Hello everyone and welcome to Ms. Gaire's new First Class Blog. Here you will be able to keep in touch with all the fun and adventures we get up to throughout the year. Check back in regularly and you will see lots of photos and videos of us! See you soon!

Hello everyone! Welcome to our last Class Blog of the school year. Scroll across to view the photographs and click on the videos to see what we got up to during our final busy term in First Class.

We worked on many Maths topics over the past few weeks. We did great work on Place Value, Addition, Money, 3D Shapes, Length, Capacity and many more topics. We played games and did lots of activities to consolidate our learning.

Many more children in the class received the title of “Writer of the Week” throughout this term. Ms. Gaire was delighted with our effort and progress. Our handwriting has greatly improved.

​We learned many Irish songs and poems. We loved performing them in class.

​We worked on the theme of “Transport” with Ms. Smullen. We completed various activities and learned about the many modes of transport. In History, we worked on modes of transport from the past and present. In SPHE, we learned all about Road Safety. In Art, we created paper plate vehicles. In Music, we learned a song called “We All Go Travelling By.”

A theme that we really enjoyed working on was the theme of “Summer.” In Science, we did an experiment to create rainbows and learned about the seasonal changes between Spring and Summer. In SPHE, we learned how to keep safe while in the sun. In Music, we learned a “Summer Song” and formed a band using pretend instruments. We also played real percussion instruments. In Geography, we went to the school garden to look for signs of Summer. In Art, we created fabulous wind chimes which proudly hang in our school garden.

​We had a very active term. We enjoyed hurling lessons with coach Kelly. We looked forward to the lessons every Wednesday morning. We supported the 6th class in their “Runathon” fundraiser. We cheered on the pupils and even ran with them for a while. Recently we took part in “Active Week.” We went for a walk around the block with 5th class. We had a fun-filled Sports Day. We played tennis in the local tennis courts. We did an active Zumba session in the school yard. We ran a few laps around our school.

​We had a lovely Teddy Bear’s Picnic in Gerry’s garden. We brought our favourite teddies for some lunch and fun in the garden. We had a fabulous time in the sunshine.

​We created many fantastic Art pieces throughout this term. We made fabulous cards for our special dads for Father's Day. We drew beautiful summer pictures and created yummy ice-cream cones.

​One of our favourite memories from this term was our School Tour to Fort Lucan Outdoor Adventureland. The journey on the bus was passed by singing, cheering and playing games. We went on the go-carts, the Helter Skelter Slide, many water slides and the zipline. We played Crazy Golf, we played in the playground and we played on the Pirate Ship. We enjoyed ice-cream cones and lovely treats in the picnic area in the sunshine. It was the best day!

​We had a few special occasions over the past few weeks. Darragh and Ryan, two past pupils, came to visit us. They won the U20s GAA Leinster Cup and an All Ireland Cup We also had a visit from the U15 Féile Camogie team. We were so excited to meet the players.

We had such a lovely and memorable final term together. Ms. Gaire rewarded us for our great behaviour, kind actions and super progress throughout the term with many more “petals” for our Flower Reward Chart. We decided to celebrate by having ice lollies outside. On another occasion, we decided to celebrate by bringing in a toy from home for Play Time. We also went to the school playground for some fun. Soon, we will have a BIG party to celebrate our successful year together.

​Thanks for reading our Class Blog. We wish you all a lovely summer break! 
Lots of love,

Ms. Gaire's First Class x

Hello everyone! Welcome to our Class Blog for Term 2. 

Have a look at some activities and work we did from January to the Easter Break. Scroll across to see all the photographs and videos below. 

We really love being creative and we enjoy Art lessons at school. We celebrated the New Year in January by creating an art piece depicting a firework display. First, we practised drawing many exploding fireworks of different sizes and shapes on our whiteboards. Then, we drew colourful and explosive fireworks onto black paper using oil pastels. They turned out so well. In February, we made lovely Valentine Cards for our families. We wrote a special message in the cards to tell our families how much they mean to us. In March, we created a gorgeous piece of art for our mothers to celebrate Mother's Day. Towards the end of March, all First Classes worked together to create an Art Display for the school foyer. We chose the theme “April Showers Bring May Flowers.” Have a look at our amazing artwork below.

​Ms. Gaire is so pleased with our progress in Gaeilge. We learned all about the weather in Irish. Play the video below to hear our performance of the poem “An Bháisteach.” We are progressing well with Maths also. We have been working hard on Addition and Subtraction throughout this term. Ms. Gaire is really impressed with the improvements in our handwriting. She holds a weekly handwriting competition. A big “Well Done” to all the winners so far!

