First draft..second draft..biography!
We worked very hard this week learning how to write an effective biography. We wrote our first draft, edited, and then wrote our final draft with everything needed to make a fine piece of writing. Some of us wrote biographies of Vincent Van Gogh, who we were studying in art. The rest of us wrote biographies of someone at home. See the gallery below.
Engineers Week – Lego and Soccer!
We were invited to Tallaght Stadium on Tuesday to participate in an Engineers’ Week workshop on building solid structures.
We took part in a tour of the Stadium thereafter, and entered all the rooms used by Shamrock Rovers and their visiting teams.
Morocco Afternoon
(From our study of the world’s continents and their countries)
This week we studied the continents of the world. As Mr. Daly had first-hand experience of Morocco, a country in the African continent, we were able to have a Moroccan afternoon where we drank mint tea and ate cous cous and dressed in traditional moroccan clothing.
Our Norman Castles
Running Challenge Update
Aaron has finished his running challenge and is 2210m into his 5k walking challenge. Well done!
Story of the Year!
Please enjoy this highly amusing account of M. Connors’ weekend. We all enjoyed the use of conjunctions, adverbs, adjectives and sentence openers.
Aaron’s 7k
Challenge
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With Cross Country and Santry Track and Field season fast approaching, Aaron has decided to take on a new challenge.
Always a proud supporter of St Cillian’s athletics, Aaron is now endeavouring to run or jog 2km himself and to walk (or otherwise travel!) 5km by the Easter Holidays.
Stay tuned to the school Instagram (stcilliansns) for regular updates and check back here for the results of Aaron’s challenge!
Another Gardening Update!
Gardening Update
Dublin 8/12 Indoor Soccer Tournament
Congratulations to our girls’ victory in the competition in St. Michael’s hall Inchicore! 3 consecutive wins. Our boys also fared extremely well with 1 win and 2 draws. See below for pictures and first-hand accounts of the action.
Preparing for Christmas
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“I’m putting on the Sleighbells, can you hear them ring? The sound makes me so happy, I could fairly Sing!
So says Mistletoe the elf in our upcoming Christmas concert.
We have been decorating, rehearsing, cutting, sticking and getting ready to celebrate the birth of our Lord Jesus this Christmas. We will also soon be harvesting our cabbages and hopefully Brussels sprouts!
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November Update
We have been examining word types, exploring the settings of our new novels, and tackling fractions and division in maths. We found in 6th class that by making a “Tool Kit” for each topic, it helps us decide what we can use to solve a maths problem!
October Attendance Feast!
Well done to all those punctual children trying their best to get to school every day.
Basketball
We attended a Basketball workshop organised by the Irish Wheelchair Association. After a near miss due to bad weather, we finally arrived at Bluebell Community Centre for two hours of basketball in Olympic-standard wheelchairs. We would like to thank the Irish Wheelchair Association and Bluebell Community Centre for facilitating this event free of charge. See below for an account of the whole event.
We are Scientists!
Talya and Alex show us how to mix chemicals (safely!) and paint to produce SLIME! Check out St. Cillian’s N.S. Instagram page for more science madness.
Welcome to Halloween Town!
The time of the year for witches, darkness, magic and mischief has come again!
Mr. Daly visited a pumpkin farm in Co. Meath and brought back an awesome pumpkin for us to prepare. We also arrived at school on Monday to see a turnip carved out with a flame in the middle! Can you tell those at home why this is?
We wrote terrific sets of instructions to show how the process was done.
Lights, stations, action!
We have begun using maths stations for our maths “TOPIC DAYS” on Thursdays and Fridays. We cover one area of the maths curriculum from Monday to Wednesday, and cover a totally different area on Thursdays and Fridays through fun and engaging “stations” set up around the classroom (or even the yard!). This means we are covering the whole curriculum in an easy and engaging way!
We would also like to welcome Matheus to our classroom, all the way from Brazil!
