St. Peter's Primary Bray Blog

We’ve had a lovely few weeks in 6th Class. Here are some pieces of news from our room!

We were delighted to welcome the Defence Forces to our school!

We are celebrating our Flag Day! We have welcomed the @defenceforces to our school. #Rang1916 pic.twitter.com/2XMKjOIamw

— St. Peter's Primary (@StPetersBray) November 16, 2015

We are listening to the history of our national flag. 🇮🇪 #Rang1916 pic.twitter.com/vLZ0H7lI8D

— St. Peter's Primary (@StPetersBray) November 16, 2015

Stephen and Tommy from our class had big jobs to do for Flag Day!

Very proud of Stephen who is reading the proclamation on behalf of the school. #Rang1916 pic.twitter.com/qUIkjHTgMG

— St. Peter's Primary (@StPetersBray) November 16, 2015

Tommy is now telling us all about Eileen Bell, an ancestor of his who was a member of Cumann na mBan. #Rang1916 pic.twitter.com/78hgkLpgkw

— St. Peter's Primary (@StPetersBray) November 16, 2015

A proud moment. #Rang1916 https://t.co/zXNfjr80AW

— St. Peter's Primary (@StPetersBray) November 16, 2015

Stephen’s speech:

Well done Stephen! #Rang1916 #6thClass https://t.co/BpRA42hJaw

— St. Peter's Primary (@StPetersBray) November 16, 2015

Tommy’s speech:

Tommy did so well. #6thClass #Rang1916 https://t.co/coKmUoQPfj

— St. Peter's Primary (@StPetersBray) November 16, 2015

We’ve been working hard on our class dojo rewards system!

Lots of @ClassDojo rewards points in #6thClass already today!

— St. Peter's Primary (@StPetersBray) November 19, 2015

We’ve been putting a lot of work into our spellings!

Our first job every Thursday morning? Vocab and spellings work for Gaeilge and English! A pre-test before the Friday test! #6thClass

— St. Peter's Primary (@StPetersBray) November 19, 2015

#6thClass use lots of ways to improve spelling. Look, Cover, Check. https://t.co/YDWU73goH0. The SWST lists system. Dictation too!

— St. Peter's Primary (@StPetersBray) November 19, 2015

Lots of Maths work has been done too!

'Finding the area of irregular shapes' has been added to the #6thClass Maths Masters page!

— St. Peter's Primary (@StPetersBray) November 19, 2015

Our comprehension strategies are building in number!

Our latest genre work in #6thClass is on exposition writing. Our comprehension skill is on 'inferring'. We have linked the two!

— St. Peter's Primary (@StPetersBray) November 19, 2015

We love our latest Geography topic!

We're learning all about the names of different airlines and transport systems! We think it's time for a @GetKahoot quiz! #6thClass

— St. Peter's Primary (@StPetersBray) November 19, 2015

Busy morning in #6thClass! Gaeilge, tests, spellings, SALFie scores and graphs and now we're recording our reading for our @evernote folders

— St. Peter's Primary (@StPetersBray) November 20, 2015

We are so excited to have a new teacher in our room for the next 4 weeks!

It's a brilliant morning in #6thClass. We have a teacher working with us on Team 6th Class for the next 4 weeks! Welcome Ms. Allen!

— St. Peter's Primary (@StPetersBray) November 23, 2015

We can’t wait to tell you about all of the brilliant things we will do with Ms. Allen! Until the next time…! 🙂

Well done to the Student Council who encouraged everybody to do so many lovely random acts of kindness for our RAK (Random Acts of Kindness) Week.

They travelled around to the various classes to find out some of the lovely things that went on!

In Junior Infants, Jake helped his brother when he fell. Jasmine helped somebody who fell on yard too! Joey helped to clean up his kitchen with his Mum. Ruby watched TV with her Dad to keep him company.

In 3rd Lana held the class the door open for people and she also opened the gate for Les. Barry was nice to a new student and Tristan made his bed without having need to be asked. Tadgh helped Emmanuel when he was hurt and Barry made his bed. Kevin held the door open all week for other people and Des cleaned room without needing to be asked. Maddie surprised her Mammy with a bag of sweets and she emptied the dishwasher too!

