October was a busy month in 3rd and 4th class. We began the month immersing ourselves in a STEM project based on rivers. We studied the journey of a river, to discover it has three parts. It has an upper, middle and lower course. We learned all about the source, tributaries, and mouth of a river. We learned about the River Shannon in Ireland and the amazing Amazon River in South America. We even created our very own model of a river. We used sand, stones, tin foil, food colouring and water to create it. We placed sand and stones at the edges of a tray, and ran the tin foil in a meandering way through it. We diluted water with blue food colouring in a jug and poured into onto the tinfoil. However, we discovered this wasn’t an accurate model of a river as it wasn’t flowing. We came up with a plan to punch some holes with a pencil at the ‘mouth of the river’ and it did the trick. Our model river began to flow out into the sea, imitating a real river.

We then turned our focus to building a bridge to cross the river! We put our engineering hats on and worked in groups to design a bridge that would work. The aim was to ensure our bridge designs would hold a toy car for 30 seconds. We used a variety of materials to create our bridges, One team used building blocks, another used Lego, we had another group using cardboard and recycled materials, one using lollipop sticks and sellotape and we had an edible bridge made from ‘Pringles’. We used team effort, discussion, reason and problem solving to design and create our bridges. It was an exciting experience for us and allowed us to work as an engineer for a short while!

The history of Halloween came in a timely way for us and we discovered that Halloween dates right back to the time of The Celts. We focused on our scary Halloween stories first, where the children drafted, edited and redrafted their stories. We drew illustrations to go with them and we digitally added them to our typed version. The children really enjoyed using their imaginations and the writing process.

We rounded of the month with some very enjoyable Halloween pumpkin paintings and a haunted village craft scene!

Wishing everyone a safe and happy Halloween from all of us in 3rd and 4th class!

@Garrymoregaa

The children in 3rd and 4th class have a profound interest in GAA and their local GAA club, Garrymore. We decided to   use our interest to inspire a local history project in September. We dedicated the month to becoming historians and set about researching the foundation of the GAA and how Garrymore club came to be.

We discovered that Gaelic games date right back to the time of Cú Chulainn, when they started to play a sport with a ball and a stick, later to become known as hurling. We studied documents and articles from the famous meeting in Hayes’s Hotel when the GAA was founded on November 1st 1884. We learned about ‘seven men in Thurles’, Croke Park through the years, famous matches and of course our own football loving county, Mayo. We used recycled materials to construct our very own model of Croke Park. Working in teams, the children created the different sections and we put it together to create this masterpiece.

We then turned our focus to Garrymore. We researched the local history records we could find. We were amazed to learn that Garrymore started off as Ballyglass with a black and yellow jersey. The reason for changing the name to Garrymore was to make it possible to play all the Roundfort parish players and it was Tom and Paddy Murphy, who came up with the name Garrymore. The locals played football in the fields and moved the sticks they used as goalposts from field to field. We learned that the spirit of the locals brought the club to where it is today, a spirit that is ever evident in the locality. We discovered that many of the children in our school have relations who played for Garrymore. It was lovely to associate with history on a personal level for the children.

We were eager to source the oldest surviving player form Garrymore and we used local knowledge, and information for Garrymore GAA to help us. We were delighted to make comtact with Frank Kavanagh, who turned 94 in September and Martin Prendergast who will be 94 in December. We looked up our old school roll books and discovered that Martin Prendergast went to school in Gortskehy NS. The children wrote letters to them and talked about school life today and Carras underage football. It made the project special to be able connect with Martin and Frank.

We were privileged to welcome a special visitor to our classroom as part of the project. Billy FItzpatrick, a native of Ballyglass, who played with Garrymore from the day it was established. He shared stories with us about his school life as a child and how it differs from today, about playing in fields in Ballyglass, and about his time playing for Garrymore and Mayo and how he always had a football with him as a young fella. The children were very interested to hear his tips about becoming the best footballer you can be, and I am sure they are at home practising their skills with both feet! We played a game of football for him and he assured us the future is bright for Garrymore and Mayo! We would like to thank Billy for his very kind gift of some new Gaelic balls for our class, which the children will treasure. Billy helped us bring our history project alive with his first hand account of the early days in Garrymore. I am sure the children will forever remember the day, Billy Fitzpatrick came to school.

History came alive for us in 3rd and 4th class this September as we worked on this local history project. We are very proud to be connected with the wonderful story and spirit of Garrymore GAA club.

We have been working very hard in the middle room learning all about The Titanic. We researched information on our Chromebooks and we made slideshow presentations in groups. We then took on an art project where each child got a room on the ship to make. We used a shoe box and recyclable materials to create each room. We loved using our imaginations and being creative. Some of us even made The Titanic out of Lego at home and brought them in to share with each other. It was a very enjoyable project.

On the first of February we made St. Brigid’s crosses. They were made with rushes. Every class got a turn making them.

Saint Brigid was named after a goddess. She was born in Dundalk. She died in Kildare. Her feast day is on the first of February. Her name in Irish is Naomh Bríd. Her saint names are St. Brigid of Ireland or St. Brigid of Kildare. She is one of Ireland’s patron saints along with St. Patrick and St. Columba. She helped a lot of people and animals. She was very kind and loving. There are many stories of St. Brigid. Here is one of them.

One day while Brigid was cooking steak for dinner a hungry dog came by and smelled the food. He went to where Brigid was cooking. She gave him a steak even though she knew her father would be mad at her. The dog left and Brigid prayed that her father wouldn’t be angry. She looked in the pot and a new steak had appeared. God was helping her because she helped the dog.