Back to School with a Bang in Senior Infants!

January was an interesting month in Senior Infants because we learnt all about Egypt! We had lots of fun during Aistear time. We enjoyed playing in the Airport Role Play corner where we pretended to be going on our holidays to Egypt. We liked building pyramids out of Lego. We pretended to be archaeologists digging for buried treasure during sand play and we worked as a team to create cool mummies and sarcophaguses.

In English, we spent a lot of time on narrative writing as we entered the Write a Book Project. Our book was about a little boy and a little girl called John and Jojo. They went on a school tour to an Egyptian museum and managed to travel back in time to have a scary encounter with a mummy! It all turned out ok in the end though!

In Gaeilge, we learned many songs and phrases around the topics of Bia (food) and Éadaí (Clothes). We loved playing little language games using picture cards in pairs because we were able to talk to our friends using the simple phrases that we’d learnt. In Maths we revised pattern and data. We made lots of different patterns using shapes, camels, pegboards and unifi cubes. We did a survey of our class to investigate what everyone’s favourite toy was and then we recorded the data by making bar charts.

In S.E.S.E we learnt all about Egypt. We learned about Egypt’s landscape, rivers, mountains and cities. We learnt about Egyptian food and animals that you might find in Egypt such as camels, cheetahs, crocodiles, hyenas and cobras. Then we learnt about Egyptian pharaohs such as Tutankhamun and Cleopatra and about pyramids and mummies. We found it all very fascinating!

In Art, we wrote our names in Egyptian hieroglyphs and we made pharaoh pictures using our photographs. We also made Egyptian golden necklaces using dyed pasta! They all turned out really well!

In Music we’ve been learning lots of songs as we always start our day with a song. We particularly enjoyed learning the song ‘Over in the Meadow’ and we loved performing it for our Grandparents on Grandparent’s Day. In Drama, we read the story ‘The Girl with the Red Slippers’ which is an Egyptian version of Cinderella. We had great fun pretending to be ballerinas and acting out the different parts in the story. Finally, we have been doing dance in P.E with Catherine Casey and we learnt a dance from the Lion King. You can check it out on our twitter page – @MsOlsonsClass

Category: Senior Infants, Literacy, Numeracy, Gaeilge, Aistear, S.E.S.E, Art, Drama, Physical Education | Comments Off

January 14 2019

The Adventure of Bob and Bill!

One horrible rainy Thursday, Bob the goldfish and his human friend Bill sat playing their version of poker. They each threw in a flake of fish food and looked at their card. The pair couldn’t find cards small enough for Bob so they made their own. Bob had an amazing hand (or fin, as they call it in fish poker). He had four fish Queens.

When the time came and they had to throw down cards, Bob gave a shout of delight. (This fish can talk, you see). “You owe me a trip to mars, my friend, as Bill picked the laminated pieces of paper out of the fish bowl. “Oh man,” said Bill as he searched for his wallet. He opened it, and out blew a ball of dust. He threw it on the couch, beside where he was sitting. He shoved his hands down his pockets, and found an unused, unscratched, scratch card he sighed. “Look, Bob, I might be able to get you a… new tub of fish food if I get a few quid from this card. Sorry, I knew you wanted to go to the World Fish Association of Fish, or WFAOF.” Bob sighed, as Bill scratched away the card to reveal the numbers. He had six numbers. A €4, a €200 , a €150, a €2k, another €2k and a €2. He only needed one more €2k, but he had a stinking €2. “I’m sor-” Bill began, but Bob shouted, “Wait..” “The end of the €2 isn’t scratched away!” Bill excitedly grabbed a coin and scratched. It was a €2k! They screamed and shouted so much, that their old neighbour, Mrs. Nonsence came to give out, but when she found out why they were making noise she joined in.

The next day, Bill booked the flights, and on Saturday the man and his fish went to the rocket station that so happened to exist and only be alive a minute walk away. Bob was in his portable space bowl. Bill was in a space suit. After hours of going through tests and training, they were ready to fly! They got onto the plane and looked around. It was amazing! They readied themselves, and soon it was take off. “3.. 2.. 1.. BLAST OFF!” The rocket blasted away from the station. They sprung away from earth and soon they were in space. A few days later, they landed. The door opened. They stepped out of the rocket. Then, they looked around. There was a sign saying “Welcome to Saturn!” Bob turned in his bowl, giving Bill devil eyes. “Saturn, Bill. SATURN???!” Bill blushed. “Umm… Sorry, lets go back to the rocket.” They turned and the rocket was starting to blast away. They jumped inside, as it began to blast. Phew! They changed the destination on auto pilot to Mars, not Saturn because Bill had pressed Saturn. A few days later they arrived in time for the World Fish Association of Fish meeting. On the last night of the meetings, there was a raffle, and Bob won. They weren’t told what the prize was, just to get on the rocket and relax. They did so, and a few days later the rocket stopped. They got out of the plane, and found a sign saying “Congrats, you’ve won a holiday for 2 months to stay in … Saturn!”