In 2nd class everyone made a special effort to play with the new students in the school. Ava helped Alex when he hurt himself and Sean helped his Mam with the housework.

Kelsey loaned somebody a little bit of change in the shop and Dylan bought his mum something nice in a shop without needing to be asked!

Johnny in 6th Class told us he helped Luke with his phonics. Chantelle in 5th Class gave Ms. Whyte a helping hand with jobs in school and Kayden in 4th took the dog out without needing to be asked.

These are just some of the random acts that people did. Well done everyone! This week is Buddy Week!

To celebrate Science Week 2015 we decided to get creative in Senior Infants. We have been learning about ‘House and Home’ recently and read one of our favourite books ‘The Three Little Pigs’! We love this story and were inspired to try to design and create our own houses using some different types of materials, including plastic straws, wooden blocks, coloured card and Play Doh. We wanted to find out which material would be best to use to make a house for our classroom puppets. Before the group experiments began we made some predictions. We predicted that the wooden blocks would be the best material to use to make a home as they felt much stronger than the other materials. Then it was time to get designing! Teamwork and co – operation was really important during this activity.

Working hard on our house designs

Deciding how to use the straws to build a house. Excellent team work!

After each group finished their designs we then discussed the suitability of each material for building a house. The Play Doh house looked fantastic but we agreed that it was difficult to construct the roof so the puppets might get wet on a rainy day. The house made from card looked very impressive but the boys and girls pointed out that the wind and rain would result in it falling down! The straw house was a really unusual design but unfortunately it had no walls or roof! The poor puppets wouldn’t be too sheltered in there! However the wooden blocks design seemed to offer everything we were looking for! It had good, solid walls, windows and doors and a roof! Our prediction was correct and we were glad to know that even if we huffed and puffed like the big bad wolf our wooden house would remain standing! Well done to the boys and girls on their hard work and on using their scientific skills of planning, predicting, making and evaluating!

Huffing and puffing to test the strength of our new design!

We were delighted that our prediction was right! Our wooden house was very strong.

Today was a very important day for St. Peter’s. The Irish Defence Forces delivered the Irish Flag and the 1916 Rising Proclamation to our school. This was to mark the Centennium of the 1916 Rising next year!

We learned how to take care of the Irish flag and we also got the opportunity to ask the Defence Force questions about the 1916 Rising.

Two children from 6th class did the school very proud today! They stood up on stage and read from the Proclamation and also told a personal story about their connection to the 1916 Rising.

As a school, we then came together and sang Amhrán na bhFiann. It was a very proud moment for the school and we are really  looking forward to learning more about the 1916 Rising over the next few months.

Last week we had a very interesting visitor in 4th Class. Rob Mortell, a mountain climber came in to talk to us about his trips. He showed us amazing photographs and videos and also brought in his gear for us. Here are a few examples of the items he brought in: Dehydrated food, snow boots and crampons, a down jacket, a helmet, goggles and Buddhist prayer flags. He even brought in his pick axe!

As a class, we put together some great questions for Rob and we really enjoyed his visit! Check out some of our photos! 🙂

After Rob’s visit we did a great recount lesson on what we learned. Check out our recount display in the corridor  outside 4th Class 🙂

Hi everyone! We had a lovely, busy week in 6th Class. Want to see our round-up of what we got up to?

Our Student of the Week came as no surprise… she gave 100% to everything, had wonderful homework and so many people noticed how helpful she was. Great job!

Our #6thClass Student of the Week! She is a winner for keeping an exceptional copybook and being so helpful. pic.twitter.com/4chitvQTAt

— St. Peter’s Primary (@StPetersBray) November 13, 2015

We continued our great work with our ePortfolios. It is amazing to see how our work has developed since September!

We love our ePortfolios in #6thClass! RT @domaho: Definition of ePortfolios for @ats2020project #edchatie pic.twitter.com/xdIHBU44NO

— St. Peter's Primary (@StPetersBray) November 12, 2015

We had a lovely visit from the Bray Chess Club and they left some fantastic boards for us to play with!