​If there is celebration, we are sure to celebrate in style! We celebrated “Valentines Day” by attending a Cake Sale in the school hall. We bought yummy treats and we enjoyed a well-deserved treat that day at school. We celebrated "World Book Day" by dressing up as our favourite characters from story books. Have a look at the photographs and video below where we show off our creative costumes. We attended the Book Fair and many of us bought new books to read. We acknowledged "World Down Syndrome Day" by wearing odd socks to school to show support for the pupils in our school and wider community with Down Syndrome. On “Daffodil Day” we dressed in yellow and raised money for the Irish Cancer Society. “Pancake Tuesday” was a fun day in our classroom! We tasted pancakes, took turns tossing pancakes and did fun dance called "I Love Pancakes!"

​We enjoyed celebrating “Seachtain na Gaeilge” together. We learned all about Saint Patrick. We took part in “Léitheoireacht Beirte” (Paired Reading) with 5th class children. It was fun spending time with the older children and enjoying story time with them. The school staff rewarded us with a “cárta glas” when they heard us speaking great Gaeilge. Many of us earned a “cárta glas” throughout the fortnight. Our class were invited to a “Seó Faisean” performed by 5th class and a “Seó Tallainne” performed by 4th class. We enjoyed the performances so much. We learned two Irish dances "An Rós sa Ghairdín" and “Ballaí Luimní” for the school Céilí. We loved listening to Irish music and doing Irish dancing with Ms. Gaire. We created an Art piece of a little leprechaun. When “Lá Glas” arrived we dressed in green, had little parade in our classroom and took part in the School Céilí. Bhí “Lá Glas” ar fheabhas ar fad!

​Recently, we celebrated "Friendship Week." We purchased friendship wristbands from the Students Council. Some of us bought wristbands for our friends to symbolise our friendship and to support Amnesty International. Our favourite part of the week was performing the song "You’ve Got a Friend In Me" with the whole student body in the school yard. It was a lovely, unifying moment coming together to show friendship and support for one another.

We were so excited leading up to the Easter Break. We created an Art piece of a little Easter chick and played many Easter games. We took part in an Easter Egg Hunt around the classroom. It was lots of fun! The clues led us to a basket of Easter Eggs!

We are looking forward to our final term together in First Class. We will update you on our work, adventures and achievements again soon.
Lots of love,
Ms. Gaire's class x

Check out some pictures of us dressed up for both Halloween and World Book Day!

We celebrated World Down Syndrome day by wearing our Odd Socks!

We had a great time during Lá glas!

Welcome to our First Class blog. Check us out on first official day in First Class. We threw in a crazy photo too!

Check out our Autumn Aistear photos from October:

We took part in the EU Code week as a school and we loved this time with technology in first class. You can see us concentrating hard in the pictures below:

Check out our halloween aistear fun below:

Witch & Wizard Walk - We had a great time before the October mid term and got to walk around the village in our costumes!

Our first ever live christmas concert. We were so excited to perform in front of a full audience and on stage. Our concert was called 'Born in a Barn'!

​Hello everyone! Wishing you all a very Happy New Year! 

Have a look at our latest Class Blog showing snippets of work that we did throughout November and December. Click on the arrows to scroll across and view all of the photographs below. 

We enjoyed working on various Maths topics over the past few weeks. We really liked working on the topic of "2D Shapes."

We had lots of fun throughout the month of December. To kick-start the festive season, we put on Christmas music, danced around the classroom and decorated the little Christmas Trees in our room. When the classroom was sprinkled with festive cheer, we began the rest of our Christmas activities.

​We created lovely Art pieces. We drew great Christmas scenes in our Art Notebooks. We created beautiful Art pieces of Snowmen and Snowwomen. We painted Christmas Trees and decorated them beautifully. To create our Christmas Trees, we swapped paint brushes for forks, pom poms and clothes pegs. It was a fun way to create our masterpieces.

We played many festive games, learned new dances and took part in a Christmas yoga sessions. A day that stood out for us was when Santa paid an important visit to our school. We watched Santa’s exciting arrival from the school yard. As a class, we performed a song from our Christmas Concert for Santa. He was very impressed with us! We watched a Panto called “Hansel and Gretel.” It was such a good show. We also took part in “Christmas Jumper Day.”

​On the lead up to Christmas, we were so busy preparing for our Christmas Play “Born In A Barn.” We learned new songs, dance moves and lines in preparation for our play. We had great fun practising each day and we loved dressing up in our fabulous costumes. Ms. Gaire told us that we looked like real superstars! Click on the link at the end of the blog to view our show. (It runs from 17mins 20secs to 38mins 32secs.)

​Ms. Gaire is delighted with our progress and fantastic efforts so far in First Class. We earned many more petals for our class flowers. As result, we were rewarded with extra Play Time. We chose to have Free Play in the P.E. Hall and another time, we chose Game Time on the Ipads. We had a great Christmas party together to celebrate the beginning of the Christmas holidays. 

