Ballyhahill Pre-School

29/04/2026

So our last post showed 'Our Volcano' and now the children have added cameras to watch the volcano at night time.😍

You might just see pipes stuck into sand ....but we see team work, negotiating ideas, figuring out & problem solving.. how to keep this structure standing...we watched it fall ...we watched it fall again and again, we watched as the children decided one will hold it up and one will build more sand around the base of pipe.... we watched it fall again ....we watched them deciding to add more sand to the base to stabilise the structure .

We see imagination & creativity .. large pipe used as a volcano, other pipes taped together by the children prior to this and now used as cameras .

We see engineering & design, matamatics, science, language development and building friendships. We see so much learning.

Children learning so much through ACTIVE PlAY.

We as early years educators are there to provide the resources ( pipes, tape, sand & buckets) and to provide lots of time for FREE PLAY.

Just allow the children to PLAY without adult intervention. Allow them to be creative they are naturally creative.🤩

Play Play & more loose part Play 🥰 and step back Adults.

23/04/2026

We made a volcano

22/04/2026

'Ballyhahill Play School Maze'

Nature all around us🥰Limerick Childcare Committee

10/03/2026

Play School in Rural Ireland 💚.

When the calves hear the voices of the children and they pop over to say hello 💚💚💚

03/03/2026

Child Led : Wheelbarrowing.

So today I had a bag of soil in the boot of my car.
I could have moved it by myself to our planting area.

But we believe in having the children involved in everything we do during our play school day.

Just look at these photos which show the team work involved in transporting our wheelbarrow from our planting area in the back of the school all the way through the two yards, down the steps and all the way around to the front of the school and eventually reaching the car park where my my car was parked.

Then we lifted the bag of soil from my boot into the wheelbarrow and then back up the hill and around the back of the school.
Eventually reaching our destination.... our planting area.

To hear the conversations ,the figuring out and the team work while carrying out this task was definitely better than me moving it by myself.

Allow the children to be involved .....Child Led gives quality experiences.

Slow Pedagogy means we are in no rush .

02/03/2026

Spring is in the air.

It's that time of year again when we keep a close eye on our daffodils.

Beautiful Nature all around us we are sooooo lucky.

14/02/2026

Creativity comes in many forms.

Don't worry if your child is not interested in a certain type of art...they may show no interest in glueing & sticking.

But just look..... this is what they are creating in another area of the room.

Equally as creative😍

14/02/2026

Happy Valentine's Day from us all in Ballyhahill Play School.

As you can see the children's art is all different....which means they created their own pieces.

Child led art rather than adult led art. This is what our Early Years Specialist are encouraging us to implement within our early years settings.

If it was Adult led art all their art would look the same.

Allow the children to create their own art pieces which encourages creativity.

Telling the children what to create in art provides for no creativity.
We always say.... we don't want to see 20 exact same pieces of art....we want to see 20 different pieces of art.
No 2 artists create the same piece of art.

So Happy Valentine's everyone and remember spread the love .

04/02/2026

Pre Writing Skills.

Cherish the Scribbles and the drawings.

Here are some fabulous examples of pre writing skills .

We provide and encourage lots of pre writing skills.

Just allow the children to draw what they want to draw and allow them lots of time for writing opportunities.

We have our pre writing area which children go to as they wish..so they are involved only when they want to....child led approach not adult led approach.

Don't worry....the correct pencil grip and writing of letters will all happen naturally.

All we have to do is make sure that writing resources are available and encouraged.

Pre writing skills is very important but just look at their creativity and imagination also.

Templates will never provide so much learning😍Limerick Childcare Committee

30/01/2026