Ms. Flaherty's class - Senior Infants

Making a fruit salad

2012-02-16T08:24:00.000-08:00

As we have been discussing fruit a lot in relation to the story 'Handa's Surprise' and healthy eating in general, we decided to make a healthy fruit salad yesterday , that we could all enjoy and eat together in class. Before we prepared and peeled the fruit etc, we had a good look at it and felt the texture of it. The pineapple was the roughest of all. We also named each fruit and tried to describe it. If the fruit was mentioned in 'Handa's Surprise', we tried to remember how it was described there. For example, the avocado was described as 'creamy, green avocado' and the pineapple was describes as 'spiky-leaved pineapple'. We discussed whether these were good descriptions of the fruits. We had a good variety of fruits in our fruit salad - mango, pineapple, bananas, oranges, tangerines, avocado, apples, kiwi and grapefruit. Some of us had tasted these fruits for the first time and discovered that we really liked them. We will be looking out for them in the shops when we go shopping with our parents. Now that we know how delicious fruit tastes and how good it is for us, we will be eating a lot more fruit!!!

Handa's surprise

2012-02-16T08:15:00.000-08:00

We are working on the big book 'Handa's Surprise' at present. It is one of teacher's favourite books (and ours too now!!). It is about a girl called Handa, who decides to go to visit her friend, Akeyo, in another village. Handa carefully places 7 delicious fruits in a basket to bring to Akeyo. However, on her way she encounters (unbeknownst to herself!!!) 7 cheeky animals who each steal a fruit from her basket. Handa would have arrived to Akeyo's village with nothing ,only luckily and in the nick of time, a goat knocks against a tangerine tree and a load of tangerines fall into Handa's basket!! When Handa finally reaches Akeyo's village she is really surprised to find the basket full of tangerines and not full of the 7 delicious fruits she had carefully placed in the basket earlier. Luckily for Handa (and Akeyo too!!) that tangerines are actually Akeyo's favourite fruit!!!
We have been discussing the story in detail and naming our favourite parts and characters. We learned that every story has a beginning, a middle and an end and we picked out and wrote about the beginning, middle and end in Handa's Surprise. We drew our favourite parts of the story and are practising re-telling the story in our own words. We listed the animals in the order that they come in the story and we matched the animal to the fruit that they took in sequence.

Maths activities using Geoboards

2012-02-16T07:53:00.000-08:00

We made squares and rectangles using elastics and geoboards. When we were making the squares we had to take care that all the the sides were the same length so we counted carefully!! It was our first time using the geoboards and teacher says that we are the smartest children in the whole world!!! We can't wait to make some more shapes next week.

Gaeilge - Éadaí

2012-02-16T07:29:00.001-08:00

The topic we are learning about at the moment in Irish is Éadaí (clothes). We play Éadaí bingo regularly and it is one of our favourite Irish activities. The first person who covers all their card calls bingo and gets a little prize. We are learning to describe the clothes we are wearing in Irish too.

The Letter E

2012-02-16T06:55:00.000-08:00

This week we are learning all about the letter e. We learned a rather lively e song and love the fast music that goes along with it. We know that e is a vowel and we are very good word detectives and have been searching for words beginning with e and also words with the /e/ sound within them. We have also learned how to form both the upper case e and the lower case e correctly. Teacher says that we are champions at doing it now!!

Going to see 'Ildaite'

2012-02-16T06:46:00.000-08:00

We went to see our friends in Miss Tierney's class perform their play entitled 'Ildaite' this week. The play is about two fairies who get really annoyed with some people they meet, who fail to notice all the colour in the world around them. We really enjoyed the performance - well done to all the children in Miss Tierney's class!!

Valentine's Day Art

2012-02-16T06:16:00.000-08:00

We made these Valentine boys and girls for Valentine's Day. We decorated each one differently so each one is unique!! We really had great fun making these.

We also made a Valentine's Day card and wrote a Valentine rhyme on the back.

We decorated the heart on front with glitter.

