MS READATHON
 By Kieran Mc Vey

The MS Readathon is back. It is starting on the 10th of October to the 10th of November. We normally do it for MS Ireland but this year we are doing it for The Brendan Rigter Foundation. The Readathon is in Sneem Natinoal school. 1st to 6th are reading books to raise money. 4th 5th and 6th are aiming to read 25,000 pages. If we achieve our goal we will have a party and have no home work and we will be able to dress up as our favourite book characters for the party. Let's hope we raise a lot of money for The Brendan Rigter Foundation.

Tom Crean

4th, 5th and 6th class are reading a book about Tom Crean. The book is called Tom Crean:Ice Man.

About Tom Crean

Tom Crean was born in Anascaul in 1877. Tom's parents were poor farmers.It was a hard life and when crops failed many people died.One day Tom was working in the potato field he accidentally let the cows in and they ate the potatoes.Tom's father was furious.He and Tom had a huge fight and Tom swore he would run away. Tom got his chance when one day a British Navy Officer came to the area.Tom asked the Officer if he could join the Navy.The Officer said yes.You were not allowed to join the Navy unless you were over 16 but Tom (who was only 15) lied about his age.So he joined the Navy.

The Discovery

After a few years working on the H.M.S Ringarooma (British Navy ship).Tom's life changed when they were docked in New Zealand. A ship called Discovery ported in the harbour. Captain Robert Scott (Discovery's Captain) said he had one man short for his expedition to the Antartic so Tom bravely joined. On this journey Tom Crean nevre managed to get to the South Pole. Tom was an exellent crew mamber he was tough, strong and reliable.

The Terra Nova

After a few years of no Antartica Tom got bored. He was delighted when Captain Scott invited Tom to join him on the ship Terra Nova for a race to the South Pole.

Britain vs Norway

It was going to be the British led by Robert Scott vs the Norweigians led by Roald Amundson. Half way through the race Robert Scott had to choose 4 men to continue and 3 to head back to base camp. Tom was not chosen! On the way to base camp L.t Evans (navigator) who was also sent back caught scurvy which is a bad disease. So Tom set out on his own to get to base camp. It was a 56km march through blizzards to base camp and he did it in 18 hours! Bill and L.t Evans survived.Tom was later awarded the Albert medal by King George V.

By Karl Buckley

Welcome Back!
We all arrived back to school on the 29th of August. There was great excitement to see how our garden had thrived over the Summer. After a brief time weeding (many hands make light work!) we took stock of our bounty. There were onions, turnips, strawberries, lettuce and lots of herbs. We tasted mint, rosemary, chives and our favourite...fennel. The beautiful flowers gave lots of colour to the garden. Sweetpeas and poppies and the bigggest sunflowers we have ever seen were out in all their glory. Unfortunately one of our new apple trees died over the Summer which was a real disappointment and we will have to replace it as soon as we can raise some money to buy a new one. We were surprised that there were apples found on the other apple tree as it is very young. This was a great surprise.
We picked our veg and added to our compost bin by feeding it the weeds. Poor old Garraí O Dóir, our scarecrow, fell over while we were away but we stood him up again to watch over our carrots while we wait for them to mature.
With the garden looking so good we couldn't resist spending lots of time there and we did lots of sketching of our plants and vegetables. We also sat outside one afternoon and painted what we saw in the garden.
Next on the gardeners' calender is seed collecting and planting garlic and beans.
Lets hope we have another busy and successful year in the garden

Christmas Art

Coming up to Christmas is always a busy month and great fun for the children their excitement is building up everyday! For the 1st week of December we decided to concentrate our time on Christmas Art and Crafts. We looked up various sources for ideas and came up with a few quick and easy pieces to make in the class.

We first started with the paper mache snowman for this we needed to make a mixture of flour and water and 2 balloons for each child and blowing them up 1 big and 1 small for the body and head of the snowman. The children started this on Monday they stuck on 1 layer of strips of newspaper this was then left dry overnight. The next day the children were ready to continue on again balloons were taped together to give the shape of the snowman's body this was done with great patience!! The children then stuck on a layer of white strips of computer paper and let dry over night and then painted the snowman white.


The children also made Christmas crackers out of crepe paper, 2 toilet rolls and some glitter and jewels for decorating and of course Christmas crackers have to be filled so what better to fill it with than sweets and lollipops much to the excitement of all the children they are still waiting patiently to crack them open!!!!! The children then went back to finish the snowman using material to make a scarf, pipe cleaners rolled up as buttons, and painted and decorated a paper cup to make the Snowman's hat. A Christmas tree was made to display on our classroom door this was made by drawing each child's hand print on a sheet of green card all of these were placed together and glued on triangular green card to give the shape of the tree and decorated with glitter and Christmas sequins and a shining silver star.

The Christmas Art was a long process but very enjoyable. It was their first time making paper mache some children looked at the mixture and taught we had a very bad looking porridge mixture in the pot and was worried they had to eat it!!!! Overall the children really enjoyed the Christmas Art and in the end they displayed beautiful looking Snowmen and crackers that they proudly displayed in the Classroom and throughout the School for all to see! : )

As part of a maths lesson Mr Husseys class learned all about Data they learned what Data means, how to put it together and how to conduct a survey from the different classes in the School. They first brainstormed in groups and came up with different headings for the data such as Favourite cartoons, Favourite Bands, Favourite Vegetable, Favourite TV shows, Favourite Animals, Favourite soccer player/ football player, Favourite Hobbies and Favourite Fruit. Each group picked a heading for the survey and they then called in the students of 4th-6th class to pick their favourite from each category. When they compiled all the information they added up the total for each all this was done roughly. Each group then put their data together and were ready to type it up on the computer and made charts using Microsoft XL. This programme was new to all the children but with a little help at the start they all flew through it and presented lovley colourful charts to display in the hallway. The children enjoyed this exercise as they liked surveying all the students in the senior class and then using the computer to present the work.

The children did a great job and improved and learned new computer skills.

Friday the 3rd of December Alan Mee came to our school he is an ornitholigist which means he studies birds. He came to tell us about the white tailed eagle who was newly intrudused to Ireland. One of the interesting things we discovered is that here in Sneem is where the only white eagle couple have decided to nest. He said there is a good chance they will mate next year and bring more wonderful birds into our parish. The two birds have only been spotted a couple of times around Sneem, they are beautiful birds and hopefully will be more around Ireland soon.