Sixth Class
The Class of 2023!!
Today we celebrated the class of 2023 graduating from St Oliver Plunkett National School. It was a fabulous celebration held in the hall with a prayer service. Then, we continued the celebrations in the 3rd class room with a Kahoot Quiz for parents about how well they know 6th class and we watched a reeling in the years video. Thank you to all who helped with the preparations today. Our day was made extra special with our families and parents celebrating with us on this special day.
Sixth Class School Tour to Shannon River Adventure Centre!
On the 22nd of June, 5th and 6th class headed off to Roscommon at 8.30am for which would be their final school tour in Primary School. We arrived in the centre at 10am and we were smiling from start to finish with the sun beating down on us all day. The first part of the day was spent with our instructors on land where we completed obstacle courses, tug a war, team building activities, archery and rock climbing. In the afternoon was the water activities which seemed to be the highlight for many. We started on the mud slide, then canoeing and kayaking and finished with pier jumping. It was a fantastic day for all!
Historical Tour of Galway
On Wednesday 6th class pupils travelled into Galway city where they were led by Martin Curley from Heritage Ireland on a captivating historical tour of Galway city.
From the moment we set foot in Eyre Square to exploring the majestic Lynch's Castle and the grandeur of the Cathedral, the journey was an immersive experience into the rich history of Galway.
The pupils were enthralled and truly enjoyed delving into the fascinating stories and events that shaped this vibrant city. It was an eye-opening adventure that made us realize the incredible depth of history embedded within Galway's streets. The trip not only educated us but also ignited a sense of appreciation for our heritage. Thank you so much to Martin for sharing his wealth of knowledge into the history of Galway. It was throughly enjoyed by all.
Peter Anton-inspired Donut Art
Our theme this month was clay and so we explored the famous American artist and scupltor, Peter Anton who is known best for his sculptures around the theme of candy.
We began by doing an artist study on Peter Anton and looking and responding to his work while eating donuts - for researcdh purposes off course!
Next we made clay balls, flattened them and chose whether or not to have a ring or a filled donut. We designed our donuts on paper first and once the clay hardened we added paint and additional details.
Such creativity from oozing jam and sprinkles to The Simpsons!
Drumming lesson with Drumadore!!
On Friday, we had were so lucky to be able to enjoy a drumming lesson with Drumadore! It was full of positive energy, movement and rhythm. Thank you to Eimhin and Ruairi for sharing and teaching us some drumming beats and rhythms. We were smiling and laughing from start to finish!
Ukulele Orchestra
On Wednesday 29th March, 4th, 5th and 6th class made their way over to the Kingfisher in NUI Galway where we performed with over 350 children who are also are learning how to play the ukulele through Music Generation.
The pupils performed the songs 'One Call Away', 'Wellerman' 'Shotgun' and 'Wagon Wheel' and were accompanied by musicians Michael Maloney and Martin McDonnell. This event was a rehearsal for a future performance and outing being planned for June 8th. Each pupil who participated in the orchestra received a Certificate and a t-shirt on the day. We all really enjoyed the day and are already looking forward to June!
Easter Festivities
The last few weeks have been super busy in 6th Class!
We have shared some snapshots of our activities including:
Our wooden crosses for Easter
Easter art & an Easter hunt with Junior & Senior Infants
we explored and examined the phases of the moon using oreo's
Seachtain na Gaeilge
Bhí Seachtain na Gaeilge iontach againn ar scoil.
Rinneamar tráth na gceist, seó faisean, ciorcal comhrá, ealaín, gus a lán cluichí teanga. Rinne na páistí i rang a sé sar-iarracht an gaeilge a usáid go neamhfhoirmiúla agus isteach sa seomra ranga.
Bhí céilí againn le haghaidh an lá glas agus chanamar amhrán ó Coldplay. Bhí gach duine gléasta le glas. Bhain gach duine an-taitneamh as an lá. Féach ar na pictiúrí anseo!
