On Thursday all of 1st, 2nd and 3rd classes went to see a performance of “The Twits” in the Mill Theatre.  We all had a fabulous time!  Here are some photos of the fantastic socks we decorated to participate in the play.  They really illustrate the creativity of all the children!

First Class have thoroughly enjoyed studying all about Australia.  They have learned many new facts about its landscape, Indigenous culture and Art.  They have produced lots of fun fact files on native wildlife and their Art work is truly fantastic!!!

They have been very busy finding out about the farm. They have been reading and writing about farms. They have set up and played with their own small world farm, which continues to grow and adapt as they learn new information. They have set up a role play corner Farm Shop, labelling their farm produce and deciding prices for items. They are always looking for customers to buy their wares. Just be sure to check your change!

They have even interviewed Mrs. Carpenter about her farm life so they are well prepared in advance of their school tour.

Children love topics connected with animals and farm animals has provided lots of fun, creative, playful and insighful learning of the full curriculum whilst developing skills such as observing, organising, problem-solving, decision-making, recording, interpreting and predicting.

“…[The] world’s greatest discoveries have been made because people were playing around with an idea. The freedom of thought allowed for by play may unlock the learning potential which more confined approaches to the curriculum leave behind.”  (Taylor and Baulter, 1993)

“We do not stop playing because we grow old. We grow old because we stop playing.”  (George Bernard Shaw)

Over the last number of weeks we have been given the opportunity to learn Irish dancing.  We have had a very enjoyable time and our skills have improved greatly!  Here are some pictures from our last lesson.

Pippi Longstocking and her monkey, and all the other characters in our class had great fun on World Book Day……even Mrs Twit came in to speak to our class!!

First Class celebrated World Book Day in style! Many arrived in truly amazing and inventive book related costumes.

Then Carmel Uí Cheallaigh arrived, author of children’s Irish-language books: ‘Spidey’, ‘The New Cat’, ‘Leanbh Nua’ and ‘An Tolg Draíchota’. The children loved listening to her read to them both in English and as Gaeilge. They had lots of questions for her and learned lots about being an author. If anyone wishes to learn more about her books they may like to visit Carmel’s website: ‘Carmelsbooks.com.

The rest of the day flew by reading and doing fun reading related activities. The children enjoyed experiencing a wide variety of reading genres, different formats and styles. At times they cosied up for a quiet read by themselves. Sometimes they paired up and shared stories and many participated in a book swap with their peers. Another highlight of the day was reading play scripts together in small groups, where the words quite literally lifted right off the page and came to life. Magic!

The aim of World Book Day is to encourage children to pick up a book and read. First Class most certainly achieved that 🙂

“Tell me and I’ll forget, show me and I may remember, involve me and I learn”– Benjamin Franklin

First Class are getting big into Reduce, Reuse, Recycle – Three great ways WE can eliminate waste and protect our environment! Why don’t you ask them for tips as they have some great ideas and also some fab new inventions for eliminating waste in the near future.

Following on from an interesting debate about pollution in the sea and how we might choose to handle it, the children were keen to design their own sea bins and help rid the rubbish caused by humans, especially plastics.

In keeping with our theme, they brought in lots of recycled materials from home for this and busied themselves designing and making an appropriate bin bot prototype.

Some designs acted like a vacuum cleaner and quite literally hoovered it all up. Other designs sported spikes where litter might catch on to the sides. Many had grabbers or mouths to gobble up the bad stuff. Some even had quite complex systems of filtration to ensure only rubbish could be collected and no harm could come to any sea creatures. Some also featured add-ons, such as windows to make it possible to see when the bin was full and would need emptying.

Unfortunately the photos taken cannot capture the essence of the lesson learned, but they do give a snippet into how enjoyable it was to discover ways to recycle waste, whilst also reusing their own waste in a creative and fun way.

As a quick aside to this lesson the children had a go at putting some of their filtration designs into action. We filled basins of water to represent the sea and dropped rubbish into it, including some packaging from their lunch boxes. They tried sieving out the rubbish using a variety of instruments: mainly a recycled plastic cup with small holes in it, a simple flour sieve and both a small and large kitchen colander.

Most agreed that the large colander was most effective at removing rubbish…until we added coffee and the water turned a brown mucky colour. They were fairly disappointed not to find a solution for turning the water colour back again, even though one child thought perhaps with persistence they had changed it back just a little bit.

From this the children concluded it was very important to try to prevent water getting polluted in the first place but if it did end up getting polluted that it would be a tricky process to get it back to normal, but not impossible.

As you can imagine they were flabbergasted and enthralled to learn that in some parts of the world, the wastewater that flows down the drain – yes, including toilet flushes – can now be filtered and treated until it is as pure as drinking water!

But would you like to try it? Or have you already done so?