June 29
2024
June 29
2024
Graduation 2024
June 29
2024
A poem to end the year!
June 29
2024
Cinderella Rockerfella
June 28
2024
Our Final Term in Ms. Olson’s Second Class!
Wow what a year it has been in Ms. Olson’s Second Class! We have really enjoyed ourselves over the year and we are ready for Third Class.
Here are our highlights from our final term!
English
We learnt all about report genre writing this term and we worked very hard at writing reports about different topics. We really enjoyed researching facts and information on the iPads to help us in writing our reports and they were a very interesting read! We also loved reading our class novel ‘The Twits’ by Roald Dahl.
Gaeilge
This term we enjoyed learning about ‘Bia’ (Food); ‘Sa Bhaile’ (At Home); An tEarrach (Spring), ‘Siopadóireacht’ (Shopping), ‘An Teilifís’ (Television) and ‘An Samhradh’ (Summer) and we are continuing to develop our reading, writing and oral language skills.
Maths
We love maths in Second Class and this term we focused on learning about money, rotations and angles, pattern, place value, number, how to subtract with renaming, learning our 2x multiplication tables, data, area and capacity. We really enjoyed coming up with questions to survey our class on before constructing graphs out of concrete materials and representing our data pictorially and abstractly on block diagrams. We also measured the area of different things and explored capacity by measuring and pouring.
Religion
We received our First Holy Communion on Saturday 18th May 2024. We had a very special ceremony in St. Anne’s Church celebrated by Fr. Michael O’Sullivan. We had been practising for a number of weeks before our Sacrament learning hymns, saying our readings and prayers and of course learning how to receive Communion. On the day we processed into the church with the priest as the choir sang beautifully in the background. Afterwards we went to the school for a party run by the PTA. The hall was decked out in gorgeous decorations and we had some much fun! On the Monday after our Communion we had our photographs taken and had a big party in the classroom with a yummy cake, lots of treats, music and dancing! We even had a game of ultimate tag out in the yard before home time. It truly was a very memorable occasion!
S.E.S.E
We learnt all about the weather and the water cycle in S.E.S.E. We conducted a couple of experiments including creating the water cycle in a zip lock bag and we made raining clouds using water, food colouring and shaving foam! We also had an amazing Stem Day towards the end of June. We investigated which material would make the best kite out of paper, bin bags, tinfoil, fabric and cardboard. The paper and bin bags proved to be the most successful. Other classes came to view our kites and we loved going around to other classes to see what they had made too!
S.P.H.E
We had a lovely Wellbeing Day this year in April! We enjoyed having extra yard time, playing card games, listening to music and doing some mindfulness colouring.
P.E.
We had a very busy Active Schools Week in May and it was so much fun! We had our sports day on Tuesday where we enjoyed doing basketball shoot outs, long jump, an obstacle course, relay races, hockey, croquet, penalty shoot outs, bean bag races and target throws. Team C was the winner of sports day but we all thoroughly enjoyed taking part! We also had lots of fun doing bowling, rugby and yoga throughout the week on top of our regular P.E. with Coach Ed, Dance with Ms. Casey and swimming on a Friday. On Friday afternoon we had our Family Fun Day up at Stonebridge Pitches. We had lots of fun doing circuits, penalty shoot outs, target throws, an obstacle course, egg and spoon races and three legged races! Our parents even joined in too. Afterwards we danced to music, had a picnic with lots of treats and enjoyed blowing bubbles and soaking our friends at the wet sponge throwing event! It was a fantastic day! We also headed up to the pitches on Monday for parachute fun!
Visual Arts
In Music, we had been working really hard to learn all our hymns for our First Holy Communion and we sang them beautifully on the day. We also continued on with our Dabbledoo lessons enjoying learning about the Pentatonic Scale. We made some beautiful art pieces for our Communion including First Holy Communion suncatchers and lovely salt dough crosses. We also made Father’s Day Cards and rainy day resist umbrella pictures. We used wax crayons to draw an umbrella and a straw to blow paint around it, we were able to wipe off any paint then off our umbrella!
School Tour
We had a fantastic time on our school tour to Fort Lucan. We loved the water slides, helter skelter, go-karts, mini golf and the playground!
Leaving Parties
We were sad to see three of our friends leave our class this year but we wish them all the best of luck in their new schools and we couldn’t let them leave without throwing them a farewell celebration! Best of luck in your new schools D, T and R!
What a fantastic year it has been in Second Class! I will miss having this lovely class but I know that the children will have a wonderful time with their new teacher next year. I wish you all a fantastic summer break and the very best of luck in Third Class!
April 21
2024
Second Class Highlights from November to March!
We’ve had a very busy few months in Second Class! Here are some of our highlights from November to March:
English
We learnt about narrative writing and worked very hard at writing stories for the ‘Write a Book’ competition! We are eagerly awaiting the results to see if we have any winners! We had great fun bringing in our favourite books, making bookmarks, dressing up as our favourite characters on World Book Day and enjoyed swapping books at the book fair.
Gaeilge
We enjoyed learning about ‘An Scoil’ (School); ‘An Geimhreadh’ (Winter); ‘An Nollaig’ (Christmas); ‘Lá ‘le Pádraig’ (St. Patrick’s Day) and ‘An Chaisc’ (Easter) and are developing our reading, writing and oral language skills as Gaeilge. We had a fabulous Seachtain na Gaeilge participating in a céilí, a parade and Gaeilge poster competition!