(We had a great Seachtain na Gaeilge in school. We did a quiz, fashion show, conversation circle and lots of language games. Pupils made a great effort to speak the language inside and outside of the classroom. We had a céilí for lá glas where pupils dressed up in green. Everyone really enjoyed the day. Take a look at the pictures here!)
Seó Faisean!!
Seachtain na Gaeilge
Is é 'Éadaí' an topaic don mhí seo. Bhíomar ag foghlaim frásaí agus foclóir maidir leis an topic. Mar pháirt de Seachtain na Gaeilge, chuireamar seó faisean ar siúl le rang a cúig. Ghleas na daltaí suas agus bhí leithreoirí freisin. Bhain gach duine an-taitneamh as an seó!!
'Clothes' is our topic this month. We have been learning plenty of frases and vocabulary on this theme. We held a fashion show on Friday with 5th class. Pupils dressed up and some pupils were our readers. We all throughly enjoyed it!
Hip Hop Lesson
Thank you to Charlotte from 'Flex Yo Style' for coming into our school to introduce us to some hip hop dance moves. She taught us a dance routine to the song 'levitating' by Dua Lipa which we got to perform. We really enjoyed it!
World Book Day
On Thursday 2nd of March, we celebrated World Book Day. We dressed up as our favourite characters from our favourite books. We also joined the Junior Infants and engaged in paired reading. We took turns both reading, designing bookmarks and writing stories.
Class Debate
'Should the government require cars and vans sold in Ireland to be zero-emission free by the year 2030.'
It was busy this week in 6th class as pupils took part in a classroom debate and also a poetry cafe.
Class debate: Over the past few weeks, pupils focused on debating and writing a persuasive piece 'Should cars and vans sold in Ireland be required by the government to be zero emission free by the year 2030'. Pupils worked with their group if they were defending the argument or against and on Friday, we held the court case. The judge and jury were present as well as the defence and the prosecution. Pupils were outstanding using strong debating language and were not afriad to object and validate and argue their points and the arguments of the opposing team. After each witness had spoken, the jury were left to decide the verdict. The verdict was then passed onto the judge and the judge then announced that the team who was arguing the case that electric cars should not be mandatory won the case due to their strong, informative and interesting arguments. Well done to our jury, our defence and prosecution, our judge, our solicitors and barristers. There are definitely future lawyers and solicitors in the making in 6th !!! Take a look and some snapshots of today's debates.
Poetry Cafe
Poetry was a key area as part of English this month. We explored and examined different poems in depth exploring the rhyming scheme, themes, moods and poetic devices used. We held a poetry cafe on Thursday where pupils moved from station to station exploring different poems of unique styles, performing and reading poetry and writing poems. Pupils write some very desciptive haikus, cinquains, acrostic and limericks using rhyme and poetic techniques such as alliteration and similes.
Dabbledoo music.MOVDabbledoo!
We have been exploring rhythm during our music lessons. We have been using the programme Dabbledoo to learn and practice rhythm patters using instruments.
Check out a video below of us performing. We also got to perform and showcase this at our recent assembly.
Our Irish landmarks
As part of Geography this month, we explored our native country. We identified major roads, learned the county names in Irish and English as well as locating different landmarks around Ireland. In groups we each chose a landmark in Ireland and used various materials to contruct a model of that landmark. Take a long to see the finished models!
Pancake Tuesday
We enjoyed yummy pancakes for Shrove Tuesday. Lots of us in 6th are taking on lots of new things as well as showing acts of kindness and some of us are giving up things like sweets and fizzy drinks for lent.
St Brigit's Day in Newcastle
Today we celebrated St Brigit's Day. We spoke about an 'Brat-Bhríde' -St Brigid's Cloak and even spotted one outside the church. We learned how the cloak was taken into the house to be used for healing. It was also placed on the head of a person who had a headache. We also made St Brigid's Day crosses. Thank you to Eimer and Mrs O Connor for helping us.
