5th Class Swimming
Swimming lessons will take place from Thursday 7th September until 19th October inclusive. Please ensure your child has their swimming gear with them each Thursday. A payment request will be available on Aladdin.
Colourstrings
Colourstrings Music Classes are back for all classes in Scoil Mhuire. We are very fortunate to have Katri Suominen and Peggy Trundle from Maoin Cheoil na Gaillimhe teaching this internationally renowned Music Programme in our school, Colourstrings uses the principles of Kodaly to train children to learn premusic literacy and appreciate different types of music before they formally play an instrument and become a ‘musician’. This involves them reading, using inner hearing and singing, as well as playing simple percussion instruments.
Also Katri is teaching some very lucky children from R3 agus 4 on Wednesday afternoons for Colourstrings Classical Flute lessons. They are going to perform as part of a Galway Youth Orchestra in May. They are really enjoying these lessons. Since starting in October, they have made great progress.
Language Stations
Junior and Senior Infants take part in language stations twice weekly. These stations are facilitated by the class teacher along with two special education teachers. There are 3 teacher led stations and one independent station. The children develop their expressive and receptive language skills around a particular theme each week. These stations consist of the following:- Expressive Language
- Receptive Language
- Handwriting / Phonics
- Independent station
Junior Juries
The KPMG children’s books Ireland Awards Junior juries programme is a unique activity for schools, libraries and book clubs, designed to encourage children and young people to read widely and to engage with reading in an innovative and exciting way.
The newly formed bookclub in Scoil Mhuire are taking part this year reading a selection of the shortlisted books and collectively scoring them and voting for their favourite to win the junior juries award to be announced at the end of May.
The books they are reading and discussing are
April’s Garden – Isla McGuckin, The hare shaped hole – John Dougherty, Three tasks for a dragon-Eoin Colfer, Global-Eoin Colfer, Wider than the sea – Serena Molloy, The girl who fell to earth – Patricia Forde.
Ready Set Go
Ready Set Go Maths is a hands-on approach to learning mathematical concepts in Junior and Senior Infants. It is designed to enable children to develop and consolidate their understanding of numbers through activities and interactive games.
In Scoil Mhuire we have implemented this programme in Junior Infants. The Key message behind the programme is that children are engaged in active learning and there is an emphasis on the use of language to explain our mathematical thinking, what we are doing and why we are doing it. Ready, Set, Go Maths focuses on 4 main areas:
- Sorting
- Relationships and Operations
- Counting and Recognition
- Understanding Numbers.
Classroom teachers and special education teachers, work with the pupils in the class in smaller groups. Children work on three activity stations and one book work station each day spending 6 minutes at each station before rotating to the next station. Activities generally involve working with concrete materials and playing games.