Creativity at Play Time

2012-02-16T06:07:00.000-08:00

A skipping rope and a lion's cage!!!

Teacher, look at the fishing rod we invented all by ourselves!!!!

We love inventing new things and play time is the ideal opportunity for doing so.

Fr. Rob comes to visit us

2012-02-16T05:59:00.000-08:00

Fr. Rob came to visit us again recently. He told us some lovely stories and we sang a lovely song for him. He blessed us all with holy water before he left. Thank you Fr. Rob for coming to visit us.

Saint Brigid brings the Spring!!

2012-02-16T05:51:00.000-08:00

The Feast Day of Saint Brigid was on the first of February. It was also the first day of Spring. We made Saint Brigid's crosses using coloured paper and they turned out great. We also heard the story about St. Brigid and her cloak and how she managed to gain the land to build a church. We learned a lovely song called 'Saint Brigid brings the Spring'.

Our Advent Wreaths

2011-12-01T11:39:00.000-08:00

We are learning about Advent at present and we made these Advent Wreaths yesterday.

We are busy preparing for Christmas in Room 3. As well as getting ready for Santa's visit and counting down the days to Christmas on our Christmas calendar we are also preparing in a very special way for the birth of Jesus. This morning we all worked together and put up our crib on the altar in our classroom. It looks great! We also put up our Advent Wreath and Advent Calendar. We will be praying for a special intention for each day of Avent and we will try to be extra good, kind and helpful to everyone we meet as a special birthday present to Jesus.
Advent Wreath

The candles are lit to symbolise the light of God coming into the world through the birth of Christ. On the first, second and fourth Sundays of Advent a purple candle is lit (each sunday the candle from the previous sunday is re-lit). The colour purple as used during the period of lent, reminds us to prepare a welcome for Jesus during the Advent season. On the third Sunday of Advent a pink candle is lit. Pink is the colour of joy to remind us that we should be ready to welcome Jesus at Christmas. On christmas Eve the white candle is lit to celebrate the birth of Christ - The light of the World.

More work on the Owl Babies

2011-11-30T09:32:00.000-08:00

Today we wrote a little bit about the Owl Babies and practised re-telling the story in our own words - have a look at how we got on!!!!

The Owl babies

2011-11-28T11:16:00.000-08:00

We love the story of the Owl Babies. by Martin Waddell. We know the story really well by now and each day we have been doing different literacy activities based on the story. We can name the author and illustrator. We learned what the 'blurb' meant and made up our own blurb for the book. We can name the characters and talk about the setting of the story. We can answer who, what, when, where, why and how questions about the story. We can re-tell the story again in our own words and can sequence the events of the story in the correct order. We can pick out our favourite characters in the story and say why we like them (Bill was certainly the most popular character in our class!!!). What a clever bunch we are!! We have also learned about owls in general. Here are some interesting things that we have learned about owls...

1. Owls nest in farm buildings as well as churches, sheds and natural holes in trees.

2. Owls can not move their eyes but they can move their heads almost right around.
3.Owls use their excellent sight and hearing to hunt for food.

4.Owls swallow their food whole and then spit out the bones and fur. This is called a pellet.

5.The Snowy owl is not nocturnal.

6. Owls have three eyelids – one for blinking, one for sleeping and one for keeping the eye clean.

7.Baby owls are called owlets.

8.Owls eat mice, rats, small birds and frogs.

9. Owls catch their prey with their talons.

An owl in a tree

2011-11-28T11:05:00.000-08:00

We have been doing the Big Book 'Owl Babies' in English and for art this week we finger painted this entire forest scene of an owl in a tree at night. First we wet the entire page with water and we finger painted the background using orange and yellow paint. When the background was dry we finger painted the tree, bushes and the owl using black paint. When that was dry we added two large white eyes with black pupils. We added stars and the moon. They turned out great - have a look!!!

Maths - The story of 5

2011-11-28T10:53:00.000-08:00

We are working on the story of 5 at the moment in Maths. Today we used 5 pegs on hangers to work out all the ways of making 5. We were able to work out and write down all the combinations ourselves. Teacher is so proud of us for working so hard!!!