By Ava

6^th Class

Ms. Aivalikli

Category: Sixth Class, Literacy | Comments Off

January 14 2019

A Winter Wonderland in Senior Infants!

Happy New Year from all of us here in Ms. Olson’s Senior Infants. We can’t believe it is 2019 and we are into our fifth month of school! Time flies when you’re having fun!

In December we explored the theme of Christmas and Wintertime and we really enjoyed ourselves! In Aistear, we loved playing in the Post Office / Santa’s workshop. We had to write letters to Santa, post them in the post box and wait for the elves to design, make and wrap our presents before Santa delivered them to us! At another station we baked chocolate chip cookies for Santa (although we may or may not have eaten them ourselves hehe…)

In Literacy, we read the stories ‘Bear Snores On’ by Karma Wilson and ‘One Snowy Night’ by Nick Buttersworth. Both stories were set in wintertime and the main characters were animals. We also spent some time learning how to write letters. We even drafted our own letters to Santa Claus before copying out the finished piece on to a lovely Santa letter template. Our handwriting was so neat that Ms. Olson displayed them on our classroom wall! In Gaeilge, we learned lots of phrases and new vocabulary surrounding the theme of ‘An Nollaig’. We learnt the songs ‘Bualadh Bos’ and ‘Seo í an Leanbh Íosa’ which are versions of Jingle Bells and Away in a Manger. In Maths we learned about 3D shapes – cube, cuboid, sphere and cylinder. We liked going on shape walks, playing with our 3D Beebot shape mat and making 3D shapes out of marshmallows and cocktail sticks!

In S.E.S.E we learned about the different animals that hibernate and migrate in winter. We also sequenced the story of Christmas and we had great fun learning about materials – in groups we designed toys and we made them out of materials that we could find in the classroom. We then presented our toys to the rest of the class. We also made snow by adding water to polysodium acrylate (the stuff inside nappies!!) in Science!

We made some lovely things in Art last month! We made Christmas elves using our faces, winter penguins, Christmas tree decorations, stain glass nativity scenes and nice Christmas cards for our families. We were very lucky to be able to perform some songs at assembly in Decemeber. We sang an extended version of Jingle Bells and Santa Shark. All the other children loved our performance and even sang along! We also performed our Christmas play ‘What a Star!’ for the school and our parents. We did a fantastic job and Ms. Olson and our parents were so proud of us! We really are superstars in Senior Infants!

Thank you for taking the time to read our blog. We hope you liked it! Our next blog is sure to be an interesting read as we are currently learning about Egypt! Check it out next month – in the meantime keep track of what we are doing by following us on twitter – @MsOlsonsClass!

Category: Senior Infants, Literacy, Maths, Aistear, S.E.S.E, Art | Comments Off

January 10 2019

Junior Infants – Room 9

Hello and Happy New Year Everyone,

We are all delighted to be back after Christmas, we have only been back for a week and at the moment we are learning about the South Pole.

The South Pole

We are learning about animals, the weather, and transport that you would use in the South Pole. Our play area is set up for camping in the South Pole and we have played at cooking food. We have binoculars, toy penguins and maps to enhance our learning experience. We have made penguins in Art which are displayed outside our room – come and check them out:)

Maths

We have been learning about different shapes. We’ve been making sets and working out which set each shape belongs in.

Poems

We have also been learning a poem called The Penguin.

That’s all from Junior Infants – hope you all had a great Christmas and loved our play, as much as we loved doing it. Bye for now.

Category: Junior Infants, Literacy, Maths, Aistear, Art | Comments Off

November 11 2018

3…2…1…BLAST OFF!

