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Presentation Primary School Waterford

A great tradition of education in Waterford since 1798

First Class

Mrs O'Brien

February-  A short but busy month! We enjoyed listening to various stories- ‘Three Billy Goats‘ and ‘The Ugly Duckling’ to name a few. We did poems such as ‘Mix a Pancake’ and ‘A Spike of Green.’ We did some report writing on Spain and a native Irish animal- the fox! We also went on a trip to the library where we did a drawing activity and story time. 

In Irish, we concentrated on the themes ‘An Aimsir’ and started ‘Eadaí.’ We studied a poem called ‘An Bháisteach’ and a song ‘Bróga ar mo Chosa’ to name a few. 

In Maths, we worked on our Number Strand, learned how to represent and interpret data and learned about weight. We also estimated the weight of some classroom items, it was great fun!

In SESE, we learned about Spanish festivals, life in Spain, studied Picasso and we completed a fact-file on Spain. We also read about Christopher Columbus, learned about some native Irish Animals, the earth’s natural features, the life cycle of a tomato plant and discussed what we need for planting seeds and what is required for growth.  

For Music, we did the song – The Mango Walk, The Soda Pop Waltz, Tea for Two and used body percussion and various instruments to illustrate the story of the Gingerbread Man. 

Our Drama was based on the Three Billy Goats, a space theme and one-line improvisational Drama which can be very challenging as we had to improvise on the spot!

For Art, we made a lovely card for our parents, did handprints, space craft rocket art and drew like Picasso!

For SPHE, we learned about Internet Safety and what to do if we were bullied, learned about the importance of friendship through various activities for Well-Being week, strategies to prevent bullying and learned that exclusion is also a form of bullying.

For PE, we finished off our gymnastics lessons, did some playground games and movement breaks with Fyffes Fitness. We also started Swimming lessons and really enjoyed our first lesson. 

In Religion, we did the themes – Reconciliation, Lent and Celebrating Mass and the gifts that are brought to the altar. 

January has been a quick month! We chatted about how we can do our best to recycle and reuse. We also did poems called ‘I’m a little Penguin’ and ‘The Worm.’ Our handwriting has really improved too- we finished all our letters of the alphabet. 

In Irish, our theme was ‘Caitheamh Aimsire’ and we really enjoyed learning the poem ‘Cuimhil do Bhosa.’ 

We really enjoy Maths games. Telling the time and fractions were some of the things we were learning about this month. 

Our theme for SESE was ‘Play.’ We love anything to do with play! We learned about games in the past, games from around the world, active ways to play, investigated magnets, toys 100 years ago and today, designed a playground, learned about the park ranger and investigated bouncy balls and which bounced the highest. 

We learned a lot of songs about cats and illustrated the life of a cat by making various sounds! We really enjoyed the song ‘I wanna sing Scat!’

We love doing drama in our classroom. We really enjoyed the ‘Run-away Iceberg’ drama activity where we had to recall elements of the story. We also did other drama activities- a role-play of the Children or Lir was another one we really enjoyed. 

For Art, we made lovely Penguins and added textured tummies with white crepe paper, we painted a dark forest and added Little Red Riding Hood to it, made a colour wheel and did some paper weaving for St. Brigid’s Day. 

We learned about different feelings- safe and unsafe and what to do if we feel unsafe.

For PE, we started gymnastics. We also did some more playground games and enjoyed doing movement breaks with Fyffes Fitness Squad.  

In Religion, we learned about the gospel at mass, reconciliation and did some nice activities for Catholic Schools Week. 

Well done to Freya who brought in medals and a trophy for her Irish dancing and Kayla who brought in a medal for soccer.

December- We enjoyed the month of December because we did a lot of Christmas related things! We listened to some Christmas themed stories, we illustrated a poem called  ‘The Chubby Little Snowman’ and lots, lots more!

In Irish, we concentrated on the theme ‘An Nollaig’ and learned a lot of new vocabulary. We also listened to a story called ‘Bréagáin na Nollag.’

We learned about the value of Money and used coins up to 20c. It was very challenging as Ms. O’ Brien added in bigger coins to confuse us! We also practised number and we always enjoy coming to the board for various games.

Our theme for SESE was Winter, we listened to new fairy tales by Hans Christian Andersen, Christmas in the past, winter traditions around the world, animals/plants in winter, learned about directions by doing a Reindeer map, learned some facts on Lapland, learned about seals, did an experiment on salt crystals and another experiment on whether fat keeps us warm. We were very busy indeed!

We learned the song ‘Ten Little Angels’, ‘Mary had a Baby’, ‘Little Drummer Boy’ and sang various Christmas songs in the hall with all the other classes.

For Drama, we did a role play on a melting snowman, did some Christmas themed improvisation and also went to the hall to watch the Drama club put on a wonderful performance of Christmas traditions around the world.

We really enjoyed our Art for December. We did Snowman, 3D Christmas Tree Cards and we made an Elf Door Decoration.

We also learned about Media and Christmas, Safety at Christmas and did another Bullying lesson.

We enjoyed our Zumba classes. We also love going out on a Friday to do some playground games!

In our Religion classes, we learned about Advent and Christmas and the different colour candles that are lit each week in the church.

In the lead up to the holidays, we watched a Christmas movie and had popcorn and also some well-deserved down time!


November…

Back after the Halloween holidays, they flew! In English, we did a recount of our Halloween holidays, listened to the stories of Goldilocks, Jack and the Beanstalk, The Three Little Pigs, Owl Babies, did written activities based on these stories, studied a poem called ‘Spaghetti Challenge’ and wrote a poem about ‘Winter.’ We love library time on a Friday because we get to pick a new book to read! 

