5th & 6th Class

March News

Some of the 5th and 6th class took part in the FAI football tournament this month. This was a brilliant day out and we got the chance to play lots of mini matches against other schools.

In SESE, we learned all about the European Union. We learned about the history of the EU and discussed the benefits of being part of the EU. In geography, we were tasked with creating an interrailling route across 10 European capitals. This was very fun!

In science, we learned about magnets. We did an experiment to find the strongest magnet. We did this by testing how many paperclips each magnet could pick up. Before we did the experiment, we made predictions and then afterwards we recorded our results and discussed our findings.

We enjoyed celebrating Seachtain na Gaeilge this month. We made sure to speak lots of Irish, and when we did, we got a raffle ticket to be entered in to the raffle. We have also been enjoying our Irish language projects with Cathal and Muirann. Each group has been assigned a different county in Ireland that has a Gaeltacht population. We look forward to presenting our projects next month.

In maths we explored the topic of area and money. We learnt how to find the area and perimeter of irregular shapes and then used this knowledge to find the area and perimeter of our own names on graph paper.

In English, we have been writing a step by step guide of how to take care of different animals. We also looked at procedural writing where we learned how to perform magic tricks. This was really fun and Ms Webster even taught us a few card tricks!

In art, we did one point perspective drawings and made clay doughnuts for our mums for Mother's Day.

February News

In history, we learned all about the Inca Empire. We learned about their homes, food, clothing and religion. In art we made Inca Inti masks. These masks were used for festivals and mummification ceremonies.

In Geography and Science, we have been learning about Brazil. In groups we were given a lengthy rubric to follow to complete a project on Brazil. We learned lots of information from one another while presenting our projects.

In English, we have been reading our new class novel 'Restart' by Gordon Korman. The book is about a boy named Chase who loses his memory after falling from his roof. He doesn't remember anything about his life, not even his friends or his family! Soon he finds out that some of his classmates are afraid of him. We are looking forward to reading the book everyday to find out more about who the 'old' Chase was and who the 'new' Chase will be. We love responding to the book through written activities and drama.

Football and tag rugby has come to an end this month. It has been fantastic to have our weeks full of sport. We have now started basketball which has been lots of fun! We look forward to it every Wednesday.

In Gaeilge we have welcomed two UCD students to our classroom, Cathal and Murainn. They are both training to be secondary school Gaeilge teachers. They teach fifth and sixth class Gaeilge every Friday. The lessons are very fun and engaging, we really love it!

In art we celebrated St Valentines Day by doing sponge paintings of the word 'love' in different languages around the world. We also celebrated St Brigids Day by making modern St Brigid crosses out of wool and lollipop sticks.

To finish the month of February, we went to the Interschools Music Festival in Wesley College. We sang the song 'Lovely Day' by Bill Withers. It was a great day out and we really enjoyed listening to the other choirs. A huge thank you to our outstanding music teacher Catherine for preparing us for the competition!

January News

Welcome back everybody and Happy New Year! January has been jam packed, here's a few highlights of our month.

We started football and tag rugby this month which has been fantastic. We love practicing our skills in fun drills and playing mini games against one another.

In art we made firework paintings using q tips which look very cool! We also studied the artist 'Piet Mondrian' and discussed his geometric style of painting using only primary colours. We took inspiration from his painting 'Composition with Red, Blue and Yellow' and created paintings with masking tape to ensure our shapes were perfect!

In maths we have been using hands-on materials to enhance our learning. Multiplying and dividing decimals has been full on but we have played lots of board games to make it fun. We have also been learning about length. We did a length trail around the classroom where we estimated and measured items using metre sticks and we also investigated the area and perimeter of famous football pitches.

In Gaeilge we have been learning about 'An Aimsir Láithreach' (The Present Tense). We have been conjugating lots of verbs and competing against each other in table quizzes to test our knowledge of all the rules.

In SESE we have been exploring the topic of 'Health'. In history we learned about medicine and surgeries during the Middle Ages. A lot of their beliefs were based on superstition like if you had a cold you would put beetroot juice and honey up your nose! Yuck! Safe to say we made some very funny dramas about this. In Geography we explored Sustainable Development Goal 3 'Good Health for All'. We discussed the differences in life expectancy in countries all over the world and what we can do to help achieve SDG 3. We made fantastic posters to educate people about the goal and targets. In science we explored how our body fights infection. We made our own 'Immune System' diagrams in teams using lots of different materials.

