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

October 11 2018

Ms. Rigby’s First Class are a Talented Bunch!

We’ve had a great few weeks in first class. We were honoured to be chosen to be the first class to lead junior assembly. We had to practice really hard and we set a very high standard for everyone else to follow. We were so proud of our amazing performance. Our performance was all about talents and how each of us have different talents. We really are such a talented bunch!

Something really exciting happened this year. In first class, we get to go to the library every Tuesday. We walk so quietly to the library and choose a book at our level. We are so good at this because we had a class discussion before our first library session. We made some great informative posters to help us remember our library rules.

Our first theme of the year was all about clothes. We found it interesting especially when studying Clothes of the past. We can now tell you all about clothes from the 1900’s, 1960’s and the 1980’s. We also discussed what clothes we wear in different seasons. We’ve now moved onto the theme of autumn and we have already learned so much. In pairs, we created amazing sensory poems. We also read a lovely story called ‘Don’t hog the hedge’. We got to meet many animals who hibernate throughout this story.

Thanks for taking the time to read all about our work so far this year. We really are having such a fantastic time in Room 3!

Category: First Class, Literacy, S.E.S.E, Music | Comments Off

October 3 2018

September News from Ms. Olson’s Class!

What a start to a fantastic new year in Senior Infants! Our monthly theme for September was ‘All About Me’ and we thoroughly enjoyed learning about families, our bodies, our school and of course recognising how special and unique we all are!

During Aistear time, we had great fun playing in the Doctor’s Surgery role play corner. We had to sign patients in at reception and instruct them to wait in our waiting room, before being seen by the doctor in the treatment room. We were also very excited to play ‘Teach your Monster to Read’ on the class computers and we’re definitely getting the hang of using the mouse and the keyboard now.

In English, we have been working really hard to learn all our Jolly Phonics and to develop our blending skills. We read ‘Owl Babies’ by Martin Waddell and ‘The Smartest Giant in Town’ by Julia Donaldson and learnt how to predict, question, summarise and make connections! In Maths, we have been super busy sorting collections of objects into sets, making patterns and partitioning for three, four and five. We also carried out some data investigations and recorded them both on paper and using our interactive board. In Gaeilge, we learnt many phrases in relation to ‘Mé Féin’ and ‘Lá Bréithe’ and sang some new songs and rhymes.

In S.E.S.E, we made family trees, identified the names of our body parts and went on a tour of our school before creating a big map on the classroom floor of our journey. In Drama, we played some fun games and read ‘Elmer’ by David McKee. Poor Elmer was sad that he was different from all the other elephants but we helped him to feel better by finding a solution to his problem! We like to start our day with a song, so we have been singing some lovely songs in Music. We are currently learning a song in preparation for Halloween – it is called ‘There was an old witch..’ And last but not least, we have made some beautiful artwork in Senior Infants. We drew and painted our self portraits and made some lovely Wassily Kandinsky inspired autumn trees!

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

October 3 2018

First Class and Ms McManus – Learning about Clothes!

This September, First Class have been learning all about clothes. We have even been writing stories about clothes on Fridays! We focused on the different clothes that would be suitable for each of the four seasons. In Spring, we usually wear light clothes sometimes made of cotton, but we usually need a light jumper too. In Summer, we wear shorts, t-shirts and lots of sun cream! In Winter, we like to wrap up in woolly scarves and jumpers. Finally, in Autumn, it is important to keep our raincoats close by, especially in Ireland! We spent some time in Science testing which materials would be best during a rainy Autumn, by checking if they were waterproof. We found that plastic, tinfoil, and rubber were the best materials for keeping water at bay! In art, we designed our own tshirts and hung them up. Check out our líne éadaí!

Category: First Class, Gaeilge, S.E.S.E, Science | Comments Off

June 11 2018

A Trip to the Zoo for Fourth Class!

On Friday the 27^th April 2018, Mr Allen’s, Ms Kelly’s, and Ms Travers’ fourth classes went on an educational visit to Dublin zoo. They were transported there by bus and when they got there they were split into two groups.

They saw a lot of animals such as different types of monkeys and big cats like tigers and lions. They also saw lemurs, a real panda, orangutans, sea lions and penguins.

After that they went to the African plains and met a tour guide who brought them around and showed them lots more animals and told them lots of interesting facts. She showed them gorillas, chimpanzees, rhinos, giraffes, zebras, ostriches, water hogs and some other species. Then they had lunch and after lunch it was time to head back to the bus. They had a great time and learned lots. Big thanks to all the staff involved.

By Aisling, Media Team

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

June 11 2018

3…2…1…Blast Off in Third Class!

In school, we did a balloon rocket experiment. It was great fun. We watched a video of it on the Whiteboard and then we got started. If you ever want to try this at home, here is what you will need:

a balloon
tape
straw
string
something to hold it up with (we used a chair and a door handle.)

What to do:

Thread the string through the straw;
Blow up a balloon but don’t tie it;
Tape the straw (with string running through it) to the balloon;
Let the balloon go and it will shoot down the string.
Then, watch the magic!

I would definitely recommend this as I had a lot of fun and so did my class.

By Teagan, Media Team

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

May 9 2018

April was an Eggciting Month in Senior Infants!

What a busy month we’ve had in Senior Infants! Our monthly theme was ‘The Sea’ and we had great fun exploring this topic.

In English we read the stories, ‘The Snail and the Whale’ and ‘Sharing a Shell’ by Julia Donaldson and discovered that Julia is a big fan of rhyming words just like we are! We love ‘Rhyme Time’ in our class each morning! We found some very interesting words for our word wall and we liked writing our own adventures for the Snail and the Whale. We also wrote about a time when we went to the seaside (real or imaginary!).

