Fourth Class
End of Year treats
We had a great year in Newcastle and had so much to celebrate in our final assembly today. Afterwards, we all enjoyed a visit from the ice cream van!
Hockey Blitz
We were very lucky to be invited to a Hockey Blitz along with Scoil Chroí Naofa in Moanbaun, Athenry. It was a great event and we really enjoyed practising our hockey skills. Thank you to Kate from Tricks for Sticks and Athenry Swans Hockey Club for the invitation.
SFI Science Foundation of Ireland Award
We are thrilled that our school has won the Gold SFI Curious Minds award. Every class worked very hard to achieve this. Have a look at all the activities that the whole school did on our STEM page of the website.
Maths & Art Integration
We integrated maths and Art in 4th Class. We were learning about tessellation- when 2D shapes fit together leaving no gaps. We found out that the only regular polygons that tessellate are squares, triangles and hexagons.
While doing this lesson, we decided to investigate the fomous work of M.C Esher. He was a Dutch graphic artist who made mathematically inspired art pieces. We were so impressed by his work and were inspired to create our own tessellation art. We made stencils using card and traced them repeatedly to ensure that our shapes would fit together. Have a long at our finished products!
Local History-Archaeology Lesson
We were fortunate to have a History lesson with Andrew this week. We observed a range of artefacts that were found in a local field, a few hundred metres from our school. Some of the items that were found included; a clay tobacco pipe, pottery, oyster shells china, bricks, slate, pieces of plaster, a rusty lock and different types of glass. We also examined a glass pot which we thought may have been an old ink pot.
We inspected the pipe closer and could see that it had the number 43 on it. One of the pieces of pottery had ‘of merit elixir’ written on it. The items are from the site of the old school which dates back to Famine times 170 years ago.
Author visit with Alan Nolan
During our Book Fair Week we were very lucky to attend a workshop with Alan Nolan. He read extracts from his books and explained how he came up with his ideas. He was a real entertainer and kept us all laughing. He even gave us a drawing lesson at the end. Some of his books include; 'Sackville Street Caper', 'Animal Crackers' and 'Sam Hannigan and the Last Dodo'
Drumadore Workshop
We attended a drumming workshop recently with Drumadore. It was an a very enjoyable experience and we even added in some dance moves!
Music Generation
We had a great day out in in Kingfisher in NUIG where we participated in a rehearsal ukulele concert with Music Generation Galway. We performed songs including; Shot Gun, Wellerman, One Call Away and Wagon Wheel. Everyone received a certificate and a t-shirt on the day.
Easter Baskets
We made some beautiful clay pinch pots and personalised them using a variety of clay tools. We painted and decorated them just in time for our Easter Hunt!
STEPS Young Engineers Award
The STEPS Young Engineers Award is a project-style competition which encourages pupils to explore the world of engineering by developing an engineering project that would help improve their local community. This year the 4th Class children participated. The students followed a structured STEPS Project Book comprising of a series of tasks and worksheets over a four-month period. Participating in this project promoted engineering and highlighted the importance of the profession. Our projects have been presented to the class and the children conducted and question and answer session with their peers. Our projects included ‘The Ketchup Pen’, ‘Micro Hear’, ‘The Glue Pen’ and ‘The Multi-Bag’. 4th class really enjoyed the experience of collaborating, designing, and presenting their projects.
Yoga
4th class have been enjoying learning and practicing many different yoga poses over the last few weeks. Lots of the children participate in gymnastics classes and we could see similarities between the two. Yoga is very good for our health, our mobility, flexibility and athletic performance. Have a look at our photos.
World Down Syndrome Day
It was World Down Syndrome Day on Tuesday, March 21st. It's important that we spread awareness and learn to appreciate our differences. We wore colourful socks and some of us wore different socks on the day. We had great fun dancing around the classroom!
Seachtain na Gaeilge
Rinneamar go leor gníomhaíochtaí taitneamhach ar
feadh seachtain na Gaeilge. Bhí an spóirt agus spraoi againn. Chuamar go dtí Rang a trí le haghaidh Tráth na gCeist. Bhaineamar an taitneamh as an gCéili mór leis an scoil ar fad agus chanamar an t-amhrán, Trasna na dTonnta.
Claude Monet Art
We learned about Claude Monet, the famous French artist, who was the founder of the impressionist style of painting. We looked at some of his most famous paintings and shared our opinions on them. We then decided to take a closer look at 'The Poppy Fields' and painted our own version of this. We enjoyed mixing and making our own colours and exploring techniques. It was a nice opportunity to appreciate a famous artist and also to show our own paintings to our class.