Aladdin

2011-11-28T10:13:00.000-08:00

A theatre company visited our school last week and performed Aladdin for all the children in our school. We really enjoyed the show and we loved the colourful costumes and characters. We thought that Aladdin was very brave!!

Science Week

2011-11-22T12:37:00.000-08:00

We did lots of interesting things for Science week.

Paper Rockets

We made these rockets with paper by wrapping one strip of paper around a pencil. We sellotaped the top to trap the air and put a picture of a rocket on top. Then we inserted a straw in the paper cylinder we had created and we blew our rockets. It was great fun.

Larger rockets

We made these large rockets by wrapping an A4 sheet of card around a metal template. Then we cut out a circle and cut a slit and turned it into a cone shape to form the top of the rocket. Next, we brought our rockets outside and teacher had a special rocket launcher and we each placed our rocket on the launcher in turn and pumped air into it. When we released a valve our rockets went flying into the air and we ran to catch them!!

The Bubble Show

We went to see a bubble show yesterday in the halla. We saw some huge bubbles and learned some interesting facts about bubbles. We saw that it didn't matter what shape the bubble wand was (we saw star wands, rectangular wands, cubic wands and triangular wands) - the bubble still came out in the shape of a sphere. We got a chance to look at giant bubbles and we observed that all the colours of the rainbow (red,orange,yellow,green,blue,indigo and violet) are visible at first in the bubble. When all the colours disappear the bubble is about to burst. If the bubble wand was very big then the bubble was very big also. We also saw a bubble filled with smoke, a bubble within another bubble and several bubbles joined together. To make the bubble mixture you will need a fairly large container filled with water. Add 1% glycerine and 4% washing up liquid. Mums and Dads will need to give a hand making the mixture!

Halloween Photos

2011-11-22T11:21:00.000-08:00

Our clsss dressed up in our Halloween costomes - aren't we a scary bunch?!!!

Here are Miss Flaherty and Mrs. Mc Loughlin!!!

All the First and Second classes performing the Thriller Dance in unison!!

Look teacher, I got the ring in the brack!!!!!

Halloween Art

2011-10-24T13:12:00.000-07:00

We have made many wonderful things for Halloween this month. Have a look at the following:

Pumpkin men

Colourful ghosts!!!

Paper plate vampires

Spiders made out of clay

We made these spiders out of clay today. We had great fun beforehand banging the clay to get all the air out. Then we moulded the clay into a ball shape and pressed it between the palms of our hands to flatten it to form the basic shape of a spider. We pressed on googly eyes and stuck in pipe cleaners (4 on each side) for the legs. We will paint our spiders when the clay dries completely and they harden.

Baboró's 'Nubes' (clouds) performance on Friday, 21st October

2011-10-24T11:53:00.000-07:00

We went to see 'Nubes' (clouds) in the Town Hall Theatre on Friday as part of Baboró's International Festival for Children. Nubes/Clouds premiered in Madrid in 2009 and last year it also graced the stage of London’s world-famous Sadler’s Wells. It has won the coveted MAX awards for Best Children’s Show and Best Costume Design.

We thought that it was an amazing show from start to finish and it was stunningly beautiful to say the very least. We were simply mesmerised throughout the entire performance (both pupils and teachers alike!!!!!). We loved the flipper dance and the ladder dance not to mention the people dancing with no heads!!! The six dancers were superb - bravo to the Spanish dance company Aracaladanza!!!!!

When we returned to school after the performance we discussed, wrote about and drew a picture of our favourite parts. Have a look at the following video to experience a little taste of what we saw and prepare to be amazed!!!!!

The Halloween Band!!!!

2011-10-24T11:09:00.000-07:00

We are learning some lovely songs for Halloween. One of our favourites is a song called 'There was an old Witch'. We took out the instruments to accompany the song. We used claves for 'She tapped on the window'. We used maracas for 'swish goes the broomstick' and we used drums for 'plop goes the fat toad sitting on her hat'.

