Stay connected with all the fun activities of 5th and 6th Class below.
June 2023
June has been a very busy month for us in 5th and 6th class! We learned all about ‘explanation writing’ during our literacy power hours, learned about the artist Andy Warhol and enjoyed trying out some of his techniques. We also did some projects on famous explorers which were very interesting! We had our last ukulele lesson with Music Generation and we all agreed that we had learned so much throughout the year. We visited Woodpark Stud and got a tour of the different areas and we got to meet the horses too! We also had an Agri Aware visit in our school. Chickens, ducks, a sheep, cow, pig and goat were brought in! ‘Active Week’ was full of fun activities. We played table tennis in the classroom, went orienteering in the park, had a drumming workshop, a frisbee workshop and also a skipping workshop! They were so much fun and we had such a laugh together! We also managed to fit in a ‘pool party’ and enjoyed some tropical juice! 6th class had their graduation. We all wrote our own speeches and said them on the day to our family and friends. We also got graduation gifts which included a graduation hoodie, a photograph of 6th class together, a cupcake and an individualised picture frame with adjectives wrote about us from our classmates. We went to Croke Park and Jump Zone for our school tour. The tour of Croke Park was great! We got to see the changing rooms, the warm-up area and different seats in the stadium! We even got to sit in the VIP area with two of us sitting in the presidential seats! Next, we went to Jump Zone and had so much fun going on the different slides, mazes and activities! We were all so tired on the bus journey home but had such a great day! We had a great time in June and are looking forward to a relaxing summer break. We had a fantastic year together and want to wish 6th class all the best as they start their next chapter with their new adventure in secondary school.
May 2023
May has been a busy month with lots of visits happening. We welcomed Garda members Ethan and Barbara to our class who gave a workshop on internet safety and the importance of communicating appropriately online. They also showed us the equipment they carried and answered lots of questions for us. We had a Heritage in Schools visit about biodiversity and in particular bees. We also celebrated our sports day where lots of fun was had by all. In the classroom we have completed our standardised testing and been working away on all of our subjects. We have been carrying out lots of investigations and experiments in science to do with balance and forces. In Art we studied Romero Britto, the Brazilian artist. We explored his work and did our first lesson inspired by his work and for our second lesson created our own versions of his style of art. We also finished our Junior Entrepreneur Programme and submitted it to be accredited. We learned so much and used our profits to make a small donation to charity, a gift for Ger for all her help and we divided the rest of profit amongst ourselves, the investors. For our €5 investment, we got €12 each back so thank you all for your support. 5th and 6th class were also invited to attend the Diocesan Service in Tullamore where we were awarded 4th place in the Bishop's Medal competition. St. Peter's College visited 6th class to tell the pupils all about the school and answered any questions pupils had. They even brought Travis, the school's therapy dog along who was a big hit! 6th class have also been working on a transition programme from 6th to secondary school called 'Smart Moves'.
April 2023
April has been a short two weeks in school after the Easter holidays. We had our final two weeks of gymnastics lessons thanks to the PTA. We all improved so much over the 6 lessons and could do things by the end we never thought possible. It was lots of fun and we all grew in confidence. We have been working on our Junior Entrepreneur Programme mini business of Wonderful Wellbeing bags full of mindfulness and sensory objects. We sold out at our Come and See Day and had to buy further resources to make more bags. We are coming to the end of the programme and we have learned so many new skills along the way from Dragon's Den style pitches, conducting market research, production, working the finances, etc. Take a look at some of our photos and here's what's inside them: What’s inside? Fidget toy to help you concentrate. Loom band bracelet to help keep you calm. Mindfulness colouring bookmark to distract you when you might feel sad or worried. Fortune Teller with lots of wellbeing activity ideas A surprise to help you feel calm! Stress ball OR Fidget Keyring
Thank you to the PTA for organising a storyteller for Seachtain na Gaeilge and our gymnastic lessons.
March 2023
March has been busy! We welcomed Ms. Mollison to our class who helped to teach us lots of new things. - In PE we started gymnastics lessons. They are great fun. - We spent lots of time preparing for our Come and See Day with lots of songs and speeches for our show. We completed Andy Warhol inspired pop art, fact files on autistic people who have achieved great things and wrote a whole class poem. - In Art we have been focusing on drawing and using just our pencils to create different tones and stiles of shading. We had some fun with some 3-D construction art too. - We did some planting in our school garden. - In English we have been learning about the features of recount writing and how to write our own recounts. We also learned about alliteration and wrote some poems using it. Do you remember any tongue twisters? - We got an extra special treat of hot chocolates with cream and marshmallows on top. We got biscuits and chocolate lollies to dip into it too, it was delicious!
