Class blog 1 st , 2 nd and 3 rd class

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March 2023

SESE
The children learned about the Chinese New Year and we read the story of the Chinese Zodiac and how each animal got their place in the zodiac. We tried our best to put the animals in order after the story and we played a kahoot game on the ipads to try and remember information about the story.
The children also researched Antarctica and penguins using the ipads and laptops. We found out some interesting information about Antarctica and penguins. We followed a guided drawing activity of a Penguin which integrated art into our learning.
The children learned about The Vikings as part of our History. They looked up pictures using the ipads and we watched videos about The Vikings. We drew our own longships and monasteries.
As part of International Women’s Day we studied Amelia Earhart. She was the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean. The children researched her using books, ipads and laptops and then they created their own project on
Amelia Earhart, with plenty of facts and wonderful pictures.

Science
As part of Engineers week we used K’nex to build and construct items. Some groups created planes, like Amelia Earhart’s plane that we had been learning about and others created rockets and rovers. They designed and drew their construction first before building it.
The whole school took part in a robot building activity. Each group had 4 weeks to draw and build their robot using recyclable materials. Everyone had great fun working in groups, constructing their robot.
The children also had the opportunity to work with Bee-bots. These are robots that the children had to code and the robot carried out the instructions given.
Each group had turns in using their bee-bot in a maze, on a letter mat and on a street mat. These were great fun and a lovely introduction to coding for children.

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Art
The children followed a wonderful guided drawing lesson on how to draw a penguin and coloured it using paint. The children drew their own Longboats and decorated them with pastels. The children created some lovely St Brigid’s crosses using wool and lollipop sticks to celebrate St Brigid’s Day. This
technique was tricky at first but the class persevered and in the end had some beautiful crosses to take home. The children used clay to create some heart shaped clay pots for Valentine’s Day with a tea light inside. The clay was lovely and messy but really enjoyable to construct and create with.
 

English
This term our writing focus was procedure writing. We learned about what steps are involved in writing a procedure. We read some procedures and then we were ready to write our own procedures. The children wrote procedures on ‘how to make hot chocolate’, how to play spoons’ and ‘how to wash our hands’.
We also focused on report writing this month. The children used the ipads and laptops to research different animals. First, they took notes and gathered their information. Then, using this information they wrote their report using the sub headings: habitat, diet, appearance and interesting facts. The children really enjoyed doing their own research.
We celebrated World Book Day in March. The children got the chance to dress up as their favourite character from a book. We chatted about the characters we were dressed as and our favourite books. We played some book related games and created some art for World Book Day.

SPHE
We celebrated friendship week in February. What an important week this is to chat about friendship and what makes a good friend. We had a ‘Palentine’ post box in our classroom, where the children could make cards for their friends and post it into the post box. At the end of the week, we all received some lovely cards in the post and there were some very happy faces going home. We discussed what is takes to be a good
friend and we gave some compliments to our friends.

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Gaeilge
We celebrated seachatin na Gaeilge in March. The children were
introduced to ‘seanfhocails’ and drew some pictures about the
seanfhocail/proverbs. We had a ‘Ceilí mór’ in the hall where we danced to ‘Shoe the Donkey’. We all had great fun. We wore green, we waved our Irish flags and we sang ‘Amhrán na bhFiann’ together.

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January 2023

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Maths

The children learned about 2D and 3D shapes.  We took the opportunity to walk around the classroom and look for 2D and 3D shapes in our environment.  We were fascinated to see so many different types of shapes in our classroom.  The children had exploring faces, edges and corners of the 3D shapes and 3rd class even explored the nets of the shapes.  We made some shape robots and some shape gingerbread houses to fit in with our Christmas theme.  Third class began their multiplication by practicing their skip counting.  We are playing loads of games every day to keep the numbers fresh in our heads. 

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Science week

During science week the children had lots of fun exploring static electricity using balloons.  We could see our friends hair rising up as they rubbed the balloon off their hair and then lifted it up.  We also tried this with rice Krispies and to our amazement the rice Krispies began to rise up with the balloon.  The bubbles inside bubbles experiment was super messy but the best of fun.  Our tables were very clean after this experiment.  We made our bubble mixture in groups and then we used a straw to blow our bubbles onto the table.  It was a bit tricky at first but we persevered and by the end we were making huge bubbles, with more bubbles inside and even more bubbles inside that.  The children were really excited to walk on air.  We blew up plenty of balloons, half full of air.  We turned a table upside down and put the balloons under the table.  The children then stepped up onto the upside down table and we waited to see if any balloons burst.  More children stepped up onto the table and we counted 10 children walking on air with no balloons bursting.   Plenty of excitement, lots of mess and a noisy classroom makes for a fun and engaging science week. 

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SESE

The children took part in activities about COP 27 again this year.  We watched videos about rainforests in Ireland and the importance of our trees around us.  We became aware of what greenhouse gases are and how they pollute our environment.  We were made aware of different causes of pollution and of ways we can help to prevent pollution.  We looked at pictures on how global warming is affecting our world and we discussed ways we can try to help our environment.  We also used the ipads to engage in some Kahoot quizzes to help us remember what we had learned.  A lovely, fun, engaging activity to help reinforce our learning in SESE.  We always love to see who gets on the podium at the end of the quiz.

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PE

The children had 6 weeks of swimming as part of our PE curriculum.  The children enjoyed the excitement of getting the bus to the hotel.  They really benefitted from the swimming lesson and became very confident in the water by the end of the 6 weeks. 

English

Our writing genre that we focused on was writing to socialise.  The children in 1st, 2nd and 3rd class read the story ‘The Day the Crayons Quit’.  We then wrote a letter to one of the crayons asking them and encouraging them not to quit.  We brainstormed some phrases we could use in our letters together as a whole group first before we began our writing.  The children produced some wonderful letter writing.