During the month of October we learned all about Space! In English we read the story ‘Whatever Next!’ by Jill Murphy. In this story, Baby Bear finds a space rocket in the cupboard under the stairs. He finds a space helmet and space boots in the kitchen and then he zooms up the chimney and lands on the moon, all before bedtime! Whilst reading this story, we practised our comprehension skills of predicting, visualising, questioning and summarising, we learned new vocabulary, wrote a list of things that Baby Bear would need to bring with him to have a picnic and even dramatized Baby Bear zooming up the chimney in his box rocket!

In Maths, we continued to partition and combine for 6 but we also learned all about 2D shapes – squares, rectangles, triangles, circles, ovals and hexagons. We enjoyed going on 2D shape hunts around the school, playing guessing games with the shapes, drawing pictures using 2D shapes, playing with tangrams, using BeeBots to find 2D shapes and constructing 2D shapes out of cocktail sticks and marshmallows. In Gaeilge we learned lots of songs and phrases surrounding the theme of ‘An Scoil’ and of course ‘Oíche Shamhna’.

In History, we learned all about Neil Armstrong and created a timeline of his life. In Geography we learned all about our Solar System. We came up with a great mnemonic to remember the names and order of the planets – My Very Excited Mother Just Served Us Noodles – Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. We even pretended to be the planets orbiting around the sun! In Science we learned all about rockets and how they blast off into space. We made our own balloon rockets and launched them along a string.

In Music we learned lots of songs for Halloween but we also had to prepare for our assembly performance. We learned a song that retold the story of ‘Whatever Next!’ that we had been learning in English. We performed it at assembly to all of Junior Infants, Senior Infants and First Class! We did a fantastic job! In Drama, we played some fun drama games and read the story ‘The Way Back Home’ by Oliver Jeffers. The little boy in the story crash lands on the moon and befriends a Martian. Together we had to come up with a solution to help the boy and the Martian find their way back home! This month, we are busy preparing for our Christmas play, we are very excited to perform it in front of all our families.

In Art, we made some fantastic space rockets made out of plastic bottles and papier mâché. We also made some puffy paint planets. We had great fun making the puffy paint out of shaving foam, PVA glue and paint! Finally to talk about our favourite time of the day… Aistear! We loved playing in our space centre role play corner this month. We had to do all our safety checks before counting down and blasting off into space. We then had to put on our space suits and walk around the moon! We hope you enjoyed reading our blog post. Check back in a month’s time to find out what we have been up to in November and follow us on twitter @MsOlsonsClass to keep track in the mean time!

Category: Senior Infants, Literacy, Maths, Aistear, S.E.S.E, Art, Music | Comments Off

November 4 2018

Mischief Managed in Ms. Kett’s Class!

We have gone Harry Potter mad in Ms. Kett’s 6^th class and we’re currently starting the 2^nd 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 6^th 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.

Category: Sixth Class, Literacy, History, Science, Art, S.P.H.E | Comments Off

October 29 2018

Ms Ryan’s Second Class

Welcome to Ms. Ryan’s 2^nd 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!

Category: Second Class, Literacy, Numeracy, Science | Comments Off

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!!!

Category: Fourth Class, Literacy, Numeracy, S.E.S.E | Comments Off

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.

Category: Junior Infants, Literacy, Aistear, Art | Comments Off

October 14 2018

News from Mr. Dunne’s Third Class!

It’s been an absolutely wonderful start to the year in Room 13, with plenty of interesting and exciting things just one month in. Recently, we’ve been doing plenty of discussion on the changing autumnal weather. We went out on a nature walk to have a search for as many beautiful colours we could find, and took some souvenirs back in with us! We then did some observational drawings which can be seen decorating the hallway just outside our room.

We also worked on creating self-portraits and the results are just amazing! There are some very talented artists up here in Room 13…

We’ve been doing the daily mile each day (depending on the weather!), and we recently carried out an investigation into how exercise affects our pulse rate. In other science-y news, we created some old-fashioned cup telephones to investigate how sound travels! We had great fun doing this, and we were all surprised at how well the sound travels through the string. Amazing!

That’s not all, each week we have been debating RTÉ News2Day’s question of the week. Each week, the children’s news show poses a ‘Question of the Week’ and we have a whole-class discussion and debate, write our opinions and send them in! So far, two of the children in our class (Isabelle Forde and Alan Morley) have actually had their answers read out on the news.

Lastly, we have been working really hard on our family projects. Have a look at a few of them below, and see the fantastic imagination and creativity brought to these projects!

We will update again soon, and thanks for reading our blog post!

Category: Third Class, Literacy, S.E.S.E, Science, Art | Comments Off