Farewell from Senior Infants!

Wow what a last month in Senior Infants! This year has flown by! We are so ready for First Class now.

In Aistear, we had lots of fun playing in the Travel Agents booking our holidays for the summer. We also enjoyed sand play and we did a little treasure hunt whereby we had to find magnetic letters in the sand which made words relating to summer. We played with small world, Lego, magnets and best of all we got to play with the BeeBots and the BeeBot maze!

In English, we read the story ‘Winnie and Wilbur at the Seaside’. We did some fun sequencing jigsaws and sentence reconstruction relating to the text. We also wrote a book review on the story. We learned about postcards this month. We looked at different postcards that some children had brought in and then we worked on writing our own. In Gaeilge we finished off ‘Siopadóireacht’ (Shopping) and did ‘An Trá’ (The Seaside). We also learned a well-known song ‘Can’t Stop the Feeling’ as Gaeilge and added dance moves. In Maths, we continued learning about subtraction and we learned about spatial awareness – left, right and all the prepositions. In the last week we got to work the BeeBots you can check out our twitter @MsOlsonsClass to see videos of how they work!

In S.E.S.E, we had a great month because we incubated hen eggs and hatched three chicks. They are called Michael D. Chickens, Charles Chickens and Chick Chock! It took 21 days for the chicks to hatch and we had to keep them under an infrared light to keep them warm afterwards. We also looked at different sea materials, we learned about floating and sinking, magnets, sound, the Titanic and different sea creatures. Did you know that an Octopus has three hearts and blue blood?

In Music we learned some songs including ‘Jackie the Sailor’, ‘Chuaigh mé go dtí an Trá’ and we listened to different pieces of music. We also learned some well-known songs including ‘A Million Dreams’ (which we performed at assembly) and ‘How Far We’ll Go’ from Moana. In Art we made some lovely multi-sensory crab pictures using sand and bun cases. We also copied Van Gogh’s Sunflowers! They turned out really well. In Drama we read the story ‘The Rainbow Fish’ and did some activities based on the story. We also went on our school tour to Greenane Maze we had so much fun exploring the mazes, playing games, looking at farm animals and going on a nature walk. On our last few days we had a pizza party and an ice-cream party! We are so lucky!

We have had a great year but we are ready for our Summer Holidays! We hope you have enjoyed reading our blogs this year. We will be back again in September!

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

June 28 2019

Global Warming

St Anne’s is making a change. Recently, tens of thousands of people have been trying to make a change in global warming and here in St. Anne’s, we are proud to say that we have been part of this change.

In February, 6^th Class went to the cool planet experience in Wicklow. It is a place where you can learn about global warming and we are happy to say that we learned lots. We even got to make eco-friendly slime!

Also recently the student council in our school put on a performance of ‘Save Our World’ which was a new take on the song ‘Hold My Girl’ by George Ezra. This was a song about the importance of saving our world. We had Mr. Dunne on guitar with Hannelie.

Here at St Anne’s we are trying really hard to save our world and we hope you are too!!

By Lauren in 6^th class

Media Team

Category: Sixth Class, Media Team, S.E.S.E | Comments Off

June 11 2019

Constructions in Mr. O’Donovan’s Fourth Class!

Mr. O’ Donovan’s 4^th class have been really busy constructing bridges using newspaper, A4 paper, tinfoil, masking tape, paper plates and skewers. They used school books to measure how much each bridge could hold before it broke. Some held 60, while other’s held less. Everyone had lots of fun making the bridges. The most books that the bridges held was 60.

They also learned about the bridges of the world like, Beam bridges, truss bridges and suspension bridges. They found out the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco was a suspension bridge. They also made smaller constructions using only un-cooked spaghetti and marshmallows! They had to see which one had the most stability and which one was the highest. It was fun but a little hard to make sure that the structure would not fall down.

Category: Fourth Class, Media Team, S.E.S.E | Comments Off

June 11 2019

May News from Ms. Olson’s Class!

Our theme for the month of May was ‘The Sea’. We had great fun during Aistear time as we had a pirate ship in the classroom! We had to sail our private ship and go on the hunt for treasure! We also made pirate ships out of Lego and engaged with lots of messy play in the form of water and sand play! Towards the end of the month we did some paper weaving and made woven fish. They turned out really well!

