Orienteering with Padraig Higgins

An orienteering expert came to carry out a workshop on this interesting strand unit of our PE curriculum. First, he introduced us to the topic with a powerpoint and some real life examples of maps. He then brought us outside to carry out an orienteering exercise based on our school grounds. Here is what some of the pupil had to say:

“Orienteering is very similar to a treasure map.”   Charlie Whyte

“It is easy to get lost in orienteering.” Oisin Connor

“I felt like a pirate searching for treasure!”  Adam Donaldson

“It’s like a really cool treasure hunt!” Rachel Murphy

“Always use your map to ensure you don’t get lost.”  Ruby O’Leary

“There’s a few symbols to remember…. a red circle fora control, a red triangle to signal the starting point and concentric circles to indicate where you finish.”  Lauren O’Brien

“I wonder what it would be like to do orienteering outside of school.”  Emily Mullally

Writing to Padraig

5^th class decided to write letters to Padraig to express our gratitude. We all hope he liked them, because we sure loved orienteering! We had fun getting used to the format of a letter and using the correct terminology when writing a letter to someone.

Scavenger Hunt & Pumpkin Village

During October, Ms.Cunniffe’s 5^th class went out on a nature walk to collect sticks, twigs, moss, leaves, wildflowers etc. to create our very own pumpkin village. We were divided up into teams of 3 to design and become engineers of the future. There was an element of problem solving involved as it was a little tricky. We tried to avoid the use of manmade products like glue and used cocktail sticks and pins instead. You can see clearly from the pictures how imaginative and creative 5^th class were during this fun project.

Maths Games

As part of Maths Week , Ms.Cunniffe’s 5^th class made maths games for 1^st class to enjoy! We were in various groups to come up with these games. We had to be imaginative and come up with suitable games that would be fun but educational for a first class pupil. Some of the games were called “Mathsnopoly” and “Bingo Shapes”. It was a very successful project that we enjoyed and first class were a great audience.

 Halloween Art

Before the Halloween break Ms Cunniffe’s 5^th class did Frankenstein art. We were all given a purple, dark green, light green, black, and white card. The purple card was the background, the two toned green cards were for Frankenstein`s face, the black card was for the hair, pupils and eyebrows. It was hard but fun cutting out weird shapes. Finally the white card was for the eyes. When we were finished we hung them up and they looked great in our classroom display.

Ms. Cunniffe`s 5^th class did Halloween Silhouettes! It was lots of fun! We chose our preferred silhouettes, carefully cut them out. This was a little tricky as the shapes were quite detailed. We integrated our Maths skills with art as we had to use our compass to draw circles with radii of 7 cm and 9 cm to use as the disks for our backgrounds. Finally we glued the silhouettes to our circular disks. We put them on the window and it looked like a spooky shadow of a creepy ghoul!               By Ruby Rose O’Leary 5^th Class

Writing

GAEILGE

Cross Country

We went to a Cross Country on the 4^th of October 2018. It was in St.Brigid’s. Our experience at the cross country was very enjoyable. The competition was for 3^rd -6^th classes. The distances were 900m and 1200m. We have two boys from our school that made it to the Connaught Final. Their names are Shay Mc Guinness from 4^th class and Cathal O’Brien from 6^th class. Cathal came in 10^th place, Shay came in 12th, and they both got medals. We all had an awesome time at the cross country and hopefully we get to go again soon. Best of luck to the boys in the Connaught Final.

Delphi

I had lots of fun at Delphi. It was the best school tour ever and one of the best few days of my life. When I got to school I was so excited I could not wait to get on the bus! The scenery was spectacular. My favourite activity was bog hopping because after you got all mucky, there was a pond with slides into the water and  stuff like that.These are some negatives for example  the food .Also, it was too rainy and windy and for some of the activities you had to wait a long time for a go.I would give it a 9.25/10.00         James Doherty 5^th class

Trail of Athlone

On Tuesday at 10:30 we went on a trail of Athlone. First we got on the bus. Then we got off at the Luan Art Gallery to go on a nature walk and answer questions. Some of the questions were hard and some were easy. After we handed up the questions we went to St. Peters and Pauls Church. When we got to the church, Ms. Cunniffe and Ms.Harney gave us a new sheet of questions. After we were finished outside the church, we went inside to answer the rest of the questions. We also had to be extremely quiet so it made it harder to ask your teammates for help. After we finally finished the questions we headed over to St. Mary’s church to answer the questions about the churches. Then we made our way to the Athlone castle. At the Athlone castle the questions were easier than all the other questions. I never noticed that there were so many tourists around the town. After about an hour and a half we went back to school. Katelyn Goode and Mya Conroy

Giraffa Cakes

In our class we did a piece of art call Giraffa cakes! They were so much fun to create and colour them! There was so many vibrant colours to choose from. We used oil pastels to colour them. The giraffe was hard to cut out.    Katelyn Goode and Mya Conroy

City of Bright Lights

During the year we did lots of art but this has to be one of my favourites. It was so fun to make the unique cities. There was so many different types of cities to create. I went for a more modern style. My friend went for a more futuristic style.   Mya Conroy and Katelyn Goode

Day of the Dead

So for our Mexico projects we made sugar skulls. First a template of our teacher. There was a sugar skull on it. We coloured the sugar skull and then cut it out. We got to customize our sugar skull with glitter and some accessories. They turned out amazing.  Katelyn Goode and Mya Conroy

Clay

On Wednesday our class made sculptures out of clay. Our class made some creative sculptures. I was very impressed with the finishing products. It was a very fun activity to do. Painting them was just as fun.    Mya Conroy and Katelyn Goode

Frida Kahlo

Frida Kahlo was a famous Mexican artist she made a lot of self-portraits. She painted with her mouth as she had a major back injury. These are our very own versions of her fabulous artwork.

More Art!!