Winning team

We did a fun table quiz today recapping on some of our topics in the past few weeks. There were two teams in the final - the Propa Whoppas and the Hipster Kids. Kealan and Emmet were asked for the name of the famous clock in London and Kealan pipped Emmet to the post with the correct answer, 'Big Ben'!! Well done boys!

The Winning Team - The Hipster Kids

Christmas play!!

The carol service is on tomorrow at 1.15 on Thursday, could you please ensure your son has his jubilee t-shirt on under his jumper for a school photo after the service?

Also, exciting news!!! We are doing a small, tiny, mini Christmas play on Friday at 11.30! It is called "Elves on Strike". It is only about 5 minutes long but all the boys are taking part and we would love you to come and be part of our audience in the classroom. You may take the boys straight after the play. 🎅🎄

Letters to Santa...with a twist!

We used the children's book by Mick Inkpen 'We are wearing out the Naughty Step' as inspiration for our literacy lesson today. The boys had to write a funny letter to Santa from the point of view of a little child who is finding it hard not to be naughty! Have a read of some of the letters...

Dear Santa (by Liam Mulvey)

I'm pretty sure I've been good this year. Mum doesn't think I have. The only bad things I did were by accident like when I tripped and the dirty underwear flew out of my hand and landed on my borther's head. I think I have superpowers because the carrots on my plate talked to me and they said they wanted to get into my nose so I let them. It's not my fault that mum puts me on the naughty step for no reason. No one is perfect. 

Love, Jack (ps I'm only 6)

Tour cancelled

Unfortunately, due to inclement weather, the tour to Leinster House was cancelled on Thursday and the €2 was returned to the boys.

Mini school tour this week!!

To celebrate the centenary of The Irish Suffragette Movement on Friday 14th December, we will be heading to the National Museum of Ireland in Leinster house this Thursday 13th December. We will be getting Dublin bus in and out of town and having our lunch in St.Stephen's Green, weather permitting! Please bring in €2 tomorrow and make sure your son has a coat on Thursday ❄

Multiplication and Division

Multiplication and Division

5th class have completed their chapter on Multiplication and Division and the boys have completed a test which they will bring home tonight to be signed.
Ms. Fannin will be doing a 'maths grind' on the above topics tomorrow (Tuesday) at lunch time (12pm) and this is available to any of the boys who wish to attend.

Poetry

In school we have been learning about poetry. We have been reading a poem every day from the book 'I am the Seed that Grew the Tree'. We started writing our own poetry too. We began with rhyming poetry, using the poem 'If I was a superhero' as our stimulus. We all wrote our own 'If I was a ...' poem and presented them in the shape of what our poem was about! They were fantastic!

We then studied Limericks and looked at the structure of them. Did you know that Limericks follow an AABBA pattern whereby the first, second and fifth lines rhyme and the third and fourth lines rhyme differently and are shorter in length? Here are some great examples:

Lettuce by Emmet Callan

We once had a turtle called Lettuce

Who ran back to the store where he met us

We raced him there

But he was fast as a hare

So in the race he bet us!

Narrative writing

We spent three weeks learning about the structure of narrative writing. We learned how to begin a story, how to structure a story, how to develop characters and how to ensure a good flow from beginning to end. We spent a good few days focusing on the introduction of a story. We experimented with beginnings that used dialogue, facts, vivid descriptions, questions and onomatopoeia. We wrote some amazing pieces that would hook any reader and leave them wanting more!

We will be revisiting narrative writing throughout the year and I can't wait to read the short story entries into our class competition!

Perspective art lesson

For science week we studied Leonardo DaVinci whose many talents included; engineering, science, art, inventions and architecture. One of the greats of his time, DaVinci came to prominence during the Renaissance era, when things such as perspective were being used in art for the first time. We did an art lesson on perspective and the results are fantastic! Ps did you know that Leonardo was from a town in Italy called Vinci, hence his name?!!

Building Bridges

We have been doing the Building Bridges programme over the last few weeks in 5th class. Building Bridges is a programme that builds comprehension strategies and helps children to engage more with the text that they're reading. It uses strategies such as; predicting, connecting, visualising, inferring etc... to do this. The strategy that we have just finished is 'Connecting' and we have read two amazing picture books about Anne Frank and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. We made lots of connections whilst reading these books as you can imagine and the class discussions were really interesting. We also did fantastic group posters on Dr. Martin Luther King Jr which are on display outside our classroom.

Christmas has arrived!

We are getting festive in 5th class! We had a poster competition to see whose winning design would make it onto the windows. Well done to Liam, Dylan Horan, Conor, Leon and Jake whose winning designs you can now see on the classroom windows. Special thanks to Marc, Donnacha, Jake, Leon, Conor and Oisín for our wonderful classroom door!! You couldn't but be feeling the Christmas spirit walking through our classroom door 🎄

Still life masterclass!

Last Thursday we had a visit from an artist who is doing a masters in the history of art and curatorship in UCD. Her name is Srishti and she is from India. She taught us how to start a still life and to think about the proportions of the object before you even touch the page. She also reminded the boys to look up at the object more than down at the page. She did a 3 minute sketch of Leon's eye which was really cool! Have a look at some of the great pieces of work that the boys produced.

Welcome!

Please use this blog to catch up on what's going on in 5th class! We will be posting:

1. photos
2. news
3. poetry and short stories
4. links to articles
5. maths games and much more!

Looking forward to the year ahead!

Ms.Fannin