Sports

As well as covering all the strands of the Primary School Curriculum, we love to play other sports too!We enjoy basketball, hockey, rounders, hurling, swimming, spikeball, football, soccer and gymnastics.We have a sponsored 5 mile cycle for the whole school in May/June of each year.This year, there will be a combined adult/children’s cycle around Castlecomer.The adults have the option of cycling 30km or 100km!

A Great Start to the New Year in the Senior Room!

Date posted: 21st February 2023 | Category Blog, Class Work, English, Fundraising Activities, Geography, History, Hurling, Our Work on Display, Physical Education, Religious Education, Science, Senior Classroom, SPHE, Visual Arts |

The boys and girls in 4th, 5th & 6th have begun the year by looking back on all that they have achieved and done in 2022. We also discussed our hopes and wishes for the year ahead.

In English, we read some of Aesop’s Fables. We then wrote our own fables which included an important moral or lesson.

We looked at the writing genre of recount writing and the children wrote some fantastic diary entries.

The class has begun reading the novel ‘Holes’ by Louis Sachar. We drew predictions of what we anticipate happening in the story based on the title, front cover and blurb.

In History, we learnt about Aboriginal people of Australia. Art is very important part of Aboriginal culture. Inspired by their artwork and it’s role in storytelling, the class created their own Aboriginal Dot Paintings.

Look at how great they turned out!

In SPHE, the children explored the topic of Healthy Living. The children designed a healthy meal based on their knowledge of the food pyramid and importance of eating a balanced diet.

In SESE, the children explored the topic of Forces with Mrs. Joyce. They carried out many different experiments and investigations. The children looked at the influence of gravity and how it allows a hammer attached to a ruler by sting, to hang without falling.

They also carried out a ‘Paper Helicopter Investigation’ to discover how the shape and design of the paper helicopter affects the way it falls to the ground.

On the 1st of February, we celebrated St. Brigid’s Day.

In Religious Education, we learned about the life and work of St. Brigid. After, we designed and decorated her cloak using various pieces of fabric.

In PE, the children explored and practiced the skills needed for hurling/camogie.

The children enjoyed learning about the life and work of American artist, James Dine and created their own art in response to all they had learnt.

To celebrate St. Valentines day, we created some beautiful cards for our loved ones…

We also spoke and wrote about love…

To raise money for Heart Children Ireland, we dressed up in red for the day! Thank you to everyone for their support of this great cause!

Finally, the whole school enjoyed the Pancake Party on Tuesday, 21st of February. A massive thank you to Mrs. Dooley, Mrs. Power and the 6th class boys who prepared and served the pancakes to everyone.

Well done to all the boys and girls on a great start to 2023!

Date posted: 21st February 2023 | Category Blog, Class Work, English, Fundraising Activities, Geography, History, Hurling, Our Work on Display, Physical Education, Religious Education, Science, Senior Classroom, SPHE, Visual Arts |

Happy New Year from Junior & Senior Infants!

Date posted: 15th February 2023 | Category Blog, Class Work, Drama, English, History, Junior Classroom, Mathematics, Music, Our Work on Display, Religious Education, SPHE, Sports, Visual Arts |

We have made a great start to 2023 in the Junior Room. We made New Year crowns to ring in 2023.

We had fun in Maths measuring the length and width of items using lollipop sticks.

Junior Infants have learned the number 3 and Senior Infants have been looking at number 8.

Junior Infants also learned about 3D shapes that can roll and ones that don’t. We sorted them accordingly.

Our theme in Music was Teddy Bears and as well as singing songs we listened to the song The Teddy Bear’s Picnic and drew pictures of it.

Our Play themes were The Post Office and The Hairdresser.

Building a Post Box in Construction
Using Magnet tiles to build a Post Office
Getting our Dog Licences
Role Playing in the Post Office
Creating Post Boxes in Junk Art
Creating hairstyles and doing puzzles

Making hair styles from Play Doh
Getting our hair styled in the Wandesforde Salon!

In SESE we learned about different sports played in the Olympics as well as how important it is to do exercise to keep healthy.

We learned about famous Irish Olympians, Katie Taylor and Gary and Paul O’Donovan, then we designed Olympic Medals for different sports.

In SPHE we read stories and discussed being kind and good friends to each other. We drew pictures of us being a good friend.

