2nd Class
We have four 2nd Classes
Ms S. Champkin Ms. Mc Inerney Ms. Beirne Ms. Forte
May (update 3)
Since we are learning about Brazil and the Amazon rainforest at the moment, Miss Mc Inerney’s class drew and coloured these amazing toucans! Aren’t they brilliant!!? All of the classes also did a quiz about animals recently on the Kahoot app on the ipads. We did this in groups and really enjoyed it!
(update 2)
Active week is in full swing at the moment! We have been playing and learning new games on the yard, dancing and having relay races! Here we are in action:
(Update 1)
We have been learning all about animals so far in May! We learned about animals from each continent… lions, sloths, polar bears, moose, badgers, kangaroos and pandas (and more!). We researched facts about different animals on the ipads using ‘national geographic kids’. We drew lions and giraffes (check out our photos… we have very talented artists in 2nd class!). We made tigers from coloured paper too. We read fact books and story books about animals… Giraffes can’t dance! We looked at information videos about animals on youtube. We have been learning a song about the 7 continents and the 5 oceans which we love!
We are still busy preparing for our First Communion on the 26th of May (at 10am). We had our First Confession on Tuesday the 6th of May. Well done to all the boys and girls on this.
We were delighted to hear that we earned another green school flag after all our work on ‘biodiversity’ recently too. We are busy revising in Maths and we are working on lots of problem solving.
We also marked ‘world autism day’ during May by all of the boys and girls wearing blue and donating €1. A girl from our school gave us a wonderful and informative talk about autism, what it’s like to have autism and what autism means. Well done!
Operation get fit will be happening from the 13th of May until the 17th so we will be busy running, dancing and being extra active then! Miss Nolan has given each class elastics and taught us how to play a game with them. We already tried it out in P.E and we will do it during yard time now! Mini-leagues is also going on at the moment… this is an after school mini soccer tournament. It will be on for 5 weeks- the 9th, 16th , 23rd and 30th of May and the 6th of June. This runs from 2.30 until 3.30. There are 7 teams and the children are really enjoying it so far!
April
We heave been learning about measures in Maths- both weight and length. We used a balance to weigh some items in our classroom. We used cubes for this. We also learned about standard units of measurement- kilograms and grams. We will continue to do hands on activities to learn more about this!
Spring is in the air and we have been out bird watching and looking at the buds on the trees! The ash tree in the yard has no leaves yet. We really like that we can tell which tree is which with the lovely new labels Ms. Fitzpatrick has put up for us (thank you!).
We had a music workshop at the beginning of April where we played djembe drums, hand held drums, shakers and rhythm sticks. We enjoyed it!
Check out the photos of our paintings and excellent writing about the Titanic which we learned about last month too.
March
We have been learning about length in Maths. We measured the length of our desks, the whiteboard, copies, pencils and lots of other things. We used cubes, jenga, zoobs and lolipop sticks to measure with. We also compared this to the standard measurement of centimeters and meters.
We have also begun to learn about area. We used squared paper to draw our hands and counted how many squares our hands took up. We explored the area of different items in the class like our desks, copies and even some children by using cubes, copies, and books to measure with! Here we are in action!
We have been learning about the Titanic during the month of March. We wrote lots of facts about what happened. We painted pictures of the Titanic and we pretended to be passengers and interviewed each other! We really enjoyed learning about this!
Seachtain na Gaeilge a bhà ann. Bhà seachtain iontach againn. Bhain mhuid úsáid as an Ghaeilge i rith an lae, bhà dioscó againn ar an Aoine agus d’fhoglaim muid cúpla rince Gaelach. It was seachtain na Gaeilge. We had a great week! We spoke lots of Irish, learned some Irish dances and has a disco on Friday.
