20th November 2020
Two weeks to go until we are out from level five restrictions. I’m very much looking forward to being able to travel beyond the 5km limit and getting to walk in a different park or maybe even a beach (in contrast to the children’s dreams you will read later I’m dreaming small). In the meantime let’s continue with our efforts to reduce our number of close contacts and maintain a social distance and if we can't do that wear a mask.
As the days get that little bit shorter and the weather is a little bit colder, it is nice to focus on the festivals that bring a bit of light to our lives. Rang a Cúig had a wonderful assembly on Diwali the festival of light. You can see it here. The video of the whole school in the yard singing ‘Celebrate’ was absolutely lovely but didn’t make the upload deadline. It was amazing to hear the whole school sing together, even if they did have to drown out a cement truck.
I know it might be a little early but I can’t wait for some Xmas lights to brighten everything up. If you are like me, then you are in luck because the Parents’ Association will be selling trees next weekend, the 28th and 29th of December. You can support the school and continue the pagan custom of bringing evergreen trees into your homes.
For those of you who like to go to Linear Park after school I have been asked by the tennis club to ask you to ensure that the children don’t go onto the grounds of the Tennis Club including their wooded area or disturb the classes taking place. If you would like to raise your anxiety levels, the view from the Rang a hAon window will do just that, as you see children swinging over a wall, out past metal poles and fencing for a 2+ metre drop. Your view from the park shields you from it.
We finished our parent teacher meetings today. Thank you so much for your input into those meetings and for taking the time to attend within the two day period you were given. We have only a handful of meetings which for exceptional reasons had to be delayed. These meetings are so important and allow us to see a different viewpoint of the children and allow us to work collaboratively to help them. It is also a really useful time to raise concerns you might have. I know it is more difficult this year but please continue making contact with the class teacher and with me before a concern becomes a problem. Communication is key.
The school photos were sent home in the school bags yesterday, if you didn’t receive yours then please contact the office and we will do our best to sort it out. The order for the Festive Cards has been placed and will be arriving soon. If we all play our part and restrictions are lifted myself and the PA are working on an event that can’t be the Xmas Fair but still promises to be nice to attend. It will allow you to come into the school yard if not the school over a couple of days/weekends. You will be able to collect your cards then. We’re all ho ho hoping it can happen. Yes he might be there too!!
The Student Council are basking in the success of their term in office and we look forward to welcoming the new committee from Rang a Cúig on Monday. The ‘Student Council will fix it’ boxes are already in use in the classroom and the talk of rollercoasters and swimming pools as I dropped them off, shows the limitless nature of children and their dreams. One suggestion which caught my eye was a slide from the upper green area to the yard. Does anyone know how we could make that happen? I’m calling dibs on the first go if it does ;-)
The donations of toys has made a big difference to yard Rang a hAon and a Dó are particularly jealous of the extra equipment the junior infants have on their break in the roof garden. How come we weren’t allowed is frequently heard as they go to their own break.
Many parents have mentioned that they'd love to cycle to school with their children but are nervous as traffic is still busy in the mornings, and we're not quite there yet in terms of safe infrastructure!
There's safety in numbers and some families are joining forces and cycling together. If anyone's interested in joining up to cycle to school, even a couple of days a week, we have some enthusiastic and experienced parents to help! From Rathgar direction, contact Lorcan Staines (Alicia & Isabella’s Dad) lorcanstaines@gmail.com.
From Portobello, contact John Healy (Fay and Euan's Dad) johndothealy@gmail.com
From Windy Arbour, contact Gráinne Fahey (Edie and Iris's Mum), grainne.fahey@gmail.com
Thanks!
Christmas! It’s fabulous. It’s also the time we create the most waste all year! 75000 tonnes of Christmas waste every year goes into landfill.
This week ….
Gift ‘experiences’
Think about giving an experience as a gift rather than an object, something that will create a nice memory to replace the physical object that you might otherwise buy in a package and then wrap creating lots of waste. The object itself might even be wasted by the receiver, put in a drawer never to be seen.
You can buy cooking classes or a day out or a membership to somewhere they can enjoy going all year. A gift that keeps on giving.
Some suggestions for experiences:
Membership for Kilruddery: https://killruddery.com/
Kilruddery is a gorgeous public estate in Bray with cafes, walks and a huge sandpit for the kids. They hold all sorts of events during the year such a Fairy Day, Teddy Bears Picnic and plenty for adults too.
Membership for Airfield: https://www.airfield.ie/
You’ve probably all visited Airfield at some stage, membership allows you to go as much as you want and enjoy the farm and gardens and all the activities they offer.
Hot Air Balloon rides: https://www.balloons.ie/
Up, up and away in my beautiful balloon.
Great outdoor climbing fun: https://www.squirrelsscramble.ie/
On the grounds of Kilruddery in Bray this outdoor activity offers kids and adults alike the chance to climb … high and very safely. A great day out for all.
The possibilities of gifting experiences are endless and waste free.
CAN YOU JOIN THE STOP CLIMATE CHAOS MASS ONLINE LOBBY TO LOCAL TD’S ON DECEMBER 7TH?
