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Autumn Leaves – Second Class
Second Class have settled in to their new school year very comfortably. We have all got to know the new routines quickly and we have enjoyed getting down to work. Here is an example of some art work we completed using oil pastels. First we explored leaves, collected some and then discussed how they change during autumn when they are losing their chlorophyll. Then we chose autumn coloured pastels to create our own.
2nd Class Airfield Trip
This week Alison’s Second Class enjoyed a trip to our local farm, Airfield. The gardens were beautiful, the flowers were in full bloom and smelt wonderful. We saw grape vines and vegetable patches. We loved seeing all of the different farm animals and completing the challenges set up across the farm. Our favourite part was the playground, especially the zipline!. We would like to say a big thank you to all of the staff at Airfield for allowing us to have such a fun and exciting day.
A term of growing
We’ve planted, germinated, watered and taken care of lots of growing things in Second Class this term. It’s been great to watch the seeds sprout and see how the different plants grow. We’ve grown lettuce, spring onion, spinach, carrots, broad beans, tomatoes, garlic and two different types of sunflowers. Everyone got to take home a plant this week to care for over the next few weeks or months. Nature has been a great focus over the past few months and complemented our studying of Earth and Biodiversity perfectly.
Second Class Trip to Airfield
Last week Aongus’ Second Class were lucky to get a free walking trip to Airfield. We walked up in the fresh air enjoying the sights of Dundrum village as we went. It was a 20 minute walk. We saw a lot of biodiversity including some very large trees in the gardens of the house and we think one of them is a Sequoia or Giant Redwood, they are from the largest family of trees in the world. We noticed that the gardeners had planted a lot of new and different vegetables in the garden. There were also a lot of broad beans similar to those we have planted at school and in our classroom, and we saw artichokes as well! We also looked at the walled garden and the beehives nearby. There was a lot of different insect life there as well as extra birds probably because of the many wild plants that have been let grow to encourage pollination, just like we are doing at school on our green area. After visiting the farm animals which included the Jersey Cows, we stopped by the playground and zipline. We’re very grateful to Fiona and the staff at Airfield for facilitating our free visit.
Food Chains in 2nd Class
This week the children learned a lot about the different parts of a food chain and why they are so important to all of us animals. They learned vocabulary such as Producer, Consumer, Predator, Herbivore, Carnivore and Omnivore. For their homework the children made a poster containing a food chain which they had researched. They really did brilliantly with this task. A few of the Food Chain posters are posted below.
Biodiversity in our Green Space – 2nd Class
In Second Class we have started learning about Biodiversity. We’ve been thinking about our ‘Beautiful Earth‘ and our ‘Colourful Earth‘. Today we tried to find as much diversity in our plant life as possible by focusing on different colours. We were very successful and put our colour samples together on a ‘Colourful Earth’ display card. Sinéad pointed out to us that we have a once rare flower growing in our small but diverse green space, the cowslip. We tried not to take too many samples so as to leave food for the insects and bees as well as leaving opportunities for the bees to collect pollen.
Diamond Sort – What’s a good friend?
Today in Aongus’ 2nd Class we came up with a list of nine characteristics or attributes a good friend might have. Then we tried to decide which of these would be most important in a good friend. We used a ‘Diamond Sorting’ technique which is an active learning method. The children decided which characteristics might go at the top of their diamond and why, and also decided what should go at the bottom and why. There was some good debate about what a word like ‘cool’ or ‘beautiful’ might mean to different people. The children first worked in pairs, then with their pod and then we sorted them out as a whole class. We realised that a good friend may not always be happy and that maybe you need to be a very good friend to them in that moment. Caring, Kind and Helpful were characteristics that were thought of as very important.
DSPCA Zoom Call
On the last day of September, 2nd Class had an interesting Zoom conversation with Margaret who works with the DSPCA shelter near the Dublin mountains. She told us lots about what the Dublin Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals does and the children were able to ask some of their own questions. We found out about the interesting and unusual animals they have given shelter to and also how they help animals that are in difficulty.
Nature Scavenger Hunt in 2nd Class
Second Class took a trip out to the park at the back of our school recently to identify some features of Autumn in our neighbourhood. The two trickiest things on the scavenger hunt were the Squirrel and some Fungi, but we got them! We also collected some twigs and leaves to create our hedgehog collages.
Back to school!
Our classrooms and corridors came alive again this September.
Whole School Singing At Home!
