McDonnell

Ending January on a high

Despite two school closures, we still had a very busy week. We were back in the kitchen where we followed visual recipes to make smoothies. Not everybody wanted to taste them but everybody was very interested in the process. We delivered the spare blueberry and banana smoothie to Cairde 2 to sample. We also made lava lamp solution using oil, milk and food colouring. As it will be St.Brigid's Day next week, we collected rushes on our walk. Then we made crosses with our friends from senior infants during reverse integration. We later went to some of the classes to show them off.

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Martina McDonnell Martina McDonnell

Jumping into January 2026

We have been learning all about the number 7. We have also been working on the letter J so we made jiggly jelly with a focus on following written procedures. Some pupils have been working on putting words together to make sentences. Everybody loves sensory play in Cairde 1. So far this month, we have added little balls to slime, glitter to water and dyed rice different colours. We have also been trying out the use of therapy bands to help us complete our OT exercises and regulate our bodies when they don’t feel calm.

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Martina McDonnell Martina McDonnell

Cairde 1 Christmas Corridor

We have been very busy bringing the Christmas spirit to our corridor. Check out some of our artwork.

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Martina McDonnell Martina McDonnell

Music Generation

We loved playing the xylophone and learning the names of the musical notes.

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Martina McDonnell Martina McDonnell

Reading games

Exploring sound using sound balls. We then added paint to see the patterns we could make when we rolled the balls.

Oral language lesson- at the doctor

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Martina McDonnell Martina McDonnell

Cairde 1 November 2025

Threading- fine motor skills

Learning core word ‘Where’ on AAC devices using the story ‘Where's Spot?’

Building hand muscles in preparation for writing by building with lego

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