The new climate bill is really important and needs to be strengthened if our children are going to have a environmentally stable future. At the moment the bill’s language is vague; ‘it may’ reach targets, it needs to say ‘it will’. ’Stop Climate Chaos are aiming for 1000 people to join a mass online lobby showing them we want better. Brid Smith is our local TD on this issue. See website below for details. You can be active as you want to help or you can simply show up to the online lobby or contact Brid. Strength in numbers.
https://www.stopclimatechaos.ie/
This week our class made autumn owls using leaves, fabric and paper. We glued them together and made some adorable owls.They are on display now!
Our rugby teacher, Ken, from previous years has come back to teach us again. We’ve been doing tag rugby instead of normal rugby because of covid 19.
We have also received brand new chrome books which are touch screen, fast, and easy to use… it seems just like yesterday in fourth class getting the other chrome books and thinking they were amazing!
This week we have also been starting projects about influential women around the world. Everybody has chosen one influential woman and is writing a project on her. We’ll be doing them for this week and next week and then presenting them to our class
That’s all for this week.Make sure to check up on our news next week. Bye everyone !
By Jess and Alexander.
This week was a great week.
We started practicing for our assembly which is on Diwali on Friday.Our class are doing it for the rest of the school so we want to do a good job! We made little diyas from recycled loo rolls during art class.They are small lanterns which are used to light the way for Hindus, Jains and Sikhs.
We’re finishing fractions in Maths. It was a hard topic. Ms Brennan and Mrs Ryan taught us on Tuesday and Wednesday as Ms Nic a Bhaird was doing zoom parent teacher meetings.
We love having all the yard equipment and have lots of things to do like hula hoops, rugby balls, skipping ropes etc. Ken will be back doing rugby with us this week for P.E. We do mindfulness every morning and this week it has been in Irish.
Thank you for reading and have a nice weekend everyone! Keep washin’ those hands!
By: Ailbhe and Milo
This week in R4 we have been doing a lot of work on the Jewish festival of Yom Kippur. We became experts on a particular object of importance to Jewish people, like a shofar, kittel, tallit and candles. We then became the teachers and taught each other about our area of expertise.
We have been continuing with narrative writing in English, discussing character descriptions, story settings and how to edit our work. We started division in maths. We also tried a maths challenge where you write down the number 4, four times. Then put operation symbols between them so that you have a calculation. BUT you can only use operations so that the answer is 12. Tessellation came up in our mental maths books so Ms. Delaney shared an interesting video about hexagons with us, why they are so great and why bees love them. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=thOifuHs6eY
On Wednesday we painted our Greek Pots and also had the option to create Greek shields, we talked about the Greek army and what soldiers wore.
We learned the song ‘Celebration’ for the school assembly which was great fun! We did tag rugby in PE.
This week in 3rd class we did some science experiments as it was science week in our class. We made slime/ goo with cornflour. It felt weird. It worked for some people but in some groups we added too much water. We also made really cool flying balloon rockets. We made ice cream using ice and salt! We also made bottle rockets. We had a lot of fun.
In maths we made bar charts to show favourite cakes, apps, sports, food and animals.
In forest school we played foxes and rabbits and wolves and deers.Wednesday’s group got the rain so we put up the tarp and had our lunch underneath it.
Our pod winners so far are Pizza bros x2 and The Nuggets.
Kindness monitors were doing a lot of work making the yard more fun and fair for everyone. We all agree that we are getting better when sharing the equipment.
Hi everyone.It has been another great week in Rang 2. We have finished the castles and are very happy with the results. We hope you like them too.
In Gaeilge we are finishing up Bia and moving on to An Geimhreadh as a theme.
We have a new phrase for you :
Cén Bia is fearr leat? - What is your favourite food?
An Bia is fearr liom ná....- My favourite food is..............
We have been discussing the theme of homes and took a trip to one another's homes via Google Maps.We also researched our own homes including some very interesting historical facts. Did you know that Rachel has an underground bomb shelter in her garden?
‘Spellings for Me’ and handwriting is going really well in class. When I see some of the handwriting I think I must be in Rang 6.
Keep up the great work Rang 2
Miss Coogan
Rang a hAon have been having a great week. We have started Games Week where our pods play different games at lunchtime and we get the chance to play with lots of different people in the class. It has been lots of fun so far and the class have been providing suggestions for new games to try out. As always, we're doing lots of learning and this we started learning about time. The children spent the week working out different things they could do in one minute and measured it using an egg timer.
Joey was this week's classroom correspondent. "I am enjoying history and maths and the pirate game we do in drama. We also do Science, P.E. and English. We learned about lots of religions like Islam, Sikhism and Buddhism. Last week we planted flowers."
We have been working very hard in Senior Infants this week. We have been learning all about Recycling and how important it is for the environment that we make sure to recycle. As usual we are loving our Aistear play in the mornings and working really well together in our groups. This week we have even started learning some Christmas songs and are enjoying this a lot! We really enjoyed Ms.Curran and Mrs.Ryan teaching us for a bit this week too.
We have been learning all about the famous painter Vincent Van Gogh. We love his paintings especially Starry Night and the Sunflowers. We made a mandala in the park this week using leaves, pinecones, pine needles, sticks and stones. Homework started this week and we are working very hard on our reading and writing. Lots of new things arrived in junk art and we have been making a robot.