While we can’t be together, let’s sing together! Follow the link to join in with our whole school singing assembly at home:
http://tiny.cc/WholeSchoolSingingBETNS
10 familiar songs from our whole school singing assemblies are waiting. We would love to see your videos of you and your family joining in with some of our school songs. If you have a favourite Ballinteer Educate Together song that you would like to hear, please send us your requests : )
Buddy Reading
Orlaith’s 6th Class and Katy’s 2nd Class have been sharing their love of books and reading by coming together regularly to do buddy reading. This has been a fantastic opportunity for both classes to develop literacy, social and leadership skills and the children have greatly enjoyed the experience. It is anticipated that these sessions will progress further and lead on to some collaborative creative writing experiences before the end of the school year!
100th Day of School Celebration – 6th February
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On the 6th February the children will come to school for the 100th day of the school year since we started back on 29th August.
There will be lots of fun, number-related activities taking place throughout the day to mark the occasion: 100th Day activity stations and relays, number games, 100th Day art activities and poetry and lots more! Our senior classes will be looking at some more challenging work around number systems and code breaking.
Children are invited to come to school on the day in a 100th Day T-shirt of their own design. This could be decorated with 100 buttons, stickers, smiley faces – the more creative the better!
The 100th Day Celebration is part of our School Improvement Plan for Numeracy; Problem Solving. This plan was implemented last year and can be found here:
Buddy Reading!
Anna’s 2nd Class wrote their own fantastic story books with exciting plots and beautiful illustrations. The children shared their books with Yvonne’s Senior Infants during a buddy reading session. Both the authors and listeners really enjoyed the experience!
Environment Hunt
Second class have been learning all about their local area and about Ireland. As part of this theme, we are becoming familiar with our local environment. We read a story about a magpie who cleans up his environment and then we had our Science class outside to hunt for materials in our own school. We foraged out beside the tennis courts to see what materials we could spot. We found twigs, soil, rocks, flowers, feathers and we felt their texture.
Our chickens are hatching!!
In second class we are hatching chickens!! Our chicks are starting to hatch! They have a big job ahead of them, pecking a little hole, turning, pecking another hole, turning… until they have pecked the whole way around and can kick their way out into the world. If you look carefully, you can see it wobbling!
Awesome Autumn
We’re off to a flying start in Second Class with visits from feathered friends! Ian brought his birds of prey for us to see, and because we were so respectful of the birds, some children even got a chance to hold them! We had been learning all about barn owls, so we were delighted to get to meet Tyto the barn owl.
We are also learning about caring for living things, by hatching chicks at school. They are due to hatch on the 9th of October, if all goes well.
Niall de Burca dropped in to tell us a few funny stories, and we had such a good time, we didn’t want it to end!
We’re enjoying all the Autumn colours coming out, and celebrating the season through our art.
Second Class showing their baby chicks to the school
Second Class
Second Class undertook the very exciting project of hatching baby chicks using an incubator in class. They waited patiently for 21 days for the eggs to hatch and made sure the incubator was at the correct temperature everyday so that the baby chicks could grow inside the egg.
The incubator in our classroom and the calendar counting down the time until the chicks are ready to hatch.
When the chicks hatched out of the egg they were very wet and they weren’t moved from the warmth of the incubator until they were properly fluffed up. They needed to be strong enough to survive in the outside world outside the warmth and safety of the incubator before they could explore the classroom.
When the chicks were strong enough for visitors all classes came to our class to look at them. They loved the names we put on the chicks like Conor McGregor.
We learned about what is necessary for the chicks to grow. We fed them some bread and cut up lettuce. We always made sure they had enough water to drink to help them grow. We also learned all about how to create an environment necessary for animals to grow and strive. We fed the baby chicks
When the chicks were ready to move outside our teacher Laura brought them home to live with the chicks at her house. There they have plenty of space to grow and they have a safe place to run around.
Coder Dojo
Barbara Hughes sharing her knowledge and expertise with the classes.
Powerpoint presentation briefly outlining computer science and the science behind coding…….
Autumn in 2nd Class
2nd Class have been enjoying the changes that Autumn has brought to our new school grounds. We have been out discovering all the different kinds of leaves and seeds that the beautiful surrounding trees have been dropping. We identified oak, ash, sycamore, horse chestnut, beech, birch, and more!
The Autumn colours have been great inspiration for our art, too.
We have some very welcome guests in 2nd class. The chicks that hatched out at the start of October are very much at home here, and are in safe hands with the children!
