We had a busy few months in 1st class since we returned to school in September. We went on many adventures and learnt lots along the way! Here’s what we’ve been up to…..

We explored the topic of sowing seeds and we grew our very own broad beans in the classroom. They grew very tall and we hope they will continue to grow at home!! We learnt that seeds and plants need water, light and heat to grow. We listened to the story of ‘Katie and The Sunflowers’ and created our own crepe paper sunflowers in Art.

As Autumn began, we enjoyed looking at the beautiful colours this season brings and we used these colours to create Autumn trees and leaf creatures! We learnt Autumn poems as Ghaeilge and we wrote lovely descriptive poems about our senses in Autumn ( In Autumn I hear, I see, I smell etc).

October was Childrens Literacy month in nenagh library and to celebrate this we participated in a zoom lesson with the authors of the children’s fact book ‘Animal Crackers’. The children really enjoyed learning lots of new animal facts through fun activities and a quiz. The lesson ended with a directed drawing of a sloth!

we explored different materials to draw with in Art and we created beautiful chalk pictures incorporating lots of shapes which we learnt about in Maths this month.

Of course we all dressed up as scary creatures at Halloween and nearly gave poor Ms Laffan a heart attack!! We enjoyed a little party and some games before our well earned Halloween midterm break! We made fantastic bonfires in Art with Mrs Murray and learnt all about fire safety which is so important at any time of year but especially at Halloween. We carved a pumpkin with Ms Laffan and wrote about the process as part of our procedural writing.

After midterm we had a student teacher Ms McLoughney teaching us for part of the day. We did lots of interesting work with her. We learnt about money and length and data in Maths, we created some very scary monsters in Art using pastels and we explored the theme of houses and homes through the story of The Three Little Pigs. We also made some very interesting creatures out of clay and painted them when the clay dried.

For Science week in November we did lots of experiments: we put jelly babies into glasses of water and observed how they expanded! We made a moving rainbow with markers on a tissue with both ends in glasses of water and we experimented with germs on bread…we discovered that washing our hands in soapy water is the the best way to keep germs away!

We participate in school football every Wednesday with our coach Conor Byrne. We enjoy learning new skills and playing games!

On Wednesday 24th November Barbara Sullivan from ‘Heritage In Schools’ visited our school and we had a great afternoon learning about and exploring biodiversity in our school grounds. We learned about different types of leaves and plants and we went on lots of hunts to locate things. We then sketched our findings and named them. We had lots of fun outdoors in nature!

We made some musical instruments last week using recycled containers, rice and tape. We decorated them and used them to explore loud and soft sounds. We sang a few Christmas songs and used our shakers and drums too! We’re really looking forward to Christmas and preparations are well underway!

Maith sibh rang a haon for all the fantastic work this term…we are very proud of you all!