Limerick Social Services Early Years Service

15/10/2026

🐻🎨 A Busy Week in Toddler Room 1! 🚦🫧

We’ve had a very busy and exciting week in Toddler Room 1, filled with lots of messy play, exploration and fun! 🎨 Our little learners have been getting hands-on, using their senses, exploring different textures and developing their fine motor skills through lots of wonderful messy play activities.

As part of Beep Beep Week, we also learned about road safety and practised crossing the road safely at our very own zebra crossing! 🚸 The children had fun learning about stopping, looking and listening before crossing the road.

🌱 Our Aistear Learning Links:

- Exploring and Thinking: Investigating different materials through messy play, using our senses, experimenting and discovering new things.
- Communicating: Listening to instructions, learning new words and talking about road safety.
- Well-being: Developing confidence, independence and an awareness of how to keep ourselves safe.
- Identity and Belonging: Taking part in shared activities, learning together and building a sense of belonging within our toddler room.

What a wonderful week of learning through play! 💛🌈

10/10/2026

09/10/2026

💛 Preschool 1 – Exploring Our Feelings 💛

In Preschool 1, we have been learning all about our feelings and discovering that it is possible to feel more than one emotion at the same time, and that is absolutely okay! 🥰 We talked about how we can feel happy and nervous, excited and scared, or even sad and angry all at once. Every feeling is important, and there are no wrong feelings. 💕

Through our discussions and activities, the children are learning to recognise, name and express their emotions, while also understanding and respecting how others might feel. We are encouraging the children to talk about their feelings, listen to their friends and understand that everyone experiences emotions differently. 🌈

Aistear Learning Link – Wellbeing and Identity & Belonging

🌟 Wellbeing: Supporting children to develop emotional awareness, confidence and the ability to express and manage their feelings in a safe, supportive environment.

🌟 Identity & Belonging: Helping children recognise that their feelings and experiences are important, while developing empathy, understanding and respect for the feelings of others.

Through these experiences, we are helping our little learners build emotional literacy, resilience and positive relationships. 💛

Our little reminder: We can feel lots of different things at once, and that's okay! 🌈

09/10/2026

🚦🚗 Beep Beep Week in Toddler Room 2! 🚗🚦

Our little road safety experts have been learning how to cross the road safely! We practised stopping, looking and listening before crossing, helping our toddlers begin to understand the importance of keeping safe near roads. 👀👂🛑

Through fun, hands-on play, the children developed their awareness of road safety while building their communication skills, listening skills and understanding of the world around them. 🌟

Aistear Learning Link 🌈

🚗 Exploring and Thinking: Developing an awareness of road safety and learning about their environment.

💬 Communicating: Listening to instructions, learning new words and talking about what we see on the road.

🤝 Well-being: Beginning to understand how to keep themselves safe and developing confidence through new experiences.

Our little learners are discovering that even the smallest steps can help us stay safe! 💛🚦

08/10/2026

🌈 Exploring Our Emotions with The Colour Monster! 🌈

Today we’ve been learning all about our emotions and feelings through The Colour Monster. 💛💙❤️💚

We painted our very own Colour Monsters, talking together about the different feelings we can have and how our emotions can sometimes feel a little muddled up. 🎨😊

Our Colour Monsters needed our help to sort out all those mixed-up emotions! Using tweezers, the children carefully sorted the colours, helping to develop their fine motor skills, hand-eye coordination and pincer grip while also practising concentration and problem-solving. 🖐️👀

A lovely, hands-on way to explore big feelings, express ourselves creatively and support one another. 💕

🌱 Aistear Link:
This experience links strongly with Well-being and Communicating, as children explored and expressed their feelings, developed an understanding of emotions and learned that all feelings are okay. It also links with Exploring and Thinking as the children investigated, sorted, problem-solved and used their developing fine motor skills through hands-on play. Aistear highlights the importance of children sharing their thoughts, ideas and feelings and learning through meaningful, hands-on experiences.

07/10/2026

Letting you know details of a parent workshop running next week:

Topic: Healthy Snacks with your Toddler
Date: Thursday 15th October
Venue: Southside Child & Family Centre, V94725D
Time: 10 - 11.30am

Join us for a fun, relaxed Storytime session inspired by Handa’s Surprise! We’ll explore the story through food, enjoy some shared tasting, and then swap ideas for simple, healthy snacks you can make at home with your little one.
A lovely chance to enjoy stories, food and time together while picking up some easy snack ideas for toddlers aged 1–3.
Parents & toddlers can attend.
Places must be booked as places are limited.
If you have any parents interested in attending please text Niamh with their name and number or ask them to text Niamh on 0876703083 with their name to book a place.

06/10/2026

🌧️🫧 Outdoor fun in the rain! 🫧🌧️

The toddlers had so much fun getting outside and enjoying the rain today! It’s amazing what a little washing-up liquid can do… bubbles, bubbles everywhere! 🫧😍

Through this simple sensory experience, the children were exploring cause and effect, making predictions, developing their language and communication skills, and using their senses to investigate the world around them. 🌈

This links beautifully with Aistear, supporting children as explorers and thinkers through hands-on, playful learning. The children were encouraged to experiment, wonder, discover and enjoy learning together. 💦🫧

Lots of splashing, exploring, giggles and messy fun — proving that a little rain never stops the learning! 🌧️💦

18/09/2026

🍂🍁 Autumn has arrived in our Preschool Room! 🍁🍂

The children have been busy exploring the beautiful colours of autumn and creating their own autumn-inspired artwork. 🎨🧡

From collecting and exploring leaves to painting, creating and talking about the changes they see around them, the children are learning all about the season through hands-on experiences. 🍂🌿

🌱 Aistear Learning Links:
This learning supports Exploring and Thinking as the children investigate seasonal changes, colours and the natural environment. It also supports Communicating, as they share their ideas, observations and experiences with each other.

✨ Lots of creativity, curiosity and learning happening in our Preschool Room! 🍁🎨

18/09/2026

🎨🧩 Busy little hands in our Toddler Rooms! 🧸💛

Our toddlers have been doing some fantastic work! From getting creative with painting 🎨 to enjoying a variety of tabletop activities, there has been lots of learning through play.

🧩 Jigsaws – developing problem-solving, concentration and persistence.
🧵 Threading – supporting fine motor skills, hand-eye coordination and the development of the pincer grasp.
🏠 Playhouse & imaginative play – encouraging communication, social skills, creativity and working together.
🎨 Painting – exploring colours, creativity and self-expression while developing confidence and curiosity.

🌱 Aistear Learning Links:
Our experiences support Aistear’s four themes – Well-being, Identity and Belonging, Communicating, and Exploring and Thinking. Through play, the children are building confidence, developing relationships, expressing themselves and making sense of the world around them.

✨ Learning through play, one little achievement at a time! 💕

16/09/2026

👐✨ Keeping little fingers busy in our Toddler Room! ✨👐

Our toddlers have been having lots of fun with activities designed to strengthen their fine motor skills and pincer grasp. 💕 Little hands are busy picking, pinching, grasping and exploring as they develop the muscles and coordination needed for everyday skills. 🧠👶

Through playful, hands-on experiences, the children are building hand-eye coordination, concentration, dexterity and independence — all while having lots of fun! 🌟

💡 Aistear Learning: Exploring & Thinking | Communicating | Being Creative

Every little movement is a big step in their learning and development! 🥰🌱