March 1
2023
March 1
2023
Service of Light
All three 6th Classes recently had their Service of Light. Emily Lowe in 6th Class has written this piece about all the preparation that went into it!
On the second of February, St. Anne’s Sixth Class, along with a handful of students from other schools, celebrated our Ceremony of Light. The Ceremony of Light is an important Catholic event, as it focuses on our parents sharing their light of faith with us. This is a key step in preparing for our Confirmation.
To prepare for our Ceremony of Light, Ms. Maguire and Ms. Elmes asked students to participate in the choir. A few students from each of the three Sixth Classes volunteered, and choir rehearsals were held to practice our hymns. Our Sixth Class teachers, our Sixth Class SNA, and Father Jamie helped us greatly to prepare for this celebration, and I think I speak for everyone when I say their faith inspired us every step of the way.
At seven o’clock in the evening, we all gathered in St. Anne’s Church. Every family had a Holy Candle that would be passed from parent to child toward the end of the ceremony. Once everyone was seated, the members of the choir began with the opening hymn: “Shine, Jesus, Shine.” When the hymn was over, we returned to our seats in the pews, and the ceremony began. Father Jamie gave a speech about a scene in The Lion King and linked it to God speaking to us, his sons and daughters. The teachers came around and lit our Holy Candles, and then the time came for our parents to pass the candle of faith to us. The choir sang the closing hymn: “This Little Light of Mine,” and the ceremony came to an end!
By Emily M. Lowe
March 1
2023
Grandparents’ Day!
We were very lucky to have our annual celebration of Grandparents’ Day return this year. The excitement could be heard throughout the whole school. Grandparents were treated to tea and coffee before getting the chance to experience what it is like to be in their grandchildren’s classroom. We know that everyone involved had a great time! Some of our Media Team met with teachers before and after to get an idea of what happened.
Ms. McManus and her class are going to sing two songs and they will read a poem with their grandparents. After that, the children will have a chat. Ms. Johnson and her class are going to sing the song “Count on me”. Once they have sung that they plan to read a poem. They will then interview their grandparents about when they were younger.
Ms. D’Arcy and her class are going to read a poem. They will then do a disco dance to remind their grandparents of their youth.
Let’s have a little check-in and see if all their plans work out!
Ms. Johnson and her class did everything but the song. They instead showed their grandparents their Viking boats which they loved!!
Ms. D’Arcy and her class did everything! The grandparents loved the disco dance and said it was lovely, entertaining and interesting!
By Sian O’Sullivan
March 1
2023
New Rock Climbing Wall by Hayley Carraher
The children in Junior Yard were delighted this month when they arrived to see a brand new climbing frame. The climbing frame takes up a section of the wall and has been a huge hit since its installation. Some of our Media Team members decided to find out more about it. They met with Mr. Fingleton and also some of the lucky students who have already had a chance to try it out!
The new climbing wall was Mr Fingleton’s idea. He got it from a company called ‘Small Walls’. They made it and came to install it. He thinks it is a great addition to the Junior Yard and will keep the children occupied. The children seem to be enjoying it so far.
There are some rules to the new frame for safety. You must climb sideways so as to never interfere with someone else. There can only be two climbers per panel at a time for safety. You can make it more difficult by only choosing to touch certain colours or avoid some. The black panel with colourful holds is really striking and stands out in the yard.
I spoke to all the Junior classes who simply think it is AMAZING!!
March 1
2023
Every Voice Matters
Our Student Council has been working really hard on their slogan “Every Voice Matters”. They have created vibrant posters to put around the school to remind everyone how important their voice is!
Lily Byrne (5th Class) is a member of the Student Council. She wrote this poem to highlight the importance of using your voice.
Everyone has a choice,
To use their voice,
Your voice matters,
like chocolate chips do in cookie batter,
If you think no one wants to hear you I promise,
That’s not true and someone wants to hear your wonderful voice,
We need to speak for those who don’t have a choice,
Some don’t want to speak and others are just too weak,
So let’s spread the message around,
If your voice was once lost now it’s been found!
Lily Byrne (5th Class)
February 2
2023
News from Our Media Team!
Autumn leaves
Deep in the woods under the trees,
if you look straight up you’ll see colourful leaves,
some leaves are yellow some leaves are green,
some leaves are bright and bold, some can’t be seen.
Some leaves are strong others are fragile
squirrels leap through the trees looking so agile,
hedgehogs on the ground spiky and small
look up at the trees so giant and tall,
Deep in the woods under the trees,
if you look straight up you’ll see colourful leaves.
By Alice Byrne
Reading with the juniors.