Finally it was St Brigid’s Day on February 1st and we learned all about this Irish Saint and the work she did. We used felt to create colourful cloaks for St Brigid.

Date posted: 15th February 2023 | Category Blog, Class Work, Drama, English, History, Junior Classroom, Mathematics, Music, Our Work on Display, Religious Education, SPHE, Sports, 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 |

A Busy November in the Junior Room!

Date posted: 25th November 2022 | Category Blog, Class Work, English, Geography, History, Irish, Junior Classroom, Mathematics, Music, Our Work on Display, Physical Education, SPHE, Sports, Visual Arts |

As ever we have been busy bees in the Junior Room, learning lots of new things and completing colourful work! In Play we learned all about The Fire Station.

Making fire engines in Junk Art
Putting out fires in the sand box
An emergency in Small World!

Starting to build a fire engine in Construction
Building a Fire Station from magnets in Construction
Doing puzzles and activities based on the topic

We discussed fire safety in SPHE and learned how to call the fire brigade if we ever need to.

In SESE we learned about music from around the world, tin whistles from Ireland, bagpipes from Scotland, castanets from Spain, djembe drums from Africa and didgeridoos from Australia. We listened and identified each instrument playing. We also learned all about the composer Mozart and listened to some of his music too!

We also heard the legend of The Giant’s Causeway in History and drew our favourite part of the story.

In English we are learning more sounds in Junior Infants, we learned the letter sound ‘l’ last week.

In Maths Junior Infants learned all about items which were heavy and light.

Our topic in Gaeilge was ‘Bia’ and we know lots of different foods in Irish now, we drew food in our own Bosca Lón (lunchbox) in Art to go with the theme.

We have also learned the letter ‘u’ recently and to go with this we created colourful umbrellas and rain showers in Art.

Finally we continue to learn new skills in GAA each week, we’ve been doing football skills for the last few weeks.

Date posted: 25th November 2022 | Category Blog, Class Work, English, Geography, History, Irish, Junior Classroom, Mathematics, Music, Our Work on Display, Physical Education, SPHE, Sports, Visual Arts |

Spooktacular goings on in the Junior Room!

Date posted: 28th October 2022 | Category Blog, Class Work, Drama, English, Geography, Hallowe'en, History, Junior Classroom, Our Work on Display, Physical Education, Science, Soccer, Visual Arts |

October has been another busy month in our room. We visited Castlecomer Library and heard authors Sinéad Dore and Claire Keating reading from their book Bea’s Ocean Commotion. We did some fun activities with them to help us if we feel worried too.

In English Junior Infants are busy learning lots of letter sounds and Senior Infants are learning new Tricky Words all the time. Juniors had fun playing games to revise their sounds.

Our Art this month included painting and cutting Autumn leaves as well as sponge painting to make bat silhouettes.

We were delighted to welcome Heritage in Schools Artist Orla Bates to Wandesforde. Orla discussed the topic of Autumn with us, going outside to look at all the colourful Autumn leaves before we created Autumn Leaf Clay Pots!

In SESE we learned all about the season of Autumn. We discovered the farmer is really busy at this time of year harvesting corn, ploughing fields and picking appples and pumpkins. We sequenced the story of The Little Red Hen and learned all about bats in the run up to Halloween!

We learned all about colours, we mixed primary colours to find out what secondary colours we can make and recorded our results on these colour wheels.

Our Play topic this month was Autumn and Halloween. We made items in Junk Art and Play Doh, we created woodlands in Small World, we built spooky houses and castles in Construction and we had fun finding things related to the topic in the sand.

Making hedgehogs in Junk Art
Making a combine for the farmers in Autumn in Junk Art
Using Play Doh to make pumpkins
Making spiders
Creating bats!
Creating Autumn woodlands in Small World
Building a Haunted House in Construction
Creating a witch’s house in the sand

In PE we were practicing skills in playing different games, focusing on running and ball skills.

Before the Halloween holidays we made some tasty Halloween rice krispie pumpkin treats and dressed up in our Halloween costumes! Happy Halloween to all, have a lovely break 🙂

Date posted: 28th October 2022 | Category Blog, Class Work, Drama, English, Geography, Hallowe'en, History, Junior Classroom, Our Work on Display, Physical Education, Science, Soccer, Visual Arts |