November 8 2018

1st Class News – November 2018 – Ms McManus

We are back in first class after a wonderful midterm, we hope everyone enjoyed a well-deserved break! We were kept busy in the weeks leading up to our week off with lots of Halloween activities and new topics to learn about.

One of our favourite weeks last month was ‘Maths Week’! Throughout the week, we focused on problem solving and using our maths eyes. Every day, we would use our problem solving skills to solve some tricky maths riddles. For example: Stephen, Liam, Carla and Sadhbh meet up. Each person shakes hands with every other person once. How many handshakes are there in total? As well as solving riddles, our class became mindful of all the wonderful mathematical shapes, lines and problems hidden around us in our everyday lives. We used pictures of lots of everyday items to create and solve mathematical problems, for example: Can you estimate how many smarties are on these gingerbread men? Some people in the class even used their maths eyes at home, and brought in pictures that we stuck on our maths wall!

Throughout October, we also focused on learning a little bit more about where Halloween comes from. We discovered that Halloween actually originated in Ireland and comes from a festival called Samhain, which was celebrated by the Celts. As some of the children in the class would be in different countries for the Halloween break, we decided to learn a bit about Halloween traditions around the world. We looked at different ways the festival is celebrated in China, Belgium, Canada, England, Spain and Mexico. Did you know that in Hong Kong, Halloween is known as the ‘Festival of Hungry Ghosts? Some people even burn pictures of money or fruit on this day, as they believe the images may reach the spirit world and bring comfort to the ghosts!

In art, we wanted to put our knowledge of Autumn to good use. We created these autumn scenes, using paint and cotton balls. We made sure to include all the usual colours we see in Autumn, and even added some falling leaves!

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November 4 2018

Mischief Managed in Ms. Kett’s Class!

We have gone Harry Potter mad in Ms. Kett’s 6th class and we’re currently starting the 2nd book in the  series. Although some of us have read them before, lots of us haven’t and we’re all thoroughly enjoying reading and disecting them. We are using the novel to inspire our art, teach us about story and character development and of course how to improve our own writing by using rich and descriptive language and a variety of adjectives and adverbs, a speciality of J.K. Rowlings.

As 6th class is our last year in primary school we began the year by writing a letter to our teacher with some requests and hopes for the year ahead. We are very excited about confirmation preparation and of course getting ready for the big move to secondary school. With this in mind we’ve been having lots of conversations around SPHE topics such as – friendships, looking after ourselves and making good choices. We’ve also been discussing healthy eating and good habits and began our studies of the human body by looking at the heart and lungs. The brain is next – we can’t wait. In history we are currently learning all about the Georgian Era and looking at architectural evidence round our great city. We are drawing and constructing Georgian building and doors and are becoming increasingly impressed by the magnificient buildings from the past. We are going on our first tour next week to Henrietta Street museum and the Hugh Lane Gallery. We are excited and looking forward to many more educational (and fun) tours throughout the year.

This month we also produced a ‘Passion Project’. We researched and prepared these at home and presented them to the class on completion. The variety and standard of the projects was excellent and it was facinating to learn about each others passions in such detail. We learned a lot from each other; some baked brownies and cookies (very popular indeed) and explained the process, others chose football as their passion (surprise, surprise), other projects included the World of Disney, Harry Potter, Horses, Hockey, Parties and even The Immune System, to name but a few. They were all fantastic and very informative. We are looking forward to doing many more projects throughout the year ahead.

We’ve also been keeping our eyes peeled for signs of Autumn and in particular the amazing changing colours in our environment. We’ve learned about photosynthesis and the Season   s at a global level. The wonderful autumnal colours have inspired more art.

 

Overall we’ve had a great start to the year and are looking forward to Halloween and the mid-term break now but also learning much more as the year unfolds. Slán.

 

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October 29 2018

Ms Livingston’s Senior Infants

Welcome to Ms. Livingston’s Senior infants. This month, our Aistear theme was The Vet. We learned all about how the Vet is very important in our community and what they do to help our pets. Each day we play at a different station which is based on our theme.

We made our own bread. We measured how much of each ingredient we would need. We put it in the oven to bake. It tasted delicious! We even got to take home a slice for someone at home to try.

We went on an Autumn Nature walk around the school grounds. We used a checklist and clipboards to record what exactly we saw. Some of the items we collected were conkers, leaves and pinecones. We brought some of them back into our class to put on our nature table. Then we wrote about what we saw, what we heard, what we smelled and how we felt when we were on out Autumn walk!

We also had a exciting last day before midterm, we dressed up in our Halloween costumes and bought lots of cakes in the cake sale!

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October 29 2018

Ms Ryan’s Second Class

Welcome to Ms. Ryan’s 2nd class! What a term we’ve had! At the start of the year we went on a mini-beast hunt around our school. We looked closely for minibeasts in different habitats and recorded what we saw and where we found them. Some of the minibeasts were not so mini!

We have been learning all about our locality in SESE. We created maps of Shankill and discussed the bridges in our area. This was so interesting as we didn’t notice how many different types there are. We learned all about how they stay up and what they are used for. We even tested a few types of bridge structures using paper to see which could hold the most weight.

Last week was Maths Week! We had lots of fun challenging each other on Mathletics for our homework. We also challenged other children in the school and around the world! We discovered maths all around us both at home and in school with scavenger hunts and a maths trail. For art we created some spooky symmetrical monsters.

Let’s hope the year continues as successfully as it started. Happy Halloween from Ms. Ryan’s class!

