2021-2022
autumn term 2021-2022
Outdoor Play with large construction items
We were very busy during our outdoor learning, working in pairs and small groups. We had a selection of large construction items to build with, such as tyres, planks of wood and crates. We built a selection of walkways and assault courses to travel along, being careful to think about safety and balance as well.
fun on the wall bars at Pe time
All children in Reception and Primary one really enjoyed using the wall bars in school as part of their P.E. lesson!
beach school
We spent more time treasure hunting at the beach with our friends. In pairs we hunted for treasure in our pots, then we spend time looking at them in close detail. We drew what we were able to see on our white boards!
librarian visit
We were so pleased to receive a visit from the librarian at Portaferry library! We listen to stories, sang songs and recited Nursery Rhymes together.
beach school: treasure hunting
We really enjoyed our time at Beach school today. We used our new tarpaulin to sit on and had to think a way of securing it on the sand as it was rather windy! We discovered that one child sitting in each corner initially kept it secure while the rest of the children collected large stones to set around the perimeter to hold it down. We played one of favourite PE games on the beach and then after this we worked in pairs to find ‘treasure’ beach items. When we returned to school, we were able to show and talk about our treasure with the rest of the class. Somebody had found Captain Hook’s ‘Hook’ made out of seaweed, a crab claw was found, many different types of pebbles and we even found the remains of a fish egg nest! We look forward to finding more treasure on our next visit.
Outdoor learning
Reception and Primary 1 children have been enjoying more outdoor learning. Children formed pathways and numbers using wooden blocks, built their own tracks for the scooters and ride-on didcar vehicles and made estimates before timing themselves on their circuit. The role play and creative areas were very busy with children serving lunch and also playing a game of 'sharks in the water!'
#TeamKirkistown #outdoorplay
#TeamKirkistown #outdoorplay
outdoor play in the sun
We had lots of fun during our Outdoor Play session when the sun was shining!
potato and tulip planting
We were very kindly given some potato seeds to plant for our community. We look forward to finding lots of potatoes! Our tulips that we planted before Christmas are looking really beautiful. We look forward to seeing what the other pot of tulips looks like when we return after Easter as they have not opened up yet.
our dream houses
We used lots of recycled items to make our dream houses during Play Based Learning!
sneak a peek session
We had our second ‘Sneak a Peak session’ in our class today. We enjoyed sharing a Circle time session, a Shared Reading session and our Play Based Learning session with two parents from our class. We look forward to welcoming more of our parents into the classroom after Easter.
intergenerational easter party
Many thanks to Linking Generations Northern Ireland for providing us with a grant to hold an Intergenerational Easter Party. Children in Reception and Primary 1 had a wonderful time with members of the commuunity who were able to join us. Children participated in an Easter egg hunt, enjoyed eating Easter treats and designed beautiful Easter bags to carry their Easter Eggs in. A huge thank you to our friends for coming along to join in the fun with us.
castle espie visit
We had the most wonderful time on our class trip to Castle Espie. Our trip was very kindly funded by Cloughey Community and District Association and we were so pleased to have our friend Susan join with us again. The sun shone the entire day and we were kept busy by building bird nests, making ‘smelly pots’, listening to stories and searching for baby ducklings in the woodlands. We finished our day off by eating our lunch outdoors in the beautiful sunshine.
bouncy castle fun
I think the children could have bounced for the entire day if we had have let them!
the adventures of humphrey
Humphrey is very excited to heading out on more adventures with a member from our Primary 1 Class this weekend. We look forward to hearing about all of their adventures together!
maths trail
Reception and Primary 1 really enjoyed going on their Number Trail around school. Magnifying glasses helped them to look very carefully and find many different types of numbers. They also found a large selection of different 2D and 3D shapes.
daffodil art
As part of our ‘Spring’ topic, children looked very closely at daffodils and then chose to either paint the flowers or else use oil pastels to draw these beautiful spring flowers.
big bedtime read
Reception children really enjoyed having their parents join us in class for our ‘Big Bedtime Read’ session. All children brought their favourite teddies into school and they wore their pyjamas, onesies and slippers for their special story time. Parents also had the opportunity to ‘Sneak a Peak’ at their children during their Play session.