In Maths we had great fun learning about capacity. We sorted different sized containers and estimated and measured how much water, sand and different materials could fit into them. We also decided which containers would be best for holding different materials. Ms. Olson played a trick on us in our last capacity lesson – she poured water from a small container into a larger container and asked us if the containers had the same amount of water in them or whether they were different! Ms. Olson managed to trick quite a few of us (hehe!).

We had great fun in S.E.S.E this month. We learned about ‘The Titanic’ and constructed our own Titanic models in Art. We investigated different materials from the seaside including sand, pebbles, stones, sea glass, driftwood and even seaweed. We were able to touch the materials and feel the difference that water had on them. For example, when the seaweed was dry it felt quite crunchy and hard and when wet it was slimey and slippery! We also did a floating and sinking experiment and made predictions about which objects would float and which would sink. We learned about some interesting sea animals too. Did you know that an octopus has blue blood? We were very lucky to receive a Big Grow package from our friends at Innocent. We grew some lovely cress, spinach and peas and made sure to water them everyday.

In Music, we learned the song Apusski Dusky and performed it for the Junior School at assembly. We also listened and resonded to songs from The Little Mermaid – ‘Under the Sea’ and ‘Part of Your World’. In Art, as well as our Titanics, we made jellyfish mobiles and newpaper sharks and in Drama, we helped ‘The Rainbow Fish’ decide what to do with his shimmering scales.

We had great fun in our Aistear stations this month, in particular, we really enjoyed our time in ‘The Pirate Ship’. We also loved our time at the water and sand play station. We love getting messy!

However, perhaps the biggest news we have from Senior Infants this month is: We welcomed four beautiful ducklings into the world! We incubated the eggs for 28 days and on the 25th and 26th April 2018 we welcomed James Pond, Smash, Sir Quacks-a-lot and DJ Tiny into Senior Infants. At two weeks old, they are now too big to come to school anymore and they are off to a lovely new farm home in Enniskerry to be with some other ducks. We’ll miss their little chirps in the classroom!

That’s all from us here in Senior Infants, we hope you’ve enjoyed reading our blog post!

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

May 9 2018

An Interview with Ms. Aivalikli’s Class

On Tuesday March 13^th four students from Clonkeen College, including two past pupils of St Anne’s visited Ms. Aivalikli’s class. The Clonkeen students are taking part in a competition called the ‘Consat’.

The day started with a presentation to explain how they made and launched a water rocket and a parachute. The parachute was made from a plastic polyester in the school colours black and amber. The rocket was made from a plastic bottle and a pump.

After the talk everyone went outside to see if the rocket could be launched. They all waited eagerly. There was a great excitement when the rocket took off.

What an exciting day for everyone!

Written by Ella and Eoin, Media Team

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

May 9 2018

Throwback to Our Trip to the Irish Heritage Park!

Our class and the other 3^rd class went on a tour to the Irish Heritage Park, Wexford. We learned lots about the history of Ireland. We were brought back to the middle Stone Age, when the first people came to Ireland. Then we made our way up to the Bronze Age, the Iron Age, Early Christian Ireland and then the Vikings! We had learned lots about Early Christian Ireland and the Vikings in class.

On the tour we learned that they made homemade cement out of not very pleasant things and that the people hunted animals for food and wolves and bears for their skin. We saw houses from the middle Stone age, Iron age and the Viking era. All of these homes were quite similar in that the roofs were made of mud and straw and the walls of wattle and sticks. There were only one or two rooms inside where lots of people and the animals lived. The Viking houses had a hole in the roof for the smoke from the fire. There were fires lighting outside all of the houses and there was a strong smell from them. The people did not live very long lives in those days.

Our tour guide was called Corinne and she was dressed like a lady from Viking times. She showed us things like brooches, landmarks, ancient burial sites, a crannóg and much more. We also went on a longship but it didn’t go in the water for safety reasons. The tour was all outdoors. We went around different parts and there was a little house with a monk inside it! We had lots of fun and saw lots of things. I would go back again.

By Teagan, Media Team

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

December 13 2017

A Busy Month in 5th Class!

This November in Ms. D’Arcy and Ms. Ní Mhurchú’s 5^th class we did quite a lot! “Mum’s the word” – but we’ve been reading a lot of Shakespeare lately. That’s just one of the phrases that the Bard introduced to everyday life. Other phrases you’re probably familiar with are: “Not slept one wink”, “Fashionable”, “A wild goose chase” and “All’s well that ends well”. Old Spike Milligan has been broadening our imaginations with his crazy poetry including “On the Ning Nang Nong”

Our minds have nearly exploded with all the knowledge we’ve learned about Pompeii and Rome! We’ve made our own volcanoes erupt and wrote stories about life as a gladiator. We thought long division would divide our heads altogether but it surprised us by being very simple.

We also learned how to sketch and draw our classmates with fantastic results. In Gaeilge we’ve been using the APOE system which is an easy way for children to create sentences as Gaeilge. We’ve also been working hard on our Briathra Neamhrialta!

We hope you’re on your best behaviour, because if not – who you gonna call? PEACE PROTECTORS! A group of us in fifth class have been given the responsibility to help out on yard and we have cool high viz jackets so we can be easily seen.

We all felt like winners when Sam Maguire came to visit. We even got to touch him (never washing our hands again!). What a busy month it was! – and December is set to be even busier. ..

By Ava Mulcahy and Jennifer O’ Dwyer

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