2021 - 2022

2nd & 3rd Class 

 

This term saw the welcome return of many of our favourite activities. Thanks to Kinsale GAA, we competed in a football blitz with children from other local schools. On Thursday 26th May, we travelled to Inchydoney for our ukulele get together with the other schools who formed part of the ‘Creative Clusters’ group. While some of us were a little nervous, we performed our compositions based on the theme of climate change, played some songs in unison, designed some sand sculptures and ate lots of ice-cream! Our trip concluded with a performance by some local musicians in the amphitheatre and we had a mini disco. Ms Kingston was blown away by our dance moves!! We travelled to CIT for our athletics practice and many of us represented our school on the day. We were delighted when St Multose brought home the small school’s trophy. What an achievement. Our school sports day took place on Friday 10th June and parents came along to support and join in! We all worked in teams, with children from across the classes, to earn points for our team.

 

We’ve been busy in the classroom too. In SESE, some of the topics we’ve learned about include the water cycle, transport in the past and the body. Robbie Carroll, Assistant Musical Director in Saint Fin Barre’s Cathedral has led us in some song singing and singing games. We’ve also tried our hand at learning some Irish traditional songs. We were delighted to work on some strawberry themed art for the parish Strawberry Fayre! We look forward to this annual event in the school calendar. In English, we worked on persuasive writing and had some very interesting debates! During Irish, we focused on the themes of ‘An Aimsir’ agus ‘Caitheamh Aimsire.’

 

What a wonderful group of children who should each be so proud of what they have achieved throughout the year. Well done to all!

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March

Easter is fast approaching. We can hardly believe another term is nearly over. We've had a very busy and productive time in school.

 

Throughout the month of February, we were treated to two online ukulele performances from the other schools which form part of our Creative Clusters group: Kilgarriffe National School and Ballymoney National School. During the performances, we were given a virtual tour of these schools and they performed the ukulele pieces which they had been learning with Christine. Then, it was our turn...! Along with 4th and 5th class, we busily created a video showcasing our wonderful school and school grounds. We performed pieces like Weatherman, Riptide and What Shall We Do with the Drunken Sailor? We have some great news reporters and correspondents in the making! March saw the return of Robbie Carroll to our classroom. Robbie is the Assistant Director of Music in Saint  Fin Barre's Cathedral. Robbie has been reawakening those beautiful singing voices again. We look forward to what's in store during term three.

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A huge amount of time and effort went into preparing our group experiments for our school Science Day. This involved lots of research, investigating, experimenting, analysing, recording and communicating. We had to present our experiment and findings to the other classes in the school. Experiments and topics included things like: Which material makes the best parachute? Which magnet is the strongest? Do magnets work through materials? Which items are electrical conductors/insulators? Other groups made magnetic fish games and balloon rockets! Science Day took place outdoors which was a great opportunity to put our parachutes to the test!! We also had the opportunity to view experiments carried out by the other classes.

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We also took part in the 'Climb the Heights' skipping challenge. We have been incorporating plenty movement throughout our school day with activities like bizzy breaks, disco dancing and even a spot of musical statues. There are some very good dancers in our classroom and musical statues tends to become quite competitive!!

 

Last week, we took part in an online electricity themed workshop, thanks to the Lifetime Lab. We each had individual kits. We learned about electrical circuits, created circuits and tested materials to distinguish whether they were conductors or insulators of electricity.

In Geography, we've been learning about climate change: what it is, what causes it and actions we can take. We are going to begin work on composing a climate change themed song. We will then compose an accompanying tune on the ukuleles.

 

Throughout the term, we have focused on the writing genres of procedural writing and report writing. We have been practising the skills of determining importance and summarising and applying these skills while drafting simple reports based on the solar system.

2nd and 3rd class have been busy. They should be very proud of themselves because I certainly am!

