St. Peter's Primary Bray Blog

In October, a video showing the history of Ireland in 6 minutes took the Internet by storm. We posted it here on our blog and 5th class were so impressed by it that we contacted John Ruddy, the maker of the video, to ask him if he’d do a quick Q&A on animation.

We have a really exciting project coming up in the New Year related to Science and Animation, and Leon and Eduard already showed off their stop-motion skills as part of Culture Night here.

John Ruddy kindly agreed to answer any questions and we started thinking about the questions we wanted to know about animation. We were interested in the process of making such a long film and in Manny Man’s next project.

Oisín then drew little characters as if they were asking our questions. Here they are:

We were over the moon when John contacted us to let us know that he was planning a video response. Technology and social media has helped us to interview someone at the other end of the country! We’re very grateful to John for taking the time to answer our questions – his video session is fascinating and gives us a real sense of how he made his famous video. We’re going to follow the adventures of Manny Man with interest!

CLICK ABOVE TO HEAR A MESSAGE FROM SANTA PADDY!

2nd and 3rd Class have been really busy making lanterns for the turning on of the Christmas lights at the Civic Plaza at 4.30pm  this Saturday, the 23rd.

We all hope you will go and support our town. We can’t wait to see Santa and the lights, it is going be magic! Our local Bray Chamber have given us safe tealights so we can use our paper lanterns. There will be a raffle to see which person who comes with a lantern will get to switch on the lights with Santa. HO HO HO and see you there!

From 2nd Class!

ps. Remember Santa is always watching you!

We’re delighted to welcome Nugget back to St Peter’s! He’s like a new chicken after his long overdue bath. He’s a bit of a blast from the past for our past pupils!

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This week has been Science Week around the country! In St Peter’s, we’re famous for our involvement in scientific activities and events, and this week was no exception. 4th, 5th and 6th were busy with their projects for the Mini-Scientist, and other classes got stuck in with a variety of enjoyable activities!

Here are the headlines for this week:

• The MakeyMakey board video was a massive success this week – see what all the fuss is about here!
• 2nd class had a great week for Science Week – read all about it here
• Well done to Patryk in 6th who collected his prize for his superb entry in the Bray Lions Peace Poster competition.
• The answer was blue! Did you work out the question? Read about 4th class’s new display here
• 5th class planted bulbs for the springtime – watch their Animoto here. (more…)

Today in 6th class we were working on our Mini-Scientist project. We were planning out our experiments on our report book template. We wrote down what we knew about our projects and did research to find out more information. We created a podcast using Soundcloud and spoke about our project. Ian Lawless interviewed the lot of us.

[soundcloud url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/120094009″ width=”100%” height=”166″ iframe=”true” /]

By Patryk, Ian, Jordan, Jamie and Archie.

The Bray Lions Club and The Paws Project held another peace poster competition. There were around two-hundred and forty entrants. I was really lucky to be chosen as one of the ten winners. Last night, myself, my Dad and Ms. Whyte went up to St. Cronan’s B.N.S. to collect my prize. My Dad and Ms. Whyte were really proud of me. It was a great night and my Dad bought me a tub of ice-cream and Pringles to celebrate!

By Patryk Ostapczuk

The Peter’s staff and student body would like to congratulate Patryk on such a fantastic achievement. A special word of thanks to Ms. Whyte, Patryk’s teacher!

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We have finished our second book of the year. We really liked our latest book called The Magic Finger. Roald Dahl wrote it. We have now read two Roald Dahl books. The first one was called The Giraffe, The Pelly and Me. We recorded a podcast about that here.

Why not check out our podcast about The Magic Finger now? Well done to Dean for doing a great job presenting the podcast. We are proud of you.

[soundcloud url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/119915447″ width=”100%” height=”166″ iframe=”true” /]

St Peter’s is proud to have students of different nationalities and cultures. Today, we have a recording of Ameesh saying a poem.

[soundcloud url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/119154332″ width=”100%” height=”166″ iframe=”true” /]

This is a book that my dad learned from when he was in school in India. The language is Tamil. The poem I say in the podcast is about a toy. My dad taught me the poem. The boys in the class asked me to teach them it too.

We had brilliant fun on Wednesday. To celebrate Science Week 2013, we made a human piano with 2nd, 5th and 6th class! We made it using a makey makey board and a scratch game. Check out our video! We’re so pleased with it. Archie, Patryk and Edward did a brilliant job presenting. The start of the video is an explanation and 2.38 is where the real music kicks in.

A 35 person human piano… it’s possible! from St Peter’s, Bray on Vimeo.

This week, the news has been full of photos and stories of the terrible tragedy in the Philippines. For adults, this can be very distressing but children can find stories and photos in the news really confusing too. This week’s Wednesday for Parents deals with tips for talking about your child about the news.

1. There are a number of news sites and programmes that are specifically for children. They can help to explain events in child-friendly language and steer away from some of the more sensational headlines in adult newspapers. On the RTE player, you can find News2day – in Peter’s, we often use this programme as part of lessons on listening and oral language. Newsround is a popular news programme for kids on BBC.

2. Listen to your child and talk about what they’re worried about. If your child is worried after news of local robberies, remind them of the steps that your family takes to keep yourselves safe. Remind them that you lock your doors at night or that you have an alarm.

3. Reassure your child. Every year, when we teach the children about earthquakes, volcanoes and weather conditions, the first thing they ask is ‘could it happen to us?’ For younger children, it’s usually enough to say that it happens thousands of miles away. Older children might want to know why we don’t get major earthquakes in Ireland. PBS Kids has some excellent suggestions about how to talk to different age-groups here . If you ever find that your child has a lot of questions about a particular topic, you can always come in and ask his/her class teacher if you can borrow books from our library or if they can recommend particular websites.

4. Finally, sometimes it’s easier for children to comprehend tragedies if they feel as if they can help. Donating money, clothes or toys can be good options, as can saying a prayer or lighting a candle.

What tips have you for talking to your child about the news? We’d love to hear your suggestions!