We celebrated world book day on Thursday the 7th of march. Each of the classes had a book scavenger hunt! We also had a short quiz. Here are some photos:
February
We learned a lot about biodiversity during February. We were lucky enough to have some lovely mild weather so we got out and about around our school’s grounds. We saw lots of lovely flowers… daffodils, snowdrops… and plants like lavender. We looked at the buds on the big ash tree in the yard but there was no sign of any leaves yet. We’ll keep checking over the next few weeks. We will be having a ‘bud race’ between these trees in our class to see which leaf is the first to emerge in spring… horse chestnut, oak, ash, sycamore, rowan. Teacher will go to the Phoenix park to get these buds as we don’t have them all in the school grounds unfortunately!
We have also been doing sport’s conditioning classes with Noel from Fingal County Council. We are enjoying this and we’re learning lots of new skills/ perfecting our skills!! We have been playing lots of fun games and practising kicking, throwing & racket skills.
January
We have been learning about The Arctic and Antarctica. We learned about penguins, polar bears, arctic foxes, arctic hares, walrus and whales.We made 3d penguins and lots of other animal art! We also learned about weather and we have been recording the temperatures each day both inside and outside. We did some experiments on liquids to see if they would freeze… water, milk, vinegar, juice froze but oil didn’t. We learned about the 7 continents, 5 oceans and the water cycle!
We are still learning about biodiversity and working towards our next green flag. We learned about bees and about how important they are to us. We noticed the daffodils around the school flowering already. We can see our tulips that we planted earlier in the year starting to grow a little bit already!!
In Maths, we have been learning about data and bar graphs, fractions 1/2 and 1/4s and money. We have been doing lots of problem solving… calculating change and counting different amounts of money up to €2. We are getting very good at recalling doubles facts 1+1 to 10+10 and using this knowledge to work out nearly doubles problems like 6+7, 8+9 and 6+8. Check out the maths game in kidzone called ‘hit the button, number bonds, doubles halves’ to keep practising this! Keep practising counting forwards in backwards in tens too!
We’re still busy preparing for Communion and we had mass on Thursday the 31st of January with Fr George in school. We have been practising our prayers, mass responses and songs.
November and December:
We are all excited for Christmas in 2nd class… it won’t be long until Santa is here! We have been doing some revision work during the last 2 weeks… counting in 10s in maths, doubles, near doubles, revising how to tell the time on the analogue and digital clock, naming the 2d and 3d shapes, telling the difference between one digit and 2 digit numbers, revising halves and quarters, counting forward and back to 100 and skip counting in 2s,5s,3s and 10s. We made some lovely Christmas art… advent wreaths, snowmen decorations, grinch paintings….
We had some special visitors to our classes… a bearded dragon lizard and a guinea pig!
We also learned about China and made some projects about this. We were lucky to have a boy who is able to speak Chinese in 2nd class so we learned how to say some words, to count to 10 and how to write some words in Chinese too. We learned about silk fabric, silkworms and where this fabric comes from.
October:
Here are some pictures of our artwork and writing during October:
September/October:
We have well settled back into school now in 2nd class! In September and October we learned about these themes: Halloween, autumn, trees, food, myself and school.
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We learned about schools in the past and spoke to our parents/grandparents about their experiences in school.
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We enjoyed the green action day on the 10th of October and found lots of different types of trees… maple trees, silver birch, ash, cherry blossom, whitebeam trees and more! We looked at the different leaves, buds and barks of each of these trees.
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For PE, Amanda from St Peregrines is teaching us GAA skills one day a week. We have also been doing hockey skills, basketball and skipping. We love P.E!
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In Maths we have been counting in 2s,5s and 10s, practising counting on and back, adding and taking away tens, learning about time (o’clock, half past, 1/4 past and 1/4 to), learning the names and attributes of 3d shapes (cone, cube, sphere, cylinder, pyramid, cuboid). We have been counting forwards and backwards to 100 and revising ways to make 10 and doubles.
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In English, we practise reading every day in our reading groups. We learned about when to use a capital letter in our writing and we are practising this now. We’re enjoying Roald Dahl books (the Twits)!
We’re looking forward to Halloween and the Halloween disco day on Thursday the 25th of October! We’re excited to see everyone dressed up in their costumes!
