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News From Term 1

Ms Byrne’s 3rd Class 

Ms. Byrne’s class has been really busy and had a very good start to the year. They started swimming in the pop-up pool on the 13th of September and have really enjoyed their lessons. Ms. Byrne has a reward system in the class and she gives points to each table for their work and effort. The table with the most points at the end of the week gets a prize. The class  did lots of autumn art this term and took part in the Credit union art competition. They learned poems to help remind them of the counties of Ireland and countries of Europe. They also learned a poem in Irish called “Duilleoga Deasa”. The children have been working hard at procedural writing and have been reading a novel called “ Adam’s Starling”. The class has also been visiting the library every 3 weeks and reading lots of extra books. They have also been busy in PE with dodgeball, handball and football. They have had a great term in the senior school. 

Ms. Murphy’s 3rd Class

On the first day of school Ms. Murphy asked us to work on an activity called All about me. It was a great way for everyone to get to know each other a bit better. This term in maths Ms. Murphy’s class worked on time, multiplication, subtraction and addition. In English they worked on spellings, grammar and learned all about different authors. For Irish the children learned how to count people and also learned about food, the body, months, days of the week and a story too. Sometimes in class the children have DEAR time, which means Drop everything and read. They really enjoy reading library books and extra readers. For art the class made skeletons, haunted houses and family trees. They also worked on some Roal Dahl art too. They have really enjoyed their swimming lessons in the pop up pool and can’t wait to start GAA next term. 

Ms Nugent’s 3rd Class

Ms. Nugent’s 3rd class had a great start to the school year. They have been learning how to play the recorder and learned a new poem called Oíche Shamhna. They did lots of Halloween art and painted pumpkins with patterns inside them. Paul Tyrell came to visit the children to talk to them about the history of Blessington. He showed them how the buildings looked in the past and how they look today. In maths the class worked on their times tables and bar charts. They made a class bar chart to record the children’s favourite sports and fruits. The children also started swimming this term and have really enjoyed their lessons in the pop up pool. 

Ms. Wheatley’s 4th Class

Ms. Wheatley’s class have been working very hard this term .Paddy Madden came to visit their class in September and taught them all about biodiversity and the food chain. They also learned about the trees in the school ground and  the species of bugs on them. The class also started their swimming lessons in the pop up pool last month and are really enjoying their lessons. They took part in the Community games art competition also this term. The class also had a visit from a lady from Dog’s Trust who told them all about the work that they do. They have been learning songs from the musical Oliver, like Food glorious food and Consider yourselves and also Let it be by the Beatles. For Wellbeing they have practised Mindfulness, resilience and  celebrated World Mental Health day. For literacy the class celebrated Roal Dahl day and wrote recounts and reports for creative writing. They had lots of fun doing drama and even acted out the story of Tír na nÓg in history. In irish they worked on topics like ag an fiaclóir agus ag an bialann. Finally for art they made dancing skeletons and studied leaves and leaf prints. Thanks for listening. 

Ms. Steedman’s 4th Class

In September we spent a lot of time getting to know each other and our new teacher.  We want a lovely atmosphere in our classroom.Our highlight has been swimming.  The wonderful girls were far superior at getting dressed quickly.  The boys found it difficult to organise themselves!  Ms Heney found blue underpants in the changing room and we still don’t know who went home without underpants.  It’s week 6 now and the boys have finally learnt how to get sorted quickly. We won the green schools competition.  When we enter a competition we want to win.  Ms Steedman is not biassed at all.  There are some classes that are sore losers.  Ms Heney’s  class wants to appeal the decision BRING IT ON. We won fair and square.  If you believe in something it will come true.

Finally, the legend Paddy Madden has a message for everyone —-  SPIDERS ARE NOT UGLY and Little Miss Muffet should be BANNED!!

Ms. Heney’s 3rd Class

At the start of the year, we did self-portraits and My Hoody art. In maths we learned about bar charts and pie charts and we drew graphs. We also learned about 2D shapes and lines and angles. We got to make shapes out of lollipop sticks. We are reading the novel Matilda. Some people really like it but some people have already seen the film so already know the story.

This week will be our last time going swimming in the pop up pool, it was really fun. We learned loads of new things like the backstroke. Lots of people were nervous before going but now really like swimming. The teacher Sinéad put us in different groups, like names of footballers and movies. The swimming teachers played music and we would dance. People kept leaving their belongings behind.