We also listened to some music from Harry Potter and we pretended to be ghosts, goblins, bats, monsters, witches and zombies. It was great fun.

More pattern work

2011-10-24T10:42:00.000-07:00

We are getting really good at making patterns using beads, bears, cubes, pegs and links and deciding what comes next in a pattern. Here we are doing some more pattern work on the whiteboard.

Maths 2D Shape

2011-10-24T10:37:00.000-07:00

We have been learning about 2-d shapes. We made some shape pictures by ourselves using squares, circles, rectangles, triangles, Then we worked with a partner and put all our shapes together to make a new shape picture. We learned that a square and rectangle both have four sides and four corners. A triangle has three sides and three corners and a circle has one curved side and no corners.

Experiment to see if our lunch drinks contain acid

2011-10-24T09:56:00.000-07:00

We did an experiment to see if any of our lunch drinks contained acid. Teacher put some strips of red cabbage in a bowl and added some very hot water. The water turned purple. Then teacher poured this purple cabbage water into numerous plastic cups. We then poured a few drops of our lunch drinks in the cabbage water. If the water turned red/pink we knew that it contained an acid. We know that acids are bad for our teeth. We discovered that orange juice, apple juice, lemon juice and Ribena all contain acid and that the best thing for us to drink is water and milk. The water and milk contained no acids.

Toy Day

2011-10-05T12:55:00.000-07:00

We get to bring in our own toys on Fridays for playtime. We enjoy sharing and playing games together.

An ice-cream party!!!

2011-10-05T12:48:00.000-07:00

We had an ice-cream party on Friday as an extra treat for being SO good!! We had vanilla ice-cream and we chose our own toppings. The chocolate sprinklers were the most popular followed by the strawberry ones!!!

Literacy activities

2011-09-28T10:28:00.000-07:00

We are working really hard at our letters and sounds. We have covered the letters a,b,f and h this month so today we had to match up the lower case letter with its corresponding capital letter. Then teacher put the magnetic letters into a box and we had to close our eyes and pick one letter out of the box. We then had to name the letter and say its sound and write it carefully on the board. We all had to check if the letter was being formed correctly. We all got them right so we really are a very clever bunch!!!

Maths online!!

2011-09-28T10:17:00.000-07:00

Check out the Topmarks site (http://www.topmarks.co.uk/) Early Years section for some wonderful Maths activities. We played a ladybird game today to practise our counting. We also played a wonderful shape recognition game where we had to match up squares, rectangles, triangles, ovals and semi-circles. Semi-circle was a new word we learned today and we discovered that if we put two semi-circles together that we got a circle!!

Maths activities

2011-09-27T14:28:00.000-07:00

We love doing our Maths activities each day. Today we were using the number fans. Teacher called out a number and then we had to find it on our number fan. When teacher said 'Show me', we all had to show her the number at the same time. Sometimes teacher would cover a number on her number line and we had to show her the number that was covered on our number fans. We also had to show her the number that was 'in between' two numbers on the number line and numbers that were bigger or smaller than a given number. We got a turn to come up and act as teacher and hide certain numbers on the number line and the rest of the class had to show the missing number.

Which number is covered above?

We love playing the apple tree game. We work in groups and the first person to cover all of their apple trees is the winner. We throw the dice and then have to count out the correct number of counters to cover all of our apples.

We also play 'Buggy Bingo'. We spin the wheel and then have to see which bug and number it landed on. We then check out board and count the indicated number of bugs. If we have the same number of bugs on our card then we can cover that section. The first person to cover everything wins!!

Nature Walk (Friday, 23rd September)

2011-09-27T12:06:00.000-07:00

We went on a nature walk on last Friday. We saw a horse chestnut tree and collected conkers. Some of the conkers were still inside their cases. We also collected berries, blackberries, sycamore and oak leaves. We made leaf rubbings also.