Rugby in Second Class
Second Class have been lucky to get rugby training from Avon and Kieran of Leinster Rugby this year. They have learned the basics of rugby by playing tag games and they’ve really enjoyed the different activities. Avon has told the children they are picking up the sport very quickly.
“The toughest and roughest game we’ve learned!” – Rhys
“They teach us how to play matches in rugby.”
“The coaches are nice.” – Maya
“It’s really fun! – Layla
Festival of Inclusion Competition
This year to mark Dún Laoghaire Rathdown County Council’s Festival of Inclusion, the Social Inclusion Unit are holding a Primary Schools Drawing Competition.
The theme of the competition is ‘Celebrating Difference’ and we here in 3rd Class are tremendous at doing just that. Our entries for the competition are amazing as you can see. They will be on public display in County Hall from the 10th to the 14th October as part of the festival.
Thank you and enjoy!
Harvest Time!
Our Second Classes have been busy planting pumpkins, beetroot and herbs for our garden. This week our beetroots were ready to harvest! We weren’t afraid to get our hands dirty as we picked the beetroots, cleaned them, tasted them, chopped them and made them into a delicious smoothie!
Our Second Classes would like to say a special thanks to Laragh Havelin (James’ mum) who helped us with our harvest.
Aongus’s class wrote a special report about the day that they would love to share with you :
Laragh joined us last Monday to harvest some vegetables from our vegetable patch. First we looked at the vegetables that we planted earlier this year. There were beetroots, pumpkins, brussel sprouts and leeks. Then Laragh taught us about the vegetables and we formed a line to pick the beetroots to bring them inside. We pulled and tugged them from the soil. After that we went inside to prepare them. Next we pulled off the stalks and washed the beets.
We peeled them and chopped them before we made them in to smoothies. Laragh had also made brownies for us. Finally, we ate the brownies and drank the smoothies, they were delicious!
Earth Day
Second Class went out into the wooded area today to collect natural colours to create an Earth Day collage.
We reminded ourselves to reduce, reuse and recycle!
Then we celebrated Earth Day by listening to relaxing music and doing some mindfulness colouring.
Extreme Earth in 2nd Class
Second Class have been really busy this month learning all about Extreme Weather and Extreme Earth!
We have learned lots of interesting facts about tornadoes, volcanoes and earthquakes so far.
We made a tornado machine in Science that showed us the shape of the tornado.
We wrote lots of facts about tornadoes and volcanoes using some of our new key words!
We know tectonic plates, crust, cumulonimbus clouds, vortex, magma chamber and many more!
We used colour mixing to create these tornadoes in Art, we mixed each colour with white and black to create different shades.
We made paper maché volcanoes using empty bottles and painted them! Then we added baking soda and vinegar and watched our volcanoes erupt!
Ancient Egypt with Second Class!
Second Class’s theme of the month has been Ancient Egypt. We have loved learning all about ancient egypt, and the interesting stories we read!
Here are some of the activities we did during the month. We have a few more to come!
First we learned about the geography of Egypt, and why rivers are important! All of the main towns and cities in Egypt are built along the River Nile. It floods nearly every year, which helps the crops grow. The Sahara Desert is also in Egypt.
Mariam told us that the word ‘Sahara’ means desert in Arabic!
Everybody was so eager to learn about Tutankhamen, so we learned all about the archeologist Howard Carter, and Lord Carnarvon who found his tomb first.
Then we wrote reports about what had happened.
Each child got a different picture depicting daily life in Ancient Egypt, and we had to imagine who was in the picture, what they were doing and write speech bubbles for the people! In this picture, two people are playing the old game Senet.
Egyptians believed that people would go to an afterlife, and so they filled their tombs with beautiful items for Pharoah’s to bring with them. We made the ‘eye of horus’ and an ‘ankh’ out of clay. Carla has given her Egyptian character ‘Ankh’ earrings and an ‘Eye of Horus’ necklace. These clay figures were called amulets.
The ‘ankh’ is known as ‘The Key to the Nile’ and the ‘Eye of Horus’ represents the protection and wealth.
The Ancient Egyptians used to build a beautiful coffin for their Pharoah. It was called a sarcophagus. In order for people to know who was in them, they would attach a name tag called a cartouche. We wrote about our cartouche and then wrote our name in Hieroglyphics!
We used salt dough to make a 3D Pharoah, and we decorated his headdress.
We also tied our work in the Egyptians into our work on Procedural Writing, and read the procedure for mummification!
Sending out an SOS ; The Titanic!
We have been learning all about the Titanic. We have learned through Art, English, Science, History, Geography and Drama.