In English, we read the story, ‘The Snail and the Whale’ by Julia Donaldson. We focused on using our comprehension strategies including summarising and questioning. We also worked on our rhyming skills as Julia Donaldson’s books are great for learning about rhyme. This really helped us when we came to write in our PAT rhyming word families book. We also read ‘Winnie Under the Sea’ by Valerie Thomas. We thought this story was really funny. We wrote a summary of the story in our copy books and Ms. Olson was so impressed with our handwriting and spelling!

In Maths, we had lots of fun learning about capacity. We played with sand, counters, cubes and water as we investigated the capacity of different objects. We read the story of ‘Goldilocks and the Three Bears’ and had to decide which bowls and cups to use for the three Bears by estimating and measuring which container held more / less. We even had a little popcorn party and had to decide which was the best container to use to share out the popcorn! We also started subtraction in May which is amazing because subtraction is really First Class work!

In Gaeilge, we learned lots of nice poems, songs and phrases surrounding the themes of ‘An Teilifís’ (Television) and ‘Siopadóireacht’ (Shopping). In S.E.S.E, we spoke about a trip to the seaside and wrote about a time that we went to the seaside and what we did there. We also learned about the Titanic. We were very lucky because two boys in our class brought in some fact books about the Titanic that we had a little read of. It was very interesting. We watched some underwater footage of the Titanic and were amazed that there are still some plates in the cabinets in one of the dining rooms!

It was Active Schools Week at the end of May and what a week it was! On Monday we had martial arts and circuit training. On Tuesday we had Sports Day. On Wednesday we had GAA and dance lessons and on Friday we got to go on four bouncey castles. It was such a fun week!

In Music, we learned some nice songs including ‘Apusski Dusski’ which is a song about a sardine, ‘Jackie the Sailor’ and ‘Chuaigh mé go dtí an Trá’. We also listened to some songs from ‘The Little Mermaid’ and discussed the mood of the songs. We also got a visit from Music Generation which was very cool. They showed us some instruments including the Cello, the Violin and the Piccolo. They also played us a few pieces of music. It was very enjoyable. Finally in Art we made lots of cool pieces. We made newspaper shark collages, paper plate jellyfish and egg carton Titanics! Check them out! Thanks for reading our blog, we cannot believe we only have a couple of weeks left in school before the holidays and before we become big First Class!!

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

June 5 2019

April News from Ms. Olson’s Class!

Our theme for the month of April was ‘The Weather’. We had great fun during Aistear time playing in the weather station. We had to pretend that we were on the television giving the weather forecast whilst the rest of the group watched us from the couch! It was lots of fun!

In English we kept a weather diary. Each day we wrote about the weather. Unsurprisingly it rained for most of the week! It is Ireland after all!! We also did some explanatory writing and learned about the water cycle! We continued on with our Literacy Lift Off programme too, we have all progressed so well in our reading since beginning this programme! As well as reading, we’ve been working on our rhyming words and word families, we like doing our PAT workbook where we write down all our rhyming words. We were also very lucky to have an author come in to speak to us about the book he had written in aid of Temple Street Hospital – The Return of the Dragon by Don Briggs and illustrated by Naomi Peppard. He read us the story and Naomi showed us how she drew and painted the pictures. We were able to buy a copy of the book and all the profits go to Temple Street Hospital. The book has already raised €3o,000!

In Maths this month, we learnt about length. We did lots of activities including making worms out of play dough and comparing the lengths with other children in our class; sorting different objects according to length, length hunts in the classroom; measuring the length of the corridor, classroom, table and hall using the Easter Bunny’s footprints; making different length pasta necklaces and measuring how far we could throw beanbags! We love Maths because we are always learning in an active way!

