Welcome to the Senior Students' Blog Page. We hope that you enjoy browsing through our work.
September & October 2022
Gaeilge
The month of September was all about "myself" (Mise/Me Fein) in Gaeilge. Here is our display showing some of our creative writing for the month.
Art - Crazy Hair Day!
We have been learning about different patterns and lines in Art. We hope that you like our funky hairstyles!
Art
We have been learning about warm and cool colours in Art!
Science / SPHE
We had a very successful harvest in our school garden
We used some of the vegetables that we harvested during a "Healthy Eating Day" in school. We had great fun watching the teachers demonstrate how to make two different types of soup and even got to taste them too!
We enjoyed a tasting afternoon in school where we tasted lots of weird and wonderful fruits and vegetables. There were some which we had tried before and some which we had never tasted before! We learned a lot from the afternoon and were able to identify the ones we liked, the ones we didn't like and the ones we might give another chance to!
English - Procedural Writing
In English, we have been learning about procedural writing. We researched some healthy soup recipes and tested out our procedural writing skills when writing and typing them out!
Art, Science, SPHE Healthy Eating
Have a look at some of our healthy dinners! We have been doing a lot of work around the topic of healthy eating and exploring some healthy food choices for breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks. In Art, we used the paper mache technique to create our own healthy dinner.
History - Artefacts
We have been examining some old items from the past. Can you guess what each one was used for?
PE - Hip hop dancing
Last year, we entered a Creative Schools Competition in the Royal School Cavan. We were so lucky to win a whole class workshop with a dance instructor. We had great fun learning some hip-hop dance moves!
Science, Art, SPHE - Pumpkin Carving
English, Geography, Science, Art - Trees of Ireland
We have been learning all about the trees of Ireland. Here is our report writing on just some of the trees of Ireland, accompanied by our Autumn tree pointillism paintings.
January & February 2022
Science- Investigating materials and their absorbency
We have been examining materials and their properties. Did you know that nylon is the best material to use for a waterproof coat? Wool is nice and warm so it is used for hats, gloves and scarves. Linen is quite light and a lot of people wear linen clothing in hot weather. We tested wool, cotton, linen and leather to check if they were absorbent or not. We found that the most absorbent was the woollen sample and the least absorbent was the leather.
Examining and testing cotton, leather, nylon and linen.
We investigated how nappies work. Did you know that there is a secret, water-absorbing chemical in a nappy called sodium polyacrylate or water-lock? This is what makes the nappy act like a giant sponge. We tore apart a nappy to find the sodium polyacrylate or water-lock and we investigated it by adding water to it. The results were amazing!
Investigating how celery absorbs water using food colouring.
Gaeilge - Eadai
Art - Fabric and Fibre Collages
We have been experimenting with old fabric samples to make picture collages! We then used these to base our Irish writing on!
Art - Winter Tree Mosaics
English - Narrative Writing
We wrote our own fairy tales!
Gaeilge - Burroga Rice Krispie
Rinne gach duine burroga Rice Krispie. Lean said an oideas seo:
- 1. Bris an seaclaid
- 2. Cuir an seaclaid i mbabhla
- 3. Cuir an babhla sa mhicreathonn
- 4. Lea an seaclaid
- 5. Cuir na Rice Krispies isteach sa seaclaid
- 6. Measc na Rice Krispies agus an seaclaid
- 7. Cuir na Rice Krispies isteach sna casanna burroga
- 8. Fan
- 9. Ith iad!
Art - Snow Globe Scenes
Maths
Constructing 3D shapes
Art- Fabric and Fibre
We have been practising our sewing skills!
November & December 2021
English - Sell your car!
In English, we have been examining the theme of transport. We have studied the genre of persuasive writing and we wrote an advertisement to sell our own family cars. Some of our cars have got some very appealing features, such as heated seats, air conditioning and cruise control! Would you buy any of our cars?