spring walk
Children in Reception and Primary 1 went out for a ‘Spring walk’, looking for signs of Spring. They used their magnifying glasses to look carefully for clues and then they recorded their findings on their voice recorders. They discovered lots of signs, such as daffodils, daisies, buds on trees, blue skies with fluffy clouds, ladybirds and birds singing. We even found a Grandad of one of our Primary 1 children!
comic relief 2022
Reception and Primary 1 had lots of fun on Comic Relief Day, wearing their red items! They even had ‘red nose and spoon’ races with their friends, Ollie was the winner. Thank you for all your support.
world book day
We enjoyed dressing up as our favourite characters from books today. We read lots of books together and our absolute favourite was a very funny book called Robo-Snot!
pancake tuesday
Lots of happy faces eating the pancakes that we made in class today!
exploring our new outdoor learning area
Children have been having great fun exploring the resources that have been purchased to help create a new outdoor learning area.
gardening in our new planters
Children from Reception and Primary 1 have started to use the planters very kindly donated from the team at Portaferry Men's Shed; the children will be planting and tending to a range of plants, flowers and seeds over the coming months.
telling the time
Reception and Primary 1 pupils have been making clocks to help them tell the time.
daily phonics
Children took part in their daily phonics lesson, revisiting all the 'pure sounds' of the letters of the alphabet before progressing to segmenting, blending and introducing the new sound- 'sh'. Children were completely engaged throughout and showed great understanding. The discussion surrounding vocabulary that takes place during these session is vital in helping children to become knowledgable about the world around them. As part of the session, children used a range of resources including those from Nessy.
painting our snowmen
Children in Reception and Primary 1 have been painting snowmen!
outdoor learning- the number 8
We visited the beach on a sunny, cold and very windy day to find out more about the number 8! Each of us had to find eight big stones to bring to our hoop and make a set of eight. Then we had to design a picture, pattern or a sculpture with them. After visit we went for a quick walk on the beach, it was very cold and windy!
observing our gardening areas
We have been looking for signs of growth and change in our various gardening areas. We planted tulip bulbs before Christmas as part of our Intergenerational ‘Food for Life’ project. We were very excited to see that some of them have started to push through and we can even see some of the tulip leaves! Our indoor Hyacinth bulbs have grown very quickly and we have a selection of beautiful blue, pink and white flowers. We have discovered, that each colour smells slightly different!
safer internet day- tuesday 08 february 2022
Children in Reception and Primary 1 have been learning about how to stay safe on the internet with the help of various characters from the story ‘Digiduck and the Magic Castle’. They each made a puppet of one of the three main characters and were able to use them to tell their friends about what they had been learning.
Children were also able to choose a member of their family at home to be the person who ‘helps them stay safe on the internet’. They drew some lovely pictures of these family members and wrote a sentence to label their picture.
Children were also able to choose a member of their family at home to be the person who ‘helps them stay safe on the internet’. They drew some lovely pictures of these family members and wrote a sentence to label their picture.
odd and even numbers up to 10
Primary 1 pupils used multilink to help model their understanding of odd and even numbers within 10. Children drew visual representations of their models and recorded this independently! #TeamKirkistown #maths
structured play
Reception and Primary 1 pupils were fully engaged in play this morning. There were fantastic conversations in the Construction Corner with a toolkit made up for the Principal. Children built a skyscraper over 20 storeys high and also a house with a sloping roof, "to make sure the rain doesn't get in!" Beautiful artwork, beautiful behaviour, it was lovely for Mr Graham to be a part of the session today.
health education week- days 3 to 5
We have lots of little tired legs at the end of a week of daily exercising for our Health week. Each day we went on a slightly different walk, exploring different areas of the beach. One day we even brought our snack out with us to eat. In total we have walked 12 810 steps over the week which we think is just over six miles in total. We have enjoyed looking out for signs of Winter on our walks and observing the tide and beach to see where it was each day.
measuring our bean plants
We have been measuring our bean plants that we planted as part of our ‘Food for life’ intergenerational project before Christmas. We decided to use our play dough tubs to measure them with. As you can see, some of them have grown very tall indeed!
measuring during ict
We have been doing more measuring during ICT with a Maths game on the computers!
hungry birds
The birds have been very hungry recently and are really enjoying eating sunflower hearts!
