The boys, girls and their parents have been working very hard this term. 

We have been working on our listening skills by listening to stories. We have also worked on our ordering skills by retelling stories in the correct order. 

Our rhyming skills have hugely improved this year too!

On the 23rd May, we had 100% parental attendance at Happy Talk. Well done to everybody for making such a huge effort! A special thanks to Niamh from Happy Talk and our own Eileen Nolan for  organising the parent sessions. 

Happy Talk Term 2

Week 1

The parents were very busy for the first half an hour of Happy Talk making monsters in the Parents Room. 

The boys and girls thought they did a fantastic job! 

We met Nibbles again and he played a listening game with us – Nibbles says! He kept trying to catch us out!

We used the monsters our mams and dads made us to sort pictures of different categories e.g. farm animals, fruit, vegetables, etc. We were really good at this!

Then we sang Three Blind Mice, once in our normal voices, then in our robot voice and then like a lullaby. We like using our robot voices the best! It’s a great way to check that we actually know all of the words.  🙂 

Have a look at us during our first Happy Talk session of Term 2. Look at how hard we are concentrating. 

Week 2

This week, the adults made really cool telescopes with Mrs. Nolan and Niamh. We have some very creative parents!

The boys and girls used these telescopes to find the odd one out. The boys and girls had to think really hard to explain to their adult why the item they chose was the odd one out. 

We also played a listening game where the adults and the children had to ask somebody else in the room to do something, like turn around or rub their tummy. We had lots of fun doing this. Darragh even asked Miss McCarthy to run around the classroom!!

Then the children brought their adults on a tour of the classroom and found items in the room that started with different sounds. The mums and dads could see just how well we know all of our sounds. 

We finished the session by singing I’m a Little Teapot, first in a really loud voice, then like a robot, and then in a “cold” voice like we were shivering. 

Week 3

The mums and dads brought us a special treat of a Feely Bag today. The bag had lots of lovely things inside and we used our words to describe the items. Some of the words we used were: smooth, rough, scratchy, tickly, transparent, silky, shiny, reflective, hollow and fluffy. 

Then we played a listening game where the adults had to describe a shape, food, animal and we had to guess what it was.

Finally we played a game where we all changed the first sound in our name.

We sang this rhyme to the tune of “London Bridge”.

Change the first sound in your name, 

In your name, in your name.

Change the first sound in your name, 

What’s your new name?

We had some funny new names in our class after playing this game: Lily became “Silly”, Brianna became “Krianna” and Darragh became “Carragh” (or Cara which is our class fairy’s name!). 

Week 4

We started today’s session by playing a listening game. The adults gave us an instruction, but we had to listen and wait until they said “go” before we carried out the instruction. 

Next, the parents brought us a fishing game to try out. The children went fishing for a set of instructions. The adults read the three instructions and then the children tried to remember the three instructions and do them in order. This was a little bit hard for us, but with lots of practice at home I have no doubt that the children will do really well at this task.

To end the session, the boys and girls sang “The Grand Old Duke of York”. 

This was the last session of Term 2. We will see Niamh, Nibbles and Twitch again in Term 3. 

Many thanks to Niamh from Happy Talk, Eileen Nolan for co-ordinating the sessions and to all of the adults that made such a special effort to attend the sessions. The children really benefited from your attendance. 

Junior Infants in Scoil Ursula are very lucky to have the wonderful people of Happy Talk working with us this year.

We are half way through our Happy Talk sessions for Term 1 and we are working hard on our language and communication skills.

Our mums, dads and helpers have been working on Modelling and Expanding with us. These are very important skills that will help improve the way we communicate.

We have been working extremely hard on our listening skills with the help of Nibbles. We are excellent at spotting when Nibbles is not showing us his listening skills.

Our listening skills are:

Eyes are looking.

Ears are listening.

Mouth is closed.

Hands are still.

Feet are on the floor.

We can practice these skills at home and in school.

Thank you to our adults and Niamh from Happy Talk for coming into our classroom every week!