The girls have settled into their new routines in 2nd class and have covered a lot of work and progressed so well this half-term. They will all deserve a nice break during mid-term break which is just around the corner. Here are a few snippets of what they’ve been up to during September and October.
Autumn time is a wonderful time of the year to get out and discover our environment. In Science we have been busy on lots of school fieldtrips. We investigated and discovered different materials in our school grounds. Some are crunchy, some are hard, others are soft, and others again were flexible. This was a great way to use some new language while working as a team.
We also used our senses of seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting and touching, to discover the signs of Autumn which we can see-horse chestnuts; hear-crunching leaves; smell-mushrooms; taste-blackberries; touch-bark.
We used our tree ID, Twig ID, fruit and seed ID and a tree identification wheel to find out what trees we have on our school grounds. We discovered Alder, Beech, Maple, Rowan and Horse Chestnut! Great team work and serious science investigators in 2nd class!
The girls have also been out and about during Geography class. In class we were learning about different forms of transport on land, air and sea. We discussed the benefits of the different forms of transport and about the negative impact many can have on our environment. It was agreed that there are too many cars on our roads which are polluting our air. The girls carried out a survey at the traffic lights and did a tally on the amount of buses, cars, bicycles, trains, and planes they could count in 10 mins. The highest tally was for cars! Later we discussed how we can improve this by walking, cycling, scooting, carpooling and taking buses.
We’ve been enjoying a nice variety of work in Art also this year. Our art corridor is looking really bright and welcoming. The girls did some rubbings outside and cut out the outline of their hand to create an Autumn tree. They learned a little history about Andy Warhol and pop art and created some impressive prints. And this week we are working on Halloween costumes. We will finish these next week.
History has been fun to and our lesson this week is about Halloween and how it has been celebrated down through the years. The girls were surprised to discover that turnips were carved out long ago, but the American tradition of pumpkins found its way to Ireland. We also discovered some of the games that were played long ago and the games the girls play now. Mumming and Telling the future were just two of the ones we learned about. And we learned that long ago there were five items in a Barmbrack. A coin =become rich; a rag=be poor; a ring=you will marry; a pea=you won’t marry; and a stick=you’ll have a disagreement or fight!! We had a little treat of a Barmbrack and one of our lucky girls got the ring!!!
We’ve been doing lots of hands-on activities in Maths this year also. While learning about 2D shapes, the girls were given the challenge to create 2D shapes with cocktail sticks and marshmallows. They then spoke about how they did them and how the marshmallows were used for the corners/angles and the sticks were the sides. And of course, the marshmallows disappeared at the end of the lesson!!!!! The reward for their team work!
We also learned about angles and found right angles, smaller than a right angle and greater than a right angle around our school corridors and hall.
This week we have been learning about time and how time passes by. We linked in with Geography on this to discover how the sun rises in the East and sets in the West. At different times of the day, the girls stood on their spots in the yard and drew each others’ shadows. The discovered that it was in a different position each time. When the sun was low down, the shadows were long, when the sun was up high, the shadows were shorter. The earth moves and so that is why the sun forms a new shadows as times goes by.
We also learned to sequence events and put our knowledge to the test to see if we could make Rice Krispie buns. And we were successful! Well done to the girls on their kitchen duties. They deserved the nice treat at the end of the day.
We look forward to lots more fun after Halloween.
Mrs Power