Mindfulness
Ms. Ruane organised a visit to the Senior Room last week. Monika, who is originally from Poland, arrived with a variety of percussion instruments such as singing bowls, chimes, a gong, drums and a rainstick. We practiced mindfulness from 1st class to 6th class by focusing on the sounds of the instruments.
Gardening Update
We were lucky to get a donation of a whopping €400 from GoFundMe.ie.
We took a shopping trip down the Naas Road to Woodies – the staff there are getting used to seeing us!
We will be planting winter cabbages and crocus, dandelion and hyacinth flowers in our two new raised beds.
We harvested some of the Cauliflowers, which Mr. Daly used to make cauliflower pizza bites! They were surprisingly delicious!
September 2017 Update
Welcome back to Senior Room, who have blasted back to school and completed their first month of 3rd,4th, 5th and 6th class!
Below we are examining the longest word in the English language, celebrating the attendance breakfast of those with full attendance from September and enjoying a visit from past pupils Jemma and Abigail, who are thriving in Goldenbridge and Loreto Crumlin.
We are making a vegetable garden.
The Senior Room are making raised beds for the school. We made lists of what we need. We went online to check Woodies and Homebase and decided on Woodies as it was cheaper. We went on Google Earth and we planned where the best location would be. It needed to be a place where no one could see, and where it got sunshine from North and South. Finally, we went to Woodies and bought and all the equipment and plants. Stay tuned for pictures of the finished product!
Bizworld
In June, 3rd to 6th class took part in some business studies. We made up our own businesses and pitched them to a panel of “Dragons”.
Our businesses were Spin Kinetic (Justin, Leon, Lee and Ryan) AACE Speedy Cars (Aaron, Caoimhe, Alex and Emma) and Not So Nutty (Abigail, Kacie, Stuart, Rían and Talya).
Thank you so much to Avril and John from Bank of Ireland who came to guide us through Bizworld.
Click on the gallery below to view the whole experience!
Football as Gaeilge
Táimid ag imirt peile as Gaeilge.
Féach ar ár bhfuinneog – tá na focail peile ann!
Éist leis an físeán freisin.
Santry Track & Field
Mr. Daly would like to congratulate his entire class (and 2nd class!) for taking part in their events in Morton Park in Santry. We had two scorching days and two shiny medals. Talya came second in her Hurdles Race by doing the famous Talya move – saving her energy till everyone else is tired, and then releasing the speed for the last few metres!! Justin was unstoppable, coming first place in his event, but it wasn’t just his ability that was unstoppable – he was seen by many teachers and students from other schools offering wise words of encouragement to the losing participants of his race! What a positive attitude!
Congratulations to all participants.
The medal Justin shows below is from the Association of Irish Powerchair Football that took place this weekend. Justin’s team triumphed and he got another medal to add to his collection! Well done!
Senior Room
A Marockin’ Good Time!
We’re learning all about Morocco in Geography at the moment. We thought it would be a great idea to try some Moroccan Cuisine!
Mr. Daly dressed in traditional Moroccan clothes and dished up cous cous with raisins and sweetcorn, flat bread, dried dates and Michael prepared mint tea (using a traditional iron tea pot) to wash it all down. Delicious!
Kilmainham Gaol Trip!
World Book Day – Check out our costumes!
St. Patrick’s Week
We had a busy, busy week leading up to St. Patrick’s Weekend! Mr. Daly’s class learned an Irish song, “Haul Away Joe”, which would have been sung by Irish sailors aboard ships coming to and from America. Click on the video below to see us perform it for the Junior Room!
We also had a visit from Fionn Ó hAllmhain, an Uillean Piper from Dublin. He played us a selection of traditional Irish tunes on his pipes as well as showing us the different parts: the chanter, the “regs” and the drone.
Last but not least, we had a feast in Senior Room with food we prepared by ourselves in a cooking lesson. We made GREEN Rice Krispie Squares and delicious Irish Colcannon – mash with green kale!
Engineering Week
We had some special visitors to inform us about the world of engineering and discovered that we have a few budding engineers among us. A few days later at the K’Nex engineering competition in Tallaght Library, Justin and Michael won the competition by designing a working bridge with supports!
