​GO, JOHN, GO!

We are so lucky to have two brilliant SNAs, John and Natalie, working with us this year. They make school life so much fun and we are well looked after by them both. John is currently undertaking fundraising for the Epilepsy Society. He plans to complete three marathons on three different continents in 60 days: the Tokyo Marathon on March 3rd, the Boston Marathon on April 15th, and the London Marathon on April 21st. When John finishes all three, he will add to his previously achieved major World Marathons- Berlin, New York and Chicago, which earns him a special Abbott Medal and place in the Hall of Fame. Naturally, we are all so proud of John for his past achievements and his current fundraising and training. We wanted to show support for John’s quest ahead and tie the celebrations in with his birthday. We put a plan in action, but decided to keep it a TOP SECRET!

On Friday 9th of February, two days before John’s birthday, we held the big surprise. While John had his break, we, along with Natalie and Ms. Gaire were busy decorating the classroom in purple decorations and putting on purple clothes and accessories. After John’s break, he walked into a sea of purple! Purple is the colour associated with the Epilepsy Society. We performed a special poem for John. We listened to him speak about his reasons for fundraising for the Epilepsy Society, about the 10 marathons that he has already completed, his current training regime and his plans for the next three marathons in March and April. We learned so much from John. As we say in our poem, John is a “real life Super Hero!” We are John’s biggest cheerleaders and wish him the very best of luck with the three marathons ahead. We cannot wait to see the medals that John will return with after his trips to Tokyo, Boston and London.

Go, John, Go!

​Welcome back to our Class Blog! This blog shows snippets of work that we did throughout the second half of Term 1. Click on the arrows to scroll across to view all of the photographs and press play for the videos. Enjoy!

During “Science/ Engineering Week,” all First Class students were given the same STEM challenge. The challenge was to create a tall building using only spaghetti and marshmallows. Together with our team members, we set about making the tallest building. It was fun and we had to be very innovative. Ms. Gaire was impressed with our creative thinking.

​We started hurling lessons in November. Kelly, our coach, said she could see an improvement in our skills as the weeks went by.

​We enjoyed working on various Maths topics. We liked working on the topic of "2D Shapes." We created pictures using 2D shapes, played games on the interactive white board and completed activity sheets and pages in our workbooks. We also enjoyed working on the topic of “Data.” We collected data, recorded it, displayed our results on a chart and analysed the data on “our favourite ice-cream flavours.” We had hungry, rumbling tummies after doing that maths activity!

​In November, we designed lovely Christmas pictures. Our drawings were sent to the printers and made into fabulous Christmas cards/ wrapping paper/ gift tags. When we received our packages in December, we were so excited to write cards showing our pictures and wrap gifts in our creations.

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 class Christmas Tree. When the classroom was sprinkled with festive cheer, we began the rest of our Christmas activities.

​We created lovely Art pieces. We drew lovely Christmas scenes in our Art Notebooks. We made a festive ornament to hang on our Christmas trees at home. We created the ornament by doing “scratch art.” We created a beautiful Art piece of a snowperson. Some children created snowmen/ snow-women with funny/ great names. 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.

On the lead up to Christmas, we were so busy preparing for our Christmas Play- “In the Woods.” We learned new songs, dance moves and lines in preparation for our show. We had great fun rehearsing each day and we loved dressing up in our amazing costumes. Ms. Gaire, John and Natalie thought that that we looked like real superstars! Click on the link below to view our show. (Our show runs from 17mins 45secs to 37mins.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mvn8oNsCyuc 

We played many festive games, learned new dances and took part in Christmas yoga sessions. A day that stood out for us was when Santa and Mrs. Claus paid an important visit to our school. We also took part in “Christmas Jumper Day.” Diar, Ruby-Leigh and Lauren were successful in winning prizes in The Late Late Toy Show raffle run by the PTA.

​We learned new Irish songs and poems. Have a listen below!

Ms. Gaire is delighted with our progress and fantastic efforts so far in First Class. We earned many more petals for our class flowers throughout November and December. As result, we were rewarded with play time in the school playground and classroom, a Popcorn Party while watching a Christmas video and play time on the I-pads. We had a Christmas party together to celebrate the beginning of the Christmas holidays.

​We hope you enjoyed our Class Blog!
Love,
Ms. Gaire’s First Class