27th November 2020
There’s a level of energy and excitement building in the school. I’m sure you can feel it in your homes too. It is great to see that all that has changed in the children’s world hasn’t stopped the usual excitement of the winter season from starting, way too early. The extra energy is amazing but it also keeps the teachers and the SNAs very busy as they try to direct and contain it. There were some tired bodies leaving the school these past few days. It also has a distortive effect on time. This week seemed to pass in a blink. How is it already Friday? When you work with children it is hard not to get caught up in this buzz and as we are about to see some of the restrictions lifted I can’t help but get excited about all those things that we will be able to do again. Small things, but covid has taught me that the simplest of things can give the greatest pleasure.
This fun competition was brought to my attention which could give your weekend some direction/distraction from all the Black Friday consumerism. It's called the jump in puddles challenge. Details are in the second pdf. There’s someone in my house who likes nothing more than the opportunity to swim in any puddle he can find, I might just join in.
Aoileann Farley has been busy with the organisation of our New Year Celebration. I’ve been in RMDS more than a few years and I am still amazed that the classes continue to find festivals and celebrations that I have never heard of before. We aim to do a combination of a live stream and pre recorded dramas highlighting all these festivals. This virtual event will take place on Friday the 18th of December with everyone getting a front row seat. New parents to the school will miss the realisation that our GP room is quite small and a good vantage point is hard to get. That’s a warning for next year, don’t arrive late.
The children are also busy working on making and selecting a piece of art that they are going to submit to the RMDS gallery while Rang a Sé have been working very hard putting together business proposals to Áine Grennan.
If all that wasn’t enough to get you excited we have some news from the PA about the Xmas fair. You can even buy your tree this weekend from the school yard.
Paul
This year's RMDS Fair will be a little different to previous years, but still promises to be a great day out! We’re really looking forward to it and hope to see you there. It’s all outdoors this year, and we will be doing everything we can to ensure a safe, socially distant event.
What to Expect
November 28 & 29: Christmas Trees
11am-5pm: Christmas trees, wreaths, stands etc. on sale from the school yard.
December 5 & 6: Fair & Trees
11am-5pm: Raffle, Santa, Cafe, Merchandise, Christmas Card Collection, Pop-up Bookshop. Trees on sale all day.
December 12: 6th Class stalls, Art Expo, Books and Trees:
12pm-3pm: 6th Class Business Initiatives, Pop-up Bookshop & the RMDS Student Art Exhibition - where the childrens art work will be displayed in the yard for all to enjoy!
Trees on sale all day.
Safety & Social Distancing
We are asking all who attend to please be mindful of how hard the school has worked to keep a safe environment for the school community. With this in mind, we are planning:
Suggested Times
We are trying to limit the numbers attending at any one time. We appreciate that the suggested class times may not suit all - don’t worry, no one will be turned away!
Sat 5th December
12-1:30pm - Junior Infants and R6
1:30-3pm - Senior Infants and R5
Sunday 6th December
12-1:30pm - R1 and R3
1:30-3pm - R2 and R4
How you can Help
The Fair is a big fundraiser for the school - and we really need your support over the weekends. Here's what you can do in the run up to the fair:
This week ….
WRAPPING and packaging. Christmas packaging amounts to 75,000 tonnes of waste ea
ch year in Ireland going into landfill. Pretty disgusting right? Unfortunately packaging will last a lot longer than Christmas. Plastic can take 1000 years to decompose. 1000 years!
Not all wrapping paper is recyclable.
Any glitter, foil, shiny finish, sellotape and bows are not recyclable.
‘Do you like my furoshiki on your present?
Furoshiki, the Japanese art of wrapping is a lovely fancy name for wrapping presents without using incredibly wasteful wrapping paper. Incorporate the present into the wrapping, you can use any kind of material that you can wrap with; scarves, teatowels, tote bags as part of the present or use old clothes. You can learn how to wrap everything simply and beautifully here:
https://blog.spoonflower.com/2019/11/6-ways-to-wrap-a-gift-with-furoshiki/
or simply improvise as you wish! You can also use newspaper or all those paintings and drawings made by the kids that won’t go on the wall. A great alternative to wrapping paper.
Try to buy presents without packaging where possible or choose packaging that is recyclable or compostable.
An Déardaoin seo caite bhí corpoideachas againn. I gcorpoideachas táimid ag déanamh rugbaí le Ken. Imrímid cluichí ar nós rugbaí tag agus fear pacála agus déanaimid péire agus pasanna. Bíonn an-spraoi againn. I mBéarla táimid ag déanamh na Mayans agus mar sin, ar an Aoine, rinneamar maisc Maya san ealaín. Tá siad crochta taobh amuigh dár seomra ranga. Ar an Luan chuamar go dtí Páirc Líneach chun cloigíní gorma a phlandáil. Ansin, ar an Mháirt, thosaíomar ag féachaint ar na bhfíseáin ón ReelLife Science. Chuir siad físeán le chéile de na buaiteoirí. Níor bhuaigh aon duine sa rang é ach bhí na físeáin eile go hiontach. Bhuaigh scoil eile i mBaile Átha Cliath an comórtas. Inné, leanamar ar aghaidh ag féachaint ar an bhfíseán. Bhí cúpla acu deacair a thuiscint ach bhí na cinn eile go maith. Bhí Cainteanna Páiste 2020 as siúl an Aoine seo caite. Tuisce go bhfuil leibhéal 5 fós linn, bhí sé ar zoom.
