December (1) - Puppet Show and Visit to Newpark Care Home

In a very busy month of December, there is much to tell you all about. Our first major event of the month saw a Travelling Puppet Show come in to us on Monday December 11th. The cast came from all over the world and were expert actors and puppeteers.

The show was based on two puppets named Cecil and Justine who overcome their differences and become great friends.

As you can see, we were engrossed in the show throughout!

Then, on December 14th, we took a trip over the Newpark Care Home to sing carols for the seniors. We sang our three carols that we will be doing for the Christmas concert (White Christmas, Mary's Boy Child and Happy Xmas War is Over) as well as two others (Away in a Manger and Silent Night).

This trip was in advance of our partaking in the Bealtaine project in Term 2 where we pay several visits to Newpark as a form of community outreach to learn more about living as an elderly person in Ireland and to teach them about being children in Ireland in 2017.

We had a lovely time and the residents seemed to really enjoy our visit. The staff were wonderful also and they provided us with fruit and juice for refreshment. To say thank you, we created Christmas cards for the residents. We look forward to returning early in the New Year!

Halloween Haunted House!

So, after multiple technical issues, we are now finally uploading photos from our Halloween Haunted House 2017!
On October 26th just before midterm, our 6th class pupils were responsible for the design, set-up and running of our school Haunted House. They did this with the help of our SNAs Rosemary and Gráinne, and the result was a fantastic spooky experience which had the whole school scared and amazed! Each of the classes got a chance to visit our Haunted House, and everyone, pupils and staff alike, commented on how much work was put in and how well it came out!
A high point of the day was when our 5th class paid a visit to see their classmates hard work and got a great fright!
We have also included some extra photos from Harvest Fair!

Adventures in the Garden!

As well as hard work in class, we have also spent some time out of the class this month, despite the iffy weather! We have done several rounds of planting in our School Garden this term with the help of our SNA Gráinne, our in-class gardening expert!
Our first round of planting occurred in mid-October when we planted crocus bulbs. We did this to signal our participation in a whole class project known as The Crocus Project in History. The crocus bulbs are planted in memory of the Jewish people who lost their lives in the Holocaust during World War II. The strong yellow of the crocus flowers, which should be fully grown in February/March, recall the colour of the Star of David patches which Jewish people were forced to wear during this horrific time. We will be doing more work on this project after Christmas.

We also planted daffodil bulbs in November as part of our study of plants in Science. We really enjoyed our scientific exploration, or maybe the big smiles are just for getting out of class!