Mr Kennedy's Blog

Tuesday, 12 November 2013

A super Friday

We had a very special guest pay us a visit on Friday - Sam Maguire! Kevin O Brien and Shane Carthy from the Dublin All-Ireland winning panel came to the school and brought the famous trophy with them. Everyone got pretty excited as you can see!

We also went on the school sponsored walk around the grounds of Teagasc. See the Active School Flag blog for some photos and a video.

Wednesday, 6 November 2013

Maths games

Subtraction slide game: http://www.topmarks.co.uk/Flash.aspx?b=maths/subtraction

Tens and units: http://www.ictgames.com/sharkNumbers_v2.html

http://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/ks1/maths/shapes/play/popup.shtml

http://media.abcya.com/content/shapes_geometry_game/shapes_geometry_game.swf

http://www.sheppardsoftware.com/preschool/ngames/shapes.swf

http://www.bgfl.org/bgfl/custom/resources_ftp/client_ftp/ks2/maths/3d/index.htm

Monday, 4 November 2013

Parent teacher meetings

Dear parent,

Parent-teacher meetings are to be held in the school next week. To make things run as smoothly as possible, meetings will take place over two days, on Monday (11^th) and Tuesday (12^th) afternoon. Parents of children in Second Class should come on Monday afternoon between 2.45 and 5.30pm. Parents of children in Third Class should come on Tuesday afternoon between 2.45 and 5.30pm. Meetings should last no longer than 10 minutes in order to be fair to everyone involved.

Should you be unable to make it on your appointed day next week, please let me know as soon as possible and we can arrange an alternative time and day.

Looking forward to meeting with you all.

Mr Kennedy

Saturday, 26 October 2013

Halloween part 2

On Friday, all the boys and girls disappeared and Room 5 got taken over by some very scary and funny characters - see if you can recognise any of them!

We also got into the spirit of Halloween by playing some traditional Halloween games: Snap Apple and Apple Bob. Some of us got a little bit wet but we had great fun. Bhí an-spóirt again!

Thursday, 24 October 2013

Uh-oh!!!

Our class pumpkin isn't looking too healthy - must have stood too close to the bonfire!

What the class think! See what the boys and girls from Room 5 have to say

We are learning about magic e and second class is learning about the titanic. Third class goes to quaid's class.

We are learning about Halloween things like witches and where Halloween comes from. We are also learning about what we eat at Halloween and why witches come to scare us on Halloween. Finally we are discovering how the dead comes alive to scare us and why we say trick or treat. - Calum (24-10-13)

Sunday, 20 October 2013

Halloween

Here's a spooky Halloween song to get you ready for what is sure to be a very spooky week in Room 5!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JsyEX9iIN-I

Second class were working hard on a Halloween project this week - check out the school hall for the finished articles! We learned a lot about Halloween, including how it started, why we dress up, what we eat at Halloween, why we light bonfires, and where the name Jack O'Lantern came from!

Here we are hard at work:

And here are the completed results:

We have two Halloween poems this week, one in English agus ceann amháin as Gaeilge:

Oíche Shamhna

Oíche Shamhna , is maith liom í,

Ag gleasadh suas , sin spórt is spraoi,

Cailleach dubh is púca bán,

Cnónna, úlla, agus milseáin,

Ciseán lán i mo lámh,

Bí cúramach leis an tine chnámh!

Tinte ealaíne ag lasadh sa spéir,

Áthas ar na páistí go léir!

Swish goes the Broomstick

There was an old witch,

Believe it if you can,

She tapped at the window

And she ran, ran, ran.

She ran helter-skelter,

With her toes in the air,

Cornstalks flying

From her old witchy hair.

(Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!!)

Swish! Goes her broomstick,

Meow! Goes her cat,

Plop! Goes her hop-toad

Sitting on her hat.

“Weee!” chuckled she,

“Hi-dee-ho-hi!

Hallowe’en night

When witches fly-y-y-y-y!”

Maths Week update

We had lots of fun with Maths during Maths Week. There was a maze outside in the yard, and we had to find our way to the middle quicker than anyone else, and we also had to find a cone inside the maze and bring it back out again before the others did. This was great fun!

We did brain teasers every day, and we got pretty good at them. See if you can work this one out.

What comes next........? It's a tricky one!

