World Book Day 2019

It was all go last week for World Book Day in SMGS!
With trips to the library, chats with publishers, bookmark design sessions and lots more, everyone celebrated reading for pleasure with gusto.
Inspired by last year's success, every class turned their room door into a work of bookish art once more.
See how many favourites you can recognise and check out Room 12's nod to their very own book, Green Giraffes and Pink Elephants!

Building it up

Today, we read about the Tiny King who is a bit lost in his great big castle, protected by his great big soldiers and eating great big dinners all on his own. We related to some of his predicaments, but we also noticed that we were somewhat luckier than him: we at least have teddies to keep us company in our big beds! 
As we looked through Taro Miura's colourful pictures we played a bit of spotting and counting and looking for our favourite things to eat. This week again, lots of conversations got started thanks to a book...
Then we moved from the 2D world of the page to the 3D world of building blocks. Inspired by the geometrical shapes of the Tiny King's castle, we built our own towers, houses and even slides! Fine motor skills, balancing, estimating, shape recognition, all came into play without anyone noticing. The best kind of learning!
As promised, the links to the songs and videos!

Suzi Shelton - Tomboy In A Princess Dress:

Bounce Patrol: Royal Finger Family Song:

Brunswick Project: King of the Castle (with goats!): 

Chapi Chapo: Le Cube Espiègle, a (psychedelic!) wordless French cartoon from the 80s full of squares and shapes like The Tiny King: 

Putting our Stamp on Things

Baby Book Clubbers had great fun this morning following the adventures of Zebedee who looks high and low for his round, red balloon and makes plenty of new friends along the way.
We were really taken by the pictures and their stark contrast of black and white and red, and we had all sorts of conversations about the taste of strawberries and our favourite colours.
To flex our muscles (both physical and creative) we then moved on to stamping and populated our blanc and white forests with colourful friends for Zebedee. Mainly dinosaurs, but really friendly ones!
As promised, here are the links to the songs and videos. Enjoy!

It Only Takes One Night to Make a Balloon Your Friend by Lunch Money 

Steve Lee - Grab A Balloon - Miller Made Music Showcase

Colorful Time-Lapse of Hot Air Balloons in New Mexico | Short Film Showcase 

All Aboard!

 Baby Book Club explored new territories this morning as we took up our new quarters in the sensory room. The babies weren't phased in the slightest by the darkish, reddish light and made a beeline for all the new things they just had to try out: the blackout tent, the foam balls, the bean bags, the skittles!
We were a bit distracted in our reading, but that's all right. We still got a good helping of Car Car Jeep Jeep and we did some excellent singing. We then moved on to our craft and play session, drawing a collective city with roads, playgrounds, train tracks, trees and resident cats for our toy cars to drive around. We enjoyed naming things and colours and practising with markers and crayons. we noticed the latter didn't taste particularly well, no matter their colour.
As promised, here are the links to the videos and songs.
Until next time, team!

The Chitty-Chitty Bang-Bang song! 

Drive My Car by the Beatles: 

For an action-packed day at ‘Digger School’, watch Here Comes A Digger: 

New Recruits: Baby Book Club is Back!

Thanks to all who came along to our first Baby Book Club of the new school year! It was lovely to see veterans coming back and new recruits joining in the fun. We've added a few things to our regular schedule and you can now expect songs! tickling rhymes! teddies!
To kick us off this year, we revisited a favourite of babies across the world: Chris Haughton's A Bit Lost. We loved repeating 'uh-ho' when Little Owl falls out of the nest and mimicking his bumpy way down to the forest floor. And we agreed that Squirrel's ideas of what a Mammy Owl might look like were just hilarious. We also practised our evil laughter, just because.

We rounded up the session with some craft-making and put our fine motor skills and our imagination to good use: gluing, placing, taping our baby owls together... and pretending they were lollies to lick!
Thanks again everyone and well done!









As promised, here are the links to the songs and videos.
See you in two weeks!

The Owl Song, by the Whizpops

The Old Owl Said, "Who?", by Eric Ode

Non-stop birdsong! http://birdsong.fm/

And A Bit Hungry, a tiny play inspired by A Bit Lost

Bold Girls!

To celebrate the release of the new reading guide BOLD GIRLS by Children's Books Ireland, we are running a competition open to all in 4th, 5th and 6th here at SMGS Inchicore.
There will be goodies for all classes and pressies for the winners.
BOLD GIRLS is full of reviews of brilliant books featuring strong, clever girls. There are books for all ages and they can be enjoyed by boys and girls alike!



In the meantime, you can take a look at the BOLD GIRLS reading guide here and download it for absolutely free!

Babies Do... Waterplay

Inspired by Barbro Lindgren's books about Max, a toddler who loves putting things into other things, the babies had a brilliant time putting water into pots and pans, watering cans and jugs, and, let's face it, they loved getting the water out too.
We made some connections today between Max's and our bath-times; we predicted what would happen if Max's wagon got too full and we tried working where Max's cookie had disappeared to. Could Dog have anything to do with it?

The water play was a lovely, messy, but quiet affair. Most babies would have been happy to splash about all day.
No songs and videos this week, but a list of the baby and toddler storytimes run in nearby libraries. Those are a great way to spend an hour with your little one while someone else provides the entertainment. All involves songs and stories, some add crafts into the bargain. Some you must book ahead, all are free. Give it a go!

Dolphin’s Barn Library: Toddler and Carer Group

meet every Tuesday morning from 10.30am to 11.30pm.

Tel. 01 4540681

Rathmines Library: Toddlers at Twelve Parent and Toddler Group

meets every Monday from 12pm - 1pm. All welcome!

No booking required but places are limited.

Tel. 01 4973539 E. Rathmineslibrary@dublincity.ie

Terenure Library: Toddler Time

every Tuesday from 10am - 11.15am.

Please note this event is run on a first-come basis and numbers are limited to 20 (children and adults).

Tel. 01 4907035

Walkinstown Library: Parent and Toddler group,

every Tuesday, 11.00am - 12.30pm.

Tel. 01 4558159

Ballyfermot Library: Baby Bounce

meets every Tuesday 11.00am - 12.00pm

Tel. 01 6269324 / 6269325

Tallaght Library: Toddler Time.

Every Wednesday at 11.30.