Autism Awareness Week in PETNS
We are very excited be celebrating Autism Awareness Week in PETNS with some exciting activities! All week we will be learning a little bit more about Autism, and to help have oraganised a few activities.
Competition Time!
Children are invited to design their own Autism Awareness poster using what we have learned in school. Template attached or design your own. Entries can be dropped to class teachers or emailed to gary@powerstownet.com
Dress up day
On Friday 29th we will have a "Special Interest" Dress Up Day. Children and staff are encouraged to dress up as something that they particularly love. It can be anything from a favourite character, animal or even your favourite cereal (good luck parents)
Silent Disco (including an open invitation to parents!)
Each class will get to experience a silent disco with specialised equipment in school on Monday or Tuesday. To make sure parents don't feel left out, we will have an adult silent disco on Wednesday morning in the hall at 8.40am (poster attached). Bring your dancing shoes!
Coffee Morning For Parents of Children with Autism and Special Needs
Parents of Children with Autism and Special Needs are invited to a coffee morning in PETNS on Friday 29th April at 8.40am, hosted by Nikki Eagers, parent of a child in Hawthorn Class. More details to follow!
Competition Time!
Children are invited to design their own Autism Awareness poster using what we have learned in school. Template attached or design your own. Entries can be dropped to class teachers or emailed to gary@powerstownet.com
Dress up day
On Friday 29th we will have a "Special Interest" Dress Up Day. Children and staff are encouraged to dress up as something that they particularly love. It can be anything from a favourite character, animal or even your favourite cereal (good luck parents)
Silent Disco (including an open invitation to parents!)
Each class will get to experience a silent disco with specialised equipment in school on Monday or Tuesday. To make sure parents don't feel left out, we will have an adult silent disco on Wednesday morning in the hall at 8.40am (poster attached). Bring your dancing shoes!
Coffee Morning For Parents of Children with Autism and Special Needs
Parents of Children with Autism and Special Needs are invited to a coffee morning in PETNS on Friday 29th April at 8.40am, hosted by Nikki Eagers, parent of a child in Hawthorn Class. More details to follow!
All about respect
As part of SPHE, we discussed what respect is and how we show respect. We talked about how we can respect ourselves and each other. We then made a collaborative poster of all the practical ways we can practice respect to ourselves and each other. Some people suggested eating healthily, having fun, using nice manners and making ourselves and others laugh.
Gleaming Gardeners
Redwood class took a trip to the Geodome to plant some sunflower seeds. This was done as part of science and we really enjoyed getting stuck into all things seeds, compost, plants, nature and biodiversity. We discussed what helps a seed to sprout and the different stages of a plant's life. Check out our work!
My Little Library
Parents, do you have a child starting school next year? The libraries of Ireland have put together a selection of books to help children with their transition to 'Big School' next September. As part of the initiative, a ‘My Little Library Book Bag’ is available free for every child starting school in 2022 to help them to prepare for this big step. Children and their parents or guardians can collect the bags at any library throughout the country.
Each My Little Library Book Bag contains:
Libraries can’t wait to welcome all the 4 and 5 year old children in to collect their book bags and begin their library membership journey.
We hope that once they visit the library to pick up their book bag, our new library members and their families will come back regularly to keep their bag filled up with borrowed books and to take part in storytimes, classes and all the other events we have to offer at the library.
More supports to help the transition to primary school are available on the Let’s Get Ready page on Gov.ie.
Check out the webpage for more details here
Each My Little Library Book Bag contains:
- Three books on starting school, making friends and being comfortable to be yourself
- A story card on going to the library
- A postcard the child can write or draw on and send to their new teacher, or bring to give to the teacher on their first day at school
- Their very own library card and special ‘My Little Library’ cardholder
Libraries can’t wait to welcome all the 4 and 5 year old children in to collect their book bags and begin their library membership journey.
We hope that once they visit the library to pick up their book bag, our new library members and their families will come back regularly to keep their bag filled up with borrowed books and to take part in storytimes, classes and all the other events we have to offer at the library.
More supports to help the transition to primary school are available on the Let’s Get Ready page on Gov.ie.
Check out the webpage for more details here
Book Week Returns in Powerstown
The Return of the Book Fair
The book Fair is coming to our school from March 22nd - 29th. Please see a leaflet of some of the books available. Children can bring in EXACT change to purchase a book during scheduled times (Rowan -Tuesday 22nd at 9.40 and Monday 28th at 9.40) during the school day or parents can visit the fair daily during the times of 1:10pm - 1:40pm and 2:10 - 2:40pm. A significant percentage of sales is allocated to the school to purchase new books for our whole school library, every purchase is much appreciated.