In Irish, we concentrated on the theme ‘Bia’ and did a poem ‘An Lón’ and ‘Cad atá uait don bhricfeasta?’ 

In Maths, we played shop with play money, measured things around the classroom including measuring our hallway with a trundle wheel, 3d shapes and lots, lots more!

In SESE, our theme was ‘Homes’. We learned about homes in the past, different types of homes, sources of heat, household items from the past, looked at a local landmark, developed a sense of awareness on homelessness, amazing animal homes and learned about owls. We also took part in lots of nice experiments for Science week which you will see from our pictures and this video Science Week

In Music, we listened to the song ‘Don’t Change Horses.’ We also learned the ‘Fruit Song’, ‘Tinga Layo’ and drew pictures to represent various music. 

In Drama, we did role play, voice production, mime and freeze frames based on Goldilocks, Jack and the Beanstalk, The Three Little Pigs and Owl Babies. 

For Art, we did a fruit bowl mosaic, watched a step-by-step video on drawing Goldilocks and the Three Bears, painted Owls and did some cool Winter Trees.

In SPHE, we looked at Fact or Fiction in relation to media, the different ways in which information can be communicated and designed our own advertisements! 

In PE, we did Zumba dancing and we like to do playground games on a Friday! We also had Fyffe’s fitness squad come to the school and do a fitness session with us. 

In Religion, we concentrated on celebrating the saints for the month of November, the importance of mass, Nano Nagle and learned about the beginning of Advent and what candles we might see in the church. 

We hope you enjoy looking at all our pictures!

October  – In English, we listened to nice autumnal and Halloween stories such as – The Little Acorn, Don’t Hog the Hedge, Winnie the Witch and Room on the Broom. We also enjoyed writing about what the witch was to put in her cauldron!
In Irish, we focussed on the theme of ‘Ar Scoil’ and ‘Oíche Shamhna.’ We learned a few nice songs, in particular ‘Ag dul ar scoil’ and made up actions to go with it.
In Maths, we have been doing addition and subtraction sums, ordinal number, all about spatial awareness etc. For Maths week, we did a lot of nice activities, such as guessing the ducks in the jar, a mushroom number hunt outside in addition to lots of games.
In SESE, our theme was mainly all about autumn! We sequenced the story of the Enormous Turnip, learned about the signs of autumn, experimented with Light in Science, learned some interesting facts about India and life in India, learned about spiders, planted some seeds in our class greenhouse and learned all about Halloween traditions.
In Music, we listened to a Nigerian song, a song about autumn and learned the song ‘Winnie the Witch.’ We also composed actions and sounds to go with our Halloween song.
For Drama, we had M & M Production company come and visit our school and they put on a wonderful performance of Cinderella- they were super! We also did our own dramas around the Enormous Turnip and some Halloween themed drama activities.
For Art, we did an Autumn tree, a leaf sun catcher, bat silhouettes and coloured and put together a witch for Halloween! We also added a magnet to the back of our witch so that we could stick it on our fridge!
In SPHE, we identified bullying situations in the playground, designed a green ribbon with our buddies for World Mental Health Day, talked about showing our feelings and identified ways of keeping safe at Halloween.
We did Athletics for PE and set up stations in the hall, it was super fun! We have also started Zumba dancing which will continue for a number of weeks.
We learned a lot in our Religion lessons. Two girls in our class brought in rosary beads as we had been learning about the rosary. We also learned about Jesus, the Miracle worker.
A big well done to Emily, Freya and Leah for taking part in the Summer Stars Reading Programme. The girls received a medal and certificate for their huge effort. Our class also received a certificate from Ms. Govern for best attendance for the month of October!
September has come and gone! It was a busy first month back to school. We chatted about our summer holidays and our hopes for first class. We learned two poems, one called ‘September’ and the other was called ‘Good Morning.’ We started our handwriting book and listened to stories such as the Little Red Hen, Giraffe’s Can’t Dance and The Very Hungry Caterpillar to name a few. We also had an important visitor to our school, a famous author! Mr. Kensika Monshengwo did some storytime with us.
We did the Theme ‘Mé Féin’ in Irish and learned a lot of nice songs We particularly liked the song ‘Ceann Gualainn, Glúin is Cos’ and ‘Teidí Tinn.’ We love coming up to the board and taking part in the interactive activities.
In Maths, we practised our counting forwards and backwards, addition and 2d shapes. We enjoy using cubes and our mini whiteboards in addition to interactive games.
In SESE, we concentrated on the theme of ‘Myself’ and chatted about our summer holidays, our first day of school, drew up a plan for our school garden, learned about our five senses, drew a bird’s eye view, learned about our family time-line and learned about people who help us in our community.
In Music we learned some nice songs called ‘I can’t stop tapping’, The Five Senses Song, Shake, Shake, Shake and a song about people who help us.
In Drama, we made up a drama contract. We did a drama based around the Little Red Hen, the Very Hungry Caterpillar mime and People who help us. We love drama, it is such good fun!
In Art, we did self-portraits, Little Red Hen Art, printing with potatoes to make caterpillars and coloured in Giraffes. We absolutely love Art in our classroom.
We also discussed class rules, discussed things we were good at, chatted in pairs about our favourite things, a lesson on bullying involving The Three Little Pigs and also some wonderful activities for kindness week with our buddies in Ms. O’ Dwyer’s class.
In PE, we have been concentrating on Athletics. It has been great fun!
In Religion, we sang a song called ‘Together Again’ and brought in pictures of our baptism. How everyone has changed!

We are all excited to be back to school! First Class here we come! We want to welcome Ariana, a new girl that has joined our class this year. We are looking forward to an exciting year ahead.