The number 6
Reception and Primary 1 pupils were looking at the number 6 today. Children worked in pairs to collect 6 items of the same colour or collect 6 different items and placed them inside their hoops. When children were given a free choice of items to select, they discussed what was similar or different about the choices they had made including the shape, size and colour. This led to some fabulous calculations totalling 6! 😊
christmas stars
We designed and made some beautiful Christmas stars to hang on our Christmas trees at home!
christmas movie day at school
We really enjoyed watching ‘An Elf’s Story’ and ‘Gotta Catch Santa’ during our Christmas movie day. We enjoyed eating some jelly, sweets and lots of popcorn as well!
time to read packs
We were very pleased and grateful to receive lovely story books to take home, enjoy and keep!
ict christmas trees
Lots of care was taken to design and draw Christmas trees on the computer using a ‘Paint’ program on the computers during ICT.
painting our christmas trees
We have been very busy painting our very large Christmas trees
jingles the elf
‘Jingles the Elf’ has been getting up to lots of mischief in our classroom!
making santa & paper chains to measure with
We had fun designing and making our Santas! Lots of effort and team work was needed to make extremely long paper chains. We used them to measure with and discovered that one of them measured the same length as five of our children!
decorating our classroom for christmas
We were busy bees decorating our classroom for Christmas time!
christmas dinner at school
Everyone really enjoyed our tasty School Christmas dinner!
whoops a daisy characters
Only some of our wonderful characters form our class Nativity, ‘Whoops-a-Daisy Angel’. Everyone worked very hard in preparing for our class Nativity this year!
'FOOD FOR LIFE' INTERGENERATIONAL PROJECT- WK 4
In our final session of our ‘Food for Life’ project, we celebrated by tasting and eating a variety of ‘Christmas’ foods with our friends. It didn’t take long for the chocolate roll, crisps and sweet treats to be enjoyed by everyone!
We designed and made Christmas tree pictures with our friends and we finished the session off by planting ‘Hyacinth’ bulbs to bring home as Christmas gifts to our families.
It has been a truelly wonderful experience participating in this project and we are very grateful to our new friends for coming each week!
We designed and made Christmas tree pictures with our friends and we finished the session off by planting ‘Hyacinth’ bulbs to bring home as Christmas gifts to our families.
It has been a truelly wonderful experience participating in this project and we are very grateful to our new friends for coming each week!
'FOOD FOR LIFE' INTERGENERATIONAL PROJECT- WK 3
We were so pleased to meet up with our new friends again for our third session of our ‘Food for Life’ project. We read our ‘Princess and the Pea’ fairy Tale and then talked about all of the different vegetables that we can grow and eat.
After this, we all had a ‘vegetable tasting session’. Everyone tasted the same type of vegetable at the same time, and then we recorded on our activity sheet what we thought of it. Everyone tasted some carrot, red pepper, yellow pepper, orange pepper and celery. It was once again great to see every child and adult trying all of the vegetables and enjoying most of them!
Finally, we planted a selection of tulip bulbs in our outdoor planters. We look forward to taking care of them and seeing them bloom in Spring time.
After this, we all had a ‘vegetable tasting session’. Everyone tasted the same type of vegetable at the same time, and then we recorded on our activity sheet what we thought of it. Everyone tasted some carrot, red pepper, yellow pepper, orange pepper and celery. It was once again great to see every child and adult trying all of the vegetables and enjoying most of them!
Finally, we planted a selection of tulip bulbs in our outdoor planters. We look forward to taking care of them and seeing them bloom in Spring time.
'FOOD FOR LIFE' INTERGENERATIONAL PROJECT- WK 2
We were very excited to meet with our friends from Cloughey and District Community Association again this week. Continuing on with our Fairy Tale stories, we read ‘Jack and the beanstalk’ together and then planted our own bean seeds. We are looking forward to watching them grow and finding out if they are magic beans!
We also made ‘Santa’ fruit kebabs with bananas, strawberries and marshmallows. They were enjoyed and eaten very quickly by all children!
After this, we all had a ‘fruit tasting session’. Everyone tasted the same type of fruit at the same time, and then we recorded on our activity sheet what we thought of it. Everyone tasted apple, blueberry, raspberry, grape, watermelon, strawberry, pineapple and mango. It was fantastic to see every child and adult trying all of the fruit and enjoying all of it!
