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A Busy Spring in the Senior Room!
Date posted: 25th April 2023
Category Blog, Class Work, Easter, English, Geography, Irish, Local Visits, Our Work on Display, Religious Education, Science, Senior Classroom, Visual Arts
During spring, the Senior Classroom have been busy with many seasonal and school activities. Have a look at some of the photos of what we have been up to!
In Art, the children engaged in some still life drawing of Snowdrops using oil pastels. The class also explored the art technique of shading using chalk pastels to produce a still life image of a fruit bowl.
From the 13th -16th of March, the school ran wellness week to promote wellness across a variety of areas such as heathy eating, exercise, expressing our individuality, taking time to do actives we enjoy and appreciating nature. The children enjoyed a range of things across the week such as no homework, fruit kebabs & smoothies, a nature walk in the discovery park, extra play time at lunch and a non-uniform day.
We also celebrated St. Patrick’s Day and drew some cartoon Leprechauns.
The children also wrote some creative St. Patrick’s Day short stories using the prompts ‘I’m lucky because…’, ‘At the end of the rainbow I found…’ and ‘If I found a pot of gold, I would…’.
To mark Mother’s Day, we made some fabulous paper flower bouquets for the important female figures in our lives.
In March, we explored the genre of report writing in English. The children researched and wrote some fantastic reports about the things they are interested in.
Persuasive writing was also taught in English during Spring. The children wrote some very interesting and persuasive arguments about topics they are passionate about.
In Gaeilge, we learnt the Seanfhocail ‘Tír gan teanga, tír gan anam’. We spoke about the Irish language, its importance and how it can be promoted.
In SESE, Mrs. Joyce explored some fantastic topics with the senior room.
The children spent two weeks learning all about soil, soil profiles, characteristics of different soil types and what ideal soil conditions are for growth. We did two experiments, one looking at the drainage of different soils the children brought in and another to separate the soil into its constituent parts. We found some soils had much better drainage than others. We also saw a lot more grit and gravel in some samples over others. We certainly know why the Farming Forecast on Sundays gives us all that information on soil temperatures and soil saturation!
The senior room also learned all about how the movement of electrons in a circuit creates electricity. They built their own circuits and tried to create an electrical circuit using potatoes. Unfortunately the potatoes were not up to the job!
The children learnt all about France. Each pupil was assigned an area to explore and research in more detail. They presented their information in the form of a mini-project.
In Art, we learnt about famous artist and their work. The children then picked a famous painting and reimaged it as a modern piece of art.
Finally, in RE we learnt all about the Easter story and in English we wrote some acrostic poems.
Check out our Funky Easter Bunnies. Look how great they look!
Date posted: 25th April 2023
Category Blog, Class Work, Easter, English, Geography, Irish, Local Visits, Our Work on Display, Religious Education, Science, Senior Classroom, Visual Arts
Spring in the Junior Room
Date posted: 31st March 2023
Category Blog, Drama, Easter, English, Geography, History, Junior Classroom, Local Visits, Mathematics, Our Work on Display, Religious Education, Visual Arts
We’ve been busy in the last few weeks in the Junior Classroom. Our topic in Aistear was ‘The Building Site.’ We were busy in Construction building various buildings like houses, skyscrapers and even a church! We created a Building Site in the sand, made items related to the topic in Junk Art, planned buildings in writing and acted out working on a Building Site in Role Play.
In SESE we learned all about the season of Spring, flowers that bloom in Spring, the country France, the weather we have in Ireland and sequenced the story of The Ugly Duckling.
In Art we looked at the artist Kandinsky and painted circles, we made handprint flowers for Mother’s Day, rainbows with pots of gold for St Patrick’s Day and Easter Bunnies for Easter!
In English we revised sounds learned and did some work on numbers in Maths, playing games with lots of different counting activities.
In RE we learned all about St Patrick as well as the Easter Story.
We went to the Discovery Park as part of Wellness Week and had fun playing with our friends.
Finally on the last day we made an Easter treat, chocolate nests!
Date posted: 31st March 2023
Category Blog, Drama, Easter, English, Geography, History, Junior Classroom, Local Visits, Mathematics, Our Work on Display, Religious Education, Visual Arts
Seasons Greetings from the Seniors!
Date posted: 21st December 2022
Category Blog, Christmas, Class Work, Drama, English, Geography, Local Visits, Our Work on Display, Physical Education, Religious Education, Senior Classroom, Sports, Visual Arts
The Senior Room were busy during December, we learned about the season of Advent and made Advent Promises. We also made a Jesse Tree telling the story of the Bible up until Jesus was born.
In Art we created Winter Trees covered in snow as well as a Nativity Scene. We also painted 3D style Christmas Stars!
In English we read the poem “Winter” by William Shakespeare and answered questions on it after a lively class discussion about the language and rhyming pattern. Pupils also wrote about Elves at Christmas!
We learned about the different communities we are part of and wrote some information about these different communities that we all belong to.
We continue to learn GAA each week and are working on various skills for football at the moment.
