​You are all very welcome to our classroom page on Scoil Mhuire Machaire Áirne's school website. We are a great classroom and always looking after each other. 
​We LOVE learning and meeting our friends every day in Scoil Mhuire and we hope we can share some of our work with you here, although, we are so busy this is just a taster!

Eolaíocht - Ag obair sa Ghairdín 

Summer is here!    Ag fás 's ag fás.

Yum Yum! Tasty School Cabbage
Local Chefs have been busy cooking and enjoying cabbage from our school garden. 
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PS Chefs...................Ms Payne loves rhubarb tart! 

Ag obair go dian 

Fruits of our Labour!

School Tour 2022

Recount Writing by Julia Jordan Rang 2 

​First and second class went on their school tour on Friday, June 17th. We went to Greenore in County Louth and Greencastle in County Down. We also went to the town of Kilkeel.

First of all we arrived at school for 08.50a.m. When we went into the classroom we could use the toilets if we needed to. After that we got on the bus. We all had to put our seatbelts on and the bus started to drive out of the school car park.

Next we arrived at Greenore Museum. Brian, Ann and two ladies were waiting for us beside the museum door to welcome us. The ladies were dressed up in Victorian Costumes. They brought us through the door into the museum. The ladies took us up some stairs. We saw a big hall. On the way into the hall Brian and the ladies gave us a carton of juice. We all sat down on seats and had our morning snack. While we were eating our snacks we watched a short film about trains.
After that the ladies performed a short sketch. The characters were real life people from long ago. They came from Ballybay in Co. Monaghan. They were hoping to begin a new life in New York, America. They travelled by train to Greenore from Monaghan and got on a boat at Greenore that would take them to England and they would get the ship to America there. But the boat collided with another boat in Carlingford Lough and sank. It was very sad.

Following on from that the ladies led us downstairs again and they took us to the cellar. I was excited to go down all the stairs. When we went into the room I was shocked! I saw a huge model railway track with trains moving on the track. There were people, animals, houses, fields and even a model signal man’s office! I thought it was so cool.

Shortly after we went back on the bus and we went down to the ferry. While the ferry was coming over to the bus we saw something amazing! There was a dolphin in the water jumping in and out of the water. The dolphin was called Finn.

After that the ferry was ready for us. We drove onto the ferry, got off the bus and we went up onto the viewing deck. We could see Southern and Northern Ireland. We could also see jellyfish, seaweed, ducks, fish, other small boats and buoys floating in the water. We could also see the lighthouse at Cranfield. I was not expecting this at all!

Finally the ferry stopped at the port on the Northern Ireland side. We got on the bus again and the bus driver started the engine and off we drove. We passed by Greencastle. The castle was very close to where the very first dock was built. Some of it can still be seen. It was just made of wood.
We drove to the town of Kilkeel and Brian showed us fishing boat trawlers and the fish market. We also saw a big trawler in a dry dock being repaired. Then we took a little bus tour around the area and saw a huge caravan park.

Later we went back on the ferry. We were starving so we got off the bus with our packed lunches and sat on the benches on the ferry and ate our lunch.
I thought it was an excellent tour. It was so cool going on the boat. 

The Ballybay Sisters who were passengers on the Connemara, which sank on November 4th 1916, told us about their final journey on the train. It was sad to think the sisters never made it to America. It was very interesting to listen to their conversation. It helped us understand what a journey was like on the train, the many different people on it, who all had their reasons for travelling from Greenore. Thank you to the actors for telling us this story of the Monaghan sisters. 

Refreshing Fruit

Every year for Sports' Day, our Parents' Association treat us to some fresh fruit. It was Yummy!

Ag obair sa ghairdín! 

We spent some time getting the beds ready but it was fun to weed and chat at the same time. Many hands make light work! We planted lettuce, cabbage, carrots and rhubarb. In the polley tunel we planted tomatoes, peppers and we are going to try and see can we get a courgette to grow!
This year we will take a break from growing pumpkins to allow our beds to recover. Instead we planted sunflowers to encourage the bees! 

Celebrating the Sacraments 

This has been a special year for Rang a Dó as we celebrated two sacraments, First Penance and First Holy Communion. We were helped so much by our Mammies and Daddies, our Grannies and Grandads and Father Chester and Monsignor Connolly. They all made us feel very special indeed. 

First Communion

Final Practice for First Holy Communion 

The day before May 14th was super exciting. It was our last day to go to Saint Mary's church, Magherarney and practice for our First Communion Day. Father Chester came to help us and it was great to have his advice about our readings and prayers. We then got a special treat for working so hard towards our special day. 

