Hello and welcome to our blog! We are Cecelia's senior infants in Balbriggan ETNS. Please feel free to follow us on Twitter and leave lots of comments on our blog. Go raibh míle maith agaibh! :-D
RSS

Tuesday, 8 April 2014

Our Awesome Letters!


We learned how to write letters today! 

You have to write the date on the right, the 'Dear someone' part on the left and start in the middle of the first line. 

There was lots to remember but Cecelia couldn't believe how excellent they all were!

We've come a long way since the start of the year. 

Really getting ready for first class now!

Our Awesome Letters

Day and Night


Today we were learning about day and night. We brainstormed all the different things we knew about day and all the things we thought of when we imagined night. Then we put our words into a Tagxedo to see what it looked like. It was really pretty! 

We choose the rooster for daytime because he crows in the morning and a star for the night-time words because the stars come out at night! 




Then we looked at a programme called Stellarium. This is really cool because it lets you fast forward time so that you can see the stars - even in the middle of the day!

 We looked at Mars (which is really bright at the moment - and a little bit orangey), 


Ursa Major or the Big Bear (which has the Plough/Saucepan in it)


and the North Star (which always shows you the way north and never moves - even if you fast forward through three days and nights!). 

 You can find the North Star by drawing an imaginary line up from the two stars that make the side of the saucepan in Ursa Major. 


 The North Star is also called Polaris - kinda like the North Pole!


Monday, 7 April 2014

Horse Chestnut Bud Burst!


Spring has really hit Balbriggan this week! 

We saw the primroses last week, a hawthorn bud burst and we noticed on Friday that the horse chestnut was really close to opening. 


And then.... this morning when we checked, the bud had burst!

Check it out here! 



Now we need to look out for the bud burst of the ash and the arrival of the swallow!

And The Lucky Attendees Are.....


Since our blog was short-listed for the Junior Spiders, our class have been invited to attend the award ceremony. 

However, the venue unfortunately only has enough space for four children for each entry. 

Cecelia just wasn't able to choose who should go so she got 'The Randomizer' to choose for her! 

The lucky attendees are.....







We're very excited about the ceremony!!!

Little Miss Muffet


This week we’ll learn Little Miss Muffet. Here is the traditional version of the rhyme.



Here’s a different version of the rhyme where Miss Muffet isn’t scared of the spider… 


 And here’s a Sesame Street cartoon based around the rhyme!

Friday, 4 April 2014

Faith Ringgold


We've spent the last two weeks learning about the American artist Faith Ringgold. 

Faith is a great inspiration because not only is she a wonderful artist but she also worked hard through her life to bring about equality for African Americans and women.
She's a real life human rights defender! 

She is very famous for her story quilts (like Tar Beach).



We used these quilts as inspiration for our own art. 

We chose our favourite memory and surrounded it by the nicest pattern we could think of. 

Our story quilts came out great! Check them out here!

Field Trip to the Hedgerow


Today we went on a field trip to the hedgerow.  

We drew some things from the natural environment and also listed some things that didn't belong.  We also did a survey on the plants we saw - hawthorn, brambles, dandelion and goose grass/robin run the hedge. 





                             
We also saw some signs of spring.  We found lots of primroses.  There were lots of beautiful ladybirds on them.  




We saw a dandelion flower too.  Dandelion comes from the French name for the plant 'dan de lion' which means the teeth of the lion.  


                                             
We also saw a hawthorn bud burst.  This was very exciting as it was another of the signs of spring we were looking out for as part of the Greenwave project!


We saw lots of brambles on the field trip too.  We even spotted two snails on one of the leaves.



We really loved goose grass because it is so sticky.  Cecelia said that she used to stick this on her brother's back when they were children and we all had great fun trying this out on each other!