At St Annes we love to read, we also like helping others to read, especially the new Senior and Junior Infants! After a long wait, 6th class finally gets their turn to read to the younger members of the school. Helping them to expand their reading skills is an amazing experience that I and many other 6th classers are very grateful for. Reading with them is a giant responsibility, we must be calm and quiet while we read with the kids and we must be gentle and encouraging.
It is a great benefit for the Seniors and Juniors to have, I remember when I was their age and 6th class came to my classroom to read with me and my class and now it feels so great to finally be reading with them. Just hanging out with the 6th class in school is so special, it makes them feel cool and grown up too.
Library back up and running and our outdoor classroom.
In St Annes the Senior and Juniors aren’t the only ones reading. Our library has finally reopened after covid 19 and we are excited to be back. Our librarians Evelyn and Tanya are working hard to keep our library in tip top shape. Each class has their own time slot for when they go to the library to take out and return books. As well as our library reopening our outdoor classroom has opened up too! Having the outdoor classroom is a great opportunity to get more time in the great outdoors while learning. The classroom is a peaceful and fun experience with a lot to offer on the educational and outdoor front.
Trip to lexicon library
6th class visited Lexicon library in Dún Laoghaire for a science workshop. The theme was “Bright Sparks-the hair-raising story of Electricity”. In this workshop we learned about how electricity was discovered by accident and we repeated this very first electricity experiment. We then made our own batteries using readily available items. We also looked behind the scenes of batteries and investigated what batteries are actually made of. In the Library we used copper coins, gold coins, tinfoil, paper clips and zinc nails and measured them with a voltage measurer. The batteries were not any higher than 0.85 volts altogether so everything was safe but also very exciting. The children really enjoyed this experience and we hope to go on exciting trips and workshops again.
Assembly is back!
Our school assemblies are back in action after a long covid-19 restriction break. Ms. Treacy’s 5th class started senior assembly off and sang ‘lig mé saor’ (wake me up by Avicii)- a great start to our first assembly back. It’s great that covid is a thing of the past so we can continue to get back to normal.
GAA September
The St Annes GAA teams have started up for the new 2022/2023 season! Mr Allen will be running both the boys and girls GAA football teams. People from 4th class and up can play for the team. Both the boys and girls teams have already played a match each with the girls team winning 26-1 and the boys sadly losing by 1 goal. The hurling for both teams will be starting up soon and soccer starting up in early 2023. Hopefully both teams win this year, and good luck!
A big welcome to our new teachers at St Annes
As well as welcoming the Juniors, we’re welcoming four new teachers, Ms Johnson, Mr Higgins, Ms O’Crowley and Ms Mc Creedy. By trying to get to know our teachers a bit more we thought it would be good if we interviewed them and got to know them. We thoroughly enjoyed interviewing them and found it very interesting and fun.
February 2
2023
December News from Ms. Olson’s Class!
We had such fun in December in Junior Infants! We did lots of fun activities surrounding our theme – Christmas, and we were visited by our elf – Sparkle!
In Aistear, we absolutely loved playing in the Post Office / Santa’s Workshop Home Corner. During the first week in December, we wrote our letters to Santa and posted them to the North Pole in our very own postbox. We had to buy stamps from the Post Office first. Afterwards, the Post Person delivered the letters to Santa and his elves. Santa designed the toys in his workshop and the elves made and wrapped the toys. Once checked off by Santa, he packed his sack and delivered the toys to all the children. His reindeer helped him to fly his sleigh! In week two, we focused on sending Christmas cards in the Post Office!
We also enjoyed playing Small World in Aistear. The children set up their town and pretended that the post person was coming to deliver letters and parcels. In week two, we constructed Santa’s Workshop out of stickle bricks and pretended to be Santa and his elves working away making all the presents. We liked our playdough station as well, we made lots of cookies and cakes for Santa! We loved filling our stockings with toys from the Smyth’s Catalogue at our cut and stick station and we worked hard at making our Christmas cards and other art projects. During the last week of school, we had freeplay and enjoyed choosing our own toys to play with!
In English, we continued learning our Jolly Phonics sounds. We are improving everyday at learning our Tricky Words and our blending is coming along so well too. Soon we will be able to read little books! We enjoyed reading lots of Christmas and Winter themed books including ‘One Snowy Night’ by Nick Buttersworth and ‘Stickman’ by Julia Donaldson. Our handwriting is really coming along too, we enjoyed writing a short letter to Santa as well as simple sentences in our copy books.
In Gaeilge, we enjoyed learning about ‘Ócáidí Speisialta – An Nollaig’ (Special Occasions – Christmas) using our Bua na Cainte programme. We love singing the songs, playing the games and listening to the stories.
