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.

Rowing

This year seven children from our school took part in four regattas and the All-Ireland Rowing Championship during the summer. The people from our school were in the under 12 girls crew and the under 12 mixed crew. In the under 12 mixed crew were, stroke oar Siobhan O Sullivan, bow, David O Sullivan, Tadhg O Sullivan and Ben o Shea. In the under 12 girls crew were, stroke oar, Mary-Teresa Burns. Bow, Stacey Righter, Saoirse Kavanagh and Rachael Looney.

Under 12 mixed - blue
Under 12 girls - red

Sneem - 3rd , 2nd
Waterville - 1st , 4th [County championships]
Cromane - 3rd , 7th
Callinafercy - 1st , 4th
Whitegate Cork - 4th , 8th [All-Ireland coastal
rowing championships]

Under 12 girls are county champions

Miss Behrends

This September my school got an American teacher, her name is Miss Behrends. She is staying until December, and is teaching 4th, 5th and 6th class while she is here. Miss Behrends is staying in the home of the Murphy’s (Tara, Rachel, Joe, Maureen and Joe). She is from Illinois, she has 7 nieces and nephews and 2 brothers. She is alot of fun because she plays games with us. Miss Behrends teaches us Maths, Science, Drama, Art and English, she does not teach Irish as she does not know any. She helps us any time we need it. Her favourite things about Ireland is travelling and teaching, also while she is here she will be visiting France, London and Germany. Her favourite things to do are take pictures, travel, run, bake and scrap book. She is here for one more month, and when she goes back home she will be a full time teacher, and would like to teach Kindergarten (senior infants). She is enjoying her time here but would like to stay a little bit longer.

By Tara Murphy

Halloween Fancy Dress

On the last day before midterm break we all had a party in school and we dressed in scary clothes. Everyone dressed-up even our American teacher Miss Behrends. All of our costumes were recycled. Here are some examples. Miss Behrends dressed up as a mummy. Tara Murphy dressed up as an American football player. Stacey Rigter dressed up as a serial killer. And David Murphy dressed-up as a wizard. Our teacher called up seven people and the rest of the class got to vote the best one. First prize was a voucher for an ice-cream shop ,€10 worth of ice-cream. And the runners-up got a bag of sweets. Everyone voted and the winner was Rachael Looney. She wore an old t-shirt and an old skirt, covered in newspaper. And she had tin cans as bracelets.


By Catherina Murphy