Autumn Hedgehogs

2011-09-27T11:17:00.000-07:00

We painted these lovely hedgehogs this week. We remembered to use autumn colours when painting the leaves. We then chose a colour to paint the background. When everything was dry we stuck on some speghetti pasta to make the spines. We also learned about the life of the hedgehog.

Gaeilge (Bréagáin)

2011-09-22T10:48:00.000-07:00

We are getting very good at our Irish in Room 3. This week we are learning about toys (bréagáin). Have a look at us practising our Irish.

A visit to Mervue Library to see a puppet show

2011-09-22T10:38:00.000-07:00

Last week we went to see a puppet show in the Ballybane library. We really enjoyed the show and met some wonderful puppets. We even got to hold the puppets afterwards and we also played some games with the puppeteer. We met one of the librarians and had a brief look around the library.We walked to the library so we got plenty of exercise walking there and back. It was a lovely sunny day and we saw some interesting things along the way. We saw two men on a special lift painting the GMIT and a lady mowing the lawn of the GMIT also. We sang the song about the men mowing a meadow on the way home and looked at all the signs of autumn around us. A big thank you to Mrs Phelan for coming with us also. We had a wonderful time.

September Scarecrows

2011-09-22T09:58:00.000-07:00

We made these cool scarecrows in art last week. We had great fun moving their legs and hands about!!! The scarecrows are all great friends - just like us!!!

School Tour to Loughwell Farm Park on Monday, 20th June

2011-06-21T13:28:00.000-07:00

We had an AMAZING time on our school tour yesterday. We went to Loughwell Farm Park in Moycullen. We went with all our friends in Miss Tierney's class and Mrs Flannery's class. We travelled to the farm in a double decker bus. Some of us had never been on a double decker bus before so there was great excitement from the very beginning!! When we arrived on the farm we had a tour around and we got to see all the animals. We saw Patsy and Petsy - the adorable pot bellied pigs. We met Piny Stripe (the tiniest pony we have ever seen!!!). We just adored the alpacas called Albert, Alfred and Alex. We also met Snowy the rabbit and got to pet her. We went to the duck pond and got to feed the ducks. We had lunch inside and had lots of treats with us.
Next it was time to play!!! We all got a chance to go on the Zip wire. Even teacher and Mrs Minahan had a turn!!! We had an obstacle race outside which was fantastic fun and we played in the timber play villages. We also played in the sand dunes with play diggers. We also had great fun on the pedal go karts. In the playbarn we went on the bouncy castle and the huge bouncy slide (again the teachers were also eager to have a turn or two!!!). The highlight for many of us was when the farmer gave us all a spin on little carts that were attached on to his tractor and gave us a spin around the farm. He could take 8 people at a time. When we got in our cart we had to put our seat belt on to be safe and off we went!!! We really had a wonderful day. Some people even fell asleep on the bus on the way home!!

Releasing our butterflies

2011-06-20T14:14:00.000-07:00

We released three of our butterflies (Bingo, Buttercups and Jumping Bean) from our butterfly garden last week as they had hatched successfully out of the original five.

See how our peas have grown!!!

2011-06-20T14:07:00.000-07:00

We planted our peas on the 27th May. See how they have grown in less than a month. We also noticed that they grow towards the light. We know that this is called phototropism.

Planting peas - Friday, 27th May

2011-05-30T10:46:00.000-07:00

On Friday we planted some garden peas. Teacher gave each of us a pot and we placed some soil in it. Then we made a few holes in the soil with our fingers and dropped the peas into them. Next, we covered the peas with more soil. We watered them well and we will take good care of them until it is time to bring them home and then we can plant them in our gardens at home - we will never be short of peas again!!!

See how our caterpillars have grown!!

2011-05-30T10:33:00.000-07:00

Have a look at how our caterpillars have grown. This video of our caterpillars was taken last week and since then all our caterpillars have made their cocoons and we put them into our butterfly garden today. We also gave each caterpillar a name.

Gaeilge

2011-05-30T10:13:00.000-07:00

We love working in pairs and often for Irish each day we work together in pairs and perform little role plays based on whtever topic we are covering in Irish that particular week. Here the topic is wishing someone a happy birthday and giving them a present.

