On the Newspaper

Tuesday, 29th September 2009
Watch out for some of our class on two newspapers today

• Irish Examiner page 9 Sarah
• Connacht Sentinel page 3 Megan & Ella

Making windmills

Tuesday, 29th September, 2009

We made windmills today. They look great - they were easy to decorate but quite hard to make. Thanks to Maggie for all her help. We tried to get them to move in the wind outside but they didn't twist too fast. Maybe we need windier weather!

Visit from a Beauty Therapist

Tuesday, September 29th, 2009
We have a mammy in this class who is a beauty therapist. She came to tell us all about her job today. She was really interesting. We asked lots of questions and she had some very interesting answers. Nessa showed us how hot wax works and she showed us how to paint nails, using her dummy hand. The dummy hand is called "Dolly" and is very useful to practise on. Being a beauty therapist sounds like a great job. It would be great to have a job that helps people to look lovely. Lots of us would like to be beauty therapists when we grow up.

Award for Scoil Chaitríona Junior

Monday, 28th September, 2009
We are thrilled to have a won the 2009 Greenwave Photograph Award for 2009, of frogs swimming in frogspawn. Today we were pleased and honoured to have Éanna Ní Lamhna from Greenwave, Oonagh Meeghan from Discover Science and Engineering, and Andrew the photographer, all the way from Dublin to present us with our prize. We won a tripod, a camera case, and a video camera which we will use to take lots of video footage of our science work, and other exciting events in our school. Both Oonagh and Éanna talked to us about science and being scientists. They were so interesting. Well done to all the students and teachers who watch the buds, birds and frogs in spring and who take part in the Greenwave programme each year.

Imagination Time

Friday, September 25th, 2009

We had some structured play time today. Teacher had 4 lovely books for us to read. Each of them came with a playmat and lots of little toys to put on the playmat. One was about horses, one about dragons, the third was about ball sports and the last was about rescue vehicles. When we use these mats we practise using our imaginations, and our oral language improves when we play with the others in our groups, ask questions, and give instructions to each other. We love structured play!

Visit from a Nursing Home Care Assistant

Friday, September 25th, 2009

We are so lucky in this class! We had another mum in today to tell us all about her job. Jane is a care assistant in a nursing home in Athenry. She works with lots of old people in a very nice home. We saw pictures of the inside and outside of the nursing home on the whiteboard in our class. Jane told us lots about life in a nursing home.

We know that most of the people in the home are old. Many of them are in wheelchairs or use zimmer frames to help them move around. To get into the bath or shower or jacuzzi Jane helps them into a hoist and then to the bath. We could see pictures of hoists and zimmer frames on the whiteboard too.

Sometimes the people in the nursing home are taken to hospital for hospital visits. The nursing home has its own big car that is easy for the elderly people to get in and out of. Jane is able to drive this car, and to take her patients to hospital for their visits. Sometimes people in the nursing home go on tours (like our school tours) and Jane goes with them. Jane's job sounds really nice. Helping people every day like Jane does is really special.

Number Fans

Thursday, September 24th, 2009

We were using number fans today. We each have a white number fan. Teacher has a big yellow fan. Teacher would call out instructions like "find the number 6" or "find the number before/after 8" or "find the number between 2 and 4" or "find a number smaller/bigger than 5". We had to find a right number and then when teacher says "show me" we all show our numbers and we can check if we are right or not. It's fun playing with numbers!

Flying Helicopters

Thursday, September 24th, 2009
Now that it is Autumn we are noticing lots of falling leaves, and also some conkers, sycamore keys (helicopters) and ash keys (helicopters). We wondered why the seeds are called helicopters? First of all we tried flying them. They fluttered a little, but didn't look like helicopters until we separated each helicopter from the others. Then the single seed twisted and flew in the air just like a real helicopter.

We discussed lots of different things that fly, then looked up a book about flying to see did we forget anything.