We also did some art that had Maths in it. It was based on tessellations, which are a bit like patterns only more complicated, but we were well able for them. We did a Halloween-themed tessellation - can you guess what these are?

We got the idea from Mike Maloney's tessellation "Ghosts"

Wednesday, 16 October 2013

A witchy excuse!!

Today we had to imagine that we were a witch or a wizard, and that we had just been caught speeding on our broom by the local Garda. Here are some examples of the excuses we thought up and wrote about:

"I have to go Trick-or-treating"
"I have to go and fix a leprechaun's rainbow"
"I am late to pick up my witch brew"
"My frog is in hospital dying of cancer and I am on the way to visit him"
"I am going to witchy Vegas"
"I have to change my son's nappy"
"I am going to my baby's birthday"
"I have to go to the toilet"
"I'm on my way to Pizza Land for a witches holiday to see the Statue of Pizza"
"I'm on my way to put a spell on someone and turn them into a fat elephant"
"I am late to get my fried frogs legs for dinner"
"My sister is with another witch, if I don't get to her I'll never see her again"
"I'm going to a party in New York"
"I'm on my way to a funeral"
"I am going to Dreamland where all the wizards go for Halloween"
"I am late for a meeting in Transylvania"
"I'm on my way to Witch Land to take part in a spell contest"
"I'm on my way to a magic show""
"I am late for a witch meeting"

Some great imagination in Second and Third class!!

Sunday, 13 October 2013

Maths Week

Next week is Maths Week in school, and this will show us that Maths can be found in lots of different places and things, not just in our Planet Maths books! We will be doing loads of fun and interesting things, like puzzles, mazes, brainteasers, board games, code breaking and trails. It's going to be an exciting week!

Here are a few websites with games to get you started:

http://www.eduplace.com/kids/mw/swfs/faf_grade1.html

http://media.abcya.com/content/math_facts_game/math_facts_game.swf

http://media.abcya.com/content/math_bingo/math_bingo.swf

http://www.eduplace.com/kids/mw/swfs/rockhopper_grade1.html

Enjoy!

Some new Maths games for you:
http://www.abc.net.au/countusin/games/files/bowlingalley.swf

http://www.ictgames.com/soccer_subtraction.html

http://v7.k12.com/sample_lessons/activities/images/swfs/building_expressions_final.swf

98FM!!!!!!

In very exciting news this week, our very own Ciara from 3rd class was on the Ray Foley Show on 98FM on Tuesday morning. Ciara had to make some very scary animal noises to help Ray with his story. You can listen to Ciara by clicking on the link below. Well done Ciara!

www.kinsealyns.ie/MrKennedys_music/Ciara Ray Foley Show.wma

Monday, 7 October 2013

A surprise visitor

Well, much to our surprise we had a visitor to our classroom today. He had four legs, was green/brown in colour and liked to jump about the place. Can you guess what he was......?
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That's right, a frog! We all got a good look at him and then we sent him on his way back into the wild.

Sunday, 6 October 2013

Autumn

This week we were learning about Autumn in Room 5. We talked about what happens to the trees and their leaves, what the animals do, how the days change, and what fruit starts to grow. Everyone got a chance to take part in some fun Autumn activities.

Second class made a leaf collage and got a chance to see conkers and their shells:

The results turned out great!

We also wrote acrostic poems based upon the word Autumn. This is where you use each of the letters in a word to start a line in a poem, so that when we were finished we had a six line poem about Autumn. To finish off the week nicely we did some Autumn art, where we painted our own versions of Autumn trees. Our Autumn corner looks great now!

Sunday, 15 September 2013

Welcome back!

A big welcome back to everyone in Second and Third class! Hope you all enjoyed the holidays and are all set for another great year in school.

First of all, congratulations to Jay and Julian who won trophies and medals for Mini Leagues, and to Emma in Third class who won medals for karate. Well done guys and keep up the good work.

We have been gearing up this week for the big match next Sunday, the All-Ireland final between Dublin and Mayo. We have decorated the classroom in sky blue and navy to support the Dubs! We made some Sam Maguire trophies, hopefully we will be getting a visit from the real thing soon!

We have also been learning a famous Dublin song, "Molly Malone". Here is the link to it with music and the lyrics if you want to practice it at home: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q9Deeh9n-VI

Check out more fun GAA-related stuff here: http://www.kelloggsculcamps.gaa.ie/cul-kids-corner/