What a busy half term the girls have had and they are well and truly ready for a well-deserved Easter break. I hope the Easter bunny has some nice surprises for these girls.

There has been a lot going on in Maths over the last few weeks. The girls have been learning about Area and came to the conclusion that standard shapes are the best way to find the surface area of an object. They were estimating and measuring using various shapes and sizes. We then compared our answers and figured out that square units are the best way to measure area. Well done on all the problem solving and team work that was needed to do these challenges.

We moved on to Length later on and again used some non-standard items to measure the length of various distances – walls, corridors, distances from classroom to office, length of paths etc. After realising that we all get different answers, the girls decided that using the same item each with a standard measurement was the best way. We then measured using rulers, metre sticks and measuring tapes.

Following this, we did some Capacity work. The girls brought in containers and we learned to estimate and measure using various sizes and shapes. We estimated how many of one container it would take to fill another. We then went to work with our basins of water. We progressed on to using measuring jugs and the girls were able to draw conclusions during and at the end of the activities. Very good problem solving took places here.

We moved on to Graphs in Maths and we did some pictograms, block and bar graphs. We surveyed the traffic outside our school and did a tally on the different colour cars. The girls discovered that silver/grey or white were the most popular cars on the road!

As always the girls have been up and out of their seats creating Irish dramas. It’s been lots of fun for them and great to see them using and creating sentences and dramas with the Irish they know.

In Science the girls learned about friction and how smooth hard surfaces created less friction and soft rough surfaces created more friction. They did some experimenting with different materials and drove some wind up dinky cars across these various surfaces. Some were smooth, others rough, some slippy etc. They presented their findings to the class.

In Science also, we learned about oil and water and how items can be made waterproof. We did a little experiment using oil/wax crayons to do some nature rubbings, and then washed this over using watercolours. It was clear the wax crayons resisted the watercolour.

We continued this lesson learning about various materials and discovering the properties of these materials, which are waterproof, which are not, which ones are transparent, or opaque. The girls investigated and presented their findings.

We celebrated our annual St. Patrick’s Day parade in school. What a great day of fun and cheer. The ceili was great fun and it was lovely to see all the girls mixing and enjoying being part of our school.

In SPHE we have been learning a lot about being healthy and looking after ourselves. We discovered ways we are healthy and some ways that we can improve our health by making some small changes. We have some tasty healthy treats to see if we could try some new foods. There wasn’t much left on the plates at the end of this activity!!

The girls have been learning about milk in Geography. Where does it come from and what are the stages it goes through to get to our glass! We realised there was a lot more going on with milk than we had previously thought! The girls realised that the cow isn’t the only animal to produce milk that we can drink. Some girls made connections with our SPHE and realised they need to have more milk in their diet. They learned some easy ways to do this – why not make a healthy milkshake?? All you need is a blender (of some sort), some plain yoghurt, a mix of whatever chopped fruit you like, milk, whizz it up and voilá – an amazing, fresh, tasty and healthy milkshake. The girls enjoyed trying some milkshakes in class!

We finished Term 2 with a wonderful and positive Friendship and Wellbeing Week, thanks to Mrs Shanahan for organising it. We had a lovely week of mindfulness, friendship bracelets, healthy treats, meditation, mindful walks, friendship quizzes, affirmations, thankful cards and much much more. What a lovely way to finish off Term 2. The girls also discovered that the Easter bunny arrived early with a tasty treat!!

I wish you and your families a very happy Easter break and I look forward to Term 3 in a few weeks times.

Best wishes,

Mrs. Power