Next we made our own helicopters. Teacher had the template, and before we each had our own helicopter we talked about all the shapes we could see in the template. There was one strange shape, but we found 5 rectangles in the helicopter, 4 small ones made out of one bigger rectangle. We know that rectangles have 4 sides, 2 bigger than the other 2.Next we tried flying our helicopters in the classroom. We found that our helicopters fly much better when they are a bit heavier, so we put paper clips on the helicopters and flew them again. Much better! We figured out how to change the direction that the helicopters spin in. We can do this by folding the blades of the helicopter the opposite way to the way we had them folded at the start. Lastly we took our helicopters outside to see how they fly outside. They flew much further and much faster when the wind helped to fly them.

Friday, September 25th, 2009

Teacher brought in more helicopters. One works when the balloon is blown up. The helicopter blades spin and the helicopter rises to the ceiling. Very exciting! The other one is a hand flown helicopter. We all had a turn at this one. It spins when you set it off by rubbing your hands together with the helicopter between them. It was hard to get it flying, but we were able after a few turns each!

Visit from a Community Care Worker

Thursday, September 24th, 2009

We had a really interesting visit today from one of our mammies who has a job as a community care worker. Lhara's job is to help look after the elderly and people with disabilities. She explained to us that elderly people are people as old and even older than our grannies and grandads. Someone Lhara knows is 99 years old! Sometimes they might need help to get ready for the day, make lunches or to have someone to talk to so they won't be lonely. It is Lhara's job to help these people. We have all decided to try and be friendly to elderly people who live near us.

Next we heard about people with disabilities. We found out that if a bit of you doesn't work too well (like your eyes or ears for example), then maybe you have a disability. Lhara also goes to visit people who have disabilities, to help them manage when they live on their own.

We think that the job of Community Care Worker is very nice. We think that Lhara must make lots of people happy in her job every day. Thanks Lhara for giving us such a nice talk today.

Planting Strawberries

Ms. McLoughlin has some strawberry plants at home. Each strawberry plant has lots of little runners (plants) which will turn into strawberry plants next year. She brought lots of the little runners into school and we planted them into our own containers. Each of us has a container. They have names on them. We put some compost into the container and then made a hole in the compost. The little strawberry plants were put into the hole in the compost, then covered with a little more compost. Next we needed to water the plants. We decided to use recycled rain water to water the strawberries. This means that we are saving water by not using water from the taps. Because we are a green school we are careful not to waste any water that we don't need. Lastly we washed our hands to keep ourselves clean and healthy. We can't wait to have a feast of strawberries next June!

Litter Picking

Wednesday, 23rd September

We like to keep our school grounds clean.

We have been awarded our second Green Flag and are very proud of our litter-free school. Today we all went out litter picking. We found lots and lots of rubbish near our classroom. We were very careful to use gloves and litter pickers to pick up the rubbish (and we washed our hands well afterwards). We collected lots of papers, plastic bottles and lots of sweet wrappers. We will be careful not to throw litter ourselves.

A Scientist in our class

Wednesday, September 23rd, 2009
We have been talking about jobs that adults do. We know that a lot of them have jobs that can help us. Today one of our mums came to school to talk to us about being a biomaterials scientist. Norahella works in a biomedical company that designs, makes and tests devices that can be put into the top of peoples tummies to help with reflux problems. It is a very important job that helps lots of sick people. In Norahella's company there is a test dummy on which to practise inserting the device. The scientists in her company wear white coats and goggles in case their eyes or clothes get splashed while doing lots of experiments. Being a scientist sounds great. To be scientists we have to keep our eyes and ears open, to ask lots of questions about the world around us and to try some interesting experiments and investigations. Thanks to Norahella for her really interesting talk. We all want to be scientists when we grow up!

2D Shapes

Tuesday, September 22nd, 2009
We are learning all about shapes and colours. We know all our colours in English and in Irish, and we know the names of squares, triangles, circles, rectangles, ovals and hexagons. We can say them for you at home if you like. We played a loop game with the shapes and colours. We tried to do it as fast as we could but we need to practise some more to be very fast.