Gaeilge - Ag siopadoireacht
We have been exploring the theme of shopping in Irish. Here is our Gaeilge Narrative Writing based on a day out shopping!
Gaeilge - Cluiche: Ag siopadoireacht (Shopping game)
We have been shopping in Irish!
Art & History - The Mona Lisa
As part of History and Art, we have been researching about the life of famous artist Leonardo da Vinci. Who is Leonardo da Vinci? Leonardo da Vinci is a famous Italian master of art, who became known in the time of the Renaissance. He was born in 1452 and died in 1519. He was an expert painter, sculptor, architect, engineer, scientist, inventor and writer.
Da Vinci's most famous painting is the Mona Lisa. It was painted in Florence in Italy during the Renaissance and it is now on display in the Louvre Museum in France. It was one of da Vinci's favourite paintings and he kept it with him every day until he died.
Did you know that the Mona Lisa has been vandalised and stolen a number of times? In 1911, an ex-employee of the Louvre stole the painting because he believed it belonged in Italy. He walked out of the museum with the painting under his coat. Police detained him two years later when he tried to sell the painting to a gallery in Florence, Italy. The Mona Lisa was returned undamaged to the Louvre.
In 1956, a vandal threw acid on the lower part of the painting. In the same year, someone threw a rock at it and a tiny chip of paint was dislodged. Since then, the Mona Lisa has been kept behind bulletproof glass.
We have been studying the life and work of Leonardo da Vinci and we examined the Mona Lisa in detail. We have re-created our own Mona Lisas! I hope you like our work!
Art - The Tree of Life
We have been learning about the Austrian symbolist painter, Gustav Klimt. We looked at one of his paintings in particular- The Tree of Life. We created our own pieces using Autumnal colours.
Geography - Project work
We have been busy working with technology to compile projects on European countries.
English - Famous People
We have been looking at the genre of report writing in English for the month of November. We have been covering the theme of famous people for the month and have examined the lives of some very well-known people such as Steve Jobs and Lewis Hamilton. We then chose our own celebrities to research and we wrote a report on their lives and how they rose to fame.
Religion, Art - Advent Calendar
The senior and the junior room worked together on an advent calendar (while working in separate rooms in our pods!) On each day of Advent, a present is opened to reveal a part of the Nativity story.
Art - Christmas Tree Decorations
The senior room pupils got creative with lollipop sticks while making Christmas tree decoartions!
Our class Christmas tree!
Art - Nutcrackers
Art - Christmas Tree decorations
Elf on the Shelf
Little Miss Elf arrived in to the Senior room on the 1st December. Here are just some of the ways she has been entertaining herself!
Our classroom door this Christmas
Mrs McConkey has been very busy decorating her office door!!
Hot Chocolate
We enjoyed our hot chocolate morning in the run up to Christmas!
Virtual Nativity Play
Well done to the whole school for taking part in our virtual Nativity play! We were excited to watch the finished performance in school!
Christmas card making!
Baking Day
We had a wonderful day with Mrs McConkey, constructing and decorating lots of delicious treats. Massive thank you to Mrs McConkey for all of her preparations and hard work!
Santa Claus
A special visitor came to school on the last day before the Christmas holidays!
A huge congratulations to the Drung Under 12 Football team who won the Division 3 Cup Final at the weekend, all of their hard work and practice has paid off! A special well done to our own 6th Class pupil who practiced hard and helped score points for the team, well done!!
October 2021
English
As part of Children's Book Festival, we were lucky to be chosen by Cavan library to have a Zoom meeting with an Irish author Natasha Mac a'Bhaird. We learned all about this Donegal author and about her newest book which is based on the life of a footballer, Shay Given who was goalkeeper for Ireland for 20 years. Her book "Shay Given" is now available in shops!
Religion, Art Collaborative work
We worked with the junior classes (in separate bubbles!) on this harvest display for our hallway.
Work in progress in our pods!
