Welcome back to school everyone! We are looking forward to a wonderful year in 3rd and 4th class.

A special welcome to the 3^rd class boys who are now in the senior end of the school.   We wish them well for the year ahead.

JOBS:  Helping Owls

Our helping owls bulletin board encourages leadership skills and inspires good behaviour.  The birdhouses are labelled with job duties.  Each week students are given the responsibility of a particular job in our busy classroom – scissor chief, floor monitor, teachers assistant, messenger, recycling expert etc.  These students are a great help to Mrs. Ambrose!

SPHE: Everyone is Unique. What makes YOU special?

 Everybody is different or unique. What a person looks like on the outside has nothing to do with what is on the inside! After much discussion we concluded that a person has special talents, interests, and qualities.  We created our very own class masterpiece.  Take a look!

ART:  Initial Art

As our classroom was very bare after the Summer holidays we quickly got to work.  Our first art lesson this year was to personalise our initials.  We did a great job and our display really brightened up the room!

POINTILLISM – Shape

We had a great time doing an art lesson on Georges Seurat.  After all, who wouldn’t have fun with Pointillism.  It is such a fun way of painting, and the students loved it.   Basically it’s a technique that is a form of impressionism where the artist, using dots of colour in certain places, gives the “impression” of an image. This cannot be seen close up but far away. Seurat was a master at this. Take a look at our shape display.

SCIENCE: Tea Painted Crocodiles

In science we painted a crocodile using tea/coffee/lemon juice.  Strong tea can be used like paint.  It contains a chemical that stains the paper.  This chemical is called tannin – It’s what makes the tea brown.  Strong coffee contains lots of tannin – so it makes very dark marks on the paper.  Lemon juice is a natural bleach – so when you dab it onto the brown it makes it paler.

LITERACY:  Summer Selfies

This was a fun way of discussing places students visited over the summer holidays.  Students drew a selfie image and then wrote about where they went on their holidays.

HISTORY:  St. Brendan

Students in 3^rd and 4^th were very busy over the past few weeks learning all about St. Brendan.  They learned that of all the Irish saints, St. Brendan was the most adventurous.  He loved travelling on the sea and was very skilled with the coracle.  A manuscript was written in the 9^th century that that tells the story of his famous voyage in search of Hy Brasail.  Students created a story board using the information from our history lessons.

RUGBY: World Cup 2015

3^rd and 4^th class were very interested in learning all about the Rugby World Cup. Here are some of the facts!

• William Webb Ellis was a student in Rugby School in England.  One day, during a football game he picked up the ball and pushed past the other boys!!  When he finished running, he placed the ball down on the ground and scored the first ever TRY!!!
• The first rugby ball was made from a pig bladder – this is why it has such an unusual shape!  It was made by Gilbert –  a shop in Rugby!!  They have changed a lot since!
• Rugby is a great sport for people of all shapes and sizes!!!
• There are 15 players on a team.  8 forwards and 7 backs!!!  The forwards do all the pushing and tough work.  The backs try to run and pass the ball to get tries!
• The Rugby World Cup is a competition that is held every 4 years.  The last winners were New Zealand.  They won The Webb Ellis Trophy!
• Manager is Joe Schmidt.  Captain is Paul O Connell
• Take a look at our flag display.