Maths
We’ve been having fun exploring different maths topics including Number; Pattern; Symmetry; 3-D Shapes; Time; Place Value; Fractions, Length and Weight. We enjoyed making fairy buns and pancakes as part of our learning and loved our maths orienteering Easter egg hunt on the last day of term.
Religion
We received the Sacrament of Reconciliation on 27th February and created beautiful art to decorate the church.
S.E.S.E – Geography, History and Science
We were fascinated learning about Space, Winter, Christmas, The Rainforest, China and Myths and Legends. We made satellites and space rovers with Lego WeDo 2.0 and used the iPads to code them to move. We also enjoyed creating Santa’s Sleigh out of different materials including wood, clay, plastic, cardboard and Lego WeDo 2.o for our Stem Exhibition.
P.E.
We were so lucky to have five different coaches teaching us different skills – Coach Steve from Shankill GAA for Ball Skills; Coach Deirdre and Coach Alberto for Gymnastics; Coach Ed for Games including Hockey and Coach Jim from Cricket Ireland. We also had a special visit from Coach Steve who brought the Sam Maguire Cup for us to see and hold!
S.P.H.E
We have been focusing on our wellbeing and have been enjoying doing activities in our wellbeing journals. We also enjoyed participating in Secret Santa in our class! We had a ‘Crazy Hair Day’ to raise money for the school and we were very thankful to R in our class for bringing in goodies for World Down Syndrome Day too!
Visual Arts – Music, Art and Drama
We have loved doing our Dabbledoo Music lessons. We created beautiful Advent wreaths, Christmas Tree suncatchers, Snowmen, Recycled Christmas Cards, Rainforest Dioramas, Chinese Dragons, Valentine’s Day Cards, Spring Flowers using pointillism, St. Patrick’s Day bodhráns for our parade, Mother’s Day cards and Easter cards in Art. Finally we put on a fabulous performance of ‘The Night Before Christmas’ for our families and had a ‘wrap’ party. We also went to a show ‘Polar Bear and Penguin’ in the Mermaid Theatre, Bray on the DART to get some inspiration before our own performance!
April 21
2024
STEM Challenges!
In December, our school had stem challenges where each class level had selected themes ranging from creating Christmas trees to creating sleighs. We interviewed pupils about their projects.
Junior Infants:
We interviewed Anna and Ezra. They made Christmas trees out of Lego, blocks, paper, pegs, forks, sticks and books. They made trees that were multicoloured. They were from Ms. Rigby’s class.
Senior Infants:
We interviewed Nicky and Adam. They made paper chains using cardboard and paper. Their chains were white. Nicky said his was the longest in the class. They were from Ms. McManus’s class.
First Class:
We interviewed Lucy and Ethan. They made symmetrical wrapping paper. They made Christmas trees. They painted one half of the sheet and folded it to male it symmetrical. They were from Ms. O’ Crowley’s class.
Second Class:
We interviewed Lelya and Dylan. They made Santa sleighs out of lollipop sticks, cardboard, playdough, egg cartons and cubes. They were from Mr. Higgins’ class.
Third Class:
We interviewed Zoe and Robyn. They made pulleys out of ribbons, wire, pom poms and cartons. They were from Ms. Dawson’s class.
Fourth Class:
We interviewed Cara and Isabelle. They were allowed to do whatever they wanted. Cara made a wreath and Isabelle made a gingerbread house. They were from Mr. Hackett’s class.
Fifth Class:
We interviewed Isabel and Éimhin. They made elf traps out of cardboard, paper, rope, net, markers, string, clay and candy canes. They were from Ms. Treacy’s class.
Sixth Class:
We interviewed Alesha and Marcus. They could make whatever they wanted. Alesha made a cup tree and Marcus made a marshmallow launcher with Robyn. They were from Mr. Scully’s class.
Well done to everyone involved!
By Eoghan and Robyn
April 21
2024
Environmental Workshop
Last December, Rosin from the SEAI came to our school and visited some classes to speak about the importance of saving energy. She showed us experiments like bouncing a basketball at our feet to see if we could feel the vibration. My favourite experiment was when we put a vitamin tablet in a water container with a lid. The lid popped off 4 times. The second time she put an extra half a tablet in and the lid popped off 9 times! At the end we did a quiz. Did you know that using a hair dryer for 15 minutes uses more energy than watching tv for 4 hours?
Thank you Roisin.
February 25
2024
Cupcakes
To mark the end of a very successful term, The Media Team were treated to cupcakes and hot chocolate which inspired this poem!
Cupcakes
Cupcakes are so nice to eat,
Super good and super sweet.
Chocolate bubbles in my mouth,
Spongy stuff roams about.
When I swallow it down my throat,
The gooey stuff starts to float.
Now come the sprinkles 1,2,3
How very lucky can I be?
By Laura and Bel
February 25
2024
Junior Infants have officially completed their first term in Primary School.
Bel and Laura from 4th class went to their classes to find out all about how they’ve been getting on!
What do you like about your class?
They liked learning letters and playing with cars. They also enjoyed playing in the play corner, singing Irish songs and playing with their friends in the yard.
Do you like your teacher?
They said they really like her and say she is good at Irish, teaching letters and arts and crafts.
Do you find your work hard?
The children said that they sometimes found it hard and sometimes found it easy. There is one thing they didn’t like and that was getting the glue stick on their hands and having to wash it off.
Have you made new friends?
Lots of them had made new friends in the yard and in class and now they play together.