Science, Art Pumpkin Carving
As part of Science and Art, we worked in our pods to examine a pumpkin. Did you know that the pumpkin is part of the gourd family? Pumpkins are full of fibrous strands and seeds. We had great fun cleaning out our pumpkins and removing the insides!! We then designed our pumpkins for carving. We drew on to our pumpkin using a marker and then the adults cut our design out using sharp knives. A drill was used for some of the more intricate details!!!
Ms Soden
We were very lucky to have Ms. Soden teach us for three weeks in October. Here is just a snapshot of some of the activities which we have taken part in during her time with us. Can you guess what theme we have been exploring?
Art
Clay pumpkins
Art
Still Life Drawing
We have been exploring the different techniques of shading- blending/smudging, hatching and cross-hatching. Here are our still-life drawings of different fruit and vegetables. Can you spot the ones which have been nibbled on before the lesson?
Science
The Digestive System
Science- Our digestive system.
We had to make our digestive systems using recyclable materials. We presented them to the class and explained how they worked. Can you spot the mouth, oesophagus, stomach and intestines?
SPHE An act of kindness!
Here are our building blocks of friendship. On each side of each block, we have listed an act of kindness which we can carry out to help someone out each day.
PE Bench-ball
We tried out a game of bench-ball and we really enjoyed playing it. We did get very competitive though!
September 2021
September has been a busy month in the senior Room
We started back eagerly on the 1st of September after our summer break, ready for the new school year. We welcomed four new pupils into the senior room this year and they are settling in very well!
Look Whooos in Our Class....
We have had a very busy time here in the senior room. This is just a snapshot of some of the work which we have been involved in
Gaeilge & Art- Me Fein
Scriobh gach duine litir chuig cara pinn! Check out our beach scenes to go with our letters! We designed our own flip flops.
Art - The Colour Wheel
In Art, we have been studying colour theory and examining the colour wheel. Did you know that there are twelve main colours on the colour wheel? There are three primary colours on the colour wheel. These are red, yellow and blue. There are several secondary colours which are made by mixing two primary colours. We played around with colour to make our own colour wheels. There was lots of mixing involved!!
English - Teeth
We have been learning all about our teeth in English. Did you know that people have two sets of teeth in their lives- our primary teeth (also called the baby, milk or deciduous teeth) and the permanent teeth (also called the adult or secondary teeth)? Children have 20 primary teeth; they are replaced by the permanent teeth by around the age of 13. Adults have 32 permanent teeth. It is very important to look after our teeth as we only get one set of permanent teeth!
Can you solve the riddle? What has teeth but cannot eat? _ _ _ _
We have been exploring procedural writing in English. We wrote the procedure involved in brushing our own teeth!
Maths - All About Me! Figure Me Out!
We have been sharing facts about "Marvellous Me" by creating equations for our classmates to solve!
Art, Maths - Paul Klee Cityscapes
In Art we have been learning about the Swiss-German artist, Paul Klee. Paul Klee (pronounced 'Clay') was born in the late 1870s. He was an Art teacher in Germany and he loved children's art. He often used children's artwork to inspire his own! Klee was an abstract artist. Many of his paintings do not look like anything at all. He liked to use warm, cool and neutral colours.
We were inspired by his famous piece of art, 'Castle and Sun'. We integrated Art with Maths and we discussed 2D shapes and their properties. We listed all of the 2D shapes which can be seen in Klee's 'Castle and Sun'. We then created our own cityscapes but we put our own twist on them! These pieces of work are wax-resist paintings. Firstly, we drew our scenes. Then we used oil pastels to colour our pictures. We painted over our pictures using black paint and finally we wiped off the paint to create a textured cityscape.
SPHE - Spreading Positive Vibes!
In SPHE, in September, we were exploring our own strengths and weaknesses. We are all different and are good at different things and we must be proud of the positive characteristics which each one of us have. As Albert Einstein once said "Everybody is a genius but if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will spend its whole life believing that it is stupid". We shared some positive vibes by thinking of all the good things which best describe us and we documented these characteristics on a handprint.