Thanks to Bray Chess Club for their chess set donations. #6thClass will get huge enjoyment from them on wet days! pic.twitter.com/Ur8VS0Xi57

— St. Peter's Primary (@StPetersBray) November 12, 2015

Heeeeeeeeave! We had a Tug of War masterclass!

Tug of War practice in #6thClass PE today. It's a great way to warm up! #activeschools pic.twitter.com/BEfftFgOKu

— St. Peter's Primary (@StPetersBray) November 12, 2015

We got ready for the visit of the Defence Forces on Monday. They will be delivering the Irish tricolour for the 1916 celebrations for Flag Day! We’ll tweet about our work using the #Rang1916 hashtag.

We are tweeting about our 1916 work using the hashtag #Rang1916. What did you do when the flag came to your school? #edchatie

— St. Peter's Primary (@StPetersBray) November 12, 2015

Tommy will be speaking about his Great Grandmother! #Rang1916 #6thClass pic.twitter.com/FCNlfkw5xj

— St. Peter's Primary (@StPetersBray) November 12, 2015

We are very excited to receive our tricolour from the Defence Forces. #6thClass are making speeches! #Rang1916 pic.twitter.com/yugn87SUX3

— St. Peter's Primary (@StPetersBray) November 12, 2015

As always, Maths and mental strategies were never far from our thoughts!

We made mental maths revision sheets. We can now answer up to 100 questions in rapid fire mode! We have call & respond raps #6thClass

— St. Peter's Primary (@StPetersBray) November 11, 2015

We also started a new book. Have you read it? It’s call ‘A Little Piece of Ground’. We’re hooked!

Total silence as we are gripped by our new book, 'A Little Piece of Ground'. #6thClass pic.twitter.com/PbxRQWRmyl

— St. Peter's Primary (@StPetersBray) November 11, 2015

Our oral language and reading goal for November is voice projection. You must project your voice up and out for all to hear!#6thClass

— St. Peter's Primary (@StPetersBray) November 11, 2015

That’s it for now… tune in next week for a further update!

Welcome to our second “St Peter’s All Star Attenders Awards.” Classes really tried hard in October to work on attendance and scores all around the school went up. At the end of every month children with full attendance for the month receive a certificate and have their name put on the Wall of Fame. The class with the greatest attendance each month also receive a class prize and all students with full attendance get named “All Star Attenders”.
This winning class for best attendance in October was…….. Ms. Shimmins’ 3rd Class. 3rd Class had a choice of prizes and decided to go with the homemade cinema. During break time the library was transformed in Peter’s Pictures and each child in 3rd class received a ticket to the show. This also entitled them to popcorn, choice of drink and a selection of chocolate. We can safely say they loved the prize.

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Check back each month to see who has won the class prize for best attendance and check if your name has made the All Star Attenders List.
Well done to 3rd class and to the following “All Star Attenders” from each class for October;

Junior Infants
Maja Bessler
Grace Carton
Aaron Chumakson
Joey Chumakson
Keogh Heidi Clucas
Abbie Coen Troy
Ben Douglas
Lauren Hipwell
Noah Johnston
Max Murray
Louis Murray-Coyle
Avaleigh O’Hagan
Zuzanna Siakala
Brooke Tobin
Cillian Aquilera Wheeler

Senior Infants
Carl Barry
Daniel Byrne
Murphy Jake Clucas
Kristana Anna Daniel
Chloe Farrell
Tobias Farrell
Jodie Fitzpatrick
Ryan Martin
Lauren McCann
Cian McDermott
Lauren O’Brien
Athony James O’Neill
Cian Petty
Elif Standage
1st Class
Ellie Byrne
Damiano Carabaich
David Keddy
Liam Mullen
Kyra O’Shaughnessy
Sean Sweeney McMaster
Ned Wall