Thursday 24th March- Multilingual Shared Reading Day
Multilingual Shared Reading Day: Parents are kindly invited into our school during the morning of Thursday March 24th from 09:00 am - 10:00am to read a book to their child's class. This can be a book in their own language, in English or can be retold using words from both languages. Home languages are greatly encouraged! Parents will also be invited to read to small groups of children (of the same language) in our school hall. If interested get in contact with your child's teacher, darragh@powerstownet.com and grainne@powerstownet.com (for Aoife).
Most Unusual Reading Spot
Most unusual place I've read a book competition! Children are encouraged to email Darragh with a picture of them reading a book in the most unusual place to win a prize from the book fair! No reading spot too crazy, get entering by emailing a picture to darragh@powerstownet.com
Ag cleachtadh don céilí - Practicing for the céilí
We are working hard on Ballaí Luimnigh and learning all the ins and outs of Irish dancing.
Lá na bPancóga
The Redwood class really enjoyed expanding their culinary skills on Pancake Tuesday. First, we discussed how to make pancakes and began writing a procedure for a pancake recipe. We read some recipes and decided on our favourite. The children took turns mixing, stirring, cracking eggs, folding, and pouring the batter. It was even some people's first time cracking an egg! Well done guys! Check out our pancakes.
Dance with Carla
The children have really been enjoying their dance sessions with dancer Carla. We've been exploring body language and body movements which has been great fun so far.
Working hard on projects
Check out our project work progress!
Figuring out fractions
It's safe to say we are fraction experts in the Redwood class. We compared equivalent fractions using fraction walls and learned how to find a fraction of a set. We explored lots of different strategies such as grouping and using our times tables knowledge. Jake took over teaching and showed us how we can half a number twice to find a quarter. Go raibh maith agat teacher Jake!
Examining Ancient Egypt
We began projects about Ancient Egypt this week in the Redwood class. We watched National Geographic videos, created questions and examined old and modern photographs. We explored Google Maps and Google street view where we got to see the inside of a tomb. This was impressive as the tomb was highly decorated with hieroglyphics. Each pair then searched through encyclopedias and books to find information.
Snow fun
The Redwood class couldn't resist looking outside when it began snowing!
Powerstown Parents Gardening Club
Delicious Data
The boys and girls in the Redwood class were busy creating block and bar graphs. We used all kinds of things to make graphs like cubes, counters and sticky notes. We even used our shoes to make one giant graph! The children each got a smarties box and collected data on how many smarties there were of each colour. They sorted the data into groups and created block graphs to show their findings. Of course, there were no smarties left by the end of the day!
Scientists at work...
The Redwood class explored food properties last month. We poured milk into bowls and dropped in food colouring. Next, we dipped cotton bud sticks into washing up liquid and dipped it onto the bowl. The milk and washing up liquid react against each other because of the fat in the milk. We got to see the food colouring dance around the mixture! We put our scientist caps on to create predictions and collect our findings.
Redwood Class have fun at the Winter Disco
Redwood class enjoyed showing off their dance moves during the Winter Disco which the PTA kindly organized. Check out our moves!
Learning about different qualities of materials and Light.
Rowan class were busy learning about different materials and important words associated with them, transparent, translucent and opaque. We used Padlet an online resource that allowed us to post our understandings of the words onto a "digital wall". The children got to practise their online dictionary skills as well as learning about these key words. We then carried out an investigation, choosing different classroom objects and materials and predicting, would light pass through this object or not. The children also got an oppurtunity to explore a prism and light refracting and reflecting through it. The children got to investiagte their classroom and become light researchers!
Aurora Australis spotted in Powerstown!
The Aurora Australis or 'dawn of the south' or 'southern lights' can be seen from long distances, stretching in the sky and is very beautiful. We learned about how they are made and even watched a time lapse of them occuring. They were amazing. Rowan class used chalk to blend on black paper to give an amazing effect that captures the Aurora Australis, they even included the reflections in the Antarctic water too.
Athletics
3rd class are receiving Athletic's (Running, Throwing and Jumping) training every Wednesday until December 15th approx. The two classes loved it today, here is what some of the children had to say about it today: "Amazing" - Octavious, "Brilliant" - Fatima.
In case Athletics is being done on the grass, children should wear old runners and clothes.
This week children explored different ways to run with various movements and practised relay races. Next week children will be exploring throwing the javelin.
Big thanks to Ciarán from AAI from coming into 3rd class.
In case Athletics is being done on the grass, children should wear old runners and clothes.
This week children explored different ways to run with various movements and practised relay races. Next week children will be exploring throwing the javelin.
Big thanks to Ciarán from AAI from coming into 3rd class.
Rowan and Redwood go outside for Outdoor Learning Day and Science Week
Last week was Outdoor Learning Day on November 4th and this week is Science week. The two classes were busy using the natural enviroment around the school as a perfect learning stimulus. The outdoor Science trail was a success and got the children engaged with the school, relating learning to real life examples. You can see from all the amazing pictures below the engagment was fantastic and the children really enjoyed changing the classroom for the outdoors!
