Category: 4th Class Blog

On Thursday the 13th of October we went to visit the Abandoned Famine Village situated above the Hungry Rock in Lugawarry, Ballisodare.

The houses date back to the early 1800s and were originally part of the Annaghmore Estate in Collooney.

We got to see how stone was used to construct houses and we imagined what it was like to have a large number of people living in a two roomed house.

Two locals, Martin Wilson and Padraic Corcoran talked to us about the history of the village. Martin visited our classroom and Padraic walked through the forest with us. It was lovely to hear these men speak about our local history.

We also learned about the various types of tree planted in the forest and Padraic pointed out the Ash tree which is sadly endangered in Ireland now.

Congratulations to Nadia Michalska for her Award Worthy Work. She designed this beautiful poster to show how our Earth is being affected by climate change. We learned all about fossil fuels and renewable energy along with things we have done to harm the 🌎 from our student teacher Ms. Christie

We learned about the Norman invasion of Europe and Ireland. Using old boxes, we designed and built our own Norman castles and Motte and Baileys.

It was great fun because we were able to work at home and in school with our friends.

All the other classes came to view our creations and we got a chance to present our PowerPoints and other projects.

We dressed up as Norman ladies and knights which made it even more fun!!

We walked to Union Woods and explored the woods for the first signs of Spring.

We saw new seedlings emerging in the forest floor and the first flowers of Spring including Primroses, Violets and Dandelions.

Honeybees have awoken from their winter nap and were gorging themselves on nectar from Dandelions.

There were birds putting the finishing touches to their nests and filling the forest with music.

We found a pond that was overflowing with frog spawn but sadly the warm weather was drying up the water. We moved as much spawn as we could to a nearby drain which should ensure the survival of more of the tadpoles.

We brought some frog spawn back to our classroom and we will watch as the tadpoles hatch and gradually change into froglets which we will release in June.

Bhíomar gléasta in éadaí glasa agus rinneamar cartaí ar son na Féile Pádraig ☘

We love dressing up! We had great fun wearing our Halloween costumes to school.

The first book we read together as a class was ‘The Boy, the mole, the fox and the horse’ by Charlie Mackesy.

It’s really a picture book with lots of advice on life. The illustrations are simple but really beautiful.

When we met a page that we liked we discussed the picture and what the written piece means.

When we were finished we got to choose our favourite quotes and we drew our own pictures to go with them.

We would highly recommend this book to people of all ages. It tells us the story of four unlikely friends, all with different personalities, strengths and weaknesses.

We all loved the mole because he looks cute and he says funny stuff all the time!!!!

Mr. O’ Meara has a friend who teaches in Lenox Elementary School in New York. He arranged for us to be penpals with their class.

We wrote our first letters to them in September and we posted them on October 5th. ( It took over a week for them to receive them!!)

Their teacher didn’t tell them about us until they received our letters so they were very excited!!

We have agreed to read the same class novels so we can discuss them in our letters. We have read ‘The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane’, ‘Bud Not Buddy’ and ‘ The One and Only Ivan’ so far!

We love writing to our pen-pals, it’s so much fun! First we write our 1st draft, Mr O’ Meara corrects it, we edit it and write our 2nd draft. Once we are happy with our letter we write the final draft on fancy paper and decorate our envelopes. We send all the letters together in a large envelope.

We have learnt a lot about the cultural differences between the children in Lenox Elementary and Scoil Mhuire agus Iosaf.

One of the coolest things that happened is that we explained to them what the “Late Late Toy Show” is and their teacher found it online and they got to watch it at school!!!!

We got to explore their school and town on google maps and they looked at Collooney, Markree Castle, Strandhill and more.

We are planning a zoom call with them soon but they are 5 hours behind us so when we talk, we will be getting ready to go home and they will just be starting their school day!!!

We asked our class to bring in as many books as possible from home. (We wanted to make a class library). Within a couple of days we had over 300 books!!! We got so many that we had to get another set of shelves!

We have 2 librarians in our class who arranged our books by alphabetical order and grouped by author.

We keep a reading log in which we write book reviews. Our favourite authors include: Roald Dahl, Enid Blyton, David Walliams, J.K. Rowling and many more!

A huge THANK YOU to everyone who donated!!!