Handball Training
Over the next few weeks, Sixth class will be learning how to play Handball. We are very lucky to be working with Peter Mulryan and Ronan Byrnes. This week, we practices skill of throwing and catching with both hands. We also focused on our footwork and developed our hand eye coordination. We are really looking forward to learning more about Handball and develop the skills needed. Check out how our first session wnt below.
Réamhaisnéis na hAimsire
We have been working hard practicing our new vocabulary on our theme 'An Aimsir' in Irish. This week we became weather reporters - take a look! Maith thú Rang a 6!☀️
Are Electric Cars our future?
Persuasive writing is our writing genre this month and we have been exploring a very topical issue which is, should Ireland require people buying cars or vans to be zero-emission capable by 2030?
We are carrying out our research and planning to hold a trial where there will be a jury, judge, solicitors and more. But first, we asked Mrs Magnier as we knew she has an electric car. She drove her electric car to school and we got the opportunity to hear from her experience of driving an electric car and how it worked.
She had a lot of positive things to say about electric cars and felt good that she knew she was not harming the environment. Thank you for sharing your experience and allowing us to see it. Some of us even sat in it!! Our trial will take place over the next two weeks so stay tuned to hear how it goes.
Happy Holidays!
Today was the last day before the Christmas holidays and it was full of festive and fun activities. 6th class led a Just Dance from Juniors to Third class and then 5th and 6th played a Christmas themed Kahoot quiz.
Well done to everyone!
World Cup 2022
We have really enjoyed following the World Cup over the last few weeks. We used a random draw selector to determine our teams.
Well done to Rachel, our winner, who had the winning team, Argentina and who won a football!
Thank you to our team of pundits and experts, who kept track and updated the scores each day in the staff room and in our classroom. They also informed us of the match highlights each day.
Reindeer Cupcakes
Pupils in 6th class baked reindeer cupcakes this week. Thank you to Ms Kelly for helping us also. We made the chocolate muffin first, then made the icing and finished it off with pretzels, smarties and edible eyes!
Reindeer Art
Continuing the theme of Reindeers, we followed a guided drawing lesson and then decorated our own reindeers and gave them names.
This was the video we followed for anyone who would like to try - www.youtube.com/watch?v=fF4Eh9qx8fA&t=682s&ab_channel=ArtWithTrista
A snowy Friday afternoon and a special visitor came to Newcastle!
Friday was full of excitement and surprises in Newcastle. Santa arrived in style like never before where he greeted us all and gave us all goodies. We sang 'Jingle bells' and 'Merry Christmas everyone'.
On Friday afternoon, snow began to fall so we had to go out and make the most of it!
A phrase that we have been learning which is apt for here is - Bhí brat bán sneachta ar an talamh!
Christmas Festivities
This week we have lots of fun activities planned. We had our ukulele concert on Friday. We are also enjoying opening our advent calendar each day and we enjoyed a hot chocolate during DEAR time today.
More to come during the week.....
'All Shook Up' Musical in Clarin College
Pupils from 5th and 6th class visited Clarin College last Wednesday. We throughly enjoyed the musical 'All Shook Up' and it was lovely to meet and see some of the past pupils of Newcastle also.
Science Week
It was a busy week full of demonstrations, experiments, fun and live shows to mark ‘Science Week 2022’ here in 6th class. The week started with a live introduction to science week from Science Foundation Ireland where we were taken through some mindfulness exercises and the science behind mindfulness and lots more. We took part in different experiments throughout the week including the amazing bubble experiment, catapults and more. We each chose a scientist to research and complete a project on during the week. We shared the information researched on our different scientists to each other and these are now displayed outside our classroom. On Thursday, rang 6 became teaching scientists for the day to our junior infants. In groups, we showcased and modeled different experiments sharing our scientific knowledge from static electricity to learning all about our senses. Along with rang a cúig, we had a science week quiz on Friday evening. It was great fun and our winners were very proud of themselves.
Coding Workshop
As part of Science Week, Rang a sé took part in a coding workshop. We were delighted to welcome Laura and Kris from Corrib Kids Coding. We designed a 2D game where we designed our own character and built our own world. Our characters moved around a maze where they collected food. We used Microsoft Make Code Arcade to build and design our own game. We have published our games below where you use a QR code for you to try.
