Aistear

Aistear is the early childhood curriculum framework for all children from birth to six years old. The word Aistear is the Irish word for journey and was chosen because early childhood marks the beginning of children’s lifelong learning journeys.

While working on various themes Junior and Senior Infants learn new vocabulary, develop their problem-solving skills, work as part of a team as well as developing communication and play skills.

We began with the theme of school. We played with the kitchen, the easel and the sandtray. We played with blocks and the playdough. We chatted and got to know each other, played games, learned nursery rhymes and coloured pictures. We drew a “selfie” of ourselves.

Our next theme was Autumn. We went on a nature walk and collected some leaves, twigs, berries and stones. We used these materials along with playdough, blocks and our imagination to make our Autumn garden. We painted autumn trees, coloured pictures, planted spring bulbs, searched for conkers in the sandtray and had fun with playdough.

We used “Room on a Broom” as inspiration for our Halloween Aistear sessions. We read the story, talked about it, drew pictures, played games and acted the story out. We also did some Halloween artwork and played maths games.

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Aistear 2

For November we chose the theme of Homes. We talked a lot about what you would find in the different rooms in a house, played language games and maths games, designed our own bungalow, role-played activities with our kitchen, used household objects to create with playdough and looked for buried household objects in the sandtray

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Aistear 6

Aistear 7

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In December our theme was the Post Office. We set up our own post office, role-played scenarios, made lunch for the post office workers, designed our own stamps, made our own postboxes, wrapped parcels to be weighed, created pictures with stencils, visited our local postbox and posted letters home.