• Irish

Irish

Irish is taught to all classes. We encourage the children and teachers to speak Irish in an informal way throughout the school day. We are promotiing the use of Irish with Seachtain na Gaeilge and we sent out some phrases for all parents to use with their child to develop their oral competency in the language.

Happy Christmas Everybody!

Date posted: 22nd December 2022 | Category Blog, Christmas, Drama, English, Geography, Irish, Middle Classroom, Religious Education, Science, Visual Arts |

It is hard to believe that Christmas is here! We have had such a busy few weeks in 1st, 2nd and 3rd class! November and December have been filled with lots of fun activities and learning…

In English, we read a poem called “Walk into my Parlour” and discussed nouns, adjectives and verbs which we are learning about at the moment…

In Visual Arts, we created “Snakes in the Grass” using circular pieces of paper..

In Gaeilge and English, we looked at the topic of Winter/An Geimhreadh and learned vocabulary based on this theme…

We wrote acrostic poems….

We made beautiful snow scenes…

As soon as December approached, we learned about Advent and how it is a time for preparation…

Ms McGrath did some mindful painting with the whole class…The Dancing Santas turned out so well!

The children made some lovely decorations for their Christmas trees!

On 15th December, the children performed the Nativity play “Hosanna Rock!” for all the parents and members of the school community. They did such a wonderful job and we were very proud of all their efforts!

We also had a visit from Santa, who took time out of his busy schedule! We sang “Jingle Bells!” and each got a selection box…

We enjoyed some Christmas baking with Mrs. Dooley…Thank you Mrs. Dooley for these fabulous treats…

We made some lovely Christmas cards for our friends and family…

We read a poem called “The Christmas Party” by Adeline White and drew pictures to represent the various things mentioned in the poem…

We had a Christmas Jumper day on Friday, 16th December…Don’t the boys and girls look so festive?!

Wishing you all a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year from all the boys and girls in 1st, 2nd and 3rd class!

Date posted: 22nd December 2022 | Category Blog, Christmas, Drama, English, Geography, Irish, Middle Classroom, Religious Education, Science, Visual Arts |

Merry Christmas from the Junior Room

Date posted: 21st December 2022 | Category Blog, Christmas, Class Work, Drama, Drama, Geography, History, Irish, Junior Classroom, Mathematics, Our Work on Display, Religious Education, Visual Arts |

As ever we’ve been busy in December in the Junior Room! Our Play topic was the North Pole. We learned about animals, houses and nature there.

An Arctic scene in Small World
Constructing an igloo village
Building larger igloos in Construction
Making Polar animals in Play Doh!
Creating The Northern Lights in Junk Art

In Gaeilge we had fun playing Biongó with our partners!

In Art we made Christmas Trees by weaving wool through paper plates we painted. We painted Polar Bears as well, continuing our North Pole theme.

In SESE we learned all about Irish explorer Tom Creane. He travelled to Antarctica! We discovered interesting facts about Polar Bears and found out where the North & South Poles are as well as the Equator, we labelled a globe with these places.

We discussed Winter and found out ways to help nature out such as feeding the birds. We also read a Christmas story called The Christmas Spider, who decorated a tree with sparkly webs and we made our own sparkly, web covered trees!

Senior Infants were busy counting and colouring in Christmas Maths.

In RE we learned the story of Christmas and made an Advent Wreath to count down the weeks to Christmas Day as well as keeping track using our Advent Calendar!

Finally we were delighted to perform our Christmas Musical “Hosanna Rock” in St Mary’s Church. It was fantastic to see so many families there and welcome them back to school after, especially when a special visitor called in!!!

Heading home after our show!

Wishing everyone a happy and peaceful Christmas, see you in 2023!!!

Date posted: 21st December 2022 | Category Blog, Christmas, Class Work, Drama, Drama, Geography, History, Irish, Junior Classroom, Mathematics, Our Work on Display, Religious Education, 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 |

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!

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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 |

Spring Fun in the Middle Room!

Date posted: 12th April 2022 | Category Blog, Book Week, Class Work, Drama, Drama, Easter, English, Funky Kids, Geography, Irish, Middle Classroom, Music, Religious Education, Science, Special Occasions, Visual Arts |

What a busy term it has been in our school! The children in 1st, 2nd and 3rd class have worked so hard over the past few weeks. Have a look at what we have been up to!

Signs of Spring have been popping up everywhere and we wrote about these signs in Science and Geography!

We were very lucky to have Willie, Eddie and Alan from the local Fire Brigade visit us to talk about fire safety in the home. The children had to complete a checklist at home ensuring they are following safety guidelines in the case of an emergency.

To mark Engineers’ Week, we were very lucky to attend the local library where Karyn read a story called “Rosie Revere, Engineer” to us all. We then had to make helicopters using paper and paperclips. The children tried out different ways of making their helicopters fly faster and slower and had so much fun!

We had fun making St.Patrick’s Day art and craft…..

We dressed up in in green to raise money for those affected by war in the Ukraine.

In Gaeilge, we were learning about “Sa Bhaile” and learned a poem called “Mo Chaitín”.

To celebrate all those lovely women in our lives and to mark Mothering Sunday, we made paper bouquets and bookmarks.

We worked hard on projects over the past number of weeks and the children did an amazing job researching and presenting a topic of their choice to their classmates! Topics included Dinosaurs, Visionary Women around the World, Horses, Imaginext, Farming, Cooking & Baking, Cats, Tigers, The Solar System and so much more!

To celebrate Easter, we read and learned about the Easter Story. The children completed pictures for the Bishop’s Art Competition based on the theme of “Hope”. Here are some of their wonderful entries…..

We read a story called “Lovejoy’s Song.” It is based on the Easter Story from the viewpoint of a bird and drew pictures….

We created some lovely Easter art….

The children received a treat box filled with eggs….

We wrote super Easter Acrostic Poems in English……

The children designed super book covers for the book fair held in our school………..

We had the Funky Kids Show on 31st March after ten weeks of singing and dancing with Denis and Olivia. Each child was a superstar on the day! Well done boys and girls!

On the last day of term, the 3rd class who have been working with Mrs. Joyce on Minecraft Maps and designing islands, presented their work to the children in 1st and 2nd class. It was great to see how their ideas were transformed from an idea on a piece of paper to a computerised drawing! Well done boys and girls and thank you Mrs. Joyce!

Happy Easter to you all! Well done on a great term’s work everybody!

Date posted: 12th April 2022 | Category Blog, Book Week, Class Work, Drama, Drama, Easter, English, Funky Kids, Geography, Irish, Middle Classroom, Music, Religious Education, Science, Special Occasions, Visual Arts |