First Penance

Happy Easter !

Here is our flock of little Easter Chicks, they were very cosy in our classroom! Happy Easter everyone.

We also did some orienteering and followed a trail to do our Easter Egg Hunt!

Science- Engineer's Week

In SESE we have been learning about Australia. Part of our work looked at the Sydney Harbour bridge or ' The Coat Hanger' which is its nick name. It is a famous Australian landmark and we looked at old photographs of the construction of the bridge and the big party on its opening day. We looked at bridges in Science to see are there shapes that are used to make bridges stronger. The Sydney Harbour bridge carries trains, cars and pedestrians so it must be a very strong bridge. We made our own bridges and tested their strength. They could hold over 1.5kg! 

SESE - A Look at Bridges 

In Geography we have been looking at the country of Australia. We learned lots of things such as famous landmarks in Australia. One of them is a famous bridge in Sydney called the Sydney Harbour bridge. It's nickname is 'The Coat Hanger'. Can you guess why? Here are some of the photographs we looked at in history about the building of this great bridge. We talked about the use of the aeroplane in the building of the bridge and the length it took partly because there were not machines like we would have today if we were to build such a big bridge. We loved that a circus marched across the bridge on its opening day! 

Happy Pancake Tuesday

Our classmate Lilly cooked up a storm at home and spoiled us all by making pancakes for us to enjoy. They were delicious. Thank you Lilly !

Art - Construction 

We have been learning about the artist Alexander Calder in art. He was an American sculptor. He was born in July 1889 and died on the 11th of November 1976. He invented mobiles. Mobiles are a kind of sculpture where the pieces are moved by motors or the wind . The opposite of a mobile sculpture is a "stabile" sculpture. We constructed our own stabile. The test was to see could our stabiles stand steady by themselves. 

One of Calder's most famous sculptures was in wire and was about a circus. We have been working on a Creative Schools' project where we are learning about animation.  Our teacher showed us a simple animation that was actually based on Calder's Circus sculpture . It showed us how simple the drawings in animation can be but yet they still look great!

Artist Focus - Calder's " Circus" 

Animation- Credit Edward Cheverton 

Active Breaks

During the year we have been learning how to ribbon skip as part of our active movement breaks during class which we showed on our page earlier in the year. Some of us have started to choreograph our own sequences! 

English - Process Writing and Digital Technology

We have been learning about writing an Information Report in English. We decided to write an information report about penguins. First we read a piece of text about penguins. Then we drew up a plan for our piece of writing that included:

• A Title
• General statement 
• Description
• Evaluation 

Next we used our tablets to research more information about penguins to include in our report writing. We enjoyed working in groups to research and write a shared information report. 

Gaeilge Comhrá - An Aimsir

Bhíomar ag foghlaim faoin aimsir. Seo píosa comhrá.

Pair Work in Maths

In math we sometimes work in pairs. One person takes the role of the recorder and the other person makes a picture of the sum. 

 Reading Fluency and Expression 

We have been learning about reading a text and thinking about who is speaking like the narrator and the different characters. Sometimes we read in groups and share the text by taking on different roles. It takes lots of concentration to read the text through together because we have to concentrate on our own reading parts but also listen carefully to others read their parts so we know when to continue. Here we are, reading a funny poem called, " I caught a Little Fish", and what a clever little fish he was!

SESE - Geography 

We have been busy learning some mapping skills and also learning about road signs. We used our local environment and went on an outdoor trail to see if we could find examples of road signs in our area. We saw lots and lots! 

Happy New Year!
Welcome 2022

A Christmas Novel in English

In English in Term 1 we listened to teacher read two novels, The Iron Man by Ted Hughes and The Twits by Roald Dahl. This month we read our own novel together. It was called, 'Little Star' and tells the story of Simon who finds a missing star and who asks Santa to return the star to its rightful home in the sky. The stars thanked Simon by writing him a message in the night sky. We thought about what messages we would write in the night sky to the world at this time of year. Merry Christmas everyone!

Our Messages in the stars
We hope you all get nice presents this Christmas.

Santa is coming to town, have a Merry Christmas.

Santa will be back next year.

We hope you like Christmas and we hope you remember baby Jesus who was born.

Merry Christmas everyone.
​
Jesus is born on Christmas day, Merry Christmas everyone.
​

Seasonal Art

Christmas in Seomra Rang 1 & 2

Listen to us perform some Christmas songs. We hope you enjoy them.