World Book Day
We celebrated World Book Day this year by dressing up as a book character and discussing our love for reading with our class. Everyone made a brilliant effort and it was a great opportunity to learn about new authors. We also did some 'Buddy Reading' with the children in 2nd Class. It was lovely to help them with their reading and also to read our books to them.
Shrove Tuesday
We celebrated Shrove Tuesday/ Pancake Tuesday by having some delicious pancakes. We decorated them with an array of toppings and really enjoyed this special treat!
St. Brigid's Day
We celebrated St. Brigid's Day in 4th Class by saying the Prayer to St. Brigid, reading stories about her cloak and reading about all the charity work she did. We then made our own St. Brigid's crosses with rushes.
Hockey
We are so fortunate in 4th Class to get 6 weeks of Hockey lessons from Hockey Ireland,Tricks4Sticks. Our coach Kate has been teaching us lots of skills including passing, dribbling and we are enjoying putting them into practice each week.
Our Egypt Project
We researched Egypt in our class and found out lots of interesting facts about the Gods, the pyramids, the Sphinx, the clothes, food, culture, and the writing- Hieroglyphics. We worked together in groups and presents our projects to our class and to the whole school during assembly.
Christmas Art
We did some great Christmas artwork in 4th Class. Have a look at our black and white chalk art. We also did some Christmas themed paintings and enjoyed mixing and making our own new colours on our paint palettes. We also used a blend of paint and oil pastels to create these beautiful pieces.
The World Cup 2022
We really enjoyed following the World Cup in 4th Class. We used a random selector to choose our teams and followed it closely over the last month. Our groups took it in turns to update our class poster and we regularly discussed the matches. It created a great buzz in our class and we enjoyed watching some of the match highlights. The prize for the winner was a World Cup football! Our winner, Laoise, decided to play with it for the first time at school with the class.
Irish Myths and Legends
We learned about a variety of Irish Myths and Legends including; Deirdre of the Sorrows, Tír na nÓg, The Salmon of Knowledge, Fionn and Sadhbh, The Children of Lír and Cú Chulainn.We retold them in our own words and drew a picture of our favouirtie one.
Rounders
We learned to play Rounders in P.E. We learned the rules, the various roles and terms including fielders, batters, pitcher, bases, strike and home run. Rounders is an excellent game promoting co-operation and team work and gave us the opportunity to develop our throwing, catching and running skills. We really enjoyed learning this game!
Science Week
4th Class had great fun during Science Week this year. We researched famous scientists in groups and individually and presented some facts to the class. We listened to science podcasts, watched videos of experiments and explored science websites. We worked in groups to organise and conduct a science experiment. We discussed possible changes that could be made when doing these experiments in the future. Have a look at our photos from the week.
In November We Remember
In November we make a extra effort to remember our loved ones who have passed away. While we were out in our school garden we sourced a branch for our class Remembrance Tree. We spoke about the special people who are no longer with us and created a leaf on our tree in their memory. Everyone listened and shared stories of these special family members, neighbours and friends.
Italy Projects
We really enjoyed doing our project on Italy in 4th Class. We worked in groups to research different areas that interested us and we compiled our information on a class Padlet and also on posters. The areas we researched included; Main Cities, Artists, Musicians, Painters, Italian Cars, Soccer Players, The Romans, Italian Fashion, Architecture and Italian Food. We even learned some new Italian words and finished our project with a presentation to the older classes and a pizza party!
Halloween
We learned the poem ‘The Witch’ by Jack Prelulsky for Halloween. Great discussions about powerful imagery, alliteration and onomatopoeia took place while we shared our opinions of the poem with our friends. We learned the poem and recorded a video of ourselves reciting it.
The Witch by 4th ClassMaths Week
We really enjoyed Maths Week in 4th Class. We attended a problem-solving workshop and played lots of maths games throughout the week. We really enjoyed the maths challenges on the Maths Week website and also had great fun participating in whole school activities.
Friendship Week
For Friendship Week we brainstormed words that we use to describe a good friend. We then designed and decorated these words and made a class video. Have a look at our video!
4th Class Friendship.MOVSelf Portraits
We did some lovely silhouette self-portraits in 4th Class this month. The children worked together to create the correct conditions for their silhouettes. We used a black background and torches to create shadows. We then decorated our portraits with pictures that illustrate our individual personalities. Have a look at some of our work below.
Autumn
We created some beautiful autumn artwork using chalk pastels and also created our own autumn acrostic poems. Have a look at our lovely work.