As another fantastic school year draws to a close, the children in First Class have been busy enjoying a wide range of learning experiences and memorable activities.

In English, we finished our class novel, James and the Giant Peach, which quickly became a favourite. We thoroughly enjoyed listening to the story each afternoon and loved making predictions, discussing characters and making connections between the events in the novel and our own experiences. The children also had the opportunity to collaborate with Sixth Class on a creative writing project. Together, they produced an impressive variety of pieces, including story books, comic strips, recipe books and joke books. It was wonderful to see pupils from both classes working together and sharing their ideas.

In Maths, we explored a range of topics from the Measure strand, including capacity and weight. We also continued to develop our number skills through fun and engaging activities such as loop card games and bingo, which remained firm favourites throughout the year.

Our Irish lessons focused on the theme of Siopadóireacht. The children enjoyed learning new vocabulary and practising their numbers through games such as Nathracha agus Dréimirí (Snakes and Ladders), making learning both enjoyable and interactive.

There were plenty of exciting events outside the classroom too. One of the highlights of the term was our Marathon Relay. Every child completed a lap of the astro turf, contributing to our school marathon effort. Afterwards, we enjoyed some well-earned treats, kindly provided by the Parents' Council.

Another major highlight was our school tour to Free Range Kids in Croom. The children had a fantastic day taking part in a variety of activities, including baking cookies, tackling obstacle courses and playing Capture the Flag. On our journey home, we stopped at Mungret Playground, where everyone enjoyed spending time with their friends. It was a wonderful day filled with fun, laughter and plenty of happy memories.

As we finish up for the summer, we would like to extend a very special thank you to Karina, our fabulous SNA, for all of her help, care and support throughout the year. Her kindness and dedication have made a huge difference to our class.

Well done to all the boys and girls in First Class for their hard work, enthusiasm and positivity throughout the year. I have really enjoyed teaching them and wish them all the best next year. We hope everyone has a safe, relaxing and enjoyable summer break! Slán go fóill!!

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Fáilte ar ais chuig Rang a hAon! Tearma den-scoth a bhí ann, ag foghlaim agus ag fás.

In Science, we began the Incredible Edibles programme and planted a variety of seeds and plants outside. The children really enjoyed getting their hands dirty while learning about how plants grow, what they need to survive and how to care for them. We are very excited to continue looking after them and to watch them grow and blossom over the coming weeks. We carried out a very exciting experiment investigating what would happen when an egg was immersed in water, vinegar and Coke. The children made predictions beforehand and were fascinated to observe the changes each day, particularly how the vinegar affected the eggshell. There was great discussion and curiosity shown throughout the experiment.

We had a fantastic time celebrating Seachtain na Gaeilge, with a different activity to enjoy each day. Some of our highlights included Tóraíocht Taisce (a treasure hunt), where we followed clues as Gaeilge aroundthe school, and Comórtas Ealaíne (an art competition), where the children created colourful pieces inspired by Irish themes. We also earned ‘cártaí glas’ throughout the week for using Irish outside of our Irish lessons throughout the day. It was wonderful to see everyone making such a great effort to use their Irish in a fun and meaningful way throughout the week.

In PE, we explored the strand of gymnastics and have loved developing our skills each week. The children worked hard on their balance, coordination and strength, showing great progress in their “James Bond” rolls, balance beam routines and a variety of tumbles. It has been fantastic to see their confidence grow as they performed for one another. We have been working our way through the Stay Safe programme also, learning about personal safety, identifying trusted adults and understanding how to keep ourselves safe in different situations. The children engaged thoughtfully with the lessons and discussions.

We have also started reading James and the Giant Peach as our class novel. The children have really enjoyed listening to the story so far, engaging with the characters and making predictions about what might happen next. It has quickly become a favourite part of our day.

We created beautiful Mother’s Day cards and also explored our creativity through making a variety of unique designs using clay. The children showed great imagination and care in their work.

In Maths, we have become very confident with addition, both with and without regrouping, using a range of strategies and materials to support our learning. We especially enjoyed our work on money, where we practised recognising coins and working out change through fun role-play activities, taking turns as shopkeepers and customers in our classroom shop.

Well done to all the boys and girls for their hard work, enthusiasm and positive attitude this term. Thank you to Karina, Mr. Walsh and Ms. Quinn for all their help this term. Wishing everyone a very happy and restful Easter break.

 Beannachtaí na Cásca oraibh!

Ms. Wixted

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We’ve been working so hard getting ready for our show ‘Christmas with the Aliens’, and really enjoyed all the singing, dancing and acting that came with it. As a Christmas treat, we took a lovely trip to UL to see the panto Cinderella. One of our favourite parts was joining in with the fun and shouting things like “Oh no you’re not!”

We’ve also been getting into the spirit of the season by designing our own advent calendar. Behind each day there were hidden surprises such as Show and Tell, extra yard time and stickers for everyone. Another big highlight was our movie afternoon before watching ‘Nativity’ with our blankets and pillows. A huge thank you to the Parents Council for the delicious goodie bags and donuts that made it even more special.