Píosa Filíocht - Oíche Nollag

Christmas Traditions in Ireland 

Heritage in Schools Visit by Historian John D Ruddy

We were very lucky to have a visit from historian John D Ruddy. John did two workshops with us. We learned about timelines in history and how important sequencing is on time lines. We also learned that maps and photographs can show change in a place over time. We looked at an old map of our area and saw that the Ulster canal once ran right beside our school but when we looked at an aerial photograph the canal was gone! But there are some clues that it was once there and we went on a field trip with John and saw the old canal bridge, the lock and the Lock Keepers House in Templetate. Our local area not only had a canal but also a train station long ago. John did an drawing workshop with us and we drew an old steam engine. We talked abut perspective in our drawing and how to get across a sense of movement. 

In English we wrote a recount piece of writing about John's visit. We really hope he comes back to see us again. He was super cool!

Exploring our Irish History Timeline

Evidence of the past- our local environment

Drawing Workshop

Hands on Maths with a helping hand from our mates!

In Rang 1 we have been working hard on our addition and place value. We worked together in pairs to make a visual picture of a number sentence and our partner recorded the sentence. We used the counting on strategy to work out a missing addend when we knew our target total. It was fun working together.

Piet Mondrian - Colour and Line

We have been busy learning about lines and angles in Maths and we also talked about line in art. We learned about the life of the artist Piet Mondrian in addition to his use of the primary colours. We saw that his style changed greatly over time and we remembered two of his famous works in our own art activity. 

Active Schools - Big News from Rang 1 & 2

Our school is busy working towards its 'Active Schools' target to increase our level of physical activity. We have been busy doing 'Active Breaks' during the day. In our room we have played some games like 'Ball Steal'  but we are really trying hard to master the art of ribbon skipping. We are getting better and better. 

Our school also held a competition to compose a chant or rhyme to remind us all what 'Active Schools' is about and guess what, our classroom composed the winning entry. We were delighted. Now all the school must learn to say our chant with gusto! 

Active School Scoil Mhuire Machaire Áirne
Active schools have lots of fun,
As we run in the sun.
Skipping, walking, jumping too,
All these things are good for you.
Fit and strong, working as a team,
An Active Flag is our dream! 

Science Week Investigation- The Results are in!

Having minded our cress seeds for a week we discovered that for a healthy plant to grow it needs both sunlight and regular water. The plant that received sunlight but no water, did germinate however without water the sprouts were yellow not green and they were not strong. 

Science Week 2021

This year our Science work in Science Week focused on the science area of Biology. Biology is the study of living things.

​We did an on-line workshop with Tina who taught us all about Bats as part of Science week. We learned loads of interesting facts.

We investigated what is needed for healthy plant growth. We planted cress seeds. Our pots will have different growth conditions:
Pot 1- Sunlight and water
Pot 2- Sunlight and no water
Pot 3- Water and no sunlight
Pot 4- No Sunlight and no water.
​We will mind our pots for a week and then tell you the results from our investigation.

We also learned about the difference between seeds and bulbs and we planted some bulbs for Spring colour.  We learned about germination and pollination and the different parts of a plant and their function. 

Gaeilge Sa Halla - Deireadh Fómhair

Bhíomar ag déanamh an dráma, 'Na Trí Muicíní' i rith an Deireadh Fómhair. Rinneamar  é mar phíosa do, 'Gaeilge Sa Halla' ach mar tá laethanta Covid fós linn is é 'Gaeilge Sa Seomra Ranga' atá i gceist!

Then we used our Gaeilge Drama in our Arts Drama where we questioned the character 'Wolfie' about his terrible deeds through a 'Hot Seating' activity.  He was in fact quite charming!

SESE History

We have been reading about some history traditions in Ireland linked to Halloween.We then played some of the games in class. In telling our fortunes we discovered that some of us will travel, some of us will get married and some of us will even be rich in the future. 

Spooky Folk i Seomra Rang 1 agus 2

The Journey to our Pumpkin Harvest

The Iron Man by Ted Hughes

We have been listening to teacher read the novel, 'The Iron Man' by Ted Hughes. We worked together in our pods to make a whole class picture of what we think the Iron Man looked like. 
A great picture made by teamwork. 

Our Classroom - Beeeeeeeing Busy!

We have been busy thinking about the type of place we would like our classroom to be. We think it is like a hive and we are the busy worker bees! 

