Christmas Art

We have done lots of beautiful art work for Christmas. Have a look at some of the things we've made so far.

We have been discussing the story of the Nativity and we coloured in these pictures of the Nativity scene.

Here are some beautiful angels we made. We coloured in the angels first. Then we cut them out carefully. Next we painted an empty toilet roll and left it to dry. When dry teacher stapled our angels on to the toilet roll and we added a doiley to create a snowflake background.

We coloured in parts of the snowman and then cut them out. We then arranged the parts together to make a snowman. We dabbed on white paint for the snow.

We made these beautiful angels using our handprints. Teacher helped us to paint our hands. It was great fun but very messy!!! Then we painted on the head and halo and used various shapes for the eyes, nose and ears. We also decorated the page with bits of coloured paper, feathers and shapes. These took a long time to make but they turned out great!!

We learned a lovely poem about a robin and then we coloured in a picture of a robin and cut it out. We then stuck it on to a red paper plate. We put the poem underneath and teacher made a hole at the top and attached some string so that we could hang our lovely robins up. We also discussed how winter is a diffificult time for some animals and especially birds and we put a bird feeder outside our classroom with some bread crumbs inside to feed the birds.

Rehearsing for our Christmas play - Nursery Rhyme Nativity

We have been really busy over the last few weeks rehearsing for our Christmas play - Nursery Rhyme Nativity. We are performing the play with Miss Geraghty's class and we have made lots of new friends. Last week we performed the play for all the Junior Infants, Senior Infants, First and Second classes. We will be perfoming the play for all our parents and relations on Wednesday, 22nd December at 12.30 pm in the school halla. We love all our costumes and teacher says that we are simply wonderful!!!!

Posting our letters to Santa

We wrote our letters to Santa last week and we posted them on Friday. Teacher put all our letters in a big envelope and wrote Santa's address on it. Then teacher put a stamp on the envelope and we were ready to go to the post office to post it. It was a lovely walk there and back. Santa should have our letters by now. We can't wait for Christmas!!!

A visit from Santa on Friday, 17th December

We all got a great surprise on Friday when Santa took some time out of his busy schedule to come to see us. All the Senior Infants were in the halla at the time rehearsing for the Carol service and we couldn't believe our eyes when Santa walked in!!! He told us how busy he is at this time of year and reminded us all not to stay up too late on Christmas Eve. He was so kind and he left a big box of sweets for each class. Thank you Santa and we promise to remember to go to bed early on Christmas Eve and to be really good.

Penguins on the ice

We finished our penguins today and they turned out great!! Last week we painted the background using blue paint and a water wash. Thn we blotted on some white paint here and there to create the ice. When dry, we outlined the main shape of the penguin by painting an oval shape and two triangles on either side for the wings and painted it black. We then painted the beak orange and added two feet. When dry we stuck on a white paper oval for the tummy and addewd an eye. We are learning a lot about penguins at the moment in class and we will be making our own little book on penguin facts this week.

Fun in the snow!!!

We decided to make the most of the snow today and we went for a walk around our school. We had to take extra care in the snow. Our school yard was completely covered in snow so it was great fun to go out and make footprints in the snow.  We also visited the church and said a little prayer. On the way back to school again we had some more fun in the snow and even got to throw some snow balls!!

Acid cabbage test

We have been learning how important it is to take care of our teeth. Teacher had an enormous toothbrush and set of teeth and she showed us how to brush our teeth correctly. We learned that acid is not good for our teeth so we decided to test some drinks and other things to see if they had acid in them. To do this we needed some PH neutral water. Teacher put some chopped up red cabbage in a bowl and added some boiling water. When it cooled we were left with purple water. Then we tested some drinks and other things to see if they had acid in them. If the drinks turned pink after mixing them with the cabbage solution we knew that they contained acid. It's ok to drink these drinks accasionally but not too often as acid is very bad for our teeth and we must make sure to brush our teeth after drinking them. We found that orange juice, apple juice, lemon juice, coke and vinegar all contain acid and turned the solution pink. Bread soda and washing-up liquid are alkalis and turned the solution blue/green.

Have a look at this presentation for Junior and Senior infants http://www.dentalhealth.ie/download/pdf/toothday_2010_teachers_presentation_final_221110.pdf 

or other publications on http://www.dentalhealth.ie/publications/list/toothday/

Here's another great link.  This one is to the video story: Dr. Rabbit and the Legend of Tooth Kingdom http://www.colgate.com/app/BrightSmilesBrightFutures/US/EN/Kids/LegendVideoChapters/Chapter_01.cvspoChapters/Chapter_01.cvsp

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An owl in a tree

Can you find an owl in each tree? We wet our pages with water first and then we painted the background (orange and yellow) by using our fingers.This was a lot quicker than using a paintbrush. Then when it was dry we painted the trunk of the tree and added the branches. We used our thumb print to make the owl. We added a moon and some stars. 

Dick Whittington

The West Midlands Theatre Company came to visit our school today and performed Dick Whittington. It was really great and we all enjoyed it immensely. The costumes were super too. Well done to all involved.