In Maths, we learned about time. We focused on learning the days of the week as well as sequencing stories such as ‘The Very Hungry Caterpillar’ by Eric Carle. We enjoyed playing lots of time challenges and we timed them by counting the number of claps it took to complete the challenge. We compared the times it took to do two different challenges when we played the game, ‘Who Finishes First?’. One child had to do an activity such as building a tower of unifix cubes whilst the other child had to do a physical activity such as jumping jacks. We had to guess who would finish first and then test out our theories!
In S.E.S.E, we learned about the signs of Winter as well as learning all about the story of Christmas. We explored toys too – we compared toys from today and toys from the past and we investigated which toys are pulled and which are pushed.
We did lots of Christmas art this month including Christmas elves, stained-glass Nativity scenes, cardboard angels, handprint robins, Christmas wreaths and Christmas cards! Take a look at our creations.
In Music, we learnt lots of lovely songs including ‘Jog Along Little Donkey to Bethlehem’, ‘Féach ar an Máinséar’ and ‘Here Comes Santa Claus’. In S.P.H.E., we learnt about our senses and our families. We had lots of fun tasting different foods to identify different tastes including sour, bitter, sweet and salty.
We also baked real cookies for Santa, but we decided they wouldn’t last until Christmas so we had to eat them ourselves!
As if all of that wasn’t enough, we performed our Christmas play – ‘Our First Nativity’ which we had been working so hard on for several weeks. It was so nice to have a full audience once again and our parents, teacher and SNA were so proud of us! It was a roaring success! Afterwards, we had a lovely party to celebrate!
Thanks for reading our blog, we hope you enjoyed it!
February 2
2023
December News Featured in the Scan Magazine!
Author’s corner
The tree journey
All the tree wanted was a home. Not a fancy thing or anything but he was more so looking for a family that comes with a home. He was not picky, far from it. He was stuck in the outdoor area of the supermarket with all the other trees. He was not liked by them; the tree in question was not very tall which is why the other trees made fun of him.
One day a bird came down and landed on the tree. They became great friends and the bird never left him. On the 7th of December there seemed to be a lot of families in the supermarket buying trees. A Lot of trees were sold but not our tree. All the other trees were making fun of him and saying that no family wanted a tree as small as him. His bird friend felt sorry for him and decided to fly into the store to find him a family. He spotted a boy. The boy noticed the bird too. He wanted to follow the bird and was tugging at his mom to follow the bird. She wouldn’t, so the boy followed by himself. His mother followed in panic. The boy followed the bird all the way to the tree. He loved the tree instantly. He pleaded with his mom to get the tree and she agreed. Once they got home with the tree the mother and son noticed that the bird was still in the tree and they all spent that lovely Christmas together.
By Megan Quinn
Christmas plays
Most classes are doing Christmas plays this year and we are happy to have parents back in the school to see these plays. The junior infants are doing a nativity play. They are all very excited. They all have wonderful costumes and have learned their lines. They are very excited about their first Christmas play. A highlight of their show for them is the Reindeer Hokey Pokey. Here are some pictures of Ms. Aivalikli’s class
By Haley
Carol Singing for Shankill Day Care Center
An interview with Ms Maguire who was one of the teachers involved with the carol singing. By Sian
How long have you been singing Christmas carols?
This is our first opportunity to get a small choir together since the covid restrictions and we really enjoyed it. We only formed the group this month and they did great!
Do you like singing at such events ?
Yes, I love singing for the community and I think it is a great opportunity for the children to do something really positive in the community.
What made you decide to do it?
We were invited and we were delighted to do it!
What made you like singing?
I just loved singing myself as a child and I joined lots of choirs when I was young. I still sing in choirs now and love giving children the opportunity to sing.
Do you play any instruments?
Yes, I play piano and a little guitar.
What songs do you like to sing?
Definitely Christmas music like this carol service but also Irish music and pop.
Did everyone enjoy the service?
Yes I think they did. I think it can bring back a lot of memories to a lot of people about their own choir experiences and songs they may have learned along the way.
Christmas Art by Andre Price
Mr Ryan’s 5th class made christmas tree art. Each child got one tree and they had to tessellate it many times to make a big tree and then decorate it.
Ms Kelly’s 6th class made shape art using cut up strips of paper to form another image. In this case a christmas tree.
Ms D’Arcy’s 4th class made a winter scene with paint. They firstly made a background with different shades of blue. They added a tree and some robins and then each child added their own touches to it.
Mr Higgins 2nd class got very creative and made stamps out of folded straws and dabbed it in a circle to make a wreath. They added red paint for berries and felt red bows for added detail.
Ms Olson’s junior infant class turned themselves into elves using colourful cards in different ways to make their bodys and printed pictures of their faces. They used a contrast of dark cards for detail and colorful background to make this unique nativity scene.