In November we also began our literacy stations with the help of Mr. Walsh, Karina, Ms. Fitzgerald and Ms. Doyle. We practised lots of skills including phonics, phonological awareness, reading and handwriting. A big thank you to parents for your support and cooperation with  literacy folders being sent home along with homework folders. We loved showing off our reading so much that we hope to continue CAPER in the new year. We also read a new story from our Wonderland programme called Danger at the Zoo and had great fun making connections to the story from our own lives. 

In Irish, we have been learning all about An Aimsir and An Nollaig. We love practising our new vocabulary through games such as Cluiche Kim and Deir O Gradaigh. We are brilliant at using Gaeilge neamhfhoirmiúil throughout the day with everyday phrases such as ‘An bhfuil cead agam dul go dtí a leithreas?’, ‘Cé leis é seo?’ etc. We also look forward to listening to a scéal at the end of each téama such as Eoin agus an Gas Pónaire (Jack and the Beanstalk). In Maths, we have been learning about tens and units in numbers up to 49 and showed them in lots of different ways, including building towers of tens with cubes and using ten frames. We’ve also been practising counting in 2s and 5s.

We marked Anti Bullying Week by talking about what bullying is and learning who we can talk to in school if we ever have a worry about ourselves or someone else. We earned certificates for being kind and made a great effort to spread kindness throughout the week.

First Class have shown fantastic enthusiasm, teamwork and diligence this term. I really enjoyed seeing the children grow in confidence on stage and work so well together. Finally, a huge thank you to Karina, our amazing SNA, for all her help and support throughout the year so far. We really are blessed to have her with us each day!

Nollaig Shona daoibh go léir. Bain taitneamh as an draíocht a thagann leis an Nollaig. 

Ms. Wixted 

Nollaig Shona daoibh go léir! What a busy term this has been!

In English, we have been working on our Persuasive Writing. We wrote about our favourite hobbies, and used persuasive language to express why we believed it was the best sport. As we began to get into festive mode, the children wrote a film review on a Christmas film of their choice. They thoroughly enjoyed creating advertisements for these films afterwards, and children were then given the opportunity to share their work with their peers. We had great fun practicing persuasive language to argue which movie we thought was best!

In Maths, we came up with our very own gift guide for children of various ages, using Smyths toy catalogues. We had a budget to stay within per child, and used our Maths skills to investigate what we could get for the best value. The aim was to compile the most exciting list of toys for that person, while staying within budget! The boys and girls have finished learning and revising all their multiplication tables from 0 up to x12. All the hard work paid off and we did brilliantly in our tables test. We enjoyed putting our brains to work this term, exploring tricky topics such as long multiplication and problem solving! Ms. Wixted is very proud of us.

For Gaeilge, we have put in a tremendous effort learning the 11 irregular verbs in the Aimsir Chaite. We are a lot more confident using this tense and we certainly have expanded our vocabulary. It is wonderful to see our ‘teanga ó bhéal’ blossom as we can now form sentences more easily, independently. This was evident when we wrote our ‘Nuacht’ together,and the children had amazing ideas for sentences we could say as Gaeilge as part of the news. We have been busy exploring the themes of ‘Bia’ and ‘An Nollaig’ this term, listening to the excellent stories in Bua na Cainte and playing the interactive whiteboard games.

We celebrated Science Week this term. We began our week by investigating how water is transported through plants. We added food dye to various containers, and then added our white flowers. We were amazed when we came to school the next day to discover our flowers had changed colour! We chose a scientist of our choice to research and used the school laptops to learn various facts about them. On Friday we carried out some very cool experiments which included erupting volcanoes, skittle rainbows, exploding watermelons and lava lamps. The boys and girls worked in groups to present their experiments to the class. It was messy but we learned a lot about chemical reactions.

We love Art in 4th Class. This term, we created Japanese inspired paintings, melting snowman and carol singers (or people eating snowflakes, which is how some of the children interpreted it). The Amber Flag committee organised to send Christmas Cards to Croagh nursing home this year. The children were so enthusiastic that some of them wanted to make extra cards to send. The cards turned out very beautiful indeed and the pupils were chuffed to send them off!

4th class pupils worked very hard practicing their song singing for the annual School Christmas Concert. They performed a selection of Peace Proms and Christmas Carols for the matinée and evening show. It was a huge success and they all sounded amazing! Well done everyone!

We were delighted to be invited to the Salesians show ‘Back to the 80’s’ and we had a great time in L.I.T. We were also very excited to go and see ‘Aladdin’ in U.L. before our Christmas holidays. It was another great day out!

We would like to give a special word ofthanks to our wonderful SNA’s Sharon and Catherine who are in our classroom each morning and afternoon. They are super helpful and so kind to us and we are lucky to have them. Also, we are delighted to have Ms. Quinn and Mr. Sparling helping us with our learning and we would like to thank them for all the work that she does supporting us with our learning this term.

Have a wonderful, safe Christmas and we look forward to welcoming all of the children back to school in the New Year!

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