Author: msquinn Page 3 of 4

Fifth class have been going to swimming in Sean McDermott St pool this term. We have learned the backstroke, the frog or the breaststroke, the dolphin where we swim under water and the mermaid where we wriggle our feet. We are all making great improvements.

We have been doing African art and really enjoying it. Here is a photo of some of our work.

In Italian we learned the days of the weeks and months of the year. Oggi é venerdi, due dicembre.

We had the school book fair and bought lots of great books and stationery. We are enjoying reading our books now.

Now that it’s December we are getting ready for Christmas and our Christmas Concert on 16^th December. Our class will do a dance with Francesca and a Christmas carol. We look forward to performing for everyone.

Fifth class have been studying, computers, communication and Internet safety. The Interent is great for entertainment and information but it can also be dangerous if you are not careful. We all designed our own rules to keep children safe on the Internet. Here are our top ten rules.

1. Don’t accept friendship requests form someone you don’t know. Don’t reply to chat or emails from strangers.

2. Never go onto video chat with someone you don’t know, or send photos to someone you don’t know.

3. Be careful putting up pictures of yourself as other people can tag or copy them. Don’t put up pictures of other people without their permission.

4. Never give your name, phone number, address or other personal information on a website. You should click ‘don’t show’ your email address or other personal information.Alway have your settings on private.

5. If anyone is bullying you, or says or does anything that worries you on the internet, you should tell an adult that you trust.

6. You should have antivirus software and be careful not to click on or download from websites you don’t know.

7. Never bully or fight with others on the Internet.

8. You should only go on websites designed for children and never onto adult websites.

9. Never meet anyone face to face that you only know from the Internet.

10. Don’t spend too much time on the Internet, it is important to play outside and chat to people face to face as well.

Two weeks ago, we went to the Natural History Museum and the National Art Gallery. In the natural History Museum, we saw lots of dead, stuffed animals, such as elephants, giraffes, zebras, sharks and birds. We weren’t allowed to touch them but some people had a sneaky touch and they were very soft.

The National Art Gallery was very big and it was lovely. We saw Irish paintings, a Picassso, a Van Gogh, lots of Jack B Yeats and many other paintings. Our favourite was Jack B Yeats, particularly the Singing Horseman.

We are continuing to read Across the Divide and really enjoying it. We are on Chapter 6 now and learning loads about Jim Larkin and life in 1913.

We won the Marbles in the Jar last week and did really well this week too. We hope to win again soon.

Lots of our class are going to see the Belvedere play Mama Mia so we might write about that next week.

Last week was World Book Day

Our class went to the National Library last week to see Oisin McGann. He is an author and an illustrator. He told us to write our stories into a little notebook if we want to be authors. He said to record all our ideas in the notebook, or even on our phones. He drew pictures for us and said to do them really light first in pencil and then go over them in black marker. It was great to see him and we would definitely go again.

After the National Library, we went to Easons on O’Connell St. We used our book tokens to get books. We also were given goody bags. We had good fun there reading and finding interesting books.

Alice and Cara went to the Ballybough Community Centre to see the author of Across the Divide, Brian Gallagher. All the schools in the area will be reading this book and doing activites on it. Alice and Cara got signed copies of the book. All of the class got a copy as well. We just started reading the book and it seems very interesting.

We are still collecting sponsorship for our Readathon so hope we do very well.

On Tuesday we had Science for Fun. We did lots of new experiments. One experiment was using red cabbage to dye cloths red. Then we  dabbed vinegar (acid) on it and saw it turn pink. Then we dabbed bread soda (alkaline) on it and it turned it blue.

Another experiment was to make chrystals. We made them by adding bread soda and cream of tartar to water and mixing them. We will leave them for a few more days to let them dry out to make the chrystals.

Elaine organised the class and some of the parents came to help out. We had lots of fun and can’t wait for next Tuesday.

In our school there are Rules of the Week. All classes try really hard to follow them, and if they do, they get a marble in the jar. In assembly on Mondays, all classes tell how many marbles they have. Then Miss Burke tells us which class has the most and is the winner for that week.

Last week our class won! For our prize we watched a dvd and had popcorn. It was great, the film we watched was The Little Rascals and it was really funny. We really enjoyed ourselves and will try our best to win again soon.