November News – Third and Fourth class

Time has gone so quickly since our mid-term break! We have been so busy and are definitely on the countdown to Christmas. Great excitement has been building!

We have been reading about various journeys, fictional and non-fictional stories, in English. It’s really developed discussions on where we’ve been and where we’d like to go.

In Irish as part of our theme ‘Bia’ we have been writing plays based on going to a restaurant ‘An Bialann’. It’s been great fun, we’ve written our own Irish menus ‘biacláir’ and we’re looking forward to performing them.

We’re still really enjoying our gymnastics lessons and have been enjoying playing basketball, with some students lending their own expertise.

We have been learning about Ancient Rome and the Romans, completing projects in partners based on what we’ve learned. It’s been really fun exploring and learning and so interesting too. Linking in with the Romans, in Geography, we have been learning about Italy.

In STEM we have worked in groups to make a model of a volcano, we’ve watched volcanic eruptions to see how different the eruptions can be and we’re looking forward to making our own eruption, when the volcano is finished. We have also made a model of an aqueduct and we’re looking forward to seeing if water will flow along it.

We painted wax-resist winter fox pictures, designed snow globes, created mosaic pictures and drew our own Mona Lisa pictures in Art.

We also took part in Science week activities and enjoyed a Crazy Hair Day fundraiser for Green schools. It’s been great fun along the way and we’re really looking forward to the build up to Christmas.

Well! We have had a whirlwind October. We packed a lot into the month. We are continuing to enjoy working with our reading buddies – including doing a Maths trail outside for Maths week, which was great fun. 

In RE we visited our church St Philip and St James, looking inside and out at the

features of the church and elements in it like the font, the lecturn and the pulpit. It was really

interesting and nice to take our time to look around and appreciate its beauty.

In English we learned all about tigers, the breeds and how close they have come to extinction. We

really enjoyed celebrating tigers and debating how we could save the remaining species of tiger inthe world. We also read an excerpt of Charlotte’s Web and Mrs Prenter has started to read it to theclass which we’re enjoying.

We took part in a pollinator workshop – where we learned about the different types of bees in Ireland and we explored our school grounds and couldn’t believe the amount of types of trees we have! We completed a small woodland project based on what we learned.

In History we completed projects on The Bronze Age, which are on display in the GP room. We enjoyed researching and learning about developments from the Stone Age to Bronze Age living.

In Geography we made our own leaflets advertising tourist spots in Ireland. In Science and STEM we completed bridges which we’re going to test out after mid-term.

We completed a Green School’s online workshop in Climate change with 5 th and 6 th class.

In Art we made Kandinsky collage trees, Bleeding tissue paper print pictures an Art competition and 2 tone pumpkin collages.

Right in the middle of the month we celebrated Harry Potter Book Day – some people dressed up, music was playing throughout the day to set the mood, Mrs Prenter dressed as Professor McGonagle and decorated the room. We planned our own stories, learned how to draw Hogwarts and used homemade wands to practise delivering spells. It was great fun and everyone really enjoyed the day.

A very big welcome back everyone to a new school year. We have had the pleasure of welcoming 3rd class into our classroom and a new pupil - Jacob to our class. Everyone has settled really nicely to new routines, new dynamics and we're enjoying getting to know one another very much. Honestly, at this stage, it feels like we've been together far longer than just a month!

We have been so busy! Here are a few of the things we have been doing/ learning about:

History:

In History we’ve been learning about schools in the past and school founders in Ireland who were really significant in setting up schools and influenced the education system; Nano Nagle and Edmund Rice. Mrs McNicholas and Mrs Prenter both told us about their experiences in primary school growing up. We were particularly fascinated by the outside toilets in Mrs McNicholas’ school!

Geography:

In Geography, we learned about all the various elements of running a school, the people and resources involved. We looked at the services – water, electricity and heating that are needed to run a school. We decided that our school really needs solar panels!!

We also learned about different areas people can live in – cities, towns, villages and we focused on various elements of Blackrock village, focusing on services, amenities, especially Blackrock Park and some restaurants and shops.

Science:

In Science we learned about Matter – everything is made up of matter. We looked at various objects in the classroom and decided what they were made of. We worked in pairs to complete a sorting activity of various items, it was quite interesting!

English:

We read letters to David Walliams and learned about him, which was interesting. We focused on mindfulness and looking after ourselves mentally, taking it easy on ourselves and being kind to ourselves as well as others.

We’ve been using vocabulary in our reader to build on our word wall also.

Irish:

We’re enjoying our Bua na Cainte programme this year. It’s fun, funny and interactive. We’ve learned to introduce ourselves and speak about our family.

STEM:

We have started STEM – Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths every fortnight. We are really enjoying it – so far we have worked in groups to build a tower out of paper and Sellotape. They were strong enough to hold up to 36 novels!

We are currently working on building a bridge out of cardboard, boxes and tape. It’s really fun, great to work in groups and learn at the same time.

PE:

This month we’ve been focused on games – we worked in groups to create games using PE equipment – we had great fun with our new games and relay races.

We’ve been playing some new and well-known games also, it’s been really fun

Reading Buddies:

We’re enjoying reading every Thursday afternoon with our Reading Buddies. Third class in particular are enjoying being the older buddies!

A/B partners:

We have established A/B partners within the class – a third class pupil is paired with a fourth class pupil and they work on mini projects, activities and poetry together. There’s always a lovely buzz about the room when they’re working together.