February in the Middle Room
We learned about three saints this month…St. Bridget and St. Valentine of course! However, on the 3rd, Fr. Roche came to our school to celebrate the feast of St. Blaise. We lined up in rows and Fr. Roche asked us to hold two candles on our throat. Now our throats should be safe from diseases all through the year.
Secondly, this month we learned about the Planets in science. We watched a PowerPoint on the Earth, Moon and Sun. We really enjoyed learning about Planets and the Sun and how our day and night happens at different times around the world.
Also this month, from the 8th to the 14th, we celebrated Engineering Week. On Thursday, Gerry Fahy visited our classroom. He showed us a PowerPoint. He is a software engineer. He solves problems with other software engineers all over the world! He works for Hewlett Packard. We saw photographs of his desk space…which was very tidy Ms. Fenlon! Also, Toby also showed us a PowerPoint about his wonderful aunt Ailie MacAdam. She works for a Civil Engineering Company called Bechtel. She is now working on a project called Cross Rail. Her role in the project is Chief Engineer. On Friday Pat Fahey visited us and showed us drawings and equipment he uses in his work as a Civil Engineer…Thanks everyone!
February also holds the deadline for the Write-A-Book project. We have lots of lovely books some of them include ‘Pets on my Lane’, ‘Tara’s Book of Poetry’, ‘The Story of Criminal City and More’, ‘Ireland’s Road to Freedom’, ‘Timmy’s Trip to the Dentist’, ‘The Terrific Three’ and ‘The Dunmore Festival’. Our books are called ‘The Magic Moonstone’ and ‘Switzerland’. With such very high standards it will be hard to choose a winner!! Our parents are invited in to view our books on Wednesday 18th before we send them off for the Write-A-Book competition organised by Galway Education Centre.
by Stephen Mannion and Emma Bruen
Play Leaders
Play Leaders
Three weeks ago we started a Play Leaders’ Programme. Our teacher’s noticed some of our Junior Infants didn’t always play together for the whole break so she thought they could do with a little help from older pupils. Each week two people from Third Class plan some games for Infants to First Class.
Every break the play leaders wear a high visibility vest. They wear the coloured bib so they are recognised by the Teacher on Duty and the children. If the children want or need help the Play Leaders are there to help! Each Friday the next partners accompany the leaders who are finishing their week to observe and help the new leaders prepare for their week.
So far the Play Leaders who have been on duty are Adam Carr, Seán Cunningham, Toby MacAdam, Luke Hughes, Adam Cahill and Stephen Mannion but everyone in the Middle Room will get a go. A play leader is a leader who shows the Juniors and Seniors to play properly and safely. Also the little ones get to know the older children.
We are glad that Ms. Fenlon came up with this lovely idea. At the end of the week, the Play Leaders who have been on duty get a certificate to show that they have been a great play leader!
by Adam Carr and Adam Cahill 3rd Class
Autumn in the Middle Room
Autumn in the Middle Room
- We had a very busy first term and enjoyed lots of opportunities to work outdoors…looking at the trees in our lovely playground as part of our work in Science on Living Things. We learned how to identify five of the deciduous trees growing in the school grounds; the oak, the ash, the sycamore, the horse chestnut and the beech tree. We looked at the tree shape, the shape of its branches, its bark texture and colour, the leaves and the fruit. We can all identify these trees now and we will add more to our list in the spring. We even dropped everything to read (DEAR) outside in the warm September sunshine and had lots of fun on the pitch!
- We went on a field trip to Seed Savers in Feakle in Co. Clare. We had a talk about what biodiversity means and how it is so important to have a wide variety of species of every living thing on our planet as each species plays an important role in having a healthy environment. We learned about how the people who work there want to ensure that Biodiversity is protected in Ireland. They do this by storing and preserving the seeds of all kinds of plants, vegetables, fruits and flowers. We explored the Seed Savers’ site and then spent time looking for minibeasts and looking at them up close and personal under magnifying glasses! It was both a fun and educational day…more please!
