Vincent Van Gogh

We have been learning about Vincent Van Gogh. Vincent van Gogh was born in the Netherlands in 1853. His father and grandfather were ministers, but others in his family worked in the art world. Vincent was very close to his brother Theo. Theo lived in Paris in France and often sent money to his brother. Vincent wrote Theo many letters through out his life.

When he first started to paint Vincent used a lot of dark colours such as browns and dark greens. His pictures were often serious or sad. His most famous early painting was called The Potato Eaters. It was a dark picture of a peasant family eating potatoes for dinner.

Vincent moved to Arles in France for a time. He loved the bright sunny weather of this area and these bright colours made their way into his paintings. He believed yellow was the colour of life and hope.

But Vincent was often unwell. His mind raced and he often found it difficult to deal with his feelings. Often we can see swirls and vivid brush strokes that show Vincent's racing mind in his pictures. He used painting and colour to express his feelings. As he was poor he could not afford to pay a model for portraits so he painted over 30 self-portraits.

While the swirling brush strokes sometimes show Vincent's confusion we loved the way that they gave us a sense of movement. They made the paintings very interesting , at times we could almost feel the gentle wind blowing! We felt sad that Vincent did not know what a great painter he was when he was alive and we hope he realises now that we love looking at his work especially the paintings where he uses bright colours.

We studied his work 'Sunflowers'. Although the flowers are dying in the vase the painting has great warmth because of the lovely yellow and gold colours used. We used oil pastels to create a Sunflower inspired vase of flowers. We too tried to create a sense of life and brightness.

Vincent's Work

Our Van Gogh inspired flowers

English

This September we have been learning about Recount writing in English. Recount writing is a piece of writing that is written in the past tense about something that has happened. It starts with the title. The title should give the reader an idea about what they are about to read. Next comes the 'Orientation'. In the 'Orientation' the writer tells the reader where the event has happened, when it happened and who was involved. Following this there is the 'Sequence of Events'. The 'Sequence of Events' tells the reader what happened but also explains the events in the order that they happened. Finally the piece of 'Recount' writing will end with a section call the 'Personal Comment'. The 'Personal Comment' will let the reader know what the writer thought about and felt about the event.

We now know how to plan a piece of 'Recount' writing. Here is a piece that we all wrote together on cyber bullying. Our Parents' Association organised a workshop for us on Cyber Bullying. We hope you enjoy our piece of writing.

Our Cyber Bullying Workshop

On Wednesday, September 17th Ms Paula O’Connor came to visit Rang a Trí agus Rang a Ceathair in Scoil Mhuire Magherarney. Paula came to teach us about Cyber Bullying and safety when using the internet.

First of all Paula arrived at our school at 10 o'clock. She set up her lap top with our interactive whiteboard. Paula introduced herself to us. She told us about her family and what school she worked in. She is a secondary school teacher in an all-boys school. She also travels around Ireland and teaches primary schools about Cyber Bullying and she speaks to parents. The name of her workshop was 'Don't be mean behind your screen'. This name is to remind us that we are talking to a real person that has feelings when we are on our gadgets that have the internet.

Next Paula talked about social media such as Facebook, Twitter and other sites such as Snapchat. The lesson that Paula was trying to get across to us was to be respectful of others when using social media. She taught us that our comments stay on the internet forever even though it may look like you can delete them. She explained about screen shots and how these can mean messages can be saved. Paula reminded us that if we are using social media we should change our passwords regularly. She also told us about information predators who try and get personal information from you. Paula told us that if you have a profile picture of yourself it must not give clues to where you live. In fact, Paula suggested that we should not use photographs of ourselves instead we should use drawings or pictures of our favourite things.

Following this Paula gave a lesson on how the internet works. She reminded us that once something is put on the internet it is never easy to remove it and that it may be seen by many people even if we only intended one person to see it or read it.

Then Paula talked to us about gaming. She spoke to us about age appropriate games. She told us that O18 games often have violence and other inappropriate content for our age group. She warned us that playing on-line games may mean we are playing with people who are much older than us but are pretending to be our age. Paula told us about a voice device that can change the other player’s voice and make it sound younger than they really are.