Have a look at the gallery below for some more images from Engineering Week.
Breakfast Reward – December & January
Congratulations to all the full attendees in the Senior Room….Breakfast was sausages and white rolls along with a few other treats!
Japan with Mr Daly
Our new teacher, Mr. Daly, brought his Zen to the Senior Room recently. Following a Christmas trip to Japan by Mr. Daly, 3rd to 6th Class studied Japanese customs and culture both ancient and modern. There were wonderful examples of Japanese art on display on the classroom walls along with informational writing pieces. Here are some of the pictures of the Zen gardens created by the children.
Athletics at Donore Harriers Athletics Club
Senior room children attended an athletics event at Donore Harriers Athletics Club last week. We had trained for a number of weeks in the run up to the event and all our athletes finished very well. The course was challenging with hills along twists and turns. Justin participated in a 100m paralympic time trial. His best time at home was 1 minute 30 seconds, on the track he achieved a fantastic 1 minute 27 second time! We were all very proud of him. Many thanks to Gerry of Donore Harriers for organising the event and a special thanks to Mr. O’Donovan for entering our school. We had a great time!
Maths Week – Figure Me Out
What a busy Maths Week 2016 we’ve had! Monday started with ‘Guess How Many Sweets in the Jar?’ Kacie (3rd) was the Senior Room winner, Ianis (1st) was the 1st & 2nd Class winner and we had joint winners in the Junior & Senior Infants groups. They were Karl (J.I.), Harrison (S.I.) & Evan (S.I.) so all three children received 17 sweets each! On Tuesday, we made Figure Me Out posters for the school corridor using number sentences to give clues as to who made the poster. On Wednesday, Ms. Connolly organised Maths Trails for both the Junior and Senior Rooms. It was great to be out in the fresh air solving the maths clues. On Thursday, Ms. Kennedy lead a Maths writing in character session and drawing session. The children from 1st to 6th Classes pretended to be a number and wrote a funny story about their number’s adventures. And lastly on Friday, we had two fantastic Maths 4 Fun games sessions organised by Mr. O’Donovan. We’d like to thank all the parents who volunteered an hour of their time to help out. The children really enjoyed the sessions. A 1st Class child was heard saying ‘I wish it was Maths Week every week!’ as he left school on Friday. That’s the attitude to Maths we love in St. Cillian’s!
The Role of the Garda – Garda Méabh
Garda Méabh from Clondalkin Garda Station visited our school today. She spoke to the children about the role of the Garda in our community. She said we could call the Gardaí whenever we need help or feel unsafe. They are available 24 hours a day. She showed the children parts of her uniform and even her handcuffs! We look forward to seeing Garda Méabh in a couple of weeks for her talk on Halloween Safety.
Romero Britto – Art
The Senior Room were working on the concepts of artist Romero Britto as part of our September unit of work about Brazil and South America. He describes his art as ‘happy art’ and I think the children of 3rd, 4th, 5th and 6th Class totally captured that idea. Take a look at our display inside the front door…….
Ms. Ruane & Singing
Ms. Ruane visits our school each week on Tuesday and Wednesday. We’ve discovered she is a very talented lady! We are a very lucky to have a singing session with Ms. Ruane and her guitar every Wednesday afternoon. We expect to build up a wide selection of songs throughout the year.
Drama with Janine
With the continued sunshine, Janine has held her drama classes outside with the children of St. Cillian’s. Its been wonderful to see the children enjoying the simple things like sitting on the grass and laughing loudly in our outdoor classroom.
Health & Wellbeing Week 2016
This September, the children took part in a full day of activities at Tallaght Stadium to celebrate Health and Wellbeing Week. The children participated in some new sports including Tug ‘o War, Boxing, Soccer Drills and Zumba. Special guests at the event were Minister for Children and Youth Affairs, Katherine Zappone along with the Mayor of South Dublin, Guss O’Connell. It was a wonderful day of fun and teamwork.