Finally we performed our play Hosanna Rock for families and our school community on the 19th and went to the cinema as a Christmas treat.
Happy Christmas to all and see you in the New Year.
Date posted: 21st December 2022
Category Blog, Christmas, Class Work, Drama, English, Geography, Local Visits, Our Work on Display, Physical Education, Religious Education, Senior Classroom, Sports, Visual Arts
Summer Fun in the Junior Room
Date posted: 27th June 2022
Category Blog, Class Work, Drama, English, Geography, Junior Classroom, Local Visits, Music, Our Work on Display, Science, SPHE, Sport, Visual Arts
The last few weeks in school have been full of learning and activities in the Junior room. We learned all about the Garden Centre in Play.
In SESE we learned all about the country of Italy, we discussed landmarks, food and where Italy is located. We also learned about fish, things we do at the seaside, the season of Summer and starfish.
We also made butter from cream. We shook the bottle for a few minutes and slowly but surely it turned into butter!
In Art we made sunflowers using tea leaves to create the centre of them and ice cream cones for Summer from puffy paint.
To tie in with the Garden Centre we also sowed some sunflowers for our own gardens.
To celebrate the season of Summer we had a Teddy Bears Picnic with ice-cream and strawberries and played some outdoor water activities and games.
In SPHE we learned all about road safety and practiced crossing the road safely at the Pelican Crossing in town and outside our school.
In English we continued to learn our Tricky Words and in Music listened to the song “Under the Sea” and drew pictures in response to it.
Wishing everyone a fun and happy Summer and see you at the end of August!
Date posted: 27th June 2022
Category Blog, Class Work, Drama, English, Geography, Junior Classroom, Local Visits, Music, Our Work on Display, Science, SPHE, Sport, Visual Arts
Spring in the Senior Room!
Date posted: 15th April 2022
Category Blog, Book Week, Class Work, Easter, English, Funky Kids, Geography, History, Irish, Local Visits, Mathematics, Music, Our Work on Display, Religious Education, Science, Senior Classroom, Visual Arts
During Spring, the Senior Classroom were busy with many seasonal and school activities. They learned how to weave and made some lovely “Woven Hearts” for Valentine’s Day!
As well as this, they made some God’s Eyes using craft sticks and wool.
Ireland was a topic explored in preparation for St. Patrick’s Day in SESE, Religion & Art.
The children enjoyed learning about Coordinate Geometry in Maths. They created their own Spring pictures by following the coordinates given.
The school had a Dress Up in Green Day for the people of Ukraine and in preparation for this, the children learned about their country and their culture in SESE.
They also learned about the Water Cycle and how important water is in our lives.
Funky Kids has been a great experience for the whole school this term. The children have been making their costumes, singing & performing their songs and taking part in some fun drama activities with Denis & Olivia each week.
Well done to all the children on a great performance at the Funky Kids Show. You were all stars on the stage and you did a fantastic show!
Mothering Sunday was also celebrated during Spring. We made some beautiful flower bouquets to thank all the people who mother us in our lives.
In Gaeilge, the children made some very creative posters of adjectives (aidiachtaí)
They also enjoyed playing Biongó to help them learn their numbers in Irish.
Book Week was also another successful event in our school this term. The children designed their own book covers for our We Are Writers Book. Didn’t they do a great job!
In Art, the children engaged in a Still Life Drawing activity and drew some beautiful daffodils in a jug. They worked on the elements of tone and texture in creating their drawings.
The children participated in the Bishop’s Easter Poster Competition in Religion. This year’s theme is HOPE and the children brought their ideas to life in their work below 🙂
In the lead up to the Easter Holidays, the children did a Spring Eggbox Scavenger Hunt in the Discovery Park.
Walking across the new footbridge in Castlecomer!
Easter Eggsperiments were also carried out in Science. We did experiments to find out if an egg is fresh or stale. Did you know that a stale egg will float in water whereas a fresh egg will sink in water.
We also found out how to work out if an egg is raw or hard boiled by spinning it. A hard boiled egg will move in a smooth spinning motion whereas a raw egg will tend to wobble!!
We also explored how to make a fresh egg float. We did this by adding some salt to the water which increases the density of the water resulting in a floating egg!!
One eggsperiment we all really enjoyed was the egg in the bottle! Believe if or not the egg does go into the bottle once a small piece of lit paper is put into the bottle!! This happens because when the match goes out and cools down it causes lower pressure inside the bottle. The air pressure outside the bottle is higher resulting in the egg being pushed down into the bottle!!
Finally, we worked with clay in Art and made our own egg shaped bowls some of which we turned into chicks!
Well done to the Senior Classroom on all their achievements this term. Enjoy your well deserved break and have a very Happy Easter!
Date posted: 15th April 2022
Category Blog, Book Week, Class Work, Easter, English, Funky Kids, Geography, History, Irish, Local Visits, Mathematics, Music, Our Work on Display, Religious Education, Science, Senior Classroom, Visual Arts