First Class
Ms. O'Rourke
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This just in!!!
We
now have a CLASS E-MAIL ADDRESS. You can mail our class (1stclass@dromiskinns.ie).
COW winners for September!
These are two of the most important rules in our classroom. The first one is the "Good Listening Tips" monster (which has been a big hit!). The next important rule is "The Daily Five".
Farewell (for now!) to Ms. O'Rourke
Dear Parents/Guardians,
It is with a great sense of pride but also a great sense of
sadness that we bring you our latest news. We are proud because teacher
Ms. Maria O'Rourke has been chosen by St. Patrick's College, Drumcondra,
to complete a Fellowship in the new "Write to Read" project.
This is a pioneering initiative to promote literacy in Ireland and further
afield, affording Ms. O'Rourke a unique opportunity to complete a doctoral
thesis in an area in which she has already conducted acclaimed research.
The fact that Maria was chosen is an acknowledgement of her outstanding
abilities and it is an honour for her, her family and the whole school
community.
Unfortunately, for the children, parents and colleagues, we
lose, for possibly three years, a wonderful teacher, mentor and member of
the teaching staff in St. Peter's. Ms O'Rourke makes an outstanding
contribution to so many aspects of school life and her passion for
learning, commitment to her pupils and loyalty to her staff will be sorely
missed (as will her ICT skills!).
Maria begun her studies, research and new duties on November
1st and finished in Dromiskin on Friday, October 28th. The parents from
her 1st class made a presentation to her on behalf of the parents from her
class and the Parents' Committee.
I would like to take this opportunity to thank the staff, parents and children of St. Peter's for their kind words and wishes over the last number of weeks and their support over my years in St. Peter's N.S. It was a privilege to start my career in such a supportive environment where the children of Dromiskin grow and develop into such happy, confident and hard working members of the community. I know that I will not find another school where the staff and children are as welcoming and supportive and I will miss the children and staff enormously. It has been wonderful to work here and to quote someone famous, "I'll be back!" ~ Ms. O'Rourke
Everybody in Dromiskin wishes Maria every success in her exciting and challenging new venture. St. Peter's loss is, for the moment, the world of academia's gain. However, we look forward in a few years time, if she so chooses, to welcome back "Doctor" O'Rourke to her alma mater where her teaching career began in 2004.
Warm and Cool Colour Challenge
We had a very difficult challange this week. We had to trace our hands and design a warm and cool contrast colour picture. See if you can figure out what we did and which side is cool and which side is warm!
SHAPE CHALLENGE
We were given a page of triangles and told to make pictures by cutting them out and combining them in different ways.
We were really creative and shocked our teacher because all our pictures were completely different!
COLUMBUS
In 14 hundred and 92 Columbus sailed the ocean blue!
MOVIE POSTERS
Circle of Friends
Goal Jersey Day
WRITING WORKSHOP SNAPSHOT
Here is a glimpse inside what our writing workshop looks like... lots of concentration!
JACK'S DVD COVERS
We had a great surprise in class this week when Jack brought in the DVD covers he designed at home. The detail on each cover is amazing and you would think that they belonged in HMV!
WRITING
Parents might have heard their children coming home talking about something called "Writing Workshop." This is all about helping the children in our class become real authors. Well today we took another step that brings us closer to that goal! We have started making books. These books can be about everything and anything! Check back regularly to see what stories we publish!
Here is one of our first book covers!
Jack's Writing
Jack has been writing a LOT of stories! He has also been doing lots of drawings. We all think Jack is going to make a wonderful illustrator when he grows up!
Ultan's Writing
Ultan published one of our first books. We're going to put it in the library next week. It was all about Pokemon!
Conor's Writing Conor has been writing and writing and writing and WRITING! He has written over 13 stories and we haven't even been back at school 3 weeks!
COMIC STRIPS
The Frog and the Princess
LAPTOP TIME!
We are very lucky in our school to have lots of computers to use! Today we were using the laptops in class to play Ollie the Spelling Octopus! We also got to go on our school website and visit our very own CLASS LINKS PAGE! On this page our teacher has put up lots of links for us to use. The newest one is the World Cup Football (you should really give it a go!).
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SCIENCE EXPERIMENT!
We were learning all about air today. We asked lots of questions first (because that's what good scientists do). See if you can answer these (if you need a hint, highlight the text in between the brackets):
Can you see air? (Not really, if it is
clean)
Can you hear air? (Yes if it is moving)
Can you smell air? (Not if it is pure)
Can you feel air? (Yes if it is moving)
Do we need air? (Yes….or else we would die)
Can air move things? (Yes when it's strong enough)
What sort of things can it move? (It depends on how
strong it is and how big the object it)
How can you move air? (You can use your hands, a
paper fan, an electric fan, straws... there's lots of ways!)
One of our experiments was to see if we could keep balloons up in the air without using our hands.
The next experiment we tried involved using straws to see which materials we could blow. By the end of the day we were al puffed out! We still have more to learn and investigate (we have lots of packs of bubbles to use!)
OUR CLASS FROG POND
PRIMARY COLOURS!
Do you know what the primary colours are? Well we do! They are red, yellow and blue! We were making patterns using crayons and paint (we'll get those pictures up soon!)
STATION TIME!
We rotate around different stations in the class during station time. These stations cover things like writing workshop, spelling strategies and games, computer work and reading comprehensions.
Writing Workshop Spelling games
Computer Work Sight Word Bingo
Reading Buddy System Paired Writing
NAME ART
GAEILGE
Dia Duit! ... is ainm dom.
CHICKA CHICKA BOOM BOOM!!
We read the story Chicka Chicka Boom Boom and drew our favourite parts. Can you guess what the story was about by lookig at our pictures?
T-SHIRT DESIGNS
We were designing t-shirts and surprise surprise.... most of the boys designed football jerseys! We'll upload more jerseys soon, so make sure to check back!
CLASS RULES - WORKING TOGETHER
We talked about what to do to help our class work together. A lot of children thought our "listening monster" was the best example of working with each other. They did a great job copying teacher's picture! Other children said helping each other, being kind and helpful and sharing were important things for our classroom.
Maths Links
Try these games!