We also made ‘Santa’ fruit kebabs with bananas, strawberries and marshmallows. They were enjoyed and eaten very quickly by all children!
After this, we all had a ‘fruit tasting session’. Everyone tasted the same type of fruit at the same time, and then we recorded on our activity sheet what we thought of it. Everyone tasted apple, blueberry, raspberry, grape, watermelon, strawberry, pineapple and mango. It was fantastic to see every child and adult trying all of the fruit and enjoying all of it!
children in need day
friendship week (anti-bullying week)
'food for life' intergenerational project- Wk 1
Children in Reception and Primary 1 have received funding for an intergenerational project with members from the Cloughey & District Community Association. They will be getting to know each other and learning about different types of food and also having opportunities to plant and grow. This week they were learning about ‘The Gingerbread Man’ in their Literacy and were very excited to be decorating their own Gingerbread Men, bringing one home to eat and of course tasting them in school together. Lots of fun was had and we cannot wait to meet up with our new friends again next week!
outdoor play
We were very busy in our Outdoor learning area making mud pies in our mud kitchen, playing in our sand area, gardening area, completing our phonic work at the creative area, playing in the roleplay area and using our scooters!
play at the park
We had so much fun during our Outdoor play today; we went to the park across the road from our school! Lots of super climbing, travelling, problem solving, balancing, swinging and sliding!
Poppy remembrance
We had a visit today to the memorial area in Cloughey. We spent some time thinking about and remembering everybody who has given their lives for our freedom. We have also been making our own poppies!
feeding the birds
We having been learning about how some birds need to be cared for in the colder months. We have filled up the birdfeeder that is in our Outdoor Play Area and will be looking out to see which types of birds come to eat from it! Before we filled it up, we could see a spider’s web with different insects caught in it. We used our magnifying glasses to look very closely at them. We decided that they were tiny flies that had been trapped in the web.
lifecycle of hedgehogs
We have been learning about and finding out about the lifecycle of a hedgehog. We have also found out that they are nocturnal and that they hibernate in the colder months. In the Spring time, they waken up and some of the mummy hedgehogs have baby ‘piglets!’
outdoor learning- the number '4'
We are beginning to find out about and learn about number 4 in Primary 1! We have been making lots of different sets of four outdoors and learning how to write the numeral.
humphrey!
Humphrey is away for a week long adventure this week with two sisters!
celebrating our birthday topic with a party
To celebrate the end of our ‘birthdays’ topic, we made jelly and chocolate buns to eat and enjoy at our party! They were very tasty.
rice krispies buns- solids and liquids
We have been discovering that when we melt chocolate, it stops being a solid and turns into a liquid. When the Rice Krispie buns are ready to eat, the chocolate becomes a solid again! We plan to eat the jelly and buns at our class party tomorrow, to celebrate our ‘Birthday’ topic!
pumpkin designing
We have been using our cutting and sticking skills to design our pumpkins for our ‘Spooky night’ at school. We chose the style of eyes, nose and mouth that we wanted for our pumpkin.
jelly experiment- solid and liquid
We have been experimenting with hot and cold water to find out what jelly cubes need to dissolve with. Hot water was able to dissolve the jelly cubes and cold water did not change the jelly cubes. We also discovered that the jelly changed from being a solid to a liquid when it dissolved.
printing with apples
As part of our Autumn topic, we have been using apples to print with in Art. We have been using lots of autumnal colours to print with.
waiting for harvest food to be collected
We helped to carry all of the bags of food items that were donated by our school community, ready for them to be collected!
harvest foodbank collection
A huge thank you for the fantastic kindness and generosity of our school community by donating so many items of food to our local Food warehouse. Thank you so much!
mental health week
‘In a world where you can be anything, be kind’.
We each had a challenge to choose something kind we were going to do this week. We have also been learning about how special and unique each one of us is, by designing and making our hand puppets and reading ‘You are special’ by Max Lucado.
We each had a challenge to choose something kind we were going to do this week. We have also been learning about how special and unique each one of us is, by designing and making our hand puppets and reading ‘You are special’ by Max Lucado.
show and tell
The girls in our class were able to tell us lots of interesting information and answer questions about their Show and Tell.
the adventures of humphrey
Humphrey is away on more adventures this weekend!
autumn walk
We enjoyed a lovely Autumnal walk, looking for signs of autumn. We used our magnifying glasses to look at objects very closely and we used our voice recorders to record our observations. We even found Ms Matthew’s Mummy on our walk!
school council representatives 2021-2022
Congratulations to our two children who have been voted onto our school council by their friends! Mr Graham is looking forward to working with them soon.
what's inside an apple?
