Third & Fourth Class

Christmas 2022

Christmas 2021

Science

Fourth Class & Fifth Class

Our class were investigating the Law of the Lever. First at our tables, using short and long rulers we tried to work out whether a short or long lever was more effective in lifting a weight like our maths sets. We also had to work out how to define a long lever (the distance between the fulcrum and our hand pushing down on the lever). Everyone worked out that the longer the lever  the easier it was to lift an object. After a while we moved to heavier weights like a box of books and observed the difference in lifting it with short and long levers. We also lifted one of the bunkers in the room and even managed to lift part of the white board with our baby fingers. The class also spoke about places where levers were used in history to build large structures like the Pyramids in Egypt, Stonehenge and Newgrange and locally in West Cork, the Drombeg Stone Circle.

Maths Week in Fourth Class

Drama

We have been doing drama lessons for the past number of weeks with Karen Coppinger. We learnt different techniques and games during this time. We really enjoyed our time. Thank you Karen.

Knitting

The ladies from Skibbereen Luncheon Club have been coming to teach 3^rd class how to knit. We have made great progress under their guidance. See some pictures of our knitting circles in action below.

Chess

Third class are learning how to play chess. We have learnt the names, positions and movements of the different pieces and played many chess based games to get ready for full chess.

Scríobh Leabhar

Third class took part in the “Scríobh Leabhar” initiative with the West Cork Education Centre and Foras na Gaeilge. The pupils wrote and illustrated books, these were sent to be part of the exhibition or “taispeantas”. During Seachtain na Gaeilge we went to see the taispeantas in Dunmanway. We got to read other books written by pupils in West Cork. Some books were read aloud on the day, their was a quiz and games. We really enjoyed the day. The pupils were presented with certificates and a present for their efforts.

Ms Quinn began a special project with 4^th Class building a Robot. A past pupil of the school is working with EMC/DELL. She approached Mrs. O’ Reilly wondering if the school would be interested and she thought it would be a nice idea for the 4^th class to do together. VEX Robotics is a fun, exciting program where students design, build, program and compete with their robot in a spectacular competition. The children are thoroughly enjoying it as it reminds them of assembling Lego. The girls were split into groups. The girls choose their preference and I split them accordingly. The groups consist of:

• Team captain – the project manager, keeps track of the progress, helps team stay on track
• Materials Management – manages the robot material, tracks usage, knows how many parts and what they can do. Documents this for the whole team for the design stage in Week 2.
• Scout / Research – co-ordinates the research into the competition, the rules, scoring strategies, the competition. Scouts other teams on competition days, alliances, good scoring strategies.
• Design Team – works closely with the build team (could also double up as the build team)
• Build Team – produce prototype and refines design – likely to be pit crew on competition day.
• Programmers – program manual & autonomous section
• Engineering Log Book team – this is a competitive & critical task
• PR Role – Judges, logo, team name, sponsors, advertising, branding, funding – Online – develop a website, facebook page or blog to tell the story of the robots development and the team

The girls have been working really hard as we have only one weekly session. Once we have the Robot built we will be moving on to the difficult part of programming the robot and then, in January attending a competition in Cork. More information to follow regarding the competition in January.

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Our Class have won the Golden Boot two weeks running. Last week we had an extra activity break at the park with Ms Quinn as our reward. We can’t wait to find out what we will do this week.

                                   

   

Third class have been working with the writing bag! This bag is full of writing materials such as notebooks, writing pads, coloured paper, pens, markers, crayons, pencils and more! We like to use these things to create exciting pieces of work to share with our class.

Each night a girl in our class gets picked out to take the writing bag. She can work on her piece for two nights. She can use this time to revise and edit her work before she shares it with us in school. We display the work in the writing frames!

We look forward to showing our class writing which we are really proud of!

Third class has been enjoying learning maths through maths stations. We look forward to Ms. O’Regan, Ms. Lyons and Ms. O’Neill’s visits twice a week, when they come and play maths games with us. We also use the laptops or iPads during this time. We are having lots of fun with maths!