What did the Titanic look like?
We made beautiful Titanic paintings and learned about the four smokestacks. One of the smokestacks didn’t work!
What happened on the night the Titanic sank?
Then we learned about the sequence of events that led to the sinking of the ship.
What did Captain Edward Smith do?
We have been practicing morse code and we can all make the SOS signal in Morse Code. Have a look at our class sending out the SOS signal!
What would we bring onto the Titanic?
Then we thought about what we would bring if we were leaving on the Titanic to start a new life.
Why did the Titanic sink?
After that, we discussed buoyancy and discovered why some boats can float and some boats sink. We made boats out of play-dough and tinfoil.
How did people find out about the tragedy?
Finally, we wrote the first newspaper reports about the Titanic to make sure everybody knew what had happened!
Watch the Greek Gods of Mount Olympus on Video!
You can now watch the Second Class Performance in full!
A special thank you to Kian’s Dad for taking the videos!
The Greek Gods of Mount Olympus
On Friday November 13th, after weeks of dedicated preparation, second class showcased their own performance of ‘The Greek Gods of Mount Olympus’. This whole play was written and performed by 2nd Class!
Zeus, Hades, Poseidon, Hera, Artemis, Apollo, Hephaestus, Hermes, Athena, Zeus, Ares, Hestia and Hercules donned their finest Greek crowns, tridents, bows and arrows, flames and togas and took to the stage to tell us all about four of their favourite myths and some information about the gods.
Stay tuned for the video production!
The Eagle Has Landed!
As part of our work on the 1960s, we have been learning about the Space Race.
Here are some facts we have learned!
Valentina Tereshkova was the first woman in Space. She was from Russia. She worked with the Russian Space Agency called Roscosmos.
Neil Armstrong was the first man to put his foot on the moon. He said the first words on the moon. “The Eagle has landed!” He also said “One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.”
Micheal Collins was the pilot of the Apollo 11. Apollo 11 was the spacecraft that landed on the moon.
Buzz Aldrin was the second man to step on the moon.
Here are some of our astronauts in Space!
November Theme: The 1960s
We are right in the middle of learning all about the 1960s.
We have learned about the artist Roy Lichenstein! He became famous for a his comic book style art. Here are our comic book style pictures! Power!
We are also learning about the Space Race between Russia and the USA. Russia had the first space walk and the USA landed the first men on the moon in 1969!
We have been learning a little bit about the Beatles who were a really famous band at the time. We have learned ‘All you need is love’ and ‘Yellow Submarine’.
Stay tuned for more information on artists, fashion, toys and schools in the 1960s!
Matilda!
We have been reading Matilda in class over the past few weeks. We have been writing interesting character descriptions.
We have designed outfits for Miss Trunchbull.
We wrote book reports.
This week we did a research project on Matilda! Finn wrote us all a quiz about Matilda!
Painting with Nature!
Second class were so lucky to have Caroline (Sadhbh’s mum) come in and visit us today. She taught us how to make paint using different berries, leaves and soil.
First we went on a hunt in the field, some of us looked for lots of green things,some of us hunted for red things, some of us got berries, some of use found grass, some of us even brought back soil!
Then Caroline came in to talk to us about the colours we see around us, and how we can use them to make paint. Here we are looking out the window!
Then we went in small groups, and Caroline helped us make the paint. We used the paint to create a picture!
A big thank you to Caroline (Sadhbh’s mum) for sharing this with us! We all really enjoyed ourselves.
The Literacy Hour in Second Class
Second Class have begun their literacy hour, and are all working really hard! We have five different stations. We spend 12 minutes at each station.
We work on our comprehension with Jen.
We work on our spelling with Órla.
We can read a selection of books in Free Reading.
Muireann helps us with our reading and writing.
We can write about things that interest us in Free Writing.
RSS Feeds for Each School Year
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Do you want to keep in touch with what’s going on in your child’s year? Then just subscribe to one of the following RSS links below. RSS (Rich Site Summary) is a format for delivering regularly changing web content through mobile device browsers or apps. One useful app available for both Android and iOS devices as well as desktop/laptop devices is feedly. There are also many other apps available which are compatible.
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Playing Card Patterns
We have been working on number patterns in Second Class.
We made up our own to challenge our classmates. Some of them were really tricky!
We used patterns combining even numbers, odd numbers, colours, suits and sums.
Can you figure them out?
Second Class News
Welcome to our Second Class news page.
We look forward to sharing all the interesting things we do together on this page!
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