We really enjoyed Paula's visit. Paula was very nice. She explained about cyber bullying very clearly. She presented it in an interesting way. We learned a lot of new information and we now understand much more about internet safety.

Thank you Paula for our Cyber Bullying Workshop

Proportion and the Human Face

We looked at drawing the human face and we discussed the idea of proportion in the human face.

Proportion in art looks at the size of one thing in relation to another.

We looked at the location of the eyes in relation to the whole face. Our eyes are actually half way down our face but our hair line makes it seem that they are towards the top end. Our mouths are half way between the end of our nose and our chin. Our mouth spans the same distance as that between the pupils of our eyes!

Mé Féin - Ár gComhrá

Éist linn anseo!

Our Halloween Harvest 
Some of our Fabulous Pumpkins

Thank you Ms Maguire

For the past month we have been very lucky to have not one but two teachers in our classroom! Ms Maguire has been with us for the past four weeks and has taught us so much, from angles and lines to common and proper nouns not to mention the lakes and famous houses of our beautiful county of Monaghan. She has worked so hard and we have really enjoyed having such a lovely teacher. We wish Ms Maguire all the very best as she continues her studies to be a teacher.

Here we all are presenting Ms Maguire with some beautiful flowers and having a good old Halloween giggle!

Maths - 3D shape

We have been learning about 3D shape. We explored the relationship between 2D and 3D shape and we constructed some 3D shapes for ourselves.

Some Christmas Colour

An Leanbh Íosa

Spot Rudolf!

Féile Drámaíochta 2015

Ghlacamar páirt san Fhéile Dhrámaíochta a mbíonn eagraithe ag an t- Ionad Oideachais Mhuineacháin gach bliain. Rinneamar drámaíocht bunaithe ar scéal faoi Luchóg agus Leon. Bhí ceacht in ár ndráma, " Is minic an té is lú a chabhraíonn an té is láidre." Creidimid go bhfuil sé sin fíor gan dabht. Féach ar ár ndráma anseo chomh maith le ghrianghraif.

Chinese New Year

We have been learning about the traditions of the Chinese New Year. Chinese New Year is celebrated by many countries other than China including Malaysia. Here are some interesting facts that we learned.

                                              Chinese New Year
Chinese New Year is a traditional and very important Chinese holiday. It was originally a festival to honor ancestors as well as holy or sacred beings. It is also known as the Spring Festival, which is the literal translation from the Chinese name. It is also referred to as the Lunar New Year because the Chinese calendar is lunisolar. A lunisolar calendar uses both the moon phase and the solar year. Chinese New Year is the longest festival in the Chinese calendar. 

                                    Interesting Chinese New Year Facts:
  Traditionally Chinese New Year lasted from the last day of the Chinese calendar to the 15th day of the first month. 

The exact date of Chinese New Year changes each year because it originated in 2600 B.C. At that time people followed the lunar calendar.

The Chinese New Year is symbolic of letting go of the past and welcoming new beginnings. It's a popular time for spring cleaning.

Each year of the Chinese New Year calendar is named after an animal. This is a 12 year cycle. Once the 12 year cycle is over the animal list begins again. The list in order is: rat, ox, tiger, rabbit, dragon, snake, horse, ram, monkey, rooster, dog, and pig.

It's common for Chinese families to have a reunion dinner the night before Chinese New Year festivities begin. The decorations used on doors and windows are red colored paper-cuts (made similar to the way we make snowflakes). The themes of these paper-cuts are of happiness, good fortune, longevity and wealth.

Firecrackers are popular during the Chinese New Year. They are thought to scare off evil spirits.

Children receive red envelopes full of money instead of wrapped gifts that other nationalities give at Christmas. The amount they receive is usually an even number. The amount cannot be divisible by four. In Chinese, the number 4 means death.

Dragon dances and street fairs are very popular. Dancers dress up as lions and dragons and perform for onlookers. 
     
On the last day of Chinese New Year, everyone carries beautiful paper lanterns and walks along the streets. This is supposed to light the way for the New Year. This day is called Lantern Day.

On Chinese New Year everyone is a year older. It doesn't matter when you were born; this is like a national birthday.

Our classmate kindly shared some Fortune Cookies with us!