World Cup Projects 2014
1st, 2nd and 3rd Classes researched the country of their favourite world cup team.
Team Hope Shoebox Appeal
In November our school took part in the Team Hope Shoe Box Appeal. We collected over 60 boxes full of clothes, books, stationary, toys and sweets. We hope all the children will enjoy these gifts. Thanks to all who donated to this appeal.
By Daniel Rogers & Aaron Hughes
Credit Union Quiz:
The Credit Union Primary School Quiz took place in Bornacoola Community Centre. There were a lot of schools taking part. Our school had one Junior Team and two Senior Teams participating. Dylan Shannon, Daniel Rogers, Ryan McGowan and Robert Downey were on one Senior Team with Eolann Conroy, Aoife Tighe and Gavin Courage Foynes were on the second senior team. Darragh Conroy, Cathal Durkin, Aaron Murphy and Cormac Hoare were on the Junior Team. All the teams did very well. There were ten rounds of six questions. One of the easier questions asked was “On what date is St Patrick’s Day?” and one of the trickier questions was “What age was Mother Teresa” .
The winning teams in the Senior and Junior categories received a trophy and everyone had great fun.
By Darragh Conroy
Writing Bugs
Writing Bugs 2013
Writing Bugs
There was great excitement when our ‘We are Writers’ books arrived. This book, a copyright of Our Lady of Mount Carmel School, was created by our pupils and is full of stories, poems, instruction and recipes.
Many interested parents sat down to read that night – there were a few chuckles as they read some of the stories. We hope they finished with a proud smile. The children have been working hard at their writing and we think they have created a brilliant book. To finish it off, Clodagh Owens, inspired by our project name “Writing Bugs” designed and coloured a wonderful front cover.
The books arrived just in time for World Book Day but for this year March 7th became ‘Our Book Day’
See cover of this colourful book on our Gallery Page
Credit Union Primary School Quiz
The Credit Union Primary School Quiz took place on Sunday the 3rd February 2013 in Bornacoola Community Centre. There were a lot of schools competing. Our school had two Junior Teams and one Senior Team. Darragh Conroy, Robert Downey, Cormac Hoare and Daniel Rogers were on one of the Junior Teams. Mark Neary, Woody O’Hara, Georgia Cassidy and Cathal Durkin were on the other. Eoghan Murphy, Laura Christopher, Ryan McGowan and Amber Singleton were on the Senior Team.
The quiz started at three o’clock. The quizmaster told us we had to be very quiet and listen to each question carefully. He said he would call each question about twice. There were ten rounds for the Junior Teams and twelve rounds for the Senior Teams. Each round had six questions. When the answer sheets were collected the quizmaster called out the answers of the last round. There was a score sheet on the wall so we could see our scores. Some of the questions were easy and some were difficult. One of the easy questions asked was “When is St. Patrick’s Day?” One of the difficult questions asked was “What country has a flag with the same colours asIrelandexcept in reverse?”
The quiz ended at about four o’clock. My team came first in the Junior category and the Senior team from our school came second in their category. Our team won twenty euro each and we got a trophy for the school. We go through to the next round which will take place on the 3rd March in The Bush Hotel in Carrick-on-Shannon. The Senior Team won fifteen euro each.
Ms. Egan and Ms. Reilly were at the quiz as well. Everybody that took part got a bag with crisps, sweets and a drink.
Writing Bugs November/December update
Having had a theme through all the stories in October we thought we try to vary the subject matter for November. Based on the idea of “Rory’s Cubes” (picture cubes are thrown and the upturned pictures form the theme of the story), we created a random selection of people, places, interesting words and emotions from which the authors (children) had to choose. They then had to include these in their stories. Sometimes it wasn’t too difficult like putting a ‘supermarket’, a ‘mobile phone’ and ‘frustrated’ into a story. Others were more of a challenge- trying to get a ‘pirate ship’, ‘ice-skates’ and ‘jealous’ to gel together or trying to have a ‘whale’, a ‘volcanic landscape’ and ‘sparkly’ in the one story but it added a bit of fun.
The infant class were brimful of ideas from the beginning but lacked the penmanship to put them on paper. Since there are 40+ people in our school who can write and spell, the idea of changing one of our paired reading sessions into a paired writing session was born. Each pupil from Junior and Senior infants was paired up with their own scribe from 5th and 6th class and a whole new set of stories could be shared.
In December we had a winter theme, with the excitement of Christmas inspiring many stories. The infant class was paired with 3rd and 4th this time. The teachers are really pleased with the way the children have taken to the project. It’s encouraging to hear them talking about their stories and wondering what they will write about next.
Below are some of these stories
A Christmas Story
Once upon a time Santa was going down the chimney in a house. Santa got dirty from the chimney. Santa was putting the presents under the Christmas tree. Suddenly Santa bumped his head off the wall after putting the presents under the Christmas tree. Rudolph was cold and his nose turned blue. Rudolph had a cold. Santa had to bring Rudolph to the vet. Santa brought Rudolph to the fireplace to get Rudolph’s nose bright red again. Rudolph’s nose turned bright red again. Rudolph’s cold was gone. Santa’s bump on the head disappeared. Santa went back to work. Benji and Alfi were asleep in their beds. Benji and Alfi got presents from Santa. Santa and the reindeers went back to the North Pole.
By Grace Kelly
The Friendly Ghost
One Saturday morning I got up out of my bed with Emily. After we went downstairs we had some breakfast and got dressed. It was a rainy day. I heard a strange noise. It was a ghost. We saw the ghost. It was a friendly ghost. We went outside. We rubbed it and the sheet fell off. It was Milly. We gave Milly a doggy treat. We rubbed her. It was a good day.