A few weeks ago Paddy Madden came to our school to talk about trees and insects. He had 10 brothers and one sister. He talked about oak, silver birch and rowan trees. He gave out that Americans call all insects bugs, when they are just one type of insect. He also gave out about gardeners using pesticides, which kill insects. He told us that in the olden days there were no radiators and that he slept with about 57 coats on him to keep warm. Paddy said that there were no fancy breakfasts, just porridge.

 We did Credit Union art, the theme was a wonderful world, and we were using water colours and pastels. The Valleymount trials were a few weeks ago Lily and Sean qualified. Lily and Seán found the course long but enjoyed it.

We had Jersey Day to raise money for Goal. Everyone thought the charity Goal was to do with football and that was why we had to wear football jerseys.

We visited the library and got a bunch of books, we had a good time at the library. Margiris took 5 books out at the library, because there were so many that he wanted to read. There was an art exhibition at the library where artists did different pictures about one book.

We had to do projects of our family, then people presented their projects to the class. We drew maps of the school grounds and did a green school’s questionnaire. We also did oak leaf sketches. We decorated our class for Hallowe’en and we made Hallowe’en masks.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 

Ms. Murphy’s 5th Class 

This term Ms. Murphy’s class got off to a great start. Firstly they have started GAA training every Tuesday with Paul O’ Neill the local school’s coach. Paul has been practising  drills and playing matches with them each week . They have really enjoyed the training and are really looking forward to doing it again later in the year. Their class has had another teacher working with them this term Ms. Hynes. She has taught them the rules of Zoneball for P.E. It has been great fun and they will be showing other classes how to play next term. The class has also taken part in the basketball league, organised by Mr. Forde. They have made it to the finals and can’t wait to cheer on the team. Three pupils in their class also took part in the Valleymount cross country event. It was the first time that the school took part since 2019 and everyone really enjoyed taking part. 

Recently in history Ms. Murphy has been teaching them all about King Midas and the Aztecs. They have learned about King Midas’ golden touch and how everything he touched turned to gold. They also learned how the Aztecs thought they had to sacrifice someone everyday or the  sun would not rise. Maybe we should try this in Ireland! In geography they have been learning all about the Amazon Rainforest and deforestation. They learned how it is very important to cut down on paper use to protect the trees and also learned about the different types of leaves. In science Ms.  Hynes has been teaching the class about gravity. They made spinners and looked at parachutes made from different materials. In music they learned all about the orchestra and different instrument families with Ms. Hynes also. For art the class has been using water colours to create leaves with patterns. They used autumnal colours in their creations. The people from their class on the quiz team are really excited about the upcoming quizzes. Lastly for story writing the class learned about different genres of books and movies to help their own story writing. The class focused on adventure stories, horror, mystery, science fiction and fantasy. They learned how important adjectives are in stories and will make sure to use these in their creative writing in future.

Ms. Morris’ 5th Class

Big congratulations to Hollie, Bianca and Kate on their success of winning the U12’s GAA Final.Mason and Alex also got to the finals of the ‘Allen Cup’.We had the trials for ‘Valleymount’ and a big congratulations to Cara and Mason in our class who made the school team.In class we had lots of fun creating our own Wicklow jerseys, we had to follow the measurements to create our Jerseys and think carefully about our designs.We enjoyed looking into our own timelines and looking at our photographs from when we were born up to now, it was lovely researching our past and looking back at our memories. In History we were looking at very interesting women who made a difference.

Ms. Kenny’s 5th Class 

We welcomed Jessica from South Africa and Sophie to our class.Katya and Timur joined our class from Ukraine. We have been learning to speak some Ukrainian words and they are learning English words. Dobre!!!!We were working on procedural reading and writing. We made origami lions and wrote how to turn your teacher into a frog!!!!We learned about Wicklow and did projects on our amazing county. We had fun interviewing King Midas in class. In history we were studying Women in History who made a difference. Louise Quinn is from Blessington and plays for the Irish ladies’ soccer team who are through to the World Cup.For Maths week, we did a scavenger hunt, a maths quiz and did some really hard puzzles. We have been learning about long division, and we are doing really well.  We love doing stations every Wednesday for Maths. Our favourite station is Buzz and card games.For Halloween we worked together to make skeletons and listened to the SPOOKY SCARY SKELETON! We decorated our class for Halloween. We did a cluiche Gaeilge. On our last visit to the library our teacher read us ‘The Vampire of Dublin.’We hope you all have a lovely Halloween.

