Physical Education

Physical Education is taught by the class teacher for 1 hour each week. The children are very fortunate to have other coaches and experts visit the school to teach soccer and basketball. We also attend swimming for a period of 8-10 weeks in the Summer term.

Spring Madness in the Senior Classes!

Date posted: 28th April 2019 | Category Blog, Class Work, Easter, English, Geography, History, Hockey, Mathematics, Our Work on Display, Physical Education, Religious Education, Science, Senior Classroom, Visual Arts |

Spring has come and gone and the Senior Classroom were in full swing during the very busy months of March & April!

In Art, the children engaged in a still life drawing of daffodils and produced artwork Vincent Van Gogh would be very proud of!

In History, the children participated in a local library project entitled “Hobbies Long Ago”. They interviewed a family member, friend or neighbour on this topic and complimented their work with a photograph. These mini projects will be on display in Castlecomer Library during May.

In Maths, the children played “Beetle Drive” as a small group activity!

They also explored the area of 2D shapes and symmetry and engaged in practical work identifying lines of symmetry in various shapes.

In SESE, the children explored aspects of the water cycle as well as types of fish in our rivers and lakes. They made their own 3D fish to support this area in their books!

In Religion, the children explored Prayer Writing and composed their own prayers on the topic of World Issues

Letter writing both formal and informal was taught in English during Spring. The children wrote formal letters to their favourite authors and informal/penpal letters to their Finnish Penpals!

In Geography, the children completed mini projects on a chosen county in Ireland. They had to research the names of rivers, towns, landmarks as well as other areas of interest in their county.

During Spring, we celebrated Mother’s Day. The children made their own pop-up cards and bookmarks for their loved ones.

We also celebrated St. Patrick’s Day and the children made their own colourful shamrock pictures using chalk pastels.

They also composed their own Limerick poems in English on the theme of being Irish!

In P.E. the children actively engaged in field hockey and enjoyed playing it outdoors too!

During the month, we were delighted to be part of the Ireland AM documentary which was broadcast from the Discovery Park. The children really enjoyed their moment of fame on television with their school 🙂

In preparation for Easter, the children designed our Easter Coffee Morning Posters

They designed a poster on the theme “Caring for God’s World” for the Bishop’s Art Competition.

The children worked with clay in Art and made their own colourful egg cups!

Finally, in Religion the children made their own paper plate craft depicting the events of Holy Week

Well done Senior Classes for all your hard work during the lead up to our Easter holidays!!

February Fun with the Juniors

Date posted: 4th March 2019 | Category Blog, Class Work, English, Geography, Junior Classroom, Local Visits, Music, Our Work on Display, Physical Education, Science, SPHE, Visual Arts |

Our play topic in February was ‘The Jungle.’ We had great fun making jungles in the sand, creating jungle animals and explorers equipment in junk art and play doh. We also went on a jungle trek around our class spotting various jungle creatures. Finally we played in our water station with jungle animals which live in rivers.

We created some of the animals from the book ‘Rumble in the Jungle’ Here’s a leaping gazelle………

One jungle explorer’s trek ended when bitten by a snake!!

In art we created lots of jungle themed work including parrots made from our handprints and colourful chameleons. For Valentine’s Day we made frames of our hands for our families.

In SESE we looked at the animals we find here in Ireland and the different animals which live in jungles, we sorted the animals accordingly and later drew a selection of jungle animals we’d learned about.

We also learned about forces and focused on what is moved by pushing and what is moved by pulling. We sorted some things which are pushed and others which are pulled. We experimented with some things in our classroom to see how they move and pushed paper fish along by blowing them. We had to see which surface they travelled on best.

In SPHE we continue to do our mindfulness each week, we take some time out to relax, close our eyes and just breathe deeply and calmly.

We also discussed all the things which make us happy in school and drew pictures to show these things.

We have had great fun in January and February learning to dance with Michelle 🙂

In music this month we learned the names of various percussion instruments and learned how to play them.

Finally we had a lovely time in the library where Mary read some stories all about eating healthy food and then we had to guess which healthy fruit and vegetables she had in her bag!

Date posted: 4th March 2019 | Category Blog, Class Work, English, Geography, Junior Classroom, Local Visits, Music, Our Work on Display, Physical Education, Science, SPHE, Visual Arts |

2019 is off to a Great Start in the Senior Classroom!

