The Aistear theme for the month of October is the farm shop! The children really loved this theme and really engaged with the stations very well. Stations included:

• Role Play – children re-enacted scenes from a typical farm shop environment and got into role as the shopkeeper, receptionist, customer as well as shop manager and assistants. Resources used were trolleys, fruit & vegetables (potatoes, carrots, turnips, onions were all brought in!) as well as shopping lists, telephone, money – coins & notes, check out station and shopping bags! The children absolutely LOVED it as you can tell from the photos below and wanted to ‘go to the Farm Shop’ everyday!! We actually ended up visiting the Farm Shop in Tinahely at the end of the month for Pumpkin Picking which tied in really well with our Aistear theme also.
• Construction/Small World – the children were given the opportunity to play with farm related toys such as a toy field, combine harvester, cows, sheep, pigs, horses, bales, fences, chickens, tractors etc. This was yet another very popular station amongst the children in Senior Infants.
• Playdough – the children created and moulded different farm related shapes based on the farming theme using cutters and play dough mats. I laminated different pictures of farming environments also so the children could add their own ideas to the farming scene.
• Writing – The children wrote sample shopping lists for the Farm Shop using laminated pages and markers. The words on the Aistear Farm Shop display really helped the children with their spelling for this also.
• Drawing – The children were allowed to use their imagination to draw whatever farm related image they wanted to draw. They were given a blank A4 page to complete this station and they just loved it! They just had to be reminded to remain on the topic of the farm shop and not to get side-tracked!
• Reading – The children were allowed to read lots of farm related children’s books for this station! Yet another very enjoyable station for the children!

 

Once Aistear was over each day the children were then allowed to report about what they did, what they created and what they read about in their stations using the hand held microphone. The children love using the microphone to tell everyone what they have done! Also a big THANK YOU to all the parents who sent in the farming resources for the children to use for the month of October! It goes without saying that this wouldn’t have been such a successful theme only for the toys & books & resources sent in! Have a look at the great photos of the children having a wonderful time in the Farm Shop!