- Drama in the Middle Room! Our school applied for the Artist in School Scheme from Galway County Council. We were successful and we asked Tommy Baker, puppeteer to work with us for ten weeks to produce a performance for our school community using puppets and ideas from the children. In our room we chose Irish Legends, especially the stories of Fionn Mac Cumhaill and Setanta. We are working on a script in collaboration with Tommy, our class teacher Ms. Fenlon and all our pupils. It is great fun…things change every day…we love the large scale, brown paper puppets of the Irish wolf hound and the dragon. We are improvising a script with Drama tips and devices from Tommy…but December 10th is our deadline for completion of our project! We will then perform it on stage in Labane Hall on the 16th of December. It’s almost too exciting!
- We had a visit from Dawn who works for the Dogs’ Trust. She brought a soft toy called Bobby, as her doggy companion. She was really interesting and told us how to take care of our dogs and all about the work of the Dogs’ Trust. She told us a sad story about a stray dog called Patch but his story had a happy ending because of the work of the people in Dogs’ Trust. We loved her car. Call again please!
- In History, we learned all about El Dia de los Muertos, The Days of the Dead, the Mexican celebration of Halloween and about the Celtic celebration called ‘Samhain’.
- Every year a procession of innovative and imaginative costumes, many home-made make their way through (and even over!) our school gates for our Annual Halloween Parade in our school hall. It takes place on the afternoon of our holidays and parents come in to “Ooh! and Ahh!” We were amazed and scared by a lamp shade wearing Chinese woman, a living Monster High doll, a water meter man and Cruella DeVille. We had a human i-phone, a bin and even Kim Kardashian made an appearance! The decisions about winners were really difficult but in our class they were:
- Erin O’ Sullivan: A Cheerleading Cheerleader
- Liam Conneely: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle
- Timmy Cunningham: A Ghost
- Emma Bruen: Genie of the Lamp
Other highlights this term included our Halloween stories in English writing, read to scare each other, our experiments with Light in Science; Timmy’s drawing to explain how to make a shadow in science and our playing of Galway Bay in Tin Whistle! Well done everyone in the Middle Room!
Happy Halloween everyone!
Video from Ms. Fenlon’s Class June 2014
This week Oisin Keane, under the directorial eye of Ms. Fenlon, shot this brilliant video. It was edited by 2nd and 3rd class and the soundtrack added. We think you’ll enjoy it!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hQHen8E3_B0&feature=youtu.be
May in the Middle Room
May in the Middle Room
Swimming: We have been making wonderful progress in our swimming each Friday. We are perfecting our swimming strokes and becoming more efficient at changing in and out of swimsuits and showering. Our instructors are kind and pleased with our improvement. We love the bus trip with Joe, up Kilcornan Avenue, under the tree branches. We are ravenous when we get back!
Holy Communion: Our main event this month, among many important events, was our Holy Communion. Fourteen children, twelve boys and two girls came to receive their first Communion in all their finery on the 10th of May. Everyone had a special role in the ceremony and performed their task impressively. We had lovely comments from visitors about how well it went and how kind and warm our class were with each other. It was a very special day and we are so thankful to our parents, to Martina Glynn and Martina Carr on the Parents’ Parish Team and of course Fr. Roche for helping us prepare for our big day.
Well-earned Breaks We have had two lovely breaks, one Bank Holiday and one day when our school closed for the Local and European Elections. Our school is a polling station. We talked about the candidates in the election and the work our councillors do on the County Council. Ben and Alannah from 6th Class showed us a PowerPoint about the candidates and the electoral regions. We were very impressed!
Testing Time! We have begun our Drumcondra Tests, starting with English. It was a big step for First Class as it was their first experience of the challenge of this type of standardised test. So we recommended an early night, a sharp pencil and an eraser and a cool head! Every year we hope children will achieve their own personal best in each test and we are delighted to say this has happened so far.