We thoroughly enjoyed our session and we look forward to sharing our new knowledge about coding to 5th class in the coming weeks.
Click here for the links to play our games
In November,We Remember
Pupils in 5th and 6th have created a tree of remembrance at the sacred space and outside both classrooms to remember family & friends who have passed away. The overall effect is a vibrant display of faith & prayers for our loved ones. We had a remembrance prayer service where we sang and read prayers and remembered all those who have gone before us. Each pupil also designed a leaf to be hung on our tree in the classroom where we read out one a day and say the Prayer for the faithful departed.
WW2 Drama
As part of our history topic last month, we learned about World War II and what life was like for people and children at that time. In Drama, we imagined what it was like as an ‘evacuee’.
In early 1940, children were asked to leave the cities and move to the countryside to protect them from the bombs in the cities. This was known as ‘evacuation’ and children that evacuated were known as ‘evacuees’.
We organized four different roleplay areas. The first was Neville Chamberlain reporting from Downing Street announcing that the country was at war on the 3rd of September 1939. We recreated a family tuning into the radio to listen.
The second station was a shop where people were going to shop for their groceries like eggs, flour, milk etc. They had their ration books and coupons to display. At that time, most items were rationed. To ration something meant that each person only had a fixed amount of it. The third station was a family packing for their two children after receiving the list of items from the government necessary for children evacuating. The children at the fourth station were arriving in Devon where they had to display their evacuee label and identity card and were chosen by their host family.
Check out the pictures of our evacuees
Halloween
It was Maths Week this week! We engaged in lots of fun activities which focused on a range of topics including problem solving, using different operations and much more! We had a problem of the day to solve as well as a challenge of the week with Mrs O Connor as well as guess the sweet jar. We were delighted to hear that someone in our class had got the exact amount of sweets in the jar!
We also took part in a table quiz with 5th class with four teams coming to a tie breaker at the end but there was one winner and that was team 9! Well done to everyone for getting involved and to our top 4 teams.
We also took part in an afternoon of Izak 9 activities which focuses on lots of skills involving reasoning and problem solving while working as a group. See what we got up below.
This week, a group in 6th class worked together to create a Halloween door display and my did they do an amazing job!! Well done to all involved, you did a terrific job! We have lots of artists and designers in the making .....
Halloween is around the corner and we are all super excited! On Friday, Junior Infants joined the 6th class to make their own skeleton from earbuds. See the finished art pieces below! Thanks to the 6th class for all their terrific help!
Dissecting Sheep's Heart
On Friday, pupils in 6th class dissected sheep's hearts as part of our topic on 'The Heart' for Science. We have been learning about the different parts of the heart as well as how to maintain a healthy heart, the importance of maintaining a well balanced diet and regular exercise to keep the heart healthy. Pupils worked in groups and were able to locate the hearts chambers as well as the valves and muscle. We had lots of fun! 🥼🤓
Cycling Course
Over a four weeks period in September, 6th class took part in the Cycling Right Programme provided by Cycling Safe Ireland.
CYCLE RIGHT is produced and supported by the Department of Transport, the Road Safety Authority and Cycling Ireland, with input from central and local agencies and other groups.
CYCLE RIGHT is a cyclist road safety training programme designed to give cyclists the knowledge and skills to move safely through the road system, an environment shared with other road users. Pupils were provided with the skills needed to move as cyclists in complex, changing, road environments. Pupils also had to apply dynamic thinking, assessing conditions and the environment on the road as they go through their journey.
Thank you to Richard and Natasha from Cycling Right for an insightful and enjoyable 4 weeks. We looked forward to it every Wednesday!
Click video to see a short video of what we got up to over the last four weeks.
Book Tasting
This morning, we had a book tasting! 😁 We all looked through different books from the library and then chose ones we would like to read. See some photos of our morning below 😎