email: cforde@stmarysns.ie

Daily Games

(World)le

Wordle

Rug Repair

Thanks for all the stories so far. Only the stories submitted up to now were considered for Ms. Nugent’s Christmas Story competition. Those who have not yet handed up a story please do so asap. The 3 stories that were handed to Ms. Nugent this evening were ‘Nearly Ruined Christmas’ by Cillian, ‘The Missing Christmas’ by Jack and ‘The Boy who hates Christmas by Chloe. You will record your stories for the December podcast today.

Please try to get a parent to read your work and admire the effort that you put in to your piece of writing.

Big shout out to Oisín, Kiki, Daniela & Cillian who solved this very tricky puzzle. In Part 2 of The Christmas Haggle, Anna & KatyMay won the buyers competition while Jack and Aidan won the sellers competition with a profit of 51%.

Each Christmas we watch a movie in class, this year we will will be watching The Karate Kid. It is a real treat of a movie. Daniel is a high-school who gets picked on by a group of bullies. He’s certainly not a match for the students at the Cobra Kai dojo…until he teams up with Mr Miyagi and shows these tough guys what he’s made of.

Bird Vision

Calendars are printed and ready for the class raffle next Tuesday. You can also download the calendar above and print it at home.

Part 1 of the Christmas Haggle Contest took place today with Lucy & Tara being the best sellers with an incredible 94% profit on their goods. The best buyers were Oisín and Kiki, they spent just €19.30 on the 6 items. You will remain with the same partner today today but you will reverse roles. There will also be 6 new products.

Amazingly Kiki’s Portugal have been knocked out of the World Cup by Morocco. Surely they can’t also knock out Chloe’s France in the semi final. Eimantas’s Croatia will take on Megan’s Argentina. The semi finals take place on Tuesday and Wednesday, who will make it to the final.

Emily and KatyMay won the vote on Friday for the best hat made from recyclable materials. The green schools committee will submit this as our class entry today. Well done to all 6 groups who submitted hats, fantastic effort by you all.

The green schools committee have also put big plans in place for the school grounds in the coming months, along with improvements to the school garden they are making 3 pollinator friendly flower beds, a forest with a path through it and a bird garden. I have offered on your behalf that we will weed and prepare one of the flower beds before Christmas if the weather gets milder.

The Christmas Market Haggle will take place tomorrow and possibly Wednesday. There are 2 parts to it, in the first part half the class will be sellers and the other half are buyers, in part 2 the roles reverse. Your job is to buy and sell everyday items for the best price by haggling.

How to make a Christmas Card

It was great to complete our Christmas window art this week. Well done to all our artists

As there was an error with the voting, we will vote in class this morning. I will announce the winner straight after.

Why do we salt roads on a cold night?

Interesting Fact – The Republic of Ireland extends further north than Northern Ireland.

An incredible ancient mousetrap

Today is Stone Age Cooking Day. Everything is prepared and Anna & Lucy have kindly offered to bring in a little more wood just in case we are running low. Thanks to everyone who brought in items. The fire will be lit at 8:30am, feel free to come into school a few mins earlier. Make to sure to wear trousers and bring a warm coat and hat.

Daniela and KatyMay were knocked out of the World Cup last night while Kiki goes on to the quarter final. No one in the class was assigned Morocco when the draw was made as they were real outsiders to win the World Cup, could they shock us all?

Quarter Finals

Megan (Argentina) v Méabh (Netherlands)

JoeTom (Brazil) v Eimantas (Croatia)

Kiki (Portugal) v (Morocco)

Jack (England) v Chloe (France)

Voting has opened on the hats. Vote for your favourite hat. The winning hat will be announced on Friday morning. The winning hat will be on display at the Christmas assembly on Friday 16th. Judges will then pick a winning hat from all classes and this will be featured in the Christmas newsletter.

Cillian, Donagh & Oisín brought in their championship and league titles today. They had a very successful year with Western Gaels. It is great to see the many different sports students in the class are playing.

Callum’s Japan lost out to Eimantas’s Croatia on a penalty shoot out yesterday. Today KatyMay’s Spain should be very confident of making the quarter final but Daniela’s Switzerland may cause an upset against Kiki’s Portugal. At least one more student will be eliminated from the World Cup this time tomorrow.

As part of our WWII lessons we looked at the dropping of the Atomic Bomb on Hiroshima yesterday. We learned that the bomb dropped on Hiroshima was called Little Boy with Fat Man the name of the bomb dropped on Nagasaki 3 days later. Japan surrendered then. The two bombings killed between 129,000 and 226,000 people, most of whom were civilians, and thankfully remain the only use of nuclear weapons in armed conflict.