Ms. Gilligan’s 6th Class

Ms. Gilligan’s class has been really busy this term. They have started singing again and have learned songs such as Grace, The Foggy Dew and Sky full of stars. The class have really enjoyed this and have been singing their hearts out. The children have also done lots of cross curricular activities too, like making their names in 3D, painting trees from each season. They learned a lot about the Easter rising and have just finished projects on this. Last week they went on a tour of  St. Endas, Padraig Pearce’s former school and learned more about the background to the rising. The children also worked on autobiographies and setting out their plans and ideas if they were  President of Ireland . Each week they put leaves on their gratitude tree- A gCrann buíochas. The class were delighted that the boys team won their basketball final last week. They are really looking forward to next term.  

Ms Nugent’s 6th Class

Ms Nugents 6th Class have been very busy this term. We have been working on some exciting things. For example we had to make volcanoes at home and bring them in to explode them, and tell the class how we made them.Some of the pupils made their volcanoes out of paper mache, clay and paper. We exploded them with baking soda and vinegar but some people used sparkling water, which seemed to give a better “explosion”. We have been very busy writing spooky poetry.Every poem was very good but we will have to see who wins. We have also been very busy creating clay torques based on Celtic torques. We learned lots about the Celts and how they lived, ate and fought.

We  learned all about the Celts. We even got some very interesting facts from a real archaeologist at the Celtic dig site near the GAA pitch. We also luckily got to go to St Ednas, the Pádraig Pearse Museum, a school for boys that Padraig Pearse taught in which has now been converted to a museum.

We read a book from the library called Climate Sos! It is about sustainability and saving energy. It has an amazing message about how important it is to be energy efficient and aware. Every Tuesday we have been doing GAA with Paul. Some of us have never done GAA so it was nice learning how to. For PE we have been doing OlympicHandball. We have learned a lot about it and it has been very fun! 

The past few weeks we have been learning about the 1916 Easter Rising. We listened to the song `Grace` which is a very emotional song. Each group worked on one day of the Easter Rising, they turned out terrific. It was very sad what happened to the leaders. Some of the school pupils were very lucky and were able to go to the Valleymount running competition. Unfortunately no one in our class made it through but well done to everyone who did! 

Every Thursday Deacon Gerry Malone has come in to prepare 6th for the Confirmation. We have been doing 3 prayers a day , one in the morning, one at noon and one at the end of the school day. These prayers are The Benedictus, The Angelus and The Magnificat. 

We just finished our self portraits , one side is our face and the other is what we like. We are very excited  to go swimming after the mid term break.

Mr. Forde’s 6th Class 

These past few months Mr. Forde’s class have been doing projects like building water powered rockets and launching them.

They designed a new logo for the class. In groups of 2 they had to design and present them. The winning logo was by Katymay and Emily and their logo shows persistence and strength.

They have been doing Sketchnotes in the class to help us transfer knowledge from short term to long term memory. They have done Sketchnote on the Moon and Natural Disasters.

Everyone in their class also interviewed a relative of theirs, they asked them questions like their oldest memory, who their hero growing up was and a song that reminds them of a time in their life.  They wrote down their answers and then they spoke about them in class.

They have written newspaper reports, and they had both a girls and boys team in the Lunchtime League basketball final.

Math’s Week 17th-21st October

The week we are focusing on all thing’s maths in St. Mary’s. The children are busy playing maths games and working on plenty of fun activities throughout the week. Some of the classes have been out and about using their “Math’s Eyes” and finding evidence of maths around the school grounds and building. There have been lots of table’s challenges and maths’ quizzes throughout the week. Thanks to Ms. Lucas for organising all the activities.

Valleymount Cross Country athletics- 18th October

We were delighted to take part in the first cross country event in the school since 2019. Boys and girls from 4th, 5th and 6th classes represented St. Mary’s on the day. The 3rd class children were busy in the pop-up pool. It was a fantastic day and even the weather was kind to us all for once! The children ran in some very tough races and did themselves very proud. Everyone from St. Mary’s were so well behaved and a pleasure to bring to the event.

Dog’s Trust 3rd- 6th October

We were delighted to have Laura, a representative from Dog’s Trust, visit our school this week. Dog’s Trust deliver their workshops to schools every year and focus on safety when handling dogs inside and outside the home. They try to ensure that children who may not have a dog know how to interact with them, if they encounter a dog in the community. Laura worked with the children in each class and spoke to them about the work that Dog’s Trust do. She told the children about some of the dogs that she herself has worked with over the years and some of the funny stories about the dogs. Laura explained to the children how to look after a dog and all the care needs that they require. She emphasised that all pets especially dogs are a huge commitment and that it is so important to be sure you can give the time and energy to your dog before. The children really enjoyed the week.

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