May is Mary's Month

2011-05-30T10:06:00.000-07:00

As the month of May is a special month we coloured these beautiful pictures of Our Lady. We are also taking great care of our altar in class and we say some special prayers to our Lady for the month of May.

More Hip-hop dancing

2011-05-30T09:15:00.000-07:00

We had another hip-hop dancing lesson with Fabianne and had a wonderful time dancing our hearts out!!

Hip Hop Dancing

2011-05-18T09:55:00.000-07:00

We were so excited today when our class had a hip-hop dancing class with Fabiane. It was super fun and we really enjoyed every minute of it!!! Have a look at us in action!! We can't wait for our next lesson next week. Many thanks to Fabiane!

Summer suns

2011-05-18T09:27:00.000-07:00

We made these bright summer suns in art recently. They took a lot of work but the end result was superb!! First we sponge painted a large paper plate and the sun's rays using orange and yellow paint. We cut out the rays when dry and stuck them on to the sun. Next, we made some eyes and a mouth for our sun and stuck them on. We used foam pieces for the nose. We also decorated the rays of the sun with glitter.

Literacy activities

2011-05-18T09:17:00.000-07:00

Here we are during some of our Literacy activities. We are playing word bingo, word and picture lotto and alphabet bingo. Some of us are also working on the computer.

Heavy and Light

2011-05-18T08:42:00.000-07:00

In Maths we have been learning about heavy and light. Before we used the balancing scales teacher asked us to lift certain items in each of our hands and we had to compare the weights of the two and say which felt the heaviest and which felt the lightest. Have a look at us. Then we used the balancing scales and we had to compare the weight of two items also. We had to guess first which item we thought would be the heaviest. The heavier item went down on the scales and the lighter item went up.We loved using the balancing scales!!

Ancient Egypt

2011-05-10T10:11:00.000-07:00

We are learning all about ancient Egypt at present and we had a great discussion today about Tutankhamun. It was hard to believe that he became king (or pharoh) of all of Egypt at only 8 years of age, especially considering that most of us are 6 now!!! Teacher showed us a slideshow of some pictures she had of all the real artifacts that were found in his pyramid a long time ago. We also had a look inside a tomb and we got to prepare a mummy for burial in one of the activities!! We looked at our alphabet and compared it with Egyptian hieroglyphics. We saw that the ancient Egyptians used pictures of objects, people and animals to write down their language. We also got a chance to crack an ancient Egyptian code (which we managed to do successfully!!). Please check out the top link called Egypt on Miss Flaherty's class page for some more wonderful activities about ancient Egypt.

Five very hungry caterpillars!!

2011-05-10T09:36:00.000-07:00

Five very hungry caterpillars arrived in our room today (Tuesday, 10th May). They came all the way from the UK. We were SO excited to see them. They came in a special container with lots of airholes so that they can breathe. They are really tiny now (about the length of a finger nail!!) but we expect that they will get much bigger over the coming weeks. We don't have to feed them as they have special food in the container to eat. We learned all about the lifecycle of the butterfly today and teacher told us the story of 'The Very Hungry Caterpillar'. We also saw the video of it which was terrific and we learned a song about a butterfly. Please check out our Butterfly page (on the front page of our school website) for some wonderful related activities. You will also be able to find the video of 'The Very Hungry Caterpillar' there.

Some photos and video footage of our Easter Egg Hunt

2011-05-10T09:13:00.000-07:00

Teacher had a great surprise for us on the day of the Easter Holidays. She told us that the Easter Bunny had helped her to hide lots of little Easter eggs all around our Junior yard. We had to go hunting for them. Our friends in Mrs Newell's class joined us as well as some of our friends in Mrs Geraghty's class. Teacher and Margaret had a basket and when we found an egg we placed it in the basket. When all the eggs were found we shared them out evenly amongst all of us. We also had a disco in the halla that day and a super Easter Party!!