Reception and Primary 1 have been using magnifying glasses to see what's inside an apple and where all that yummy flavour comes from!
outdoor learning- 2d shapes
Our fabulous Reception and Primary 1 Children have visited the beach this week to make their very own 2D shapes from pebbles. They've worked well together and taken good care to count the sides of each shape they made.
myhappymind- betty and berty
Reception children have continued their learning about friendship and positivity by meeting Berty and Betty. These two characters are part of a series of learning that helps children form a positive view of themselves, of friendships and the world around them.
fantastic gymnastics
We've all been enjoying our gymnastics lessons, showing off our flexibility this week.
the adventures of humphrey
Humphrey is off on a new adventure! I wonder what he'll get up to?
sorting 2D shapes
Primary 1 children have been sorting 2D shapes by the number of sides this week.
birthday boy
Many happy returns to our birthday boy who celebrated his birthday with friends this week.
making patterns outdoors
Children have been using a range of equipment and materials to make patterns outdoors this week.
reading outdoors
measuring the area of birthday cakes
Children in Reception and Primary 1 have been estimating and measuring the area of birthday cakes as part our maths learning.
p.e games
the adventures of humphrey
Children in Reception and Primary 1 are very excited to be each bringing Humphrey home for a weekend as part of our literacy Curriculum! When they bring Humphrey back to school, they have an opportunity to show photos of what he has been getting up to, a picture they have drawn of him and an opportunity to answer questions about what he has been getting up to. All of these ‘Humphrey stories’ are then added to our class story book
cutting and sticking- listening activity
Lots of careful listening required in our listening activity! We also have a variety of special scissors to help us learn how to use scissors when cutting.
play based learning- birthdays
Children in Reception and Primary 1 are really enjoying designing and making their own birthday cards in the Creative area, using play dough to make birthday cakes and buns in the Dough area, decorating and measuring with parcels in the construction area and planning and enjoying birthday parties in the Roleplay area!
time- sequencing activity
As part of our ‘Measures’, we have been thinking about ‘Time’ and sequencing events that we do in school. Lots of careful thinking required, cutting, sequencing and sticking!
birthday planning
We have been using our planning board to plan what we want to learn about, find out and do together in school for our ‘Birthdays’ topic!
listening ears- environmental sounds
As part of our phonological awareness, we have been using our clipboards to write down and draw pictures of any of the environmental sounds that we can hear. We have also been recording them on our ‘voice recorders’ to play back again in the classroom. We could hear lots of things, from cars, to doors closing, dinner trollies and the sound of the sea!
rufus- washing our hands
We have been reading a story about Rufus and the importance of keeping our hands clean. We also sing a song that Rufus has taught us when we are washing our hands with soap and water!
curriculum information
Information communicated to families at our recent Curriculum Meeting is attached below. If you have any queries, please contact the class teacher.
| reception_and_p1_curriculum_meeting.pdf |
p.E- making shapes and listening skills
Lots of listening games and following instructions in PE for Reception and Primary 1. Can you spot the starfish?!
lunchtime fun
Everybody in Primary 1 was very excited to have lunch for the very first time in school together!
book bags
Primary 1 were very excited to receive their lovely new blue book bags
PDMU
In PD&MU children are learning about how special and unique they are. They have been thinking carefully about what they look like and making close observations to enable them to paint a self portrait.
play based learning fun
Children in Reception and Primary 1 are really enjoying playing with the toys in school and making new friends with each other.
busy bees during task time
Primary one have been busy bees during Task time, completing their activities!
show and tell on seesaw
Lots of the children have been using both videos and photographs to ‘Show and Tell’ us all about something exciting and interesting from home on Seesaw.
fun during ict
Girls and boys have been learning how to use and control the mouse during Shape and Space activities in ICT. They have been trying to fit the correct piece of the jigsaw into its place.
first days at school
Lots of smiles during our first days in Reception and Primary 1 at Kirkistown primary School!
