Checking Into A New School Year!

Hey Hey Everyone!
So, I’m here brushing the cobwebs off my blog! And just in case you were wondering I haven’t fallen into the copy machine or been swallowed up by the laminator. I just took a break from blogging simply because I was tired and found it easier to post to my readers over on Facebook and Instagram. But I’m feeling revived as I head into this new school year and want to fill you in on where I am now.

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​I’m delighted to have moved up to Senior Infants this year with the same children I worked with last year. It’s certainly been refreshing to have moved classroom and I’ve managed to do a good clean out, or maybe more of a cull of my resources and boxes upon boxes of stuff!

As always, I try new things every year to keep it interesting and this year is no different. So here are a few things on my ‘To Blog list!’ for this year!
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• Teaching phonics and blending is something that I am truly passionate about. I grew up as a struggling reader myslef and I know how it deeply it can affect every aspect of your learning. Every child needs to learn to read well and every teacher should feel confident to teach them. But time and time again it seems to be an area of confusion and difficulty for many teachers, myself included and can cause teachers and parents a lot of stress and heart ache. It doesn’t have to be this way and I want to share with you all I have learnt after spending years doing in-dept research in this area.​

• Teaching through genres will be an area of personal focus for me so I will post about this as I tackle different genres throughout the year. If you follow me over on facebook and Instagram you see how I’m already well into teaching procedural writing with my infants. My goal is to link them into my playful approach to teaching and in turn enhance the children's Aistear time.​

• Classroom displays I’m re-vamping the way I use my classroom display areas this year, to make my displays more visually appealing and reflective of how I teach every topic. I want to use my displays in my lessons more often instead of just making a display and watching it gather dust. Space is valuable in my room, so I want to but it to work!

• Flexible seating This was top of my agenda to try and I’m delighted to say so far it is working a treat! It has opened a whole new level of independent learning and freedom choice for the children. You might imagine that it would be chaos but it’s the opposite. The children feel more responsibility on themselves to make good seating choices and seem to want to prove they can work well so as not to be moved! It’s very satisfying to watch.​

• This year I will continue to take a integrated and thematic approach to my teaching and planning. I hope to be able to share with you some ideas on how to plan and manage resources to make your thematic teaching more enjoyable for you and the children! 

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Of course I will be blogging about Aistear and other playful teaching ideas as they arise in my class but please feel free to get in touch with me if you fancy making a suggestion or two! I hope you all stick with me and I look forward to sharing ideas with you during the year ahead on Infant Education!