January
Elephant in the Room
Sometime on Monday 12th January, a mysterious mystical Elephant arrived in the halla - nobody knows where it came from - why it was here… all we can do is talk about it....
The Elephant in the Room is a stand alone installation of 5 metres with an accompanying light and soundscape. The construction and installation happened outside of school hours so that it seemed to the children to just appear out of nowhere.
Each class had an opportunity to visit the elephant and interact with it in their own way.
It provided a beautiful, immersive, entertaining and inspiring experience.
We are very grateful to Paul Curley, Ger Clancy, Draíocht, The Arts Council and the Riverbank Arts centre for the opportunity to build learning around this beautiful piece. Thanks to Ms. Donovan for organising.
Creative Schools
Ms. Hogan has been working hard Aideen our Creative Schools Associate. Our Creative Schools Workshop week ran from 19th-23rd January in the Academy hall. Stations were set up which each class got an opportunity to visit and explore their creativity. The workshops created a sense of excitement and curiosity and we monitored the students closely to see what they were most interested in. This will be a big factor in deciding what project our school focuses on for year 2 of Creative Schools.
Maths for Fun
Some of our second classes invited their parents in to play maths games with them. There was great engagement and it was lovely to see the learning taking place through fun and laughter.
Moroccan Ambassador