Michel Ocelot's KIRIKOU AND THE SORCERESS

As part of our celebrations for African week we watched Michel Ocelot's totally enthralling fable 'Kirikou and the Sorceress'. The story is based on a traditional West African folk tale and in it we meet the tiny Kirikou (he is only 10cm tall!!) and join him on the dangerous journey he undertakes to search for the truth and to discover the secret of the evil sorceress. Kirikou is a bit like the mouse in the fable 'The Lion and the Mouse' we have been reading about this week in that despite his size he could do many things which bigger people couldn't do. The animation in Kirikou is splendid as is the soundtrack. Our class gave it a whopping ten out of ten. It would be well worth renting it out again at home as it is a huge treat both for children and adults alike!!

Maths For Fun

Today some parents of the children in our class joined us to play some Maths games. We were divided into four groups and each group got a chance to play four new Maths games in turn. The supertimer on our school wedsite 'exploded ' when our time was up and reminded us to move on to the next group. It was terrific fun and we can't wait to do it again soon. The four games we played today were;

• Hot Dog
• Colour by numbers
• Number Bingo
• Snakes and Ladders (1-20)

A big THANK YOU to the Home School Liason Teacher, Caitríona Coughlan, and to all the parents who helped out today (Ava's mum Nicola, Precious' mum, Aaliyah's mum and Aisling's dad. You all did great today and we will be booking you all again soon along with any other of the parents who would like to become involved!

Celebrating Africa Week

This week is Africa week and we are learning all about Africa and African culture. Today we concentrated on African animals. We learned some interesting animal facts such as the giraffe is the tallest land mammel (it can reach almost 6 meters tall) and did you know that its tongue is blueish in colour to stop it from getting sunburnt?!! The giraffe was originally thought to be a cross between the horse and tiger. We learned that the Rhino is the second largest land animal. Can you guess which is the first? Here is a little quiz about African animals to test your knowledge (the answers are at the end but no peaking until you get to the end!!!).

AFRICAN ANIMALS QUIZ
1. Which animal's name means 'earth pig' in the Afrikaans language?
A. Hippopotamus
B. Aardvark
C. Tapir

2. Africa is home to the world's smallest type of squirrel, called the......?
A. Pygmy squirrel
B. Shrew squirrel
C. Bird squirrel

3. What is the world's fastest animal?
A. The Puma
B. The Leopard
C. The Cheetah

4. A Giraffe was originally thought to be a cross between which two animals?
A. Horse and Tiger
B. Leopard and Camel
C. Zebra and Antelope

5. A Rhino's horn is made from........?
A. Bone
B. Matted hair
C. Wood

6. In a pride of lions, who does the most hunting?
A. The males
B. The females

7. The pangolin is a type of........?
A. Anteater
B. Fish
C. Snake

8. How many species of bat does Africa have?
A. 111
B. 211
C. 311

9. A dikdik is a type of.....?
A. Antelope
B. Horse
C. Monkey

10. Baby elephants are called....?
A. Pups
B. Calves
C. Cubs

11. What is the largest living land mammel?
A. Hippopotamus
B. Rhino
C. Elephant

Answers
1=B, 2=A, 3=C, 4=A, 5=A, 6=B, 7=C, 8=C, 9=A, 10=B, 11=C

Also this week we will be listening to some African stories. You can check out our History and Geography Site and click on African stories for some great African stories (How Monkey Looked for Trouble and Tiger and The Big Wind are great!!). We will also be making some traditional African masks and learning how to play some African games.

Making boats

Have a look at some of the boats we made on Friday. We had great fun counting how many soldiers would fit into each boat before it sank!! We ran out of soldiers for Patrick's boat so teacher will have to get some more at the weekend! We also made boats using plasticine but they wouldn't float at all when they were in the shape of a ball but when we moulded the plasticine into the shape of a boat we had much more success!!

Volvo Ocean Race

The world's biggest sailing event will arrive in Galway (for the very first time!!) on Sunday, 24th May. We are SO excited and are keeping track of the race on the net each day. There are 8 boats in the race and they can travel very fast. The race began in Spain last October. At the moment they are travelling across the Atlantic ocean from Boston. They will stay in Galway for TWO WHOLE WEEKS!!!. We will get a chance to see these boats up close - what an opportunity!! After that the boats will race to Sweden and finally the race will end in Russia. The Volvo Ocean Race is only run every four years. We are all rooting for Ireland's Green Dragon, which was built in China.

Floating and sinking

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. We are busy collecting empty butter tubs etc as tomorrow we will be making our own boats (with Green Dragon sails of course!!!). A big thank you to Max's grandfather who showed us all how to make a lovely paper boat this morning (and it floated too for a while!!). We will each have a go at making our own one tomorrow.

Painted butterflies

Take a look at these beautiful butterflies we painted. We used lots of different colours. When dry we attached a stick so that we could easily move them backwards and forwards. We took them outside and had great fun as they glided through the air.

Caterpillar update (Monday 18th May)

All our caterpillars have made their cocoons now and are safely tucked inside. We gave them each a name and we put them carefully into our butterfly garden. We can't wait to see them emerge from their cocoons in about two weeks time!

Paired reading with Second class

We were all very excited today as the children from Miss Costello's Second class came to our class to begin paired reading with us. Each child in our class was paired with a child in 2nd class and they read a lovely story to us. We asked them lots of questions about each story and learned some new words. We made new friends in Second class and we really can't wait for them to come back to us next week. We really want to say a huge THANK YOU to all our new friends in Second class and to wish them well as they will be making their First Holy Communion on Saturday.

Caterpillar update - Wednesday, 13th May 2009

Have a look at how our caterpillars have grown. We can see how the amount of food in the container is going down each day as the caterpillars are busy eating it up and are getting bigger and fatter. Soon they will be making their cocoons. We are keeping a close eye on them every day.

For our Literacy activity today we had to think about all the things the caterpillar ate each day in the book 'The Very Hungry Caterpillar'. We had to sequence them correctly and then we used our charts to re-tell the story. Have a look!!

Five very hungry caterpillars in room 3!!

Five very hungry caterpillars arrived in our room last week (28th April). We were delighted to see them. They came in a special container with lots of airholes so that they can breathe. We don't have to feed them as they have special food in the container to eat. They were quite small when they arrived but in just over a week we have noticed that they have grown a lot. We are taking good care of them and are recording their growth. At present they are busy just eating and eating and they are getting fatter and fatter. We joined Mrs Mc Loughlin's class today in room 5 to see an interactive presentation of The Very Hungry Caterpillar. It was super and just like the book which teacher read to us afterwards.

My how our plants have grown!!!!!

Have a look at how well our plants have grown over the past few weeks. Teacher says that they look so well because we have taken extra special care of them. We will be bringing them home over the next few days and will transplant some of them in our own gardens.

1. Our broadbeans have grown so much (Jack would be proud!!).
2. Our sunflowers are coming along nicely
3. See how the plants bend towards the light.