We've had a busy year so far in Ms Keenan's 5th Class. We've been working hard to get lots of school work done in between all of the visitors and class trips so far this year.
We have been working very hard on our handwriting and some members of the class have been awarded a 'Pen License' for their efforts in their written work including grammar, spelling and joined writing. I hope that in the next few weeks that further hard work will lead to more 'Pen License's' in the class.
We have had many visitors to our class this year. We are due to complete the Junior Achievement Program with Kevin who comes in to visit us from Dell each week. Kevin has been coming to us for five weeks now and we have learned a lot about workplaces and even built our own businesses plans.
During 'College Awareness Week' in November, learned about college opportunities and heard first had reports from Scoil Cholmcille past pupils about what they enjoyed most about their college experiences.
The ladies from the PMCA (Parents Making Children Aware) program completed their course with us in November and held talks and discussion groups with us covering topics such as smoking, drugs, alcohol and about making good choices.
We have had a very special and much talked about visitor to our classroom this year also; Baby Josh. We have been lucky to have been selected to take part in the 'Roots of Empathy' program in our class. This involves our co-ordinator Margit coming to visit us each week and Josh and his mother Emily visiting every three weeks for most of the school year. Margit helps us to learn all about how difficult it is to take care of a baby and what babies might need from us. The program aims to build an increased understanding of emotions in children. More details can be found by clicking here.
We have enjoyed project work, drama lessons and are busy learning lots of music for next week's Christmas show. We have been busy reading and are doing well with our reading rewards chart in class. We have written stories about our Summers, revolting recipes that would make your stomach turn and reports about Irish animals. We have so far covered swimming and gymnastics as well as commencing P.E. homework. There has been lots that we have learned outside of the classroom too.
We have been on several trips so far this year. We started out the year with shorter and smaller trips to the park to make the most of the sunny weather we were having on one or two Friday afternoons. Once I had learned what a great class they were and that they were mature enough to bring on other trips, we booked more trips in.
We went to a 'World Beats and Drumming' workshop in the DLR Lexicon (the new library) in Dun Laoghaire in October. The workshop began with the children learning about drums from all around the world and ended with the children all performing a beat as a group. Something which everyone seemed to enjoy.
We were lucky to have had two trips to practical workshops in the DLR Lexicon during science week in November. The children learned all about electrical circuits and acids and bases in these workshops. They were great fun and we were lucky to be able to avail of these places for the children.
Our most recent trip was to UCD where we were treated to a screening of the Christmas movie 'Elf'.
There is more hard work, a lot more fun and a few more trips in store for our 5th class this year. Many thanks to the parents for their support so far and to the children in 5th class for all of their hard work.
Ms Keenan