February 2023
We achieved a lot in 5th and 6th Class this month and were very busy. It started with St. Brigid's Day where we took part in a webinar with an author who told us all about different folklore tales about her. This also helped with our Bishop's Medal project we started this month. In SESE we covered lots of topics and experiments such as 'Grow and Multiply', 'No Smoke Without Fire' and completed our novel and work on the 1916 Rising which we really enjoyed. We had to design bridges as a STEM challenge out of Lego that would hold a heavy load of books and in Geography we presented our country project presentations to the class. We have also started skipping as part of the Active Flag programme and have continued our swimming lessons. We got lots of work done on the Junior Entrepreneur Programme. In groups we came up with product ideas which we pitched to the 'Dragons' like in Dragon's Den. We then negotiated a compromise on our products and we're really looking forward to starting production. More info to follow...... We are very grateful to the PTA for getting us fresh pancakes this year with lots of toppings to choose from. We even had a pancake flipping competition and none ended up on the ground thankfully!
January 2023
What a great start to 2023! - 5th and 6th class have been taking part in the Junior Achievement Programme. One of the lessons included learning about the dangers of carbon monoxide. We took part in a poster designing competition to raise awareness of the dangers of carbon monoxide run by Gas Networks Ireland. Schools throughout Ireland were invited to take part. We received the fantastic news that Tola won the competition which got us a new iPad for the school. She received a €50 voucher and the BOM are treating our class to a pizza party day to celebrate. Congratulations Tola! - In English we have been completing procedural writing and our novel Guns of Easter so we also learned all about the 1916 rising in history. As part of science we looked at materials and in particular rusting - we even carried out some cool experiments. - In Geography we learned all about the country France. We then had to research any country in the world and are typing them into google slide presentations on the Chromebooks. We can't wait to add images and present them to our class next month. - Based on France, we chose a French Artist to study called Claude Monet. We learned about his style of art called impressionism. We created our own art pieces inspired by him. We also used chalk to create some hot chocolate pictures. - We also took part in a webinar as part of the Junior Entrepreneur Programme. It is great to hear from different entrepreneurs about how they set up their businesses and the skills they need. In February we will be thinking about what we might make to sell.
December 2022
December - what a special month! So may amazing traditions were back in St. Peter's NS after a break of a few years due to Covid. We held our Christmas Fair and it was great to see so many families there including past pupils who came back to visit us. We also had our first Christmas Church Service in 3 years including our Christmas Play. Lots of rehearsals took place so that on the day the pupils were relaxed, confident and excited to take part. We had close to 50 pupils in the play with lots of singing. They were absolutely amazing! In art this month pupils made a class advent calendar (we even had to include the last few days of November to make sure everyone got a number). The pupils included kind and positive messages and jokes to put a smile on someone's face when they opened it. The chocolate coins were also popular! Pupils also focused on fabric and fibre and painting to make some penguin art. In history we had a Heritage in School visit where the pupils learned about lots of archaeology and history in our local area. It was great to learn how pupils can do their own research too. In Gaeilge the pupils had been learning about 'Homes'. By the end of the unit they wrote about their homes and even presented them to the school at assembly. To finish off a very busy but productive first term we had a whole school pizza party! We are so grateful to all our pupils throughout the school for being so patient and helpful at the start of term while they waited to get into their proper classrooms.
November 2022
5th and 6th Class have been working very hard over the past month. We have been working our way through the novel Guns of Easter by Gerard Whelan and are really enjoying it. We will also be learning about the Easter Rising as part of History next month. Sonas and Spraoi moved into their new classrooms this month and we really enjoyed visiting the sensory room and soft play yard. We have started rehearsals for our Christmas play which we are very excited about as it is our first one in a couple of years. We have been working away on the ukuleles. Check out the short video clips below. We are taking part in the Junior Achievement Programme facilitated by Facebook. Brian and Diana came to visit and carry out the first session with us and we are looking forward to the rest. We are also taking part in the Junior Entrepreneur Programme and took part in a Zoom with an entrepreneur called David Cronin which was really interesting.
October 2022
Another busy month in 5th and 6th Class...... We started off with our first orienteering event of the year to Ardgillan Castle. Pupils worked in groups and showed great teamwork and support towards each other. In Science we learned about the heart, in History we started learning about schools in the past in Ireland and in Geography we have been learning about rivers. We also carried out projects on Counties in Ireland. We then prepared presentations which we gave to the class and shared at one of our assemblies. We carried out some Halloween Art and took part in the Credit Union Art competition. We learned about the history of the Halloween festival and talked about some traditions we have with our families for Halloween. We also had Maths week - be sure to check out the photos in the Maths week section showing lots of the fun Maths we carried out. We had a reptile visit too - we have lots more photos in the special visitors section. This week we also had mindfulness workshops where we practised some mindful breathing techniques, a story massage, guided meditation and some mindful movements.