Sinn é le haghaidh an seachtain seo. Slán!
Scríofa ag Síbha.
Hi everyone! We hope you're doing well. We've had another amazing week in rang a 5 so here are some of the things we did.
In Maths we learned about lines and angles and also learned how to use a protractor. We know a lot more about them now. Last Friday we performed an assembly. Senior infants watched us live, and it was filmed for the rest of the school. After that we met in the yard as a whole school, socially distanced,for the first time this year to sing our whole school song celebrations.
We learned how to put a sentence in the future tense in irish, caol le caol, leathan le leathan.
On Monday we did art as usual, and we cut out pieces of winter colours such as different shades of blue and white paper, to create a silhouette of a tree in winter.
We were so happy to start our animal projects in SESE. We got into pairs in our pods and each pair chose an animal to research and learn about, such as blob fish, squids, snakes and lots more! Now we are heading off to do rugby with Ken.
Slán libh go dtí an seachtain seo chugainn!
Rosa agus Shane
We’ve been discussing the environment and climate change after watching Greta Thunberg’s ‘Our House is On Fire’. We researched the subject using the NASA climate kids website. We are creating posters on the topic for a competition. We talked about how diverse and unique our families are in core curriculum.
In maths, we finished division. This week R4 were studying division with remainders. For homework, we began a project on famous Irish people. Our library was filled with a new selection of books, there was great excitement! Last week, with Ms. McCoy, we invented COVID-19 related business products. We played a mini game of tag rugby with Coach Ken. Finally, we presented our history projects on Ancient Greece!
This week was our last week of Forest School. We will miss Forest School so much. We had a competition in the maze. Roisin and Beau were the winners.
During science this week we were studying electricity. We made simple circuits to light a bulb.
We entered the Sustainable Days competition. We made posters based on Clean Marine, Waste Warriors and Everyday Energy Heroes.
Hi everyone. We have had such a great and busy week in Rang 2.
Did you use your Gaeilge phrases from last week?
An Geimhreadh atá ann.
Tá an ghaoth ag séideadh.
Tá stoirm ag teacht.
We made lovely snowflakes and have hung them in the window.
We also created art based on the work of the architect and artist Hundertwasser.
They are adding a lot of colour to the Rang a Dó corridor.
The big news this week is that knitting has started. We are slowly but surely getting the hang of it and are prepared to put the work in.
We are also feeling great because we got another 100 points as a class on our class dojo . Our reward was to head up to Belgrave for some fun.
Let the good times continue in Rang 2.
This week has been jam packed for Rang a hAon. The class have been working really hard and have been playing some new yard games during big break which has been lots of fun! We also played Bingo to practice some new words. This week was a special week for Ben Duggan Hynes and Riad as we celebrated Thanksgiving. The class created some Thankful Turkeys to show what they are grateful for.
This week's classroom correspondent is Edie. "Hello, this is the First Class news. This week we were learning about Peter and the Wolf. It is a story and a song that tells you about the instruments. We were learning about the five senses, they are smelling, hearing, sight, touch and taste. We are doing a drama about the jungle and learning how to tell the time. We also learned about Thanksgiving in America and how to put things in alphabetical order. We even put the class in alphabetical order."
We have had a busy week in Senior Infants. Ms. Curran continues to work hard with us all, helping us to become great readers! We all love going out to read with Ms. Curran. We are also really enjoying our GAA with Simon and learning lots of new skills. This week we made some Xmas Stockings and Xmas Wreaths in Art. We have started practicing some of our songs for our Xmas Concert and are getting very excited about it!
This week we made salt dough in Aistear for our Bakery. Don't try to taste it! In the park this week we rolled logs down the steps and played Hungry Bear. We drew our own Starry Night pictures using oil pastels. Neil Armstrong was the first man to walk on the moon and Valentina Terashkova was the first woman in space. We were reading a book all about the moon landings. We also read a book about Picasso and his art. We have been learning how to skip. It is quite hard and you have to practise a lot! Next week we will start practising for our Christmas play. Thanksgiving was celebrated on Thursday and some people in our class celebrate it. We made pictures of all the things we are thankful for.
Lost Property
The good news is that we have had no lost property in two weeks. 
The bad news is I am going to give up trying to find a home for these clothes soon. Most of what’s left has been here for over a month and if it is still here next week it will be looking for a new home courtesy of a charity shop.
Yes, that is our first Xmas Tree. There is a sequin star at the top but the camera didn’t quite capture it.
