Gorey Educate Together National School

During Bookweek, we had visits from authors Sarah Webb, Brianog Brady Dawson (pictured) and Oisin McGann. Some children chose to dress up as their favourite book character during the week and made a character trail through the school. Many thanks to all the families who helped to encourage our children to read more as well as raising funds for MS Ireland through the Readathon and for the school library through the Scholastic bookfair, also the many parents who volunteered to help out with various things to help make the week run more smoothly.

Here we are in groups working out what we know already about magnets and what we want to learn this year:  

Reuben:

There are 10 cookies in the jar,

There are 9 toys on the floor,

There are 8 yoghurts in the fridge,

There are 7 coats behind the door,

There are 6 forks in the drawer,

There are 5 pictures on the wall,

There are 4 glasses in the press,

There are 3 apples in the bowl,

There are 2 spiders under the bed

And 1 is climbing on the bed!!!

Naomi:

There are 10 dogs in the game,

There are 9 dogs on the floor,

There are 8 dogs in the bed,

There are 7 dogs behind the wall,

There are 6 dogs in the house,

There are 5 dogs on the wall,

There are 4 dogs in the washing machine,

There are 3 dogs in the school,

There are 2 dogs under the bed

And one is asleep!!!

Aran:

There are 10 skulls in the cauldron,

There are 9 spiders on the floor,

There are 8 mothers in the bathtub,

There are 7 sisters behind the wall,

There are 6 fathers in the field,

There are 5 boys on the wall,

There are 4 birds in the nest,

There are 3 eggs in the fridge,

There are 2 socks under the bed

And 1 is smelly!!!

Jason:

There are 10 apples in the trees,

There are 9 tiles on the floor,

There are 8 cups in the press,

There are 7 coats behind the door,

There are 6 toys in the toybox,

There are 5 pictures on the wall,

There are 4 chickens in the coop,

There are 3 games in the box,

There are 2 snakes under the bed,

And 1 is in the wardrobe!!!

Eric:

There are 10 lions in the house,

There are 9 monkeys on the floor,

There are 8 snakes in the zoo,

There are 7 elephants behind the door,

There are 6 seals in the toilet,

There are 5 tigers on the wall,

There are 4 stick insects in the dishwasher,

There are 3 penguins in the bath,

There are 2 hyenas under the bed

And 1 is doing a jigsaw!!! 

Thank you to the families who joined us for our history projects about growing and changing. Nora, Christina, Lauren, Ruth and Eve…you’re fantastic!!!!We loved finding out about growing up in Africa from Janine…thank you for showing us the photos and toys and telling us all about the adventures you had!

After listening to some of our favourite stories about ‘The Little Red Train’ we composed our own train journeys!We used hand-held percussion instruments, our voices and body percussion to re-create exciting train journeys and the sounds we would hear…it was noisy and FUN!!!

As part of drama we became Kings for a day.We walked and talked like kings, designed individual crowns and role-played a day in the palace!Andrea thinks we could all really get used to palace life!!!:)

All hands on deck to create a beautiful ‘Poetree’ in the school library.Thank you to all the classes who helped so far and looking forward to displaying your wonderful work over the year:

In first class we have been doing some drama and science activities around the nursery rhyme favourite ‘Humpty Dumpty’.     We discussed lots of things we had previously taken for granted, such as 1)Why did Humpty sit on a wall? 2)Why did he fall? 3)Why couldn’t the King’s Men and King’s Horses put him back together again?  Some very interesting walls were designed along with some suggestions: Humpty just wanted to climb like all kids…Humpty wanted to see what was beyond Egg-Kingdom over the wall…Humpty was looking for his Egg-Friends who had all mysteriously vanished…Horses couldn’t mend Humpty because they would probably trample on him or eat him up…horses wouldn’t understand the instructions…horses don’t have hands only hooves…they should have brought in Egg-people who would be experts in mending broken shells!!!

In Andrea’s Class we have been drawing and chatting about moving from St. Waleran’s.  It is a big change for everybody and we needed to talk about it!  We read the book “The Huge Bag of Worries” and just then our lovely new teacher Chloe came to visit.  We all agreed she was really nice!!!Here are some of the questions we asked:

• Will there be a playground?
• What will we see when we look out the windows?
• Will there be whiteboards?
• Will there be toys?
• Will Raymond bring the Green Box?
• Will there be grass?
• Will there be trees?
• Will there still be a Green Committee?
• Will the tables and chairs be the same?
• Will our new teacher be kind?
• Who will be teaching groups?
• Will there only be one door to go in and out?
• Will it be just like here?
• Will there be any squirrels?
• Will there be speed ramps?
• Why can’t we stay here?
• Will there be another school here?

Some things we feel a bit sad about are:

• Saying goodbye to Matthew and Kathleen
• Saying goodbye to Andrea & Teresa 
• That we won’t be able to use the lift!
• We will miss our playground at St.Waleran’s and the squirrels!
• We will miss all the different trees
• We will miss our prefab

We feel excited about:

• Having stairs
• Having bigger classrooms
• Meeting new friends
• Singing with our new teacher Chloe
• Being back with our friends from Fiona’s class
• Rolling down the hill in our new school (!!)
• Having different types of playgrounds, not only grass…It will be easier to play hula-hoop games and skipping on a hard playground…and maybe basketball.
• Not having leaks in the roof.
• Having interactive whiteboards like the one Simon showed us one day!
• Having more computers and the internet in our classroom.
• Seeing what all the new teachers will look like
• Not having to go outside in the rain to get to group work classes
• Still having assembly together
• Maybe doing shared reading or a project with our friends in Andrea and Chloe’s classes