In Gaeilge we learnt songs and phrases related to ‘An Aimsir’ (The Weather) and ‘An Cháisc’ (Easter). In S.E.S.E we investigated static electricity by doing some cool experiments with balloons. We also explored the work of meteorologists, day and night, the different types of weather and the effect that the weather has on people e.g. on their clothes. We looked at colours and realised that there are many different colours some of which are light and some are dark. We loved investigating shadows. We drew around our shadows in the yard and then revisited them later to see whether they had moved. Unfortunately it took us a few days to do this as we had to wait for some sun!! We also did some weather experiments, we made the water cycle in a glass, raining clouds and we tested different materials and coats to see which were waterproof!

In Music we learnt some lovely songs including ‘Marvellous Things’; ‘Hokey Pokey’ and ‘Mo Ghairdín’ and in Art we made hatching chick pictures, Easter cards using potato prints and rainbow mobiles. To reward our good behaviour we had a eggcellent easter egg hunt on our last day of term before our Easter holidays! It was so much fun!

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

May 20 2019

News from Sixth Class!

As we settle into our last term together in St. Anne’s – we can’t quite believe how quickly our time here has gone by.

In class at the moment we are reminiscing daily and looking forward to the big transition to secondary school. Many of us are going to different schools around the area and some of us are heading there on our own. It’s going to a big change but one we are preparing ourselves for in class through S.P.H.E lessons on topics such as relating to others, effective communication and myself and the wider world. We are excited and anxious in equal measure but we are definitely ready for the challenge and our next chapter.

Speaking of chapters – we are almost finished reading our latest class novel – ‘The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas’ – what an amazing book it is. We love reading books that bring history to life through story and this is definitely an excellent example of how it should be done. Linking with this we are learning about WW2 in history, Europe in Geography, propaganda and our visual art will be pretty impressive too we hope, as we attempt silhouette art.

So as you can see we are still very busy on the academic side of things and alongside that we are working hard on our End of Year Show, which is on June 12^th and 13^th – we cannot wait but we’ve still got lots of work to do with our teachers Ms. Kett and Ms. Aivalikli before we’re stage ready.

The highlight of the last few weeks was of course our confirmation. The weather was amazing, the ceremony was beautiful and the day was memorable. Many of us shared the day with family and friends, some at home, some in hotels and restaurants but we all agree it was a truly wonderful day and occasion for us all.

Another highlight was of course getting our Class of 2019 hoodies – I’m sure you’ve spotted us around the school (we never take them off :0)

With active schools week coming up and testing continuing, we will keep working hard for the next few weeks and we look forward to our show, our end of year tour to Avon Rí and of course our graduation ceremony.

Bye for now!

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

May 2 2019

Mr Hacketts 2nd Class News!

We’ve had a busy few weeks as we come to the end of the term in 2^nd class.

In Maths we have been looking at money and are working out how to add different amounts and also how much change we get. We have been using coins to help us work out our answers.

We also planted our very own seeds and we were lucky enough to have Cushla bring us in a grow box. We have planted the seeds in small containers in our class and have vegetables of every kind. There certainly are some green hands in this class. This week we will move them and plant them in the garden outside our window.

As Easter is fast approaching we looked at chocolate, how it is made and where it comes from. This was followed up with a trip to the Butlers chocolate factory. We had a tour of the factory where we found out how the chocolates were made and packaged to be sent around the world. We then went to a demonstration and got to decorate our own.

In lift off some of the children have been producing some fantastic projects based on the books they are reading.

Our write a books were returned from being judged and as you can see the children put in some extra hard work really did produce some amazing books!!!!

Category: Second Class, S.E.S.E, Science | Comments Off

April 16 2019

March News from Ms. Olson’s Class

What a busy month March was in Senior Infants! We learned about homes this month. In Aistear we enjoyed playing in our home corner, doing different cut and stick activities and playing small world.

As it was book week in early March, we had a very special treat. Mr Fingleton came into our class to read one of our big books of the month – The Pig in the Pond, written by Martin Waddell. We thought this book was absolutely hilarious. We also read ‘A Squash and a Squeeze’ by Julia Donaldson and Ms. Olson began reading ‘The Twits’ by Roald Dahl to us at lunch times. During book week, Sixth Class very kindly came to read us our favourite books and we got to dress up as our favourite character on World Book Day. It was a very difficult decision for the judges of the dress-up competition to make but the well-deserving winner was the Queen of Hearts from Alice in Wonderland. We even had a bookmark and character design drawing competition and we had some well deserving winners of that too!