In English we have been learning how to write persuasive speeches. We learned all about the techniques that make good persuasive speeches, we did this by reading and watching videos of speeches online. Then we got to write our own, some titles included 'Footballers are paid too much money', 'The voting age should be lowered to sixteen', 'Playstation is better than Xbox' and much more.

December News

We have done a lot of festive art this month. Lily taught an art lesson this month. We all learned how to make Christmas wreaths with paper plates, tissue paper and pom poms.These turned out great! Then we did chalk drawings of snowmen, made mini wooly hats and made stained glass nativity scenes. Every art lesson, we listened to some Christmas tunes which got us in the festive spirit!

We also did a class secret santa. We exchanged gifts in a circle and at the end we all revealed who we had. Everyone was delighted with their presents.

We had a class advent calendar this month where each day we were given a reward. Some rewards included 10 minutes extra yard, extra dojo points, no homework, Christmas musical statues and even getting to spin the wheel. There was great excitement each morning to find out our treat for the day.

We were busy all month practicing for our carol services. In our school carol service, we sang 'Mary did you know' and 'Let it Snow'. We put on an amazing performance and we were very proud of ourselves. We couldn't have done it without our fantastic music teacher Catherine. We also went to the Ecumenical service with some other schools. We all really enjoyed singing Christmas hymns!

Some curriculum highlights:

In science we have been learning about robotics. We watched videos of really cool robots including the Tesla Robot. We also started using Scratch to make stories and games through digital coding.

In English we have been busy writing stories. We wrote a magical doorway story inspired by 'Narnia' and a play inspired by 'A Christmas Carol'. In drama we performed our plays in our groups with scripts. We had a great time.

We finished both yoga and Spanish this month. We have really enjoyed our classes and will miss them next term. To celebrate our last Spanish class we got hot chocolate and churros from Pilar - what a treat!!

To finish off our very busy month, the student council organised a movie day. They made popcorn for us all to eat while watching 'Nativity'. Thank you student council!

Happy Christmas, I hope you all have a lovely break!

November News

This month we started yoga classes. It has been great to relax and unwind every Wednesday afternoon. We are enjoying practicing new yoga poses and stretches.

Science week was also great fun! We spoke about the science of water and investigated the surface tension and adhesion of water. Using a dropper, we took turns to add a drop of water onto a coin. Overtime, the water built up around the coin like a dome and eventually the surface tension broke. We also learned about capillary action and carried out an experiment where water travelled from one container to another. Finally, we did a magic milk experiment where washing up liquid, milk and food colouring mixed to create a rainbow - it was really cool! We also did a STEM lego workshop where we followed detailed instructions to make lego bulldozers.

In maths we have been busy finishing up the topic of long division and learning all about fractions. It has been fun using hands-on materials like fraction tiles to visualise our learning. We have also enjoyed learning through group work and board games. Sixth class used chocolates to explore the topic of ratio which was very fun. We all had a chocolate afterwards as a reward!

In Irish we have begun learning all about An Aimsir Chaite (The Past Tense). We are spending lots of time learning the rules for all the verbs. We played board games to conjugate different verbs in the past tense. We are getting the hang of them by playing lots of group quizzes and games.

In RE we have been discussing words in worship and life's big questions. We've also discussed the concept of need vs want. After reading the story 'A Christmas Carol' by Charles Dickens, we spoke about how God wants us to use our money. We each shared what we would like to do with our money when we are older to help people in need. This included donating to charity and volunteering.

In History, we learned all about the Celts and festivals in the past. We read Halloween accounts online written by school children in the 1930s. This was very interesting, they had pretty weird Halloween traditions back then. We then compared 1930 traditions to Halloween in 2024.

In art we made clay owls which took a lot of time, we used a variety of items to make sure our sculptures had lots of different textures. We also made 3d autumn trees which look really cool.

October News

We have been up to lots of fun this October.