Billy Goats Gruff

2011-05-10T09:02:00.000-07:00

Have a look at us taking on the role of the troll in Billy Goats Gruff (Broadway here we come!!!).

Floating and Sinking

2011-04-12T09:59:00.000-07:00

This week we have been busy investigating things that float and things that sink. We are becoming good at predicting accurately what will happen (will it be a floater or a sinker?) before we try it out. When we tried to push an inflated balloon under the water it wouldn't stay under the water when we let it go again. This push force is called upthrust and this is what helps to make objects float. The inflated ballooon floated because the upthrust from the water was stronger than the weight of the balloon. Some of the objects we tested (like the stone and the metal spoon) sank straight away as the weight of them was stronger than the upthrust of the water. It's fun investigating and we could do it outside as the weather was lovely.

Billy Goats Gruff

2011-04-11T16:01:00.000-07:00

We have been working on the story 'Billy Goats Gruff' in Drama. After discussing the story teacher 'became' the troll and we got to ask the 'troll' any questions we liked about the troll's life. At first we all felt that the troll had bean very mean to the three Billy goats but then as we learned more about the troll's life we began to understand him more and discovered that perhaps he was being mean to the three Billy Goats in the first place because he was lonely and sad that no one would play with him and he decided to be mean first in case anyone was going to be mean to him!! There were many other interesting suggestions! We finished the lesson by drawing a picture of what we thought a troll might look like. We came up with some fantastic results. Teacher loved our trolls but said that she would not like to meet them all at once!!!

Our cress seeds have come along nicely!!

2011-04-11T15:23:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago we planted some cress seeds in class. Have a look at how they've grown!! We will be bringing them home tomorrow and we can use them in salads.

Easter Art

2011-04-07T11:51:00.000-07:00

We made some lovely Easter chicks today. Firstly we stuck some pieces of yellow crepe paper to both a large and small paper plate (this took some time!!). Then we cut out the chicks feet, wings and beak and stuck them on our chick. Lastly we stuck some googly eyes on our chick.

Marching Band

2011-04-07T11:29:00.000-07:00

We learned a simple two-note (soh mi) song called See Saw recently and then we tapped the regular beat throughout. Then teacher divided us into two groups and one group sang the song while the other group tapped the beat. Then we swapped groups.Next we helped teacher to take out the instruments and we each picked an instrument. We had drums, triangles, xylophones, maracas, a guiro, tambourines, tambours, woodblocks and sleigh bells. We sang the song while at the same time tapping out the pulse of the song. Teacher was so impressed with us and said that we were the best band in all of Ireland!! As it was a lovely day we went outside and what an amazing marching band we made!!

Mother's Day Art

2011-04-07T11:05:00.000-07:00

Have a look at some of the lovely things we made for our mums last week for Mother's Day.

Beautiful vases of flowers.

A gift to make the perfect cup of tea!!!

A bookmark our mums can treasure forever!!

A visit from the Fire Brigade - Wednesday, 23rd March

2011-03-23T11:38:00.000-07:00

Today we all got a great surprise when some members of the Galway Fire Brigade visited our school. We went out to the yard to see them. We all got a chance to hold the hose and 'fire' some water out. The force of the water coming out was a lot stronger than our garden hose at home!! It would need to be to put out all those fires!! We also got a chance to go inside the fire engine and have a quick look around. Afterwards, when we returned to class we learned a cool song about a fire engine. You can check it out on utube:Fire Truck by Ivan Ulz.

Cosa Beoga performance

2011-03-17T08:56:00.000-07:00

We got a really great surprise yesterday when the Irish set dancing group Cosa Beoga performed for us in our school halla. They were really terrific and we enjoyed their performance so much. Cosa Beoga will be one of the groups representing the West of Ireland in the All Ireland Talent Show on Sunday and they would really appreciate a vote from you!!! We wish them the best of luck in the final.