September 2022
What a great start to the year in 5th and 6th Class! Everyone has settled in very well into the new school year. We spent the first week or so building relationships and getting to know each other especially as we have lots of new students in our room too. Everyone designed hoodies to represent themselves which are on display in our class. We have been setting up all of our routines and we are using restorative practise in our classroom. Check out the photo of our Calm Corner display. Golden Time is a very popular time of the week with lots of extra games and PE. We have been very lucky to take part in the Music Generation Programme and have had our first few lessons of Ukulele. We have a very talented bunch of pupils who are picking it up much quicker than their teacher! In some of our photos you can see we have been learning how to Mind map to sort our thoughts, ideas and learning. We have also been focusing on Mé Féin in Gaeilge which is Myself. Students wrote all about themselves as Gaeilge.
6th Class Graduation
Congratulations to all of our 6th class students graduating from St. Peter's NS. They will be missed next year but we wish them well on their exciting journey into secondary school. We celebrated with a pizza and game party followed by a ceremony with their friends, family and school staff. We had some special treats and gifts for them too.
June 2022
Wow - what a busy month! We have had lots of amazing extra activities going on for students this month including some ofthe following: -Smart Moves programme carried out with 6th class to help with their transition to secondary school. -1st June – school trip to Woodpark Stud. -Heritage in Schools visit - Wellbeing workshop -ASD Awareness Day. Talk from psychologist from Enable Ireland and also from SNA Karen -Crazy Hair Day and Teddy Bear’s Picnic -Drumming workshop took place -School Tour to Tayto Park -6th Class Graduation -Circus Skills workshop - End of year class party took place
May 2022
This month we had lots of fun occasions going on including our Sports Day and a school trip to Woodpark Stud. Be sure to check out those photos in other sections on the website. In class some of the things we did included: - 3D sculptures as part of an art lesson on construction. - We wrote reports on famous Europeans both past and present. - In pairs/small groups we researched different eras in European History and created projects in google docs and made a whole class timeline. - We also had a visit from an MEP, Colm Markey as part of our Blue Star Programme.
April 2022
We had a short April with our two week Easter break in the middle but we still managed to pack in lots of fun activities including our annual tradition of our Easter Egg Hunt. In Science we were learning about the purpose of a flower which was to grow and multiply. We identified the different parts of the flower and learned what their job was. We then dissected daffodils to explore the different parts in greater detail. It was pretty amazing! We got to plant lots of different vegetables in our new school garden such as potatoes, spinach, onions & lettuce. We hope to get to eat some by Summer! We worked on the Blue Flag programme and enjoyed lots of Kahoot quizzes based on European geography, history and cultures and studied the work of the famous European artist Pablo Picasso to create some our own art inspired by him and the cubism style of Art.
March 2022
Check out the photos of some of what we have been doing in March. It has been a very busy month with us working towards our Green Flag and Amber Flag along with lots of other fun and learning. We had an Engineer's Day where we carried out lots of different challenges including an 'Egg Drop Challenge' using recyclable materials to protect an egg when dropped from a height, we built bridges using Lego and paper and structures using marshmallows and spaghetti. As part of the Amber Flag we painted stones, worked together to walk the distance of Croagh Patrick around the park and finished off the celebrations with take away pizzas! As part of the Green Flag, we designed posters for our green code, had an Action Day where we went litter picking, carried out our second waste audit and made more graphs, carried out waste sorting activities and had our visitor meeting. Some of our art activities included construction using empty toilet paper rolls. We weren't allowed to use glue or string to stick them together so we eventually figured out if we cut slits in the toilet paper rolls we could build them together. We worked in groups to create different structures and sculptures. We also looked at Art by the artist known as 'The Polkadot Princess' and created our own art based on her style. We enjoyed some pancakes for Pancake Tuesday and had a selection of toppings and also designed and created St. Patrick's Day hats and plaited wool to make bracelets to wear at the Dunboyne St Patrick's Day Parade. Along with all of that we have been taking part in Woodie's Budding Gardeners and we have carried out 2 different planting activities so far. For the first one we planted summer bulbs that are bee and butterfly friendly such as Dahlias, Freesias and Gladiolas. Our second activity was planting lettuce seeds. In Gaeilge we have been working on the theme - An Teilifís - Television.
