We hope you had a wonderful St Patrick's Day and weekend. Just to remind you the school is closed today, Monday 20th March.
It will reopen tomorrow Tuesday 21st at 8.50am
Ceili
Claire Dowling ran a ceili for all the children in the school. She paired an older child with a younger child and they practiced their Irish dancing. The children really enjoyed themselves!
Junior Infant Scientists
Junior Infants had a great time at the science fair today!
Well done to the three 3rd classes for a super event!
Spring planting
Today we visited the Science Room accompanied by visitor from the Heritage Council Grace Guard. We sowed many seeds including. "Morning glory,sweet pea, cress,carrots and much more! We also prepared some vegetables to sow in the raised beds in our yard so we will have lots of vegetables to harvest in Autumn Time!
World Book Day
Today was World Book Day. It was a great day. The children made a huge effort to dress up as various characters from their favourite books. There were lots of genres of books discussed such as story books, factual books, annuals and comics. We talked about the characters in stories and what some of our favourite stories were. Some of the older classes did paired reading with the younger classes and each class took part in DEAR (Drop Everything And Read) for some time. The younger classes had an assembly to show off all their costumes. Don't the children look wonderful!?!
These are children in Ms Roche's Third Class all dressed up in their costumes.
Mad about Multiplication
3rd class have been working very hard on their tables at home and in school. We are playing multiplication and division games in pairs and small groups every morning.
We love board games, Kaboom and Multiples Bingo, but our favourite game is Team Challenge!
We also made multiplication 'fortune tellers' for our 3x tables. We like using them to play with our friends while learning our tables. They were tricky to make, so a big than you to the boys and girls who helped us to do it!
Fractions and Andy Warhol
Third class has great fun learning all about fractions last week. We could even relate fractions to our art lesson!
We had been discussing halves, quarters and eighths. We had been dividing up materials into equal groups, making sure they were all the same. So we were inspired by Andy Warhols images, where he repeats the same image using lots of different colours. We discussed the fact that he drew things that were part of pop culture in the 50's and compared it to our pop culture now. This provided inspiration for emojis, pokemon, youtube and various foods!
Keith Haring Art
Keith Haring inspired Third Class Art last week. He was an Artist from USA. He did not like formal art and was inspired by pop art. He created images that were simple and stylised. He used bold lines, bright colours and created a sense of movement in his art. Here are some examples of his work
From his work, we were inspired to make art like his!
School Closed on Thursday 15th
On Thursday the 15th December the school will be closed for the children.
All teaching staff must attend an in-service training day for the new language curriculum.
The school will be open again on Friday 16th December at the normal school time of 8.50am.
Christmas Plays
Over the next two weeks we have wonderful plays going on to celebrate Christmas.
We would love for you to come and see the plays and cheer on your child.
This Wednesday 14th at 12pm, Junior Infants will have their play altogether in the Junior Building hall.
On Tuesday 20th at 9.30 the Early Start groups are putting on their concerts in their classrooms. All children must be in by 9.15am.
Also on Tuesday 20th at 1pm the 1st class children will put on their Christmas play in the Junior Building hall.
On the 21st December the whole school community is invited to St. Fergal's church to watch the Junior production of Busy Bethlehem performed by 1st, 2nd and 3rd class. This will take place at 11am.
Later that same day the Senior children from 4th, 5th and 6th class will perform Hosanna Rock at 1pm. Ms.Connolly's class will be the actors.
Please come and join us for the festivities.
Local History
The 4th classes have been learning all about the Bray town hall this term. We asked lots of questions including:
When was it built? Why it was built? Who built it?
We looked at lots of pictures of the building both modern and old. Here are a few of them...
After reading some information about the Brabazon family – we were lucky enough to be able to walk down and have a look at the building close up.
We see it all the time but this time we were able to go upstairs and see where the first town council meeting was held. We even saw where our very own Mr O’ Brien and Mr Behan sit when they attend town council meetings.
We re-enacted a town council meeting while we were there and discovered the answers to all our questions about the building and the statue in front of it.
Afterwards, we did some artwork and wrote out some of our newly learnt facts about the building.
Have a look at our pics and facts. Maybe you'll learn something new as well!
The Incredible Years Parenting Course
Starting on Thursday, January 12, 2017 from 9:30am to 11:30am
We are a friendly and relaxed group for parents and carers. We look at a new topic each session that can help address your child's problem behaviours. The first half of the programme focuses on the positive behaviours you would like to see from your child. The second half looks at reducing the problem behaviours you would like to see less of. Research has found that families were able to make real improvements in their children's behaviours after completing the programme.
Two hours a week for twelve weeks
Free!
Niamh Mullins- Project Worker, Background in Psychology, Accredited Play Therapist- 087 204 4549
Emma O'Sullivan- Home School Community Liaison Teacher - 085 755 7542
Coffee Morning
Coffee Morning in Support of Irish Premature Babies
All Welcome!
All money raised will go towards the Irish Premature Babies Foundation and will be used to help purchase Breast Pumps which will be loaned to mothers of Premature Babies.
Date: Thursday 17th of November
Time: 9:30-11:30
Venue: Parent's Room, St. Fergal's N.S.
How to be Smart about Social Media
Time: 9:15-10:15 am
Date: Wednesday 16th of November
Location: P.E. Hall (Senior Building) St. Fergal's N.S.
One Hour FREE Presentation by John Fitzpatrick on how to help keep your child safe as they use the internet, He will explain some simple tips about how to teach your children to use computers, tablets and mobile phones safely and give advice on what apps or sites to avoid.
The Egg Experiment in 3rd Class
The Egg Experiment
We were learning all about the Digestive System. We discussed all the different parts and their functions. We focused a lot on the mouth and the teeth. The egg shell acts very similarly to the tooth so we undertook some fair testing. We compared eggs in water, in coca cola and in vingear. The egg in water acted as a control to compare the other eggs to. We left the eggs for 24 hours. The egg in water did not change. The egg in the vinegar dissolves the shell, similar to having lots of acidic in our diet. The egg shell in coca cola changed colour to a very dark brown. This shows the effect of drinking fizzy drinks, teas and coffees. We also cleaned this egg with a toothbrush; highlighting the importance of cleaning our teeth everyday.
4th Class News
Things have been very busy in 4th class. Well done to the boys from both classes who went to the GAA blitz in Loughlinstown. They won 2 out of 3 of their matches and did our school proud! Best of luck to the girls who are participating next week.
This month we are learning all about Australia and The Aborigines. Both classes are working on some beautiful dot paintings inspired by The Aborigines. We have made replicas of the Sydney Opera House too. We are also learning how to do Report Writing and we are enjoying researching all about Australian culture as part of this.
In science, Ms. Connolly's class have been busy planting and are looking forward to seeing their plants bloom in February. Ms Clarke's class are learning about the digestive system and healthy eating with the help of some experiments.
Finally both classes have been learning the song Do Re Mi from The Sound of Music - click the link to watch a clip from the movie.