2nd Class
Karl Ashe
Benjamin Bessler
Josh Coen Troy
Amalia Elin Gall
Brian Grefaldeo
Dylan Hackman
Craig Hipwell
Alec Kealy
Ruairi McFarland Bolger
Kian Mulhall
Jack Roche
Adem Standage
Naoise Sweeney McMaster

3rd Class
Ava Byrne
Tadhg Cahill
Emanuel Carabaich
Lana Douglas
Nathan Douglas
Madeleine Farrell
Adam Kelly
Barry Murphy
Kevin Pestana
Jerry Wall

4th Class
Caoilynn Ashe
Dominik Bessler
Brooke Carey
Kayden Clucas
Casey Crinnion
Caithlin Farrell
Dylan Fitzpatrick
Jamie Hipwell
Shannon Hipwell
Rowan McFarland Bolger
Kelsey O’Callaghan
Codie Sweeney Kearney
Dean Thomas
Ryan Tyrell

5th Class
Lex Farrell
Abbie Fitzpatrick
Leanne Kealy
Christopher Mullen
Finn O’Neill
Patrick Braganciuc

6th Class
Jack Barsoum
Robyn Brauner
Alex Coffey
Luke Connolly
Jordan Farrell
Jack Jin
Mason Kelly
Tommy Lang
Ryan McCormack
Stephen Mooney
Alan Moran
Alannah O’Brien
Calvin O’Callaghan
Dylan Wheeler

MR. FOLEY’S CLASS
Ben Cunnane
Adam Hackman
Jordan Keddy
Nathan Kennedy

Congratulations to these two great boys who know all of the Jolly Phonics 72 tricky words! They have both been working very hard at school and at home to learn these words and have done so well! Fantastic work boys!

Our theme in 5th class for October was Africa. We’ve been focusing on a different continent every month and we’re looking forward to showing you our work on Asia next month.

Our big focus was a collaborative art project. We drew the outline of Africa and of all the borders of the African states. We used this tool from Class Tools to choose the countries that we were going to research.

We researched the African states using this website. Our criteria for success was to write the name of the country, draw the flag of the country and two other pictures to represent that country. Some of us chose musical instruments, footballers, tourist attractions and animals to represent our states. When we finished our chosen country, we worked together to complete the other countries.

We learned a lot about Africa and we completed our display with our favourite facts from our unit.

In Music, we learned the song ‘Circle of Life’ – we were focusing on texture and learning to sing the accompaniment to the song.

Experimenting with our clay

Painting the clay (in Halloween costumes)

In Art, we worked with clay to create African inspired masks. We also worked with paint and colour to create Serengeti sunsets.

While learning about different jobs that people do in Senior Infants we decided to think about what we would like to be when we grow up. There were lots of brilliant suggestions! Some boys and girls wanted to be vets, bus drivers and painters while others wanted to be doctors and nurses. We wrote down what our dream job would be and why. We then decided to put our work into envelopes and posted them to the school. We had to include the school address and put a stamp on each envelope. After learning about the job of a postman we knew that our letters would arrive soon! We were really excited when Karen delivered them to our classroom (thanks Karen!) and we each got to open up some post. Every pupil got to read about what another person in the class wants to be when they grow up. We were really pleased to talk about lots of different jobs together.

What we would like to be when we grow up!

Writing the school’s address on our envelopes. We made sure to try and write really neatly.

There was great excitement in our classroom when our post arrived!

Opening our post!

After all of the excitement and a very lively class discussion about our dream jobs we decided to go out on an Autumn nature walk. Before heading out we talked about some signs of Autumn that we might find like conkers, berries and colourful leaves. Once outside we tried really hard to use our sense of sight to find as many signs of Autumn as possible. We were pleased to find the things we expected like lovely red and yellow leaves and colourful berries! We recorded our results when we got back inside.

Nature Walk!

We are also working very hard on our reading in Senior Infants and had great help from a wonderful work experience student recently. Lauryn was so kind to the pupils and gave our whole class some lovely books to enjoy reading. We hope Lauryn will come back and visit soon so that she can hear how much our reading is improving!

Lovely new books to read!