 

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October 29 2018

Mr Donnelly’s Fourth Class

The last few weeks have been absolutely hectic! If we weren’t playing maths games and solving puzzles for Maths week or doing our homework in unusual places for “Roamwork4homework” (see our twitter @zaptower), we were swimming in Loughlinstown pool or experiencing a bit of culture at St. Joseph’s of Clooney’s musical “Footloose”. You see?! Flat out!! Happy Halloween everyone!!!

      

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October 23 2018

News from Ms Travers’ Third Class

In third class we are very happy because our  favourite subject is P.E.   P.E is on Tuesday and Thursdays.  On Tuesday, we do P.E with Jay the gymnastic coach.  We really love this because we get to do dodge ball and lots of new moves in Gymnastics.  On Thursdays, P.E. is with Ms Travers and we do basketball. We are also learning some Irish dancing.
We did Family Tree projects  last month. This was very interesting because we learned that some pupils ancestors took part in World War 1 and World War 2!  Some pupils ancestors worked in the zoo and some worked in factories.
Pupils have ancestors from all over Ireland including Cork , Donegal, Louth , Kerry , Galway , Meath,  Laois, Wicklow and of course Dublin.  Some pupils ancestors are from India, Poland, Nigeria, London, France, Ukraine, Greece, Canada , Scotland and Wales.  So we are all truly international!
We got two new pupils in our class this term Atif and Kaia and we are glad they joined us .
That all for now tune in next month for more from room 11 .
Signed Ms Travers class
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October 23 2018

News from Ms. Dawson’s Second Class.

Welcome to Ms. Dawson’s second class. We’ve had a very busy first half term. In the last two weeks we made telephones out of tin cans and string. We decorated them and tried them out and we were so surprised when we  could hear each other down the lines. They worked the best when we pulled the string very tight.
We had a project to design and make a kite and all kinds of shape and designs arrived in school last Friday just in time for the end of the hurricane. We had great fun flying them in the yard and trying to hold on to them. A few unfortunately needed surgery afterwards!
This week we are looking at Halloween traditions and games and interviewing our parents and grandparents about Halloween when they were young. We are also drawing maps of Halloween Villages. They are scary places to live in!!
We played conkers this week too, an old fashioned game where you try and hit and break your opponent’s conker. It was harder than it looked!
This week is Maths Week and we started our online maths programme, Mathletics. It is a lot of fun and we can even have maths challenges with children from around the world. We also went on a maths walk and looked for maths around our school. Shape jumped out at us everywhere!
If you’d like to enjoy a Disney cartoon from 1929, check out the skeleton dance on you tube. We danced and moved to it and are very impressed with technology from almost 100 years ago! It was a lot of fun!
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October 17 2018

Ms Aivalikli’s Sixth Class

September saw us focus on North America. We looked at American History through the ages and analysed how colonisation tactics changed from the Native American’s to the American Civil War. We also challenged ourselves by learning the names and location of each American State, we loved playing the states quiz!  Our STEM project centred on Native American’s as we created 3D totem poles in groups. Our designs went from individual, paired to finally group plans. We were delighted to see our plans come to life.
As we progressed from Native American History to the Civil Rights Movement our novel Roll of Thunder Hear My Cry has been very moving. We decided to base our September Assembly on the impact of civil rights activities. We sang ‘A Million Dreams’ to inspire others to believe in change.
In P.E we enjoyed joining in with Joe Wicks, aka ‘The Body Coach’ and his initiative to get schools moving. We especially enjoyed when he gave our class a ‘shout out’ live on his YouTube channel.
Lastly our Gaeilge topic in September was Mé Féin, we put together conversations and created short Scratch clips, in which we made our characters have a comhrá as Gaeilge!
In October we’re looking at Georgian Dublin, we are especially looking forward to our tour of 14 Henrietta Street! We will be sure to write about it soon!
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October 17 2018

News from Ms Hughes senior infants class.

 Our class has had a great start to the school year. I am so impressed with this group of kind and hard working Senior Infants. In fact these guys are so kind that our class ‘Kindness Cape’ is getting worn out from all the wear it’s getting!
Much of our learning has centered around our ‘Aistear’ play themes On The Farm and The Vet. Each day we play with a different play centre related to our theme. It’s great fun and we are getting really good at planning our play and tidying up afterwards.
We are very active in school with weekly Ball Skills and Gymnastics and we also love our in class ‘Gonoodle’ and ‘Cosmic Kids Yoga’! Physical activity is important as our brains need a break after all of the hard work in class.
We have recited lots of funny poems, become weather reporters, gone on a nature walk and baked apple crumble. This week we started to make some Halloween art. We are looking forward to seeing what learning and fun the rest of term brings!
 
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October 14 2018

News from Ms. Wood’s Junior Infants

September has been a busy month in Ms Woods’s Junior Infant’s class. We are all getting used to school, making new friends and learning lots of new things.

We are learning our Jolly Phonics sounds and nursery rhymes old and new. Our theme for Aistear was ‘Homes’ so we have had a week based on Goldilocks and the Three Bears  and The Three Little Pigs and two weeks based on ‘The Scarecrow’s Wedding’. Activities include role play while using new words, construction, art and craft, sequencing activities and much more. In Maths we are exploring number and doing pattern.

  

 

We are learning to write new letters in sand, on whiteboards, in marla as well as on paper.

We love gymnastics and ball skills and we are always having fun while learning lots.

 

 

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