SET/EAL

Our SET teachers have been working away withdrawing their literacy, numeracy and social skills groups since September and our EAL teachers have been working hard with our students for whom English is not their first language, to develop their language skills. We have introduced lots of in class teaching this year in every class, with literacy stations or numeracy stations or both in each class group. The children are particularly loving all the station teaching and parallel teaching this year.

 

Ms Caffrey’s EAL Class

We had a very busy month running our restaurant here at St. Clare’s. It wasn’t an easy task keeping all our customers happy. The children had lots of fun, learning the vocabulary associated with food. They enjoyed learning about healthy and unhealthy foods, taking orders and creating their own menus. 

 

 

 

Ms mc Caffrey is so lucky to have so many amazing chefs in her classroom. We loved discussing popular dishes from the children’s native country and tasting their native foods. 

 

 

 

 

 

Literacy stations in Junior Infants

Junior infants have started literacy stations. All are enjoying completing the many activities especially the kinetic sand!!

 

 

Guided Reading in First Class

We have recommenced Guided Reading this year again in both first classes. Ms Mc Govern has been working alongside the First Class teachers Ms Shields and Ms Cunningham to facilitate this initiative in first class. Both classes do guided reading for 40 minutes, twice a week. Two groups work with the class teacher and two groups work with the SET teacher over the course of the 40 minute sessions. While the two groups are working with a teacher, the other three groups are engaging in independent activities which include spelling practise, silent reading and free writing. The children are really enjoying the Guided Reading sessions and are already starting to show progress in terms of their reading ability. They are loving the new books they get each week.

 

 

 

 

Maths Stations 

We have just started maths stations in first class this year. Maths stations take place once a week for 30 minutes in each first class. Two groups work with the teacher and two groups work with the SET teacher over the  course of the 30 minutes. Whilst the two groups are working with a teacher the other two groups are doing independent activities for 15 minutes which include board games, maths games on the interactive whiteboard and maths worksheets. The children get to rotate each week between the IWB games and the board games for their independent activities.

 

Reading Recovery

Ms Mc Govern is working with four pupils doing Reading Recovery this year. Two pupils from Senior Infants and Two pupils from 1st class. Each of the pupils goes to Ms Mc Govern for 30 minutes each day to read books, work on words and how they work and to do some  daily writing. See below some of the activities the pupils have been doing with Ms Mc Govern to further their literacy skills. For more information about Reading Recovery, see the link below.

 

 https://metc.ie/index.php/national-programmes/reading-recovery/

 

 

 

 

Numeracy groups in 1st class

Our numeracy groups have been busy learning all about number in 1st class. They’ve been using the numeral track to find the number before and after a given number and have been filling in partially blank number lines. They’ve also been practising their knowledge of number patterns, in particular number finger patterns or ‘bunny ears’. They’ve also been learning all about the numbers that relate to them such as their date of birth and the number of letters in their name or the number of people in their family.

In Class Support  in Senior Infants

Senior infants have been working really hard in their literacy stations which take place twice a week. We have four stations. The stations include two teacher-led stations, one for tricky words and one for CVC words. We also have two independent stations. In their independent stations the children have been practicing their handwriting and writing their news. Parallel teaching also takes place once a week. The teachers listen to the children’s reading and assist the children with literacy activities. Here are some pictures of senior infants doing super work!

 

 

EAL Class

 

We have really settled into our EAL groups and are working really well, retaining lots of new vocabulary! We’ve been ‘busy bees’ learning words based on the themes ‘Myself, ‘My Family’ and ‘Clothes’. Check out some photos and videos of the work we’ve been doing in our EAL groups.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The thinking caps are on with second class as they are busy practicing their maths with some fun maths games! 

 

 

Ms Leddy’s social group has been developing their social skills whilst having fun in the ball pit

 

 

Numeracy groups in Senior Infants

Ms Leddy’s senior infants numeracy group has been working hard on learning all about number and about adding numbers.

 

 

Third class SET groups

Some fun in our 3rd class SET groups!!!

 

 

 

In Class Support in 4th Class

In 4th Class, we did literacy stations based on Halloween!! Pupils did oral language games and had to guess the character that the person in the group had. They also did wordsearches on tablets, creative writing, reading  of Halloween stories and composing sentences using Halloween adjectives!! It was spooktacular!!!

 

 

The children are enjoying coming out to their SET lessons this year. Check out Jack and Cathal getting creative while working with Ms. Mulvey and Ms. Fitzpatrick during SET time! Well done Boys!

Fine motor skills development in 5th class

 

 

 

Spellings work and some creative fun in 5th class SET room