In Maths, we learnt all about money and we had great fun playing different money games including our coin exchange game. We can now exchange coins up to 10c and we can ‘pay’ for things in our pretend shop up to 20c! In Gaeilge we continued our lessons on ‘Sa Bhaile’ (Home) and we loved doing the topic – Lá le Pádraig (St. Patrick’s Day). In S.E.S.E we learnt about the different types of homes that people live in and we made a bar chart depicting what type of homes the children in our class live in. We learnt about the rooms in our homes and what activities might occur in these rooms, e.g. cooking in the kitchen! We also learnt about electricity and what appliances use electricity in the home and we went on a Spring walk and found some newts in our school pond!

In Music, we learnt some nice songs surrounding our theme – ‘Gotta Build a House’ and ‘The Wise Man and the Foolish Man’. We also learnt some songs as Gaeilge and performed them with the rest of Senior Infants for our St. Patrick’s Day Concert.

In Art we made our dream homes out of cardboard cereal boxes. You can have a look at a video of our houses on our Twitter – @MsOlsonsClass. Finally, we were so lucky this month as we got to go to the new science activity centre – Explorium! We had so much fun climbing, playing in the supermarket, dressing up, building things and trying out all the cool experiments. We’ll definitely be back!

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

April 16 2019

February News from Ms. Olson’s Class!

In February we learnt all about animals. We had great fun playing in our Veterinary Surgery role play corner during Aistear time. In English, we read the story, Farmer Duck, written by Martin Waddell and we practised our summarising and sequencing skills. We loved reading this story as it was very funny!

In Maths, we learnt about weight. We had lots of fun sorting different objects according to weight and playing and measuring with balances. We even got to bake some tasty buns!

In Gaeilge we learnt lots of phrases and songs relating to the themes of Éadaí (Clothes) and ‘Sa Bhaile’ (Home). In S.E.S.E we learnt about farmers and vets, animals and their young and how to care for our pets. We also did some report writing on ‘Our Pets’.

In Drama, we read the story ‘Cleopatra Silverwing’ by Adria Meserve. This story follows the life of a beautiful butterfly who loves doing cherry dip flips and loop-the-loops! One day she decides to go on an adventure instead of doing what she’s told – a storm is brewing and she is told it’s time to head home. We pretended to be Cleopatra doing her stunts and we came up with solutions to her problems that she faced on her adventure. In Music, we sang some lovely songs related to our animal theme – ‘Who Built the Ark?’ and ‘Please Mr. Noah’. In Art we made some cute little piggies out of cardboard tubes to celebrate Chinese New Year and we made animals out of clay!

Finally in P.E we learnt a dance to the Lion King’s ‘I just can’t wait to be King’. We did dance lessons with Ms. Casey for six weeks and at the end, we performed this dance for all the children at Junior Assembly. You can check out our dance on Twitter @MsOlsonsClass.

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

April 3 2019

News from Ms Livingston’s Class

Welcome to Ms. Livingston’s Senior Infants. This month, our Aistear theme was People who help us. We learned all about people in our community such as firefighters, doctors, nurses, dentists, lollipop ladies, paramedics, lifeguards and more! We performed two poems at junior assembly, one about how firemen help us and another about the gardaí.

We all dressed up in our Irish colours for St. Patrick’s Day! We looked at the St. Patrick’s Day parade and also how other countries celebrate it around the world.

We went on a Spring nature walk around the school grounds. We recorded any signs of spring. We found a lot of daffodils. We also saw lots of different flowers which some classes had planted in Senior Yard. We used our five senses while on our walk. We could smell lavender from the school garden. We also could hear birds chirping.

We also planted our very own seeds from the Incredible edible programme. We first planted the seeds in small containers in our class. Some of the food we planted were turnips, lettuce, carrots, potatoes, strawberries, and chives. When they started to sprout in the pots, we moved them and planted them in the garden. We hope to see them grow even more!

Category: Senior Infants, Aistear, S.E.S.E, Geography, Science | Comments Off