College Links: Anne Dolan, lecturer from Mary Immaculate Teacher Training College visited us to view our PowerPoints on the trips we took over Easter. We used Google Earth and AA mapping tools to illustrate our journeys from home to the various destinations from Galway to Cavan to Dublin to Clare to London! She told us she was really impressed with our IT skills and a bit jealous of our Easter holidays! She will be publishing a book in 2015 to assist primary teachers to teach the primary geography curriculum. Below is Ava’s PowerPoint Presentation about her visit to Connemara!
April in the Middle Room
April News from the Middle Room
We have been enjoying the fruits of our labours! We got our Write-A-Book Project entries back from Galway Education Centre…Thank you Ms. O’Doherty! We have been re-reading them with pride and great satisfaction.
For example … Adam said “This is exactly the kind of book I would I would like to read if I hadn’t written this myself!” when he got his book back!
We are learning about the Normans and it is very interesting to watch the news of President Higgins’ visit to Windsor Castle and all the talk about how Ireland’s relationship with England has changed over the last 8oo years. Reporters keep mentioning how Diarmuid MacMurrough invited Strongbow to Ireland to help him fight his enemies…beginning a relationship that wasn’t always as friendly and happy as it is now. We are making power points about different parts of the Norman story in Ireland. We will become experts after our research and teach each other!
We had a No Uniform Day to raise funds on behalf of two of our past pupils David and Siobhán who will hopefully participate in the Special Olympics…Siobhán’s nephew is in our room and he is her biggest fan…Good luck David & Siobhán!
We are really looking forward to Easter and there is a rumour about an Easter Egg Hunt before we go on holiday…Happy Days!
March in the Middle Room
March in the Middle Room
Write A Book: We worked on finishing our Write-A-Book projects right up to the last day, when our last three authors published and bound their books. Then we sent away our books to the Galway Education Centre to be read in another school. Every time a book ‘crossed the line’ we sang ‘Hallelujah!’…so in all, over 3 weeks that was 29 renditions of the song… Apologies to the other classrooms! We look forward to seeing the books from the other school…Special thanks to Bridget our SNA who is a star!
Book Week: During Book Week, 4th-7th of March, we indulge ourselves in everything to do with the pleasure of reading and books. On Monday we began our reading buddy programme by introducing our senior buddies to their junior buddy. Everyone enjoyed the experience and looked forward to their daily reading session. First Class really enjoyed ‘The Man’ by Raymond Briggs, author of ‘The Snowman’. A broad selection of picture books, fact books and novels were read in all classes. On Tuesday, Jonathon Gunning, a storyteller, entertained the children with three great stories, humorously told with great energy. On Wednesday we visited the lovely librarians in Oranmore Library to borrow some books and learn about how a library works. On Thursday, we met Patricia Forde, who is not only a children’s author but has also worked as a primary teacher and a scriptwriter for Ros na Rún and Fair City. Her wise insights included “To become a writer you have to first be a reader” and “Writers simply tell lies in print!” We really enjoyed her visit and seeing the work that went into her Lola series of books and we got a preview of a new picture book she is currently working on. During the week, we listened to some of our parents share their favourite books…books by Enid Blyton, Miriam Moss and Roddy Doyle were recommended by Colette, Michelle and Anne…Thank you so much for your enthusiasm…it was infectious! We also Skyped a published author, Greg Baxter who is Diarmuid’s uncle. He generously shared his experience of being a full time author, the joys and the hard work it involved. Our young authors were very inspired.
Website Launch: The end of Book Week coincided with our website launch. We are very proud of the work that Ava and Mark’s mums did to bring this to fruition, along with Stefano, our staff and of course our pupils. Ciarán Cannon came to help launch it and we were very impressed with his IT knowledge and rapport with the children. He even joined in on the keyboard with our musicians from 4th to 6th when they played his favourite song, Fields of Gold. After a quick cup of tea (thank you Parents’ Council!) he left in his Ministerial car to an event in Kildare…the children in our room were very impressed by his Garda chauffeur!
