2nd class 2017-2018

Welcome to our Second Class webpage - we're buzzing!!

​Welcome to our Second Class webpage. We have been busy girls since returning to school in September and we would like to show you some of the activities we do. We opened the school year with Being Kind and Caring Week. We spent time discussing and deciding on what we thought were the components of a good friend. We used these traits to make our friendship recipes. In SPHE we made 'our unique friends' and concluded with our 'bee-ing kind and caring bumble bees.' Opening our school year with a special week like this has set us all on a really good path for the year ahead..

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Our Enrolment Ceremony

On Sunday the 1st of October we celebrated our Enrolment Ceremony. This was a special mass that opened our liturgical year. Some girls had special roles in the mass such as bringing up gifts to the Altar, bringing up our enrolment baskets and reading prayers. Our enrolment baskets had a special enrolment certificate for each of us, a candle and a name card which we each wrote our name on and decorated. These cards and candles were then distributed to parishioners in Booterstown who will kindly remember us and pray for us throughout the year as we prepare to make our First Holy Communion.

Busy Planting!

Martha De Buitléir very kindly brought us out to the new and beautiful school garden where we planted bulbs. Even though the days are getting colder and shorter as winter draws closer, these bulbs will bloom and bring colour to our garden in Spring. 

September Artwork!

Here are some samples of activities we have done in school in September. We particularly enjoyed learning to sew!

Oooohhh....There's something spooky in the air....

We are getting quite excited about the approaching midterm break - not only because we have a week off achool (we're trying not to cry!!!) but because Halloween is coming! We have been preparing for this in school by making creepy crawly spiders in their woven webs, making bony skeletons and pastel spider webs. We also studied a Halloween poem, wrote our own Halloween poems and we're learning some very spooky Halloween songs. Most of all however we are looking forward to dressing up next Friday. Not only are we having dress up day but as it happens, we are so lucky to be invited to Dubray Bookstore in Blackrock on Friday to meet the illustrator Korky Paul of the Winnie the Witch series. Perfect timing or what and it's the most perfect excuse to dress up as the witch from the books he's illustrated. We can't wait!

Delving into the past...

We wanted to find out about what games were played long ago and after deciding on a few ways in which we could do this, we decided together that the best way for us right now was to interview our parents or grandparents about what they played as a child. For our history homework one night we composed a list of questions which we then asked at home. Using this information we taught each other in class what games our (grand)parents played and then we went out to the yard to play some of these. We also brought in some board games which we own and some our parents had as children and last week we spent time swapping the games around and playing them together. We had such a great time playing these indoor and outdoor games and learning a bit more about the history of our families along the way. 

Reduce Reuse Recycle

Last Friday we were very lucky to have Roberta from Rediscover in to do a workshop with us. Her aim over the course of the school year is to teach us more about the work they do in their centre and to make us more aware of our role in improving and sustaining the environment.

First she asked us what thing we have at home that we wanted to get rid of and she explained what they could turn that object into in order to make a new item. Then we played the bin game where she gave us all an item and we had to categorise it into the correct bin from a choice of: general waste bin, compost bin, recycling centre and recycling bin. In pairs we completed a survey to highlight what we already do and know about recycling. Before she left Roberta gave us all a board and leftover fabric from her centre and we were free to design anything we wanted to using those materials.

​We had such a wonderful time. We learned so much and we're looking forward to our next workshop with Roberta in a few months 

Maths Madness!

 We're having great fun this maths week and a big thank you to Ms Henry who organised it all. Today we did a maths trail around the school! We were counting cars, counting windows and pillars, recording dates, comparing one thing against another, measuring and so much more!

We made a whole class maths addition and subtraction game. We had to think of a maths subtraction or addition sums and decorate our cards for display.

We went to the hall today to play lots of maths games: We played maths games on i pads and Nintendo, connect 4, jenga, shape finder and snakes and ladders to name but a few. We swapped around activities, played against and with one another and just simply had fun! 

​Amy's mum Sarah treated us to a wonderful maths lesson today. First we had to guess the number of sweets in a jar.  It was very hard not to just open it and dive straight in but we put our minds to the task at hand knowing the reward was that the girl who guessed correctly or closest to the correct answer, got to keep the jar. In the end, Cathy and Lauren won coming closest to the answer of 166. 

Next we had the smarties challenge We each got a fun size box of smarties and we had to guess the amount of smarties, then count and record the actual amount. Following this we had to record on a graph how many of each colour smarties there were. Finally (and best of all!!), when our maths challenge was complete we got to eat out smarties! A big thank you to Sarah - she made maths really fun!

Today we were treated to a wonderful maths lesson with Teagan's mum, Olwyn. Olwyn taught us about the use and value of maths in our lives. She did a powerpoint presentation where she showed how each letter of the alphabet represented a different use for maths. We hadn't thought for example that maths is used in jigsaws, in x-rays, by traffic controllers, by astronauts or even in navigation. We learned about Ada Lovelace, a famous and gifted mathematician. A big thank you to Olwyn for the wonderful lesson and also for the lovely worksheets and crayon box we each received!