February 2022
Take a look at some of the things we have been learning in 5th & 6th class this month: - We have really enjoyed learning about the Winter Olympics in History. We got to watch some of the Olympics live while eating our lunches and saw lots of sports we hadn't even heard of before like the Skeleton! - We carried out some art based on the Winter Olympics too. First we looked at how to make different shades of the same colour through mixing different amounts of white paint to our base colour. We printed these onto paper using sponges. The next week we used these printed sheets to create pictures of the symbols of some of the different Winter Olympic sports. - We celebrated Valentine's Day through some Valentine's Art where we focused on colour and patterns. We were also challenged to make a heart out of Lego! - In English we finished off our novel Holes. We loved it! The author did a great job of giving us little clues in each chapter to build the whole story. We are watching the movie too and comparing the book to the movie for similarities and differences. We liked typing some of our work into googledocs too. - We took part in a Sketch Notes workshop too where we were introduced to using drawings to help us learn. It was really interesting and we look forward to our next one in March.
January 2022
Happy New Year! 5th and 6th Class have started off the New Year very well. - We are very lucky to be taking part in swimming lessons in the National Aquatic Centre as part of our PE. We have also been learning some European folk dances which links to our Blue Flag Programme. - We started learning about the weather in Geography this month and enjoyed looking at the rainfall radar on Met Eireann's website. We kept an eye on it the day some snow was forecast and we got to go out and catch some snowflakes! - This led us to one of our art activities this month combining painting and drawing where our characters are catching snowflakes. - In English we are continuing with our novel Holes and it is getting very exciting. We typed reports on the Chromebooks and responded to a poem we had been learning called 'All My Great Excuses' by making our own versions. We learned about formatting in google docs and inserting pictures during this activity too. 5th and 6th class are very creative! - We were also very lucky to get lots of new lego for our classroom. We've been having fun experimenting and building!
December 2021
December has been a very busy month with lots of fun activities. Have a look at the photos from our Christmas Fun Day on the Christmas page too and also the performance we carried out. - We decided to paint and write Christmas cards to residents in Dunboyne Nursing Home. - We did lots of Arts and Crafts this month including painting reindeer and making candle holders out of clay which we then painted and varnished. We wrapped them up to give to someone special as a gift. - We finally filled our ball jar too. As a reward we got to have some treats while watching the panto which was lots of fun and we got 6 new games of Dobble and Uno that we can play at our tables with our friends in the morning times. Merry Christmas everyone!
November 2021
Check out the below photos of some of the activities we have been doing in November. - Art: Optical Illusion Art where we attempted to create depth using line in our pictures. We took part in an ESB Art competition where we learned about important safety messages of the dangers of electricity outside. We also created some 'Woodland Art'. This was lots of fun drawing silhouettes using permanent marker and then we experimented with tin foil, washable markers and water to create some light background colour. - In Gaeilge we wrote all about Mé Féin - ourselves. - In Science we carried out Mammal projects and learned all about blood too. - For golden time, we loved playing board games with our friends. - In Geography we were comparing and contrasting Dunboyne to a seaside town. We worked in groups looked at all of the advantages and disadvantages of living in different areas in terms of transport, industry, farming, tourism and buildings. - We also took part in the Leinster schools Orienteering event in Santry. It was great getting to go on a trip and take part in the event. We can't wait for the next one! - Be sure to take a look at some of the visitors and zooms we had in the special visitors section for science week.
5th and 6th Class have had a busy first 2 months back at school. Check out some of what we have been doing.....
Art
The children created some wonderful Halloween Art. They have also been working on some optical illusion art. Can you see some handprints in them?
SESE
In Science, Geography and History the children have been learning about lots of different things. In Science: The Digestive System and Mammals, in particular some wide mammals found in the countryside throughout Ireland. We were also very lucky to have a visit from some kittens and we learned about how to take care of them. In Geography: Children completed amazing projects on different counties of Ireland (check out the photos below) and also prepared presentations on what they learned. We also explored the Coast of Ireland. In History: Children have been working in pairs researching and learning about different topics in history such as the Maori, Cúchulainn, Feasts and Festivals and Games from the past. We made a timeline of when some popular toys were invented.
Maths
In Maths we have been learning about decimals and place value, long multiplication, data and graphs and lines and angles. The children really enjoyed learning how to use protractors to draw angles and triangles. They did a great job!
English
We have been doing lots of things in English. One of the most popular things we covered was debating.
PE
We've been practising different Athletics skills in PE such as running, relays, throwing and jumping. Groups also designed and created their own obstacle courses incorporating some of our athletics skills we had been learning.
Welcome to 5th and 6th Class!
Its a thumbs up from all our children in 5th and 6th Class. They are a super group and we can't wait to see all the amazing work they will do this year!