​We hope you enjoyed looking at our Class Blog. Best wishes for 2023! We will check in again soon. 

Love, Ms. Gaire’s First Class 

Link to Christmas Concert:
https://youtu.be/pf2dqgPk7oM

Dia dhaoibh! You are very welcome to our Class Blog. We are excited for you to see some of the activities we did and topics we worked on throughout the first two months in First Class. Please scroll down to read our blog and scroll across to view the photographs and videos. Thank you. Enjoy!

We spent the start of the school year making friends. We enjoyed Play Time together while getting to know each other. During the first week of school, we learned a short poem called "The Sky Is The Limit." This poem become our motto for the school year. We created an Art Display of lovely hot air balloons. Ms. Gaire displayed our work outside our classroom. We made our own hot air balloons with our names on them to show that we are soaring to great heights in First Class. We learned a song called "Up, Up, Up" and this suited our theme very well.

​We covered many topics under the 3 SESE subjects. A Science topic that we particularly enjoyed working on was "The Five Senses." We played many games to help consolidate our learning. We learned a song, completed a few activity sheets and created our own Mr. & Mrs. Potato Heads with five senses.

We created lovely pieces of Art over the past few weeks. We drew Self Portraits. Ms. Gaire thought we all looked fabulous and unique in our drawings. She displayed our lovely work outside our classroom. We were so pleased with our finished Art pieces.

​We worked on the theme of "Autumn." We studied the seasonal changes that occur between Summer and Autumn. Gerry, our caretaker, brought us to the school garden. We harvested the potatoes that we planted when we were in Senior Infants. They potatoes grew so well in our school garden. We all brought home a potato each and some of us enjoyed potato chips/ baked potatoes that weekend. At the Nature Table, we sorted pine cones, leaves, sycamore helicopters, acorns and conkers into groups. We all created a lovely Art piece of a squirrel settling into a nest of leaves to hibernate. We completed activity sheets based on the topic of Autumn. We learned a song called “Orange, Yellow, Red and Brown” and we learned poem called "The Squirrel." Have a look at the photographs and the performance of our poem below.

​We took part in European Code Week at school. We were so excited to see the iPad trolley being rolled into the classroom. We each had our own iPad to work on. We used the “Scratch Junior” app to do two Coding Activities. For our first activity, we successfully created a code to enable animal characters to partake in a race. For our second lesson, we created a code to enable a car to drive along a busy street. It was very interesting, insightful and exciting to take part in a Coding Lessons. Have a look at our work below. Our 44 activities were accounted for in Ireland’s score on the European Map. Mr. Molloy heard of our success and gave everyone a sticker for their participation and great work.

We had lots of fun celebrating "Halloween" together. On the lead up to the Mid-Term Break, we completed various tasks and activities based on the theme of "Halloween." We learned about Halloween Traditions in History and created an Art piece called "Ghost At The Window." At the Role Play Station, we created magic potions and invented magic spells. With one little sip of a certain magic potion, students were able to fly with speed around the classroom! On Friday 28th of October, we dressed up in spooooky costumes. We went on a “Witch & Wizard Walk” around the village to show off our impressive costumes. We learned Halloween songs called “The Boogie Woogie Pumpkin Man” and “Winnie the Witch.” We also learned a poem called "Knocking On My Door." Have a look at the photographs and video below.

We had a few exciting events over the past few weeks. In October, we attended our first Cake Sale in school where we bought yummy buns, muffins and treats. We had a visit from a circus performer from Gerbola Circus. He performed many magic tricks and invited Mr. Geaney to help with perform some tricks. It was lots of fun.

Ms. Gaire is so proud of us for being caring, friendly and diligent workers. She is always delighted when we try our best at school and when we look out for others. We earn marbles for our group jars and therefore, we can enjoy Play Time on Friday. Mr. Cassidy decided that our class had the best "line" on one particular week. He rewarded us with a bag of board games. We get a "petal" on our class flowers every time we do or achieve something admirable. We celebrated earning our first 5 petals with a trip to the School Playground. We earned another 5 petals since then, so we will be celebrating our great work with another exciting treat soon.

​We will update you on our next ventures in November and December before Christmas. We will be very busy preparing for our Christmas Concert, but we promise to update you all again soon! Slán go fóill!

Hello everyone!
Welcome to Ms. Shanley's First & Second Class Blog. Here you will find lots of pictures and information of our activities and fun throughout the year. Be sure to come and visit often. See below some pictures - our class photo, drawing with ink, a visit to the garden, games on the astro, firefighter John read his fire safety book to the class, coding for EU code week!
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​See you soon!