A New School Year - Classroom Pods 2021-2022

Seomra Rang 1 & 2 
Walk On Wednesday
​ Champions 2020-2021

Sports Day Workout - Monaghan Sports Partnership 

Sports Day Races 

Our work with Smithborough Tidy Towns

We were very happy to work with our School Council and Smithborough Tidy Towns to paint bird boxes and bat boxes to promote biodiversity in our village. 

Our Christmas Friendship Tree

This year we did not exchange Christmas cards so instead we did a Christmas Friendship Tree. We decorated some Christmas baubles and wrote a message to our friends. Every class bubble did the Friendship Baubles then we hung them on a tree. All our warm Christmas wishes in one place. Happy Christmas everyone!  

Christmas Art

Our Classroom Wreath

It's beginning to look like Christmas!

Christmas Poetry- Five Little Reindeer

Monaghan County Museum - Storytelling

Station Teaching

On Thursday and Friday our English is done through Station Teaching. We rotate through three stations of learning. One focuses on reading and comprehension, another on phonics and then we also have a Digital Technology/DT station. We love Station Teaching days!

Visual Arts - Cartoon Character Drawing

Earlier in the year we looked at proportion in the human face. Now we have been looking at cartoon drawings. Rules of proportion are not always followed in drawing cartoon faces, you have complete freedom to draw your character how you would like them. Meet our cartoon crew!

SESE- Science Week - Computer Programming

As part of Science week we looked at computer programming using friendly Beebots. We learned that an algorithm is a set of instructions. We practiced writing algorithms and we also programmed the Beebot to find a certain shape on the 2D shape mat. It was a fun way to revise our shapes in Maths and practice writing and inputting an algorithm in the Beebot. 

SESE- Science Week - Does Sanitising work?

SESE- Science Week - Investigating Bubble Mixtures

Carving our Pumpkin

Halloween Art

We have learning about the element of line in art and the idea of contrasting colour with monochrome colours . In our backgrounds we sectioned our page using a ruler and diagonal lines and then filled these sections with the many different types of line we have learned about including horizontal, vertical, dashed, diagonal, spiral, zig zag and wavy. You can see that the bright colours pop-out because of the contrast with the monochrome background. 

Friday Characters working in class

Bob nó Bia- Trick or Treating

SPHE - Bullying

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In SPHE we have been discussing the topic of Bullying. We learned that bullying can come in many different forms and make a person feel many different things which can be shown or acted-out in many different ways. We chatted about how bullying is not the same as having an argument or a falling-out with someone. We know that bullying is planned by the bully and it happens repeatedly.  They plan to hurt and upset the other person. We read about a little boy called Dan who was being bullied at school but he did not know it because he did not understand what bullying was. We learned that it is very important to firstly tell the bully to STOP and make it clear to them that we do not like the way they are treating us. We also learned it is really important to tell a trusted adult in our lives about how we are feeling. 

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SESE Science

We have been learning about the season of Autumn and in particular we looked at trees in Science. When we had finished all our work in class we decided to go out on a walk around Magherarney to see if we could see any evidence of Autumn in our local environment and to see if we could identify any of the trees in it. Magherarney is a beautiful place with lots and lots to see. We are lucky to go to school in a place surrounded by nature. On our walk we saw loads of things such as blackberries or sméara dubha growing on the drisheacha / brambles.  We visited the River Finn beside Saint Mary's Church and the old Magherarney school. We saw great examples of a coniferous tree with loads of cones and an Ash tree covered in bunches of keys.  One of our nearest tree is a mighty oak. We know this is a native tree and we entertained all the neighbours and the tree by singing it our Oak Tree Song! 

The Mighty Oak Tree

Art
The Human Face and Proportion

We have been learning about drawing the human face. We discussed facial features and where they are located on the face in relation to each other. We talked a lot about dividing the face in fractions. It is surprising to learn where exactly things are located on the face. For example your eyes are half way down your face even though we often think of them being at the top end of our head!

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SPHE- Our Type of Classroom 

We have been discussing this month the type of classroom atmosphere we would like to have for the year. By talking about the type of classroom we would like we were able to think about how we would need to be and act to work in a happy room each day. After all our discussions we were able to say what our ideal classroom would be like and agreed classroom rules that would help us achieve it.

The end of the season for Sunflowers
Line and Chalk Pastels 

A return to school after a very different year 

This year when we returned to school we took time in SPHE to learn some facts about Covid 19. The virus meant that we had a very different kind of school year last year and we are so happy to be back to school for a new school year. Things are a little different but our Mammies and Daddies had us well prepared and everything we need is in school including our elbow-operated sanitiser. We are great at remembering to sanitise our hands and our little song helps too!

Caithfidh mé mo lámh a nigh