St Patrick's Day Celebrations

We have been really busy on the run up t St Patricks Day here in the Centre.  The children have been making decorations, cards, flags etc to display around our Centre and we finished up by having a ‘green day’ whereby the children and staff came in wearing green.

Celebrating cultural festivals gives children the opportunity to develop feelings of identity and belonging, one of the key themes within Aistear the curriculum framework.  Children begin to learn how they fit into their community.  Most children will have attended a parade or gathering over the St Patrick’s weekend, and for those that did not – we had our own parade here.

Our Grasshopper children (3–5-year-olds) came to ask if they could have a parade.  They had been practicing playing their musical instruments and I had been listening from the office.  A delegation came with their Educator to ask if they could parade up to the civic offices and back.  The room Educators are very sneaky – they know I find it hard to refuse the children!

A plan was made, and the children prepared a banner.  Other rooms also came to ask if they could join in and pretty soon the parade was ready.

We are very lucky to be placed in a quiet area located behind Tipperary’s Council offices.  The children marched up the pathway, banging and blowing their instruments, much to the delight of the council administration people, who came out to wave them on. The parade finished at the top of the pathway and culminated in a rousing version of ‘Irelands Call’.

The children returned to the Centre and were just so happy and excited, it really was a joy to behold.  I feel a plan for bigger and better next year!

To complete the celebrations, we heard a marching band from America was coming to Nenagh so we organized for some of the older children to walk to the castle to see and hear the music.  It is a good stretch of the legs from here to Nenagh Castle but our children are well used to walking as we often go out into the community as part of the children’s activities.

The children were so excited, there were majorettes and a full band including sousaphones – an instrument that curls around the body of the player.   When they got back to the centre, they were full of stories of Princesses and castles.  The next day they made streamers on sticks and entertained us with singing and dancing.

I feel in no doubt that the children here feel part of the community and culture they live in.  They love going out of the centre and meeting people.  The opportunity to hear live music is a wonderful experience and one we would like to further develop for all the children if we can. 

If you play and instrument or are part of a group – we’d love you to come and play for us!

Exploring Textures in Butterfly Room

Exploring Texture

Long before children can talk or walk they are exploring our world through their senses.  At Nenagh Childcare Centre we try to offer children as many ‘hands on’ experiences as possible for all children. 

Today our under 2’s were experimenting with texture. The bubble wrap provided a base for children to glue and stick feathers, sometimes – well mostly, the feathers stuck to the children.  Educators were able to give new vocabulary to the children ‘sticky, fluffy, pop, glue, soft’ etc., while children develop their fine motor skills spreading glue, placing the feathers onto the glue as well as social skills, communicating and turn taking.

Importantly this activity is child led.  They choose where the materials go. They choose how long they stay at the activity. 

And for parents, the best thing is all that creativity, independence, glue and mess is at our Centre and not in your home.

The most important part of this play is it’s fun and yes there is a piece of art work at the end of the activity, however its is totally the children’s own work.  It’s what we call process (the enjoyment of making the art, choosing where the feathers and glue go, getting them stuck all over our hands etc) over product.  It doesn’t matter what the product/result is because the aim of the activity was to explore texture.

Brid reads Purple, Green and Yellow

Brid tells a story about colours to all our children at home

Andrea reads Mr Chatterbox

Andrea reads a very funny story about a Mr Man who cannot stop talking. A story to keep in touch through lockdown

Andrea and her special friend Eric read Superworm

Andrea reads the story of Superworm to all our children at home

Kathryn reads We're Going On a Bear Hunt

Kathryn reads We’re Going on a Bear Hunt to our children at home

Brid reads Teddy Bear's Picnic

Today we hear from Brid as she reads a story to her friend Lulu. Todays story is Teddy Bear’s Picnic.

Lisa reads Do You Believe In Groovicorns?

Dawn tells our children a Peter story

Dawn tells our children a story about a little boy who is missing his friends during lockdown.

Helen reads Room on the Broom

Helen reads Room on the Broom by Julia Donaldson for all the children to enjoy at home.

