We have a busy few months of learning and fun in 5th class. One of the highlights was our zoom visit from author Jackie Burke, author of the Grindlewood series and the new Harp Maiden. You can read a report by Isaac and see a beautiful illustration by Roseanna in the December DNS Newsletter. This was the first of two zoom visitors that we had! The second was Kieran who presented the 2021 Microsoft Hour of Code. We had been lucky to do the hour of code last year with Kieran when he came to our classroom and we used the iPads. This year he was virtually there but brought us right back to what coding is and how to break a problem down in order to find a solution. It really was great fun and big thanks to Kieran for the super lesson!
The class were first introduced to the really important period in Irish history of the famine last year in fourth. This year we have delved even further and have had really excellent discussions on the Great Famine and have deepened our knowledge to what is such an important and sad part of our history. Alannah shared a interactive beautiful book with us which followed the story of a young boy who was forced to emigrate to America. We read about his life in Ireland and his subsequent life in America. We also looked at the really interesting UCC website based on the census from 1841 and 1851 see UCC – The Great Famine Online.
Mr Howard taught us all about Advent and he also helped us create beautiful clay cribs. They really turned out very well and were delicately transported home in cube boxes that we made and decorated ourselves.
Musically Mrs Ovington taught us how to play Deck the Halls on boomwhackers which we performed for the Christmas Video message.
The class created beautiful recycled Christmas Decorations which you can see displayed below.
Much, much more learning and fun was had and we look forward to plenty more in 2021!