We started our new class novel 'Benny and Omar' by Eoin Colfer. It has a very interesting storyline about a boy from Ireland moving all the way to Tunisia in North Africa! We love the humour in the book and are enjoying comparing characters, acting out predictions and reading aloud as a class.

We finished our Cycle Right course this month and it has been absolutely fantastic. In our last session we got to go out and practice our skills on the roads. Our confidence in cycling has grown so much. A huge achievement for us all!

We started Spanish lessons as part of the 'Say Yes to Languages' programme. We have been so lucky to have Pilar (Tristáns mum) teaching us Spanish on Tuesday mornings. It has been so fun to learn a new language through lots of games.

We have been enjoying getting into the spooky season of Halloween. For art we painted haunted houses and made 3D origami pumpkins and paper lanterns.

In geography and science, we have been learning about Boglands and the country Greece. We learned all about different bogs, bog jumping and even bog bodies! We did a research project about the flora and fauna found in Ireland's bogs and learned about how bogs preserve bodies that are over 2000 years old! We carried out an experiment to find out what is the best material to absorb liquid and we learned about the process of capillary action. We also enjoyed learning about Greece. We watched videos about Greece's contributions to the modern world which was fascinating - we wouldn't have laws if it wasn't for the ancient Greeks! We also discussed famous architecture in Greece and made tin foil prints of the Parthenon in Athens.

In history, we have been learning all about the Renaissance through project work. Each group was allocated a person who is considered a 'Star of the Renaissance'. We researched on the ipads making sure we answered all our questions that were on our project rubric. Our projects turned out fantastic - we presented them to the class and we all learned so much from one another.

This month we celebrated maths week. We did lots of fun activities. We learned about the Mayan number system, made our own number system and tried the Japanese method of long multiplication by drawing lines. We integrated maths with art and created abstract line drawings with different angles. We enjoyed doing a maths trail with our infant buddies too. Safe to say, we had a lot of fun!

We had our class assembly where we spoke about the Creation Story in the bible. Our assembly focused on looking after our planet that God has created. We highlighted the importance of being sustainable and climate aware.

To finish off the month, the student council treated us to a Halloween Trivia quiz in the hall. We had a blast and enjoyed snacking on popcorn while answering questions. A big thanks to the student council for all their hard work. A well deserved break for all, have a lovely midterm everybody!

September News

A very big welcome back to everyone! Things have been busy in 5th and 6th class and it feels like we've never been away! Here's a few things we've been up to in September:

We got paired with our infant buddies. At buddy time, we get to do an art activity together and we look forward to it every week! We are making sure to look after our buddies at yard time too and be great role models for them.

In SESE, we have been learning all about looking after the environment. We learned about renewable and non renewable energy and created our own inventions using renewable energy. We also made our own eco homes out of recyclable materials in groups. This was super fun and our ideas were so creative. We spoke about the importance of recycling and composting and carried out an experiment to see which materials decay the quickest in soil. It is interesting to record our findings.

In art we drew one point perspective drawings of our names. This was tricky as you had to be very precise with your ruler. We also looked at the work of Andy Goldsworthy who creates art in nature and we got the chance to create our own art out of sticks, leaves and rocks in the garden. We also printed using leaves to create beautiful paintings of autumnal wreaths.

In English, we have learned all about famous inventors. We used ipads to research an inventor of our choice. We got lots of information online and then wrote about our inventor. We did two drafts of our writing to ensure it was the best standard. They all turned out great! We all learned a lot from each other like the inventor of marshmallows, Roblox and even homework!

We started our Cycle Safety course this month too. Our first session was learning about theory in relation to cycling and the importance of helmets. We then went outside on our bikes and practiced indicating left and right at turns and stopping quickly. We are really enjoying ourselves and it is great to spend our Wednesdays outdoors!

Some of the Fifth and Sixth class students decided to run for student council this year. Each of them prepared a speech and shared their visions for the school. The students put in so much effort into their speeches and it was great to hear new ideas. The student council representatives for 5th and 6th class are Matthew, Kiva, Isabella, Emily and Tristán. Congratulations everybody!

Finally, to celebrate completing our first month back to school we went to see the play 'Grace' by Jody O'Neill in the Pavillion Theatre. We had a great time!

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