3..2..1... BLAST OFF!!
Redwood class tested out our magnificent rockets today. We put coca cola and mento sweets in the container part of our rockets and watched as the bubbles formed and exploded out of the bottle. However, we discovered that the rocket that worked best was the coca cola bottle, as we concluded that there must be more carbon dioxide in the coca cola bottle. This one spurted almost a meter high! Perhaps, the coca cola loses carbon dioxide into the air as it is poured into the rockets.
Dress Up Day
Well done to the boys and girls in the Redwood and Rowan classes who dressed up for dress up day. We had some really creative costumes!
Tesselating Shapes
Redwood class learned about shapes and space this week. In particular, we investigated which shapes can tesselate. We made a collaborative display to show tessellating drawings.
Riveting Rockets
We loved learning about Space and rockets this month! We investigated how rockets launch into space and learned new vocabulary like rocket stages, launch pad, hydrogen, oxygen, and capsule. Each group planned their rocket by labelling a diagram and writing their experiment plan. We used different recyclable materials to mirror the parts of a rocket. We used Maths language to label the types of lines and shapes in our plans! We will test our rockets outside using mentos and coca cola. Check them out!
Giant Pumpkin!!
This week, every class in the school guessed the weight of the giant pumpkin growing in the Geodome. Redwood class visited the Geodome to estimate the weight of the pumpkin. We all held the smallest pumpkin which was 1kg and the medium sized one which was 3.5kg. We talked about weight and kilograms and making estimates.
Papier Mache fun!
The Redwood class loved making Papier Mache planets this week. As we are learning about Space, each pair made a different planet from our Solar System. We have been watching lots of videos about astronaut Chris Hadfield, reading lots of books about Outer Space, and even investigating newspaper artefacts from the Space Race in 1957!
Redwood class loved getting messy creating their planets, which was great fun. Well done guys!
Redwood class loved getting messy creating their planets, which was great fun. Well done guys!
Redwood class artwork is out of this world!
The Redwood class created some fantastic art pieces this week. We incorporated our portrait drawings and Outer Space nebulae scenes to create our mixed media pieces. The children enjoyed experimenting with acrylic paint to dab, rub and splash paint on their Outer Space nebulae backgrounds. They look amazing and are hanging proudly in the hallway!
Special shout out for an amazing poem !
Here is a special shout out to an amazing budding poet. Hamda used her free writing time to create a poem about her teacher , incorporated Gaeilge into it and conveyed her emotions excellently. Helena gave Hamda a special award and a copy of the poem is hanging in Helena's wall of fame. Keep up the thoughtful fantastic work!
Rowan Class is inspired by Amedeo Modigliani.
Last week we were working really hard on a self-portrait inspired by Amedeo Modigliani. These portraits have a very unique feature that was controversial in our class, the striking elongated knecks. I really love how all the children extended their imagination to themselves and to their own body. Maith sibh!
School PJ Day - Friday 24th - In aid of Afghan Relief Fund
| pj_day_poster.pdf |
Redwood Class student elections September 17th
The Redwood class were working hard this week on their election speeches and posters. Well done to Rory (Student Council), Vanessa (Active Schools), Amal (Forest School) and LJ (Green Schools). The boys and girls enjoyed learning about voting and democracy.
Redwood Class - Exploring line and colour through printing
The Redwood class showed off their artistic flare this week through exploring line and colour. They began their pieces by discussing and drawing different types of lines - wavy, geometric, spirals and chevrons to name a few. They then coloured water based markers on resistant tinfoil and sprayed it. This created watercolour paint which they then pressed the paper on. Check out the results!
Elections Sept 19th
Today we had our class elections for Student Council, Active School, Green School and Forest School. All the boys and girls had a chance to present their posters and prepared speech on why they are the best person for the role. The children voted anonymously in each category and the votes were tallied.
Congratulations to Cailyn who was voted in for Student Council, Hamda for Active School, Evan for Green School and Alannah for Forest School. Well done again.
Rowan class explore self-portraits through print
Rowan class continued to work on self-portaits this week. We used washable markers to cover tin foil in different colours and drew a self-portrait of ourselves with a black marker. We sprayed the tinfoil and then printed our sheet down for the colours to transfer onto the page. It gave an amazing tie-die effect and the colours blended together to make our self-portraits vibrant and unique.
Rowan class visit the pop-up library
Rowan class had a fantastic visit to the pop-up library today. The class got a chance to read, relax and experience the world through words and some amazing illustrations. Here are a few pictures of the girls and boys enjoying all the brilliant new books the school got last year.
Rowan Class Self-Portraits
For the month of September our theme is "Myself" and in art this week we were working on realistic self-portraits. Look at all the amazing pencil control, use of colour and realistic self-portraits. Well done Rowan class, budding artists.