December 7
2022
November News from Ms. Olson’s Class!
In November, we explored the theme of ‘Food’. We had a lovely mid term break but we were delighted to be back and engaging in Aistear again! We visited the Pizzeria, the Bakery and the Supermarket in our home corner this month. We enjoyed playing the roles of the chefs, bakers, customers, waiting staff and shop assistants. In the pizzeria, we were greeted by the waiting staff, who showed us to our table and gave us our menu. When we had ordered our food the chef made us delicious pizzas. Afterwards, we had to pay our bill and if the service was good, we gave them a tip! Some people decided to order their pizza over the phone for delivery so the waiting staff had to answer the phones too. In the bakery, we enjoyed eating delicious treats baked by the baker – there was the option to sit in as well or you could browse the selection and get the cakes for take away. In the supermarket, we enjoyed using the shopping baskets to carry our food that we had selected from the shelves. We then put it all on the conveyor belt and the shop assistant scanned it for us and put it in to our shopping bags. We had to make sure that we got our receipts too!
We also enjoyed constructing the pizzeria using Lego, Duplo and Sticklebricks. We used the small world people to play with our constructions afterwards. In Small World, we set up a town and acted out our journey to the supermarket. We did some great cut and stick activities as well this month including ‘How to Make Pizza’, sequencing the story of ‘The Little Red Hen’ and ‘How to Make a Jam Sandwich’ and we coloured a pizza according to shape. We loved our Autumn tuff tray! We went on a nature walk to collect the materials and then we used magnifying glasses to investigate the different Autumn materials including leaves, berries, conkers and seed shells. We even found a few minibeasts amongst the materials. Afterwards we enjoyed making lovely leaf prints. We also enjoyed making playdough pizzas and we used real dough to make cookies and cakes for the bakery.
In English, we continued on with our Jolly Phonics. We are getting very good at blending short words now and we are learning our Tricky Words! Soon we will be ready to start reading little books of our very own! Our writing is steadily improving and we are enjoying playing our phonics games and doing our fine motor stations each day. We read some great stories this month including ‘Pizza at Sally’s’; ‘The Tiger Who Came to Tea’ and ‘The Little Red Hen’. We have also started writing little sentences in our copies.
In Gaeilge, we have been enjoying exploring the theme ‘Bia’ (Food) using our Bua na Cainte interactive programme. Our listening skills as Gaeilge are greatly improving and we are finding the games much easier to play now! We enjoyed singing along to the food themed songs and learning simple phrases. We love when our puppet ‘Rolaí Polaí’ comes to visit us and we have conversations with him as Gaeilge, we count with him and we learn our colours too.
In Maths, we continued to focus on number work, engaging in activities such as counting games, number formation, making sets of numbers, learning about ordinal number (first, second, third etc.) and playing maths games to develop one-to-one correspondence. We learnt about 3D shapes and engaged in sorting and shape hunts to learn about them. We even constructed a cube, cuboid and pyramid out of cocktail sticks and playdough. We learnt about length too! We did lots of timed exercises to see who could make the longest object with the materials provided within the time. We made objects of varied lengths using playdough, beads and thread and interlocking cubes.
In S.E.S.E our focus was on food and people at work! We looked at how pizza is made, who makes it and where it originates from – Italy. We then tried our hand at making our own pizza! We had lots of fun going to Ms. Woods’ class to learn how to make the dough. We learnt how the yeast makes the pizza dough rise. We left our dough to prove by the radiator and were amazed at how much it grew! We added our toppings and our margherita and pepperoni pizzas were delicious!
In Art, we made paper plate pizzas. We also made some clay hedgehogs. In Music, we loved learning little songs including ‘The Farmer has an Orchard’. We also started learning the songs for our Christmas play!
In P.E., we had great fun doing gymnastics with Deirdre. We are finished our ten week block now and have learnt so much!
Thank you so much for reading our blog, tune in next month to read about all things Christmas! It’s sure to be a cracker!! 🙂
November 21
2022
Coding in St. Anne’s!
Recently many pupils took part in EU Code week. This is a week in which we explore, learn and celebrate coding and computer technologies.So much of the technology we use today has a coding background. Learning through code has been shown to aid and develop problem solving and critical thinking skills.
The 6th Class I.T. Committee was busy planning some code workshops for 3rd and 4th Classes. We used Lego Wedo 2.0 and our iPads to make and design a Lego figure that could be coded. Once we followed the Lego Wedo instructions we could use the coding blocks to enable our figures to move, make noise and light up.
Junior Infants were involved in early stage coding, through BeeBots. The children had to instruct or code their BeeBot to the correct shape or number.
St. Anne’s are looking forward to developing more coding skills as we enter the Scratch Coding Competition again in the New Year.