Helen reads Shaggy Dog and the Terrible Itch

Helen reads a funny story about a dog with an itch for all our children at home.

Making Our Own Playdough

Making Our Own Playdough

Playdough is one of our basic play materials in Nenagh Childcare Centre, we get through tons of it!

Playdough is so versatile, we can use as a tool to discover colour and texture, it can be therapeutic – the conversations that take place while the children squash and squeeze the playdough, are wonderful.

We also use it to encourage independence. Our older children can even make their own. We received a gift of doTERRA wild orange essential oil from one of our mums and today the children enjoyed making wild orange playdough. The classroom was filled with the wonderful uplifting aroma of oranges.

Adding fragrant essential oil adds another sensory interaction to making and playing with playdough. It is also of course natural and totally nontoxic.

Our older children can use playdough to develop those skills necessary for school readiness.

Playdough can be snipped, made into letters, used with tweezers and pencils. Children can practice their creativity - making sculptures, their counting - making buns and sharing them out, learning about simple fractions – half and whole, the list is endless!

The beauty of home-made playdough is, it costs very little and is very easy to make.

DIY Basic Playdough Recipe

• 2 cups of plain flour

• 1 cup of salt

• 2 tablespoons of vegetable oil

• Warm water to mix

You can add texture by adding lentils, rice etc.

Sometimes changing the flour to rice flour gives a different consistency.

You can add food colouring or play paint to give colour and don’t forget those essential oils for those therapeutic aromas while the children play.

Farmyard in your School Yard

Today we had a visit from the pet farm. The children all took part from our very youngest children to our oldest pre-schoolers. Their level of involvement of course depended on their ages.

Fern brought us a selection of animals – Simon the sheep who had his own little lead, guinea pigs (patch caused great excitement when he made a bid for freedom), chicken, ducks, a cockerel, some rabbits and 2 pygmy goats.

Some children were initially afraid of the animals, but with gentle coxing, they came around and we could see their confidence growing. The children were so gentle and even the smallest children understood the need to be gentle and use gentle touches.

Aside from the absolute delight on the children’s faces as they took turns to stroke and hold the animals, Fern was able to discuss animal welfare issues, she talked about the importance of caring for our animals and how best to look after them.

Talking about animals with children provides great opportunities to talk about life in general. One small child talked about how his cat had died. This brought up a discussion about life and death, the children showed great empathy and were able to talk about other times in their lives they felt sad.

The emerging curriculum discusses the need for children to have meaningful, hands on experiences.

We could have talked about a farm, shown them pictures of farm animals and discussed how to look after animals but this would not have had the same learning impact or have as much enjoyment for the children as bringing the farm to them.

A Sense of Belonging to Nenagh

Having a sense of Identity and Belonging is an important part of a child’s social and emotional development. We all need a sense of who we are and where we come from.

The children in Grasshopper room have taken the theme of ‘where we live’ and thought about all the elements of living in Nenagh, the purpose of some of its features and the people who live there.

It all started with a postcard from Lithuania!

A child who had left the centre to return home sent a postcard to the children telling them about his new school. The children thought about what they would tell children about where they live and their school.

We made contact with Anabla Preschool in Killarney and the children wrote letters and drew pictures for the children. They went to the post office each bought a stamp and posted their letters. There was great excitement when they received postcards in return.

When we looked at people in the community who help us, the children spoke about the doggy doctor – someone we had not expected to be important to them. Catherine the vet came for a visit and bandaged my dog Betty much to the entertainment of the children. She also brought Twitch a jack Russel with her, who only has one eye. The children were really interested, and amazingly almost everyone in Nenagh has a dog with only one eye!

Even the plants we gave our mammies on Mother’s Day came from a visit to the Community Gardens, one of the places identified by the children. The children saw what had been planted, talked about growing things and came back to the Centre to grow pansies in pots.

The best thing about this project is the children are driving it themselves. They are choosing what interests them, who they would like to visit, where they would like to go. I watched the children make a post office in the home area, folding paper to fit in different sized envelops, discovering which paper made the best stamps and how to stick them – all spontaneous learning opportunities instigated by the children.

So, when they come home and tell you they did nothing………