2020 - 2021
Summer term 2020-2021
healthy eating visit from tesco community champion
Campbell Keatings from Tesco very kindly visited us in school. He was teaching the children about a variety of healthy fruits, where they grow and how Tesco source them. All children had opportunities to taste different fruits and also received some lovely fruit to bring home with them!
reception class- threading
Children in Reception are concentrating very hard and developing their fine motor skills, using our beads and threading cards. It is harder than it looks!
myhappymind
Children are learning about their character strengths through the different characters from ‘My Happy Mind’
sports day
We had so much fun at our Sports day, even though the sun didn’t manage to shine! We all received a medal at the end after completing running, jumping, hopping, balancing, sack and egg and spoon races!
royal mail certificate winners
Children received a certificate for entering a competition for Royal Mail. They had to design a new stamp, illustrating their Hero from the Pandemic.
golden time at the park
We had lots of fun at Cloughey Play Park with our friends for our Golden Time!
Outdoor Play- large construction work
We have been using a selection of crates, planks, tyres and other various items to build obstacle courses to travel along, across, through, over and sometimes under! The children designed these themselves and worked in pairs or small groups to plan, design, carry and construct. We have particularly enjoyed playing with one of our new outdoor play resources- the large wooden skip. Inside it are lots of differently sized wooden blocks. We have been using our imagination to build campfires and very tall buildings with lots of floors in them!
tens frames
We are using our ‘Tens Frames’ during mental maths activities. We are trying very hard to calculate the number that comes before, after and in between two numbers. We are also trying to ‘make’ different numbers as quickly as we can without having to count across.
healthy living
We have been thinking about and learning different ways that we can live a healthy lifestyle. We have been finding out about healthy foods that we can put into a lunch box and we have also been collecting data about our favourite types of fruit! We have used a mapping graph to show our favourite types of fruit. Apples and grapes are the most popular in our class! We also visited our friends next door in Primary 6 and 7. We were able to find out and record that apples are the most popular fruit in Primary 6 and 7.
Planting pansies in our Outdoor Play Area.
We have been very busy planting our pansies in our Outdoor Play area; we even found a slug! We are looking forward to taking care of the plants and observing the changes as they grow. We have lots of volunteers who want to water them and take good care of them!
the adventures of humphrey
Humphrey is looking forward to going on more adventures this weekend with someone from Primary 1. We are looking forward to finding out what he has been getting up to on Monday when he returns to school!
getting ready for sports day
We have been practising different races during our PE lessons such as running, jumping, egg and spoon races and trying very hard to balance something on our head without it falling off! It is very tricky to keep the egg on the spoon!
Looking after the birds & getting ready to plant
We are continuing to enjoy watching lots of different types of birds eat from our bird feeder in our Outdoor Play area. We have also been getting our planter ready to plant some Spring flowers later on this week!
spring artwork
We have been working very hard to complete our Spring displays in school!
travelling and balancing
Children have been exploring different ways to travel and balance with our PE apparatus this week!
the adventures of humphrey
Humphrey is away on another adventure this weekend!
happy breathing during myhappymind
We have been learning all about the brain with our new friends Betty and Berty in ‘My happy Mind’. Children are also learning how to do their ‘happy breathing’ which helps them to relax and rest their brain
shared reading in the sun
We are really enjoying having the opportunity to read our class novel outside in the sunshine!
spring painting
After going on our ‘Spring walk’ to look for lots of signs of Spring, we have been painting lots of beautiful spring flowers!
phonic fun
We have been having lots of fun playing our new ‘Swat’ game where we have to ‘swat’ the flies with the tricky words on them! We have also been making words with our phonic cubes and revising our phonic sounds.
planting and growing seeds
As part of our Spring topic we have been planting ‘pea’ seeds. We are looking forward to taking care of them and watching them grow. We plan to measure which plant grows the tallest!
golden time
We had a class trip to the park for our treat at Golden time this week. We all had so much fun!
climbing!
We had lots of fun using the wall climbing bars today in PE!
Spring walk
We really enjoyed going on a walk to look out for and listen out for all of the signs of Spring. We brought our voice recorders with us and recorded all of the different signs of Spring that we were able to find. We heard birds singing, saw new flowers growing, blue skies, sun shining and we could feel a gentle breeze. We are enjoying finding out all about Spring!