By Aideen O’Brien (Senior Infants)
Two Bad Guys
There were two bad guys in the jungle. They had black shoes, black trousers, black hoodies and black masks. They saw a zombie. They ran away and jumped in the water. He swam all the way to the other side. They saw a car and jumped in. They turned the key in the car and drove to another country and it was called Spain. They got out of the car and made a motorbike and drove away.
By Kilian Murphy (Junior Infants)
Santa
One sunny morning Mary and Joseph decided to go on holidays to Bethlehem. It was Christmas Eve. They found a warm house. They knocked on the door. Suddenly the cat was going to bite them. The cat was outside the front door. The owner let them stay for one night. Mary lit a candle to be warm. Mary went to bed. After a while Santa came down the chimney. Suddenly Santa got burned. It got better. In the morning Mary and Joseph went home.
By Darren Whelan (Junior Infants)
On Thursday we got a table, some balloons and sellotape. We sellotaped the balloons to the top of the table and when that was completed we turned the table upside down. Some of the pupils and teachers tested it out by walking on the table. Because we used so many balloons, our weight was distributed evenly and the balloons did not burst. Except for the odd balloon or two!
We made ice-cream
We got a small bag and put vanilla extract, caster sugar and milk in the small bag and we sealed the bag. We put the smaller bag into the big bag and put salt and ice in it too. We sealed the big bag and put our gloves on and we got into pairs and threw it back and forward to each other for about 10 minutes. When we had it done we took it out of the bags and ate it. It was delicious but some people dropped their bag so it tasted like salt but for the people that didn’t drop it tasted like vanilla. We had great fun making and eating the ice-cream.
Volcano
On Wednesday 5th and 6th Class made a volcano
Ingredients
Vinegar Flour
Fairy Liquid Glitter
Bread Soda Bowl
Food Colouring Jar
We put a jar inside a bowl and shaped the flour around the jar. We put all the ingredients into the jar and when we added the vinegar the volcano erupted.
We worked in pairs. Some of us used still vinegar and some used malt vinegar. The still vinegar works out the best.
Snails
On Tuesday morning we used the collected snails for a snail race by putting them in the middle of sheet. We also saw how many counters one of them could carry by attaching a harness and then putting counters behind it. Then a snail pulled the counters along. The snail managed to pull 36 counters. It’s amazing how many counters it could carry.
A Vortex also known as a Tornado
This experiment started out with two bottles and a ‘gizmo’ called a tornado tube. One bottle is filled three quarters with water then we twisted one end of the tornado tube with the thread. We then got the other bottle and put it on the other end of the tornado tube. The tornado tube had a small hole in it allowing some water to pass through to the other bottle when we turned the bottles. After a while we figured out that if we shook the bottle around in a circle as soon as we flipped it over, then stopped, it created a tornado. What happened was that when we spun the bottle the pressure went down through the middle, letting air escape and when we stopped spinning the air was stuck and also pushed the water down faster. Our fastest time was 18 seconds.
Balloon Rockets
First we blew up balloons and put a peg at the end. We got sellotape and stuck a straw to the top of the balloon. We tied a string from one end of the PE hall to the other and put the wire through the straw. When we pulled the peg off it would go like a rocket and that is why it is called ‘balloon rockets’. Most people failed but it was very funny. The way it worked was when you pull off the peg the air in the balloon would come out the back and that is how gas parts from the air. My rocket was a success.
We got a straw and had to put it through the potato. To get it in we had to put our thumbs on the top and push it through. Most of us got it through but some didn’t. I liked this because it was funny and it was cool the way it went through because straws are usually weak and wonky. I managed to get the straw through the potato. This worked because when we put our thumbs on the top, it stopped the air from escaping and it made the straw stronger so all we needed to do was stab the potato and the straw went through it like a knife.
See ‘ Gallery‘ page for pictures of Science Week.
Fun on Friday
Fun on Friday is our problem-solving initiative. Using our brains and challenging ourselves can be entertaining and enjoyable.
Fun on Friday started on September 28th in 1st and 2nd class. The class was split into teams of 4 and given their challenges.
Some teams had puzzle sheets to do. They had codes to break and clues to follow. They had to look up books to find the information they needed about flags from around the world.
One team had to copy a building using coloured blocks. It had to be well planned as they had to have all the blocks they needed, before they started to build.
Another team was given the answer and they had to make up the questions. The answer was “More than a metre”, so there was lots of measuring to be done around the classroom.
The last team had to build a marble run. They had to join the pieces in the right way to get the marble to roll around and down to the bottom.
Each week on Friday the teams moved on to the next activity. They had to work together, using the brainpower of all the people in the group to answer the challenge set. Lots of pictures from ‘Fun on Friday’ in Gallery Page
Writing Bugs
October was our first month as ‘Writing Bugs’. Not surprisingly, our theme for the month was Halloween and we composed stories and poems about all things spooky and creepy.
The children’s reaction was fantastic- they were so enthusiastic about the idea of writing stories to share with the school. The Junior and Senior infants talked about Meg and Mog and also about words that rhyme. Together they made up their poem about Meg and Mog and their friend owl.
A huge amount of hard work was done over the second weekend of October by the students from 1st to 6th class- they produced wonderful stories for the following Tuesday. Then it was time for second drafts and presenting them neatly for the board. A few decorations and some suitable illustrations finished them off. The corridor had a hum of excitement when the children passed in and out, with many stopping to read a story on the way.
On Thursday 25th October we had a ‘Writing Bugs’ assembly in the hall. All the classes got together and it was time for the authors to share their stories. The teachers couldn’t pick a best story so we decided all the interesting stories would go into a pile and we’d pick out 1 or 2 from each class to read. It was nerve-racking for some to read in front of the school but they should be very proud of their stories- we have some talented kids in Rooskey National School.
Pictures from ‘Writing Bugs’ in Gallery Page