Date posted: 9th February 2019 | Category Blog, Class Work, English, Geography, History, Irish, Our Work on Display, Physical Education, Religious Education, Senior Classroom, SPHE, Sports, Visual Arts |

2019 is well under way and the Senior Classroom have made a great start to the new year! They are actively participating in Dance Classes with Michelle from Dancewise and are really enjoying learning the dance routine for “Thriller”

Here’s a few sneak peaks at all their efforts 🙂

The children participated in a local art competition whereby they drew a favourite scene from the fairytale, Cinderella, which was performed in the Community Hall in Castlecomer

In Art, the children used pastels and chalk to create their own nightscape depicting the New Years’ celebrations!

They also completed their own New Year’s Resolutions in Religion & SESE

In response to all the work the children did on the Aztecs in History before Christmas, the children completed their own “Did You Know Fact Sheet” to recall material they had met.

The Renaissance was covered in SESE during January and the children enjoyed writing their own messages in Mirror Writing, a technique which was used by the famous artist, Leonardo da Vinci!

Members of 4th,5th & 6th Class competed in the local Credit Union Quiz on Friday, 1st February and did very well representing the school. Well done to you all 🙂

In Gaeilge, the topic of “Éadaí” was explored with all classes. The children completed their own personal clothing style profile “as Gaeilge!”

Similes and metaphors were explored in literacy. The children created their own poems using similes and metaphors on topics of interest to them!

In Art, the children created their own artistic scene from a small magazine cut out. Didn’t they do a fantastic job!

“Decision Making” was a topic that we explored in SPHE in January. The children were given many scenarios in which they had to make decisions and in so doing, they developed a better understanding of various decision making styles!

Well done to all members of the Senior Room for your continued hard work in all aspects of their learning 🙂

A Great Start to 2019 in the Middle Room!

Date posted: 6th February 2019 | Category Blog, Class Work, English, Geography, History, Mathematics, Middle Classroom, Physical Education, Science, Visual Arts |

Welcome back after the Christmas break from all in 1st, 2nd and 3rd Class! We had a great break and wrote about what we got up to in the first week back!

We drew lovely pictures and coloured them in with our silky pastels!

We wrote new year’s resolutions in English and designed party hats to celebrate the new year!

In Visual Arts, we created Fabric and Fibre pictures from various scraps of material…

In SESE, we learned all about water and ways of conserving water in our everyday lives. The children designed posters to promote water conservation.

We also discussed floating and sinking, made our own boats, tested them out and then adapted them to try to make them float!

We created colourful aquariums with brightly coloured fish…

We created colourful parrots using our handprints….

We learned all about China in Geography and created our own mini-project on this huge country!

We wrote acrostic poems in English entitled “WINTER”…

We are enjoying dance lessons with Michelle from Dancewise Academy every Wednesday!

We recently purchased new magnets in the school and the children had great fun creating their own animals with the magnets in groups!

Well done on a great month’s work boys and girls!

Date posted: 6th February 2019 | Category Blog, Class Work, English, Geography, History, Mathematics, Middle Classroom, Physical Education, Science, Visual Arts |

A Busy December in the Senior Room

Date posted: 6th January 2019 | Category Blog, Christmas, Class Work, English, History, Irish, Mathematics, Our Work on Display, Physical Education, Senior Classroom, Visual Arts |

The Senior Room have been very busy in their preparations for Christmas. Below are some photographs of all their hard work in all aspects of school life.

In Religion the children designed a picture for the Postal Bible School’s Calendar Competition

The children learned about the home in Gaeilge and they completed a fact file on their homes

In Maths, the topic of fractions put us all to the test! The children engaged in many class activities to reinforce this concept. They particularly enjoyed getting fractions of various 2D shapes which we displayed as decorations on and presents under our Christmas Tree!

During the month, we explored the topic of “Me” in SPHE. The children created their own treasure chests with pictures and symbols of what makes each of them special.

We looked at Pompeii in History and learned a lot about this ancient city. In support of all that they had learned on the topic, the children wrote their own historical newspaper report.

The children designed their own fantasy cups and saucers using various lines and shapes in Art. Didn’t they do a fantastic job!

In preparation for Christmas, the children created lots of colourful art work and decorations for our classroom!

We received a free Science Workshop on electricity as a result of all our efforts recycling batteries last year. The children were actively involved in this workshop!

The children engaged in some Christmas baking also during the month. They made Gingerbread Christmas Cookies

They also enjoyed decorating their own Christmas Cupcakes!

The children outperformed themselves in the Funky Kids Show. Well done on all your hard work in preparation for the night. Thanks to Denis & Olivia of Funky Kids for their enthusiasm & support of the children during this 10 week workshop.