Seachtain na Gaeilge: Rinneamar ár ndícheall chun Gaeilge a labhairt sa seomra ranga agus nuair a bhíomar ag súgradh sa chlós. Fuaireamar ticéad speisialta nuair a labhraíomar Gaeilge. Bhi tráth na gceist againn agus bhí an spórt againn i rith na seachtaine. Bhuaigh Patrick agus Seán an duais sa tráth na gceist agus bhuaigh Tara agus Hannah duaiseanna freisin.
St. Patrick We learned about how St. Patrick brought Christianity to Ireland and we made lots of lovely cards and did a wordsearch about the great man.
Drama: In Drama we had a mock court room to decide if Alexander T. Wolf was guilty of blowing down the houses of the Three Little Pigs…The verdict was that he was guilty as charged! It was great fun…
Preparations for First Holy Communion We have learned our Confiteor and Act of Sorrow in preparation for our confession in April. Stephen and David read at mass in Labane. We are learning hymns and our current favourite is ‘Connected’…this may change!
Class Novel: We are reading an American novel by Louis Saarch (author of ‘Holes’) called ‘Marvin Redpost: Class President’. It’s very funny as it describes the day the President of America unexpectedly visits a Primary School when it is celebrating ‘Hole Day’…a day when everyone, including the staff, have to wear their raggiest clothes! Thankfully we have lovely uniforms and we had advance notice of Ciarán Cannon’s visit…
First, Second and Third Class, February 2014
February 2014 First Class
Welcome to spring in First Class. We are learning all about seasonal change in Geography even though some of the days this month looked more like winter than spring!
In Maths, we are learning all about the hundred square and place value from 1-99. We can now regroup and rename tens and units, woohoo!
Our Write- a- Books are nearly finished. Thanks so much to all the mums, dads, brothers, sisters, aunties, uncles, grannies, granddads and teachers who have helped in this massive project. We will have pictures here of the published books next month.
We would like to wish the Ardrahan Senior Camogie team all the very best in the All Ireland in Croke Park on Sunday March the 2nd. We drew pictures and decorated slogans to support the team, we’re all behind you!
Ms. O Doherty is on an EPV day on Friday the 28TH of February.
Happy birthday this month to three girls in our room who all, remarkably have the same birthday- they are Ellie, Béibhinn and Tara. The chair got plenty of spins that day! Tara is the granny of the group at seven years old. She got her ears pierced for the occasion, fancy!
We brought teddy in to school for Art this month. We used our teddies as inspiration to draw an oil pastel portrait. Here are our masterpieces!
February was a very busy month for us in the Middle Room. Here were some of the things we did…
Write-A-Book
We are very busy writing our books for the March 1st deadline. We have a serious bunch of authors this year as we are submitting a whopping 26 non-fiction books and only 3 fiction books; ‘Tara’s Time Travel’ -an amazing journey backwards and forwards in time, ‘Out with the Old, In With the New’ and ‘The Adventures of Jack Shaw’ . These two books are both inspired by Jeff Kinney’s Diary of a Wimpy Kid series. Our non-fiction books range from reports about trips to London, Cork, Cyprus, Dún Guaire Castle in Kinvara, books about cousins in Sweden, grandparents in Australia and Ireland, Kilkee, Clare, buildings around Galway and the wildlife and geography of the Galapagos Islands.
We have books about sports and hobbies; the Olympics, Tai Kwon Do, ballet, cooking with Mum, fishing and Minecraft. We have books about living things and extinct creatures; snakes and dinosaurs and two biographies of famous people, the late Nelson Mandela and Pope Francis. Timmy wrote about his favourite toys, the Smurfs and Luke wrote about farming with some gorgeous photos of his own farm included. Every time we have a finished book from an author the whole room sings “Hallelujah!” – a highlight for every young author here!