Measuring in Maths

2011-03-16T11:59:00.000-07:00

We have been busy measuring in Maths over the past few days with informal units of measurement (such as measuring with cubes, lollipop sticks and handspans). An important part of this activity is estimating first what we think the answer is going to be. It was great fun guessing beforehand and it didn't matter if our guess was right or wrong. We did our best to make a sensible guess. Once we made our guess and recorded it we then measured the object to see if our answer was correct. We worked individually at times and we also worked with a partner. Have a look at us at busy at work!!!

Growing Seeds

2011-03-16T11:42:00.000-07:00

Yesterday we planted some cress seeds in class as we have been learning about plants and the conditions necessary for growth. We know that plants need water, light and soil to grow. However, we didn't need soil to grow our cress seeds as they will grow perfectly fine on damp cotton wool. Teacher gave each of us a plastic cup with our name on it. Then we put some paper in it purely to add height. Next we wet some cotton wool and placed it on top of the paper in the cup. We then spread our seeds on top of the cotton wool. Cress seeds usually don't take very long to grow so we expect to have some lovely cress to bring home very soon!!!

St. Patrick's Day Art

2011-03-16T11:29:00.000-07:00

Have a look at some of the lovely things we made in Art for St. Patrick's Day.

Here is Jumping O' Jiminy Leprechaun!!!!

We all made an Irish flag to bring to the parade with us tomorrow!!

We made a St. Patrick's Day card to wish all our families a Happy St. Patrick's Day

We also made lovely badges

Senior School Parade

2011-03-08T09:40:00.000-08:00

Today we went out to see the Senior School march around Renmore. They were simply wonderful and their costumes were lovely. They also played a variety of instruments such as the drums, accordian and tin whistle. We looked out for our brothers and sisters in the Senior School also and gave them a huge cheer as they passed. Well done to all the boys and girls and teachers in the Senior School. We really enjoyed the parade.

An author comes to visit

2011-03-08T09:28:00.000-08:00

Today we got a lovely surprise when the author Mary Arrigan came to visit our school. We went down to the halla and she told us a story from her book 'An Bhó Fhionn'. She translated the story into English for us. We really enjoyed the story and afterwards we got to talk to her and ask her some questions. She also explained a little bit about the process of writing a book and she showed us some of her drawings and sketches which she did for her book 'An Bhó Fhionn'. We really enjoyed meeting Mary today.

Making Pancakes - Tuesday, 8th March

2011-03-08T09:13:00.000-08:00

We made delicious pancakes in class today for Pancake Tuesday. Teacher had a handy pancake mixture which we just had to add milk to and shake. Next teacher poured a little of the mixture on the pan.We had to be really careful when we were near the hot pan. When one side of the pancake was cooked we turned it over to cook the other side. Then we put some fresh lemon juice and Nutella on them and ate them while they were still hot. They were very tasty indeed!!

We also learned a little rhyme about making pancakes:

Mix a pancake,
Stir a pancake,

Pop it in the pan.

Fry a pancake,

Flip a pancake,
Catch it if you can!!

Spring Nature Walk - Friday, 4th April, 2011

2011-03-07T11:04:00.000-08:00

We went for a nature walk on Friday to observe all the signs of Spring. We saw two birds' nests just beside our school and the birds were busy flying back and forth to their nests. We spotted one bird with a twig in its beak flying back to its nest. We noticed how birds like to build their nests up high for better protection from both humans and animals. We also saw that most of the trees had buds on them by now whereas a few weeks ago there were no buds to be seen around our school!! We saw some lovely daffodils and some snowdrops also. Then we all closed our eyes for a minute and just listened to all the sounds we could hear. It was lovely to hear the birds singing.

Our computer pictures

2011-02-15T10:44:00.000-08:00

We created these pictures on the computer using 'Splosh'. We simply love using Splosh and we are all really good at using the programme now. Have a look at our beautiful pictures.

A visit from Judy the dog

2011-02-15T10:32:00.000-08:00

We got a lovely surprise today when Judy the dog came to spend some time in our class. She's a pomerian. We all got a chance to hold her and we took good care of her. We hope that she will come back to visit us again.