We have just 10 members of the class left standing in the World Cup, today we will see 2 more teams eliminated. JoeTom’s Brazil will be hot favourites to make the quarter final but will Callum’s Japan continue to cause upsets and defeat Eimantas’s Croatian team.

What a fantastic day on Friday at St. Mary’s Church. Your behavior and participation levels were excellent. We learned so much from the volunteers there. What was the most interesting piece of information you learned?

In the graveyard we were shown the graves and headstones of Sir Alfred & Lady Beit the owners of Russborough house. The historian told us about the art collection that was once there and how it was once stolen.

It is now looking like the best day of the week to cook is Wednesday but it will be extremely cold. Make sure to wrap up well that day and please continue to bring in wood and stones.

Four Match Sticks – Make a square

There was 2 major upsets in the World Cup yesterday with Alex’s Belgium and Aidan’s Germany eliminated from the World Cup. KatyMay’s Spain just scraped through to the second round. Eimantas’s Croatia and Callum’s Japan safely went through to the second round also. Could Callum’s Japan win the World Cup, they have already beaten Germany and Spain? In today’s games can Oisín Serbia stop Daniela’s Switzerland going through and can Timica’s Ghana beat Tara’a Uruguay to seal their second round place.

Return to Iwo Jima

It wasn’t to be for Cillian and Anna last night with Mexico and Denmark both knocked out of the World Cup. Donagh’s Poland just held on will play favourites France (Chloe) in the 2nd round. Their performance will have to improve though to make it past Chloe’s charges. It is a huge day for Aidan’s Germany today where even with a win their place in the 2nd round is still not guaranteed. Alex’s Belgium will have to win also to make it through.

Continuing our lessons on WWII we looked at D Day invasions yesterday. What can you recall from it?

There was a a huge improvement in your movement and concentration during our basic game of volleyball yesterday. The next time we play we will include rotations and if in the hall we will have a higher net.

Work began on preparing the Stone Age cooking today. Next Tuesday (weather permitting) we will be cooking a leg of lamb. The style of cooking we are using was found to be used on the west coast of Scotland. The Fulacht Fiadh was a popular method of cooking in Ireland during this time.

Please try to bring in the items needed asap – Stones, wood, green sticks & moss.

In My Maps the Canadian police were mentioned today, they are known as the Mounties. They have a uniform that really stands out but it doesn’t compare to the Swiss Guard. The personal army of ……?

We are looking at US states this week and North America in the My Maps book. On the map we looked at the size of Greenland and how a country this size only has a population of 56,000. Aidan informed us that Greenland is actually not this size and the the world map we see in our books and on posters is actually very wrong.

Maps will cover the US states over the next 2 weeks. We learned yesterday how to remember Kentucky, here are a few more tricks to help you remember. We will work on the chapter USA in My Maps later today also.

We started our work on WWII by looking at the Blessington aircrash in 1941 today. What do you remember?

This week we will begin preparing for our Stone Age Cooking. The cooking may take place this week or possibly next week. We have permission to move the cooking location from the usual spot by the garden so that there is room to bring out the other 6th classes on the day. Where is the best spot to go on the school grounds? If anyone burns wood at home ask for permission to bring in a couple of pieces.

A number of students have decided to construct a hat made from recyclable materials. This hat will be part of a fashion show at the Christmas Assemble. Please let me know who will be constructing a hat so I can give some homework off this week.

In Maps this week we are looking at US States. Let’s learn our first state right now – Kentucky

Excellent work on your electric cars today and every group kept working right up to the deadline making every improvement possible on the car.

You will begin designing Christmas window designs after homework corrections today. . Working in 2’s or individually you will design on paper what your window would look like. The top 8 designs will go to an online vote and the 4 best placed designs will get the opportunity to paint a window each next week.

Im still waiting on a number of novels and bring in your permission slip whether you are going or not for the cinema trip as soon as you have it signed.

Seeing that the Toy Show takes place tonight, we will look back at the kind of toys Roman Children played with.

It was fantastic to have a 2nd artifact in 2 days. This game console was brought in by Lucy. Some students guessed that it was used on a construction site to see if items are level.

It belongs to Lucy’s dad and it still works. It was one of the most recognisable electronic hand held games of the 1980’s. The game plays a very good version of Space Invaders, albeit with only three lines of aliens, it has excellent controls.

It has three skill levels via a switch, and a large fire button, and left right joystick.

Well done Lucy, great presentation.