 

December

The preparations for Christmas are well and truly underway and the excitement levels are building by the day in our classroom. During the month of November, we focused on the narrative writing genre in English. We looked at the key features of a narrative, created character profiles and worked collaboratively in some story writing tasks. 3rd class began writing in pen, a very big and important step! Everyone deserves to be commended for their effort during Irish. Our confidence is growing in the use of oral Irish. We're regularly reminding ourselves of the importance of giving it a go; after all, that's part of learning a new language. We are getting better and better at structuring and writing Irish sentences and simple stories. Well done to 2nd and 3rd class.

 

Our focus in PE this month was centred around catching. We put our observation and hand-eye coordination skills to the test. We completed lots of drills and games which incorporated the skills of throwing and catching.

 

Throughout the month of November, we completed a selection of activities in Science. We created and tested parachutes, examined our reactions times and tested materials to see which was the best conductor of heat. We learned about the role of STEM in caring for elephants in Dublin Zoo through an online presentation. During this video, we learned about some of the differences between African and Asian elephants, the ways in which Dublin Zoo adapt the environment to cater for the elephants, how the zoo keepers monitor and learn about their sleep patterns and ways in which the zoo keepers can test samples for medical issues/conditions. It was incredibly interesting. We also explored the theme of sound. We discussed how sound is created, sounds that are pleasant, loud, soft and those which we like and dislike such as the alarm clock going off in the morning! We learned about our ears and the various parts and their functions. We even created our own string telephones and were very impressed by how well these worked.

 

During Geography, we continued our study of farming. We researched and learned about different farm animals and the work of a farmer throughout the seasons.

 

We integrated some Irish into our Art activities. We had been focusing on the theme of 'Sa Bhaile' and so in pods, we created a shoe-box representation of a given room in the home. We included some Irish labels and words. We also completed some paper weaving using warm and cool colours.

 

During Maths, 2nd and 3rd class have been focusing on Data, pattern, 2D shapes, adding larger numbers and the 3rd class children have started work on the topics of multiplication and division!

 

On 2nd December, we kicked off the Christmas season in style, donning our Christmas jumpers and festive accessories. We even had a mini Christmas disco outdoors! A wonderful term's work. Well done to all of the children.

 

September

It has been a busy but fun couple of months since our return to school. Over the last number of weeks, we have been getting to know each other; we discussed our strengths, what makes us unique and even explored the history of how we received our names. Ms Kingston set us various STEM challenges: we had to create the tallest tower possible using cards and we worked in groups to create the longest paper chain we could, using only one sheet of paper! This was challenging and entertaining! Using K-NEX, we worked in our pods to create various things such as a pram, a butterfly, a castle, a golf set, a crash helmet, a crane and lots more. During Art, we created explosive designs and worked together in creating collaborative paper plate art pieces. We discussed primary, secondary and neutral colours while learning about Wassily Kandinsky and then created our own circle paintings using colours which we had mixed and created. Having harvested some of the vegetables from our polytunnel, we worked in our pods to prepare the vegetables and amazed ourselves with our culinary skills when we created a very tasty dish! During SESE, we explored the legend of Fionn and the Salmon of Knowledge and wrote a short recount of the story in our own words. We have just started our study of ‘The Stone Age.' In geography, we followed simple instructions and designed simple maps. We learned about the continents of the world in more detail and even tested our knowledge and memories while completing some online quizzes. The Green Schools committee had previously researched where in the world the children of our school had connections. Using the information gathered, we identified these places on a world map and represented the information to share with the rest of the school. In science, we discussed factors which influence a plant’s growth. We explored our school grounds and located examples of healthy (and unhealthy plants!) and discussed the possible reasons behind our findings. We began ukulele lessons with Christine Deady. This has been fun and we have risen to the challenge of learning to play an instrument. We are working on some simple chords and Christine is ensuring our lessons are jam-packed and energetic. During PE, we have primarily focused on the fundamental movement skills of walking and running.  Finally, before the mid-term, we tried our hand at some pumpkin carving. We had to work carefully and as a team. A wonderful start to term one. Well done to 2nd and 3rd class.

 

 

 

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