Drop Everything And Run!
We tried out an initiative being piloted by a school in Dublin to increase fitness levels among pupils. Like Drop Everything and Read (DEAR) it involves a short burst of focused activity but instead of reading we ran laps around our basket ball court…We think it’s a great idea so we will do it more often!
The Vikings
We completed some group project work on Vikings in History this month. We looked at where they came from, their beliefs, how and why they travelled, the Viking long ship, death and burial in Viking Times and Viking legends. We reported back to class in our groups, presenting the work on charts for display and building replica long ships. We had great fun and now realise what it really meant to go beserk!
Viking Ships
Hockey
In PE we echoed the events of the Winter Olympics in Sochi in Russia with a little yard hockey. It was fun and the days we played it were cold enough to see our breath condense…Olympic dreams!
Holy Communion Preparations
First Communion Special Mass involved Seán, Adam, Adam, Toby, Luke and Paul this time. They had readings and gifts to bring to the altar and showed everyone how ready they are to take the next step in their spiritual journey.
Ardrahan Senior Camogie
Ardrahan Girls Senior Camogie Team have been a big preoccupation here for many of our pupils as the excitement of their All Ireland Final Day draws near. We composed a book of poems, inspired by their achievement in reaching the All Ireland aptly called ‘We’re Blue, We’re White, We’re Dynamite!’ Many of the poems were acrostics about camogie, sliotars and the pitch. Their match, which will be played in Croke Park, on Sunday 2nd of March is against Milford, from Cork.
Irish Dancing
We finished our last lesson of the year with Louise Curran and we thank her so much for all we have learned in such a fun way!
Reading Buddies
We are beginning our preparations for Book Week. We are training the Senior Buddies who will pair and share with our Junior Buddies. We look forward to meeting author Patricia Forde, Jonathon Gunning who will entertain us with storytelling in a humorous way, our Book Fair and reading competitions and activities. We really love Book Week in our school!
January Posts
January posts
In the Middle Room, we have been very busy. We had a student teacher called Meave Quinn working with us from January 7th-20th of January. She taught two subjects each day, after observing our teacher for 2 days. We learned all about Time, body percussion, an Aimsir and making weather forecasts in Geography. Her supervisor loved her Geography lesson so much that she came back and filmed us! It was great fun and we wish Ms. Quinn good luck in the rest of her course.
We also had a special visit from Sarah and Nicole, who have moved from our school to Australia two years ago. It was wonderful to hear about their new life, their school and all the fun sports they can do in the sun over there. They enjoyed meeting their friends and spent a day in our classrooms catching up. We will stay in contact with them by e-mail and Skype.
We have started our Write-A-Book project. We have thought of ideas, presented a plan and signed contracts with our editor (Ms. Fenlon). We are working to a deadline…first draft finished by February break! We are writing books about everything from Dinosaurs, to buildings in Galway, to Time travel and our trips to London. We can’t wait to be published authors!
We read a novel called ‘A Calf Called Valentine’ by Berlie Doherty. It was about a little girl called Anna who comes to live on her grandparents’ farm when her Mum is injured in a train crash. She is very lonely until she makes friends with a new-born Charolais calf called Valentine. We had fun with Reader’s Theatre, making pastel pictures, a review, diaries and letters from the characters.
Our Second Class are continuing preparation for their Holy Communion with a special Mass which was celebrated on Sunday 26th January…E mma, Grace, Diarmuid and Patrick played special roles in this Mass. We look forward to our next mass in February…
We are working very hard in First Class this month. We are learning about Money and change in Maths, Clothes from the Olden Times and different countries in History and Geography, and all this while planning, writing and editing our Write-a-Book projects. Sadhbh and Tara are writing about dogs, Eimear about different animals, Katie is writing about cartoon characters, Clodagh is telling a story of her day at the beach and Erin, about her life in America. We will have them ready next month for your entertainment. Thanks for all your help with them, we’re very proud to be published authors.
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