Tomorrow there will be a competition to see who will get the opportunity to paint our classroom windows for Christmas. Working in 2’s or individually you will design on paper what your window would look like. The top 8 designs will go to an online vote and the 4 best placed designs will get the opportunity to paint a window each next week.

Clean Air Week 21 – 25 November

The voting is now over and the charity we will be raising funds for this Christmas is Brain Tumour Ireland with a total of 8 votes and 32% of the vote.

New powerful Duracell Plus batteries have been bought so all cars will be completed today before racing them tomorrow.

Donagh presented his artefact this morning. It was a clothes iron from the 1800’s/1900’s which once belonged to and was used by his great grandmother. Donagh had borrowed it from his grandmother for the presentation. These irons were also known as Flat irons or Smooth irons or Sad irons (they’re called “sad” because in Middle English, “sad” meant “solid”). Metal handles had to be gripped in a pad or thick rag. Some irons had cool wooden handles and in 1870 a detachable handle was patented in the US. This stayed cool while the metal bases were heated and the idea was widely imitated. Excellent presentation Donagh and Lucy is next up with her artefact.

Today we learned about the brilliant athlete and neurosurgeon Roger Bannister and his pacemakers Brasher & Chataway. Doctors had said it was impossible to run a mile in under 4 minutes and that humans may die trying to achieve it. It was amazing that the world record of 4:02 had stood since 1945 until Bannister broke it in 1954 setting a new world record of 1954. A month later an Australian John Landy broke Bannisters world record and since then over 1400 people have run a mile in under 4 minutes. This has given way to the saying The Bannister Effect.

How to count to 100

We will also begin preparations for Sone Age Cooking next week.

Today’s kindness challenge as part of Anti Bullying Week.

Optical Illusions

Optical illusions happen when our brain and eyes try to speak to each other in simple language but the interpretation gets a bit mixed-up. For example, it thinks our eyes told it something is moving but that’s not what the eyes meant to say to the brain

It is Anti-Bullying week. We will be watching and discussing videos to Anti-Bullying program, we will be completing a survey, doing random acts of kindness, a group worksheet everyday along with Odd-Sock day on Wednesday to say it’s ok to be different.

Our Green Schools Committee members (Eimantas & Emily) have decided that we will design and make a hat for the Fashion Show at the Christmas Assembly. Méabh has kindly offered to model it on the day too. We must decide this morning on whether the class as a whole makes a hat of individual groups making a hat and then we select the best one.

6 is a perfect number

Laura Lynn which was presented by Tara

Children live the little moments, and so do we. At LauraLynn’s Children’s Hospice we help children with life-limiting illnesses and their families, to make the most of the little moments together.

 The Irish Cancer Society (Kiki).

The Irish Cancer Society is the national charity in the Republic of Ireland dedicated to eliminating cancer as a major health problem, and improving the lives of those who have cancer.

Brain Tumor Ireland by Méabh

Brain Tumour Ireland is a national organisation. They hope to create a place where people can come for information, guidance and comfort. A place to learn what to expect and a community to provide support. 

Blessington Community First Responder by Cillian

They have trained and will continue to train hundreds of people life saving skills. Its many volunteers also attend call outs at the request of the National Ambulance Service,

Cheeverstown by Emily

Cheeverstown empowers people with intellectual disabilities to realise their potential and live a good life.

Can Ireland help save the planet?

Swimming today at 12. Remember your gear and an extra bit of lunch.

What an amazing artifact Jack brought in today. It was a water bottle from the 1870’s. It belongs to Jack’s great grandmother which was handed down from her mother to her. The white-glazed earthenware circular hot water bottle meant it was really good at distributing heat in the bed.

The cap on the top could be unscrewed, allowing the bottle to be filled with hot water. This hot-water bottle was made by Royal Doulton, a famous ceramics and pottery maker once based in London. Excellent artifact and presentation Jack.

With the World Cup starting on Sunday here are some of the best World Cup Goals ever scored.

It is project day today and we will leave books aside to design and build electric cars. I doubt we will completely finish them today and we will race them early next week in the hall.

Our workshop in the library was very interesting. We learned about 3D printers and lasers. Colm the coordinator mentioned that houses can now being 3D printed. He said printed houses have lower construction costs and they have a quicker building time. He said construction methods we see everyday have some design limitations, but this new technology is overcoming those limitations by letting architects create more unique and creative buildings.

Méabh and Katy May will be one of the groups showing their science experiment in the auditorium today, they may be joined by one more group. Their experiment was about air pressure. When you light the candle, the heat warmed up the air in the jar. The hot air expanded, which led to higher air pressure. This caused tiny air bubbles to escape under the edge of the jar to equalize the pressure. You may have seen air bubbles escape from the jar during this part of the experiment.

When the candle went out because all the oxygen was used up, the air in the jar cooled. The air in the jar dropped in pressure because of the reduction in temperature, which caused water to enter the jar to equalize the pressure.

When you lifted the jar out of the dish, you probably heard a “pop” sound as the seal broke! The changes in pressure created a vacuum in the jar.

10 groups have now presented their charity projects and their charity projects. The standard has been very high so far and the 5 charities going forward to a vote will be announced on Friday.

So far the charities presented are Save the Children (Katy May), Blessington Community First Responder (Cillian), Brain Tumor Ireland (Méabh), Aoibheann’s Pink Tie (Chloe), Cheeverstown (Emily), Unicef (Anna), International Red Cross (Megan), St. Vincent de Paul (Donagh), St. Judes Children’s Research Hospital (Alex) and Irish Cancer Society (Kiki).

I’m really looking forward to seeing your experiments today and that the added incentive of getting some written homework off means we have several experiments to view. We had our 1st experiment of the week today. It was called crushing cans.

Our class have been selected to attend a Science workshop in the library tomorrow at 11:50.

The 1st five charity presentations took place today. They were all excellent presentations and another 5 will present tomorrow.

Make sure to take some time this evening to look over your Maths test this week and have questions for me in class tomorrow morning. The final 3 questions will cause difficulty for many as dividing by a decimal is extremely difficult. Can you remember how to get past this difficulty.

The Magical, Mystical, Mind-Boggling Ames Window

A reminder again that it is Science Week this week. Along with building our Electric Cars on Wednesday we will be carrying out small classroom experiments every day. Today it’s the crushing can experiment. We will be crushing coke cans using the air in the classroom, however in this video a 55 gallon drum is crushed by the air around it.

On Wednesday each class is being given the opportunity to demonstrate one experiment in front of the school. If you wish to carry out an experiment you will audition against other class members on Tuesday.

On Wednesday we will be putting the books aside to design and build electric cars.

Once all charity presentations are complete, I will select the best 5 presentations. You will then vote for one of those 5 charities. You can begin donating beans on the app at any time. 25 beans = €2.50

Well done in the Friday tests last week, it is obvious that many are really putting a good effort into your learning work. We completed the week with some back tracing and here are the results.

Our Green Schools committee members (Emily & Eimantas) today announced that there will be a fashion show at the Christmas assembly. 1 member of each class will wear a piece of clothing made entirely from recycable materials. Eimantas and Emily will decide on what piece of clothing and accessories we will make, they will also find a member to model it. They will announce the details next week and we will start planning the design and making from there.

We finally got around to the Walk & Talk today. There was a really nice atmosphere on the walk and it was great to see different mingling. Well done.

Swimming for 6th class begins today, we are the 1st class over and it begins at 9am. The girls will go over first followed by the boys at 9:30am. It might be a good idea to bring an extra bit of lunch tomorrow as you be extra hungry at lunchtime.

The green schools committee (Eimantas & Emily) have an announcement to make regarding the Christmas Assembly. We have also being given the job of constructing a rain harvester in the school garden using as many recyclable materials as possible. Why are rain harvesters important? We will be working on this in the coming months.

The Water Treatment Process and Why we should be conscious of how we use water.

We began and completed our comprehension on Newgrange today, one part of the comprehension was to imagine you were a worker who helped to build the tomb at Newgrange. Liam, Méabh and Katymay were happy to share their piece.

World’s largest offshore wind farm generates electricity for the first time

We also never got a chance to watch your Quizboards video yesterday.

We will complete a comprehension on Newgrange today. We completed the K and W parts of the KWL chart before and during the reading of the text. What information would you now include in the L part of the chart.

You are now being asked to submit a reading record each night. For the next 2 weeks or until the book is complete, we will be reading 2 chapters of Wildflower Girl each day., one chapter in class and one chapter at home. For the chapter you read at home you must try to enter a reading record on the app. For those that don’t have access to the app you can submit your record 1st thing when you enter class in the morning. Last night the chapter was called Skivvy.

NASA’s climate time machine shows changes in our planet since 1880s

As we will begin planning and writing Christmas narrative stories from next week, we will use the time before then to listen to numerous stories. We will try to break down and look at how the author the author might have planned their story before writing it. What settings and characters did they want to include, what would the problem be and what is the solution.

Bounty bars to be removed from Celebrations chocolate tubs in trial due to ‘public demand’