This week, we have been investigating the force, gravity. We brainstormed about the force and decided on questions we wanted answers to. On the chromebooks, we completed our research. We then completed several experiments investigating the centre of gravity and the effect of gravity on two falling objects. We discovered that it does not matter how heavy an object is, it is its shape that determines how fast it falls to the ground. Air pressure slows a falling object down and so a flat sheet of paper falls slower than a piece of paper scrunched up. We are excited to continue our investigation on gravity next week! What a productive couple of weeks in the Rose class. In December we completed projects examining three of the main world religions - Christianity, Hinduism and Judaisim. We looked at many of the connections and differences between them all. Have a look at us presenting our projects above.
We also we learning about centre of gravity and the laws of the lever. We completed experiments where we discovered that our body is always keeping us balanced by making adjustments and using counter balances. When we can't counter balance we fall! This week in geography we have been getting to know our country and counties. We have developed our map skills and complete online quizzes to check how were doing - we all excelled! This month the Rose and Willow class we have been learning all about celebrations around the world. We have been making connections between these and also noticing some differences too. We have learned that many festivals originate from religious or shared cultural stories. Each of the festivals we have looked at have certain practices, rituals and also often food and family plays a big role too! The festivals we have looked at are the Jewish festival Hanukkah, the Hindu festival Diwali and the Christian festival Christmas - all of these stories celebrate the triumph of light over darkness.
We have also examined the festivals of Ramadan, Kwanzaa, Chinese New Year and Holi festival. As part of Learn Together we have been completing group research projects on a religion of choice. Such great depth of information and understanding has emerged from the slef led research process. We have also learned so much from our peers, sharing learning with each other in the project process. These will be ready to present and display next week! Have a look at some of our own winter fun/celebration in class - we had so much fun at the winter disco organised by the PTA! We are such a talented school! Have a look at all our singing, dancing and music playing skills in our Winter Performance video above.
Rose Class performed the hit 'Let it Go' taking on some important learnings at the same time - sometimes it's important not to be perfect, no one is! The Willow Class played an amazing rendition of Jingle Bells on the tin whistle, accompanied by Gabriela on the Piano - such skills! This week, we were busy in art making collaborative 3D snowflakes. Firstly, we cut an A4 sheet of paper into a square. Next, we coloured our piece of paper and drew patterns and designs on it. Once it was coloured on both sides, we started folding the paper into triangles and cut three lines into it. We unraveled the paper and crossed the pieces over each other to make the cool snowflake design. We added 6 of our pieces together to make a snowflake! They will be hung in the school hall as part of the whole school winter display!
What an amazing achievement! Over the last couple of months 5th class have been taking part in the Marathon Kids programme running laps of the yard every morning, after break and after lunch. Today they ran the final 2km of their 40km marathon journey!
The fitness levels on show this afternoon we amazing and all of the children taking part agreed that their fitness had gone up since starting in September. To finish it off the Gaelscoil kindly let us use their running track! Check out the photos of our flying finish above! On Thursday 4th November, we celebrated Outdoor Classroom Day! Outdoor classroom day is a global movement to inspire and celebrate outdoor play and learning, at home and at school. The willow class visited the geodome and we used our senses to create poems on the theme of nature. In the rose class, we collected soil samples in the school garden and investigated its contents. We found dead planets, rocks and even some insects. Children are spending less time outdoors than ever before and this is affecting their health, wellbeing and development. Outdoor learning is a huge part of our efforts to adopt Nurture principles & wellbeing supports for our school community. It is a major contributor to regulating, calming and developing skills for our pupils and a constructive way to integrate the teaching of SESE, SPHE, Literacy, Numeracy & the Arts. Here is our video showing some activities completed across the school: https://youtu.be/wq6Or7Y2Tac Before the midterm, we became engineers, interior designers and builders while creating constructions inspired by Mesopotamian structures . We created Ziggurats and the Gates of Ishtar from recyclables. A Ziggurat was a place of worship where rulers of Mesopotamian cities would live. It was also where agriculture and trade were controlled. The Gates of Ishtar were located in Babylon. It was the main entrance to the city. We had a busy last day before midterm! Some of us had dressed up for the occasion. In the morning, we baked some borróige (cupcakes) as Gaeilge. We took it in turns to complete the steps of the recipe, weighing, poring, measuring, mixing, cracking eggs and more! We ended up with a very yummy final product! We decorated the cupcakes with some icing and sprinkles too. It was a great end to a great half term! Enjoy your week off everyone
|
|
Photo used under Creative Commons from Free Public Domain Illustrations by rawpixel