NewScastle Times

Hi everybody. This year our teacher is Mr. Shortt. We have been doing so many different kinds of art pieces, science experiments and even a maths trail. We have drawn self portraits, coloured stained glass windows, made robots out of recyclable / reusable materials and much more! We also have been doing lots of science experiments such as a biodegradable box. We used materials that were around the same size and put them into a box to see which materials biodegrade first and which materials are not at all biodegradable. We used materials such as cling film, tin foil, orange peel, the core of an apple, a banana peel,a plastic water bottle and a yogurt tub. I can’t wait to see what materials are biodegradable and which aren't! Our maths trail was also great fun. We were in pairs of two and we got to go outside and fill in a booklet. We do P.E on a Tuesday and on a Thursday. On Tuesdays we do P.E with Mr. Shortt and on a Thursday we do P.E with Barry Burke and Nigel Carrigan. At P.E. we usually play a few warm up games and then move on to some football drills or relay races. After that we are separated into four different groups to play some football matches against each other.

By: 3rd and 4th Class

This month we learnt all about space. We made moon sand, glitter bottles, galaxy playdough and star shaped cookies

We also did lots of fun Halloween activities this month. We carved pumpkins and made potions!

We have been preparing for Halloween by practicing some Halloween traditions! We’ve been learning about some of the old games played at Halloween. We also learned that people used to carve turnips before pumpkins which we thought would be a very hard thing to do. Have a look at us trying these traditions out!

We have been having great fun exploring all of our Aistear themes this term. We went on an autumn scavenger hunt searching for signs of autumn around our school. We got to pay a visit to the school cinema for a special screening of The Gruffalo movie. We were busy baking spooky Halloween treats and conjuring up our very own potions in our Witches and Wizards Den!

For Maths Week, we were busy playing number games, making shape pictures and we used our Maths Eyes to complete some outdoor Maths challenges with our friends. We had so much fun! We love Maths

Junior & Senior Infants

Ms. Hannigan & Ms. Condon

We had great fun for Maths Week 2020! We created colourful fraction fish, a street scene using 2D shapes and an 'All About Me' maths poster! We completed a 'Maths Trail' too. We also played 2D shapes Bingo and 'Snakes and Ladders'. We even played maths games for homework!

We have been learning about 'The Story of Chocolate'. We created some beautiful artwork of 'A Cup of Hot Chocolate' using oil pastels and watercolour paints.

We’re baaaack! We are now in 5th class and we have a new teacher- Ms. Murphy. We are also delighted to have Ms. Moloney back. We missed our friends while we were off and we were glad to see them again. We are all being careful and doing our best to keep safe.

So far this year we have done a lot of work. We have been learning lots of new Irish words and phrases i Gaeilge. We learned the songs “Country Roads” and “Che Che Kooley” in music. We even wrote our own Tipperary version of ‘Country Roads.’ We have also been listening to music and identifying instruments and different types of voices.

In geography, we learned about Japan and Extreme Weather and we learned about World War I and II in history. We looked at forces in science and we conducted an experiment to investigate the best type of parachute. We did cartoon drawings, made Zentangles and created styrofoam prints in art. We also looked at the art of Yayoi Kusama and Frida Kahlo. We used origami to make vampire and monster bookmarks.

Last week was maths week and we really enjoyed putting all our maths knowledge to use on a maths trail. We’ve been learning how to do long multiplication and long division in maths also. Ms. Murphy has learned that we are fantastic actors and actresses and we have enjoyed playing drama games and creating some short drama sketches.

We have especially loved using our new laptops this year. We have been using them to practice our spellings and tables. We have been learning how to type correctly and quickly. We also used our laptops for researching our projects. It takes a little getting used to, but it’s a lot of fun!

Things have been getting a little spooky this week. Our classroom is decorated for Halloween and we have been listening to some eerie music and learning lots of new Halloween vocabulary in Irish. We can’t wait to dress up on Friday!

That is all our news for now. Thank you for reading our article and you can look forward to hearing from us again next month!

5th Class

Welcome to the 6th class Newsletter Article! Mr. Hyland is our teacher this year. This year was strange compared to a normal year, but we have learned a lot so far in school. We were nervous but excited to go back to school, since we’ve been off for so long. We are sad it's our last year in Scoil Mhuire primary school, but we are also excited to go to secondary school.

Art Projects

We have started a few art projects, such as Lichtenstein- Style Pop art portraits, Christmas cards and creative monsters. We are enjoying the art we’ve been doing very much. We have sent the Christmas cards we do every year off, so hopefully, we will get them back in time for Christmas!

Titanium Writing Project

At the start of the school year, we began a writing project called Titanium. It is based on Sia’s music video ‘Titanium’. In the video there is a boy who has superhuman powers. He is being bullied in school, and one day he gets so angry that he unleashes his powers. So that’s where it starts. In the project, we eventually wrote our own version of the story, after brainstorms and first drafts. We had lots of fun doing Titanium.

Unbroken

Unbroken is an audio book we are listening to in school. It is about a man called Louis Zamperini, who was a soldier during World War 2. He was a bombardier, flying in the dreaded B24, also known as the flying coffin. He and two other men got stranded on a raft for weeks and weeks, and though one of them unfortunately dies, the other two survive. We listen to it during art time, and we all enjoy it very much.

Afterschool Training

Every Thursday after school, Mr. Hyland, runs an afterschool training session for the 6th class boys and girls. We do football, running, drills and lots more. It is great fun. Afterschool training is enjoyed by everyone, especially people who don’t play for a football club but would like to be able to play it. Mr. Hyland used to bring us to football, soccer and hurling matches, but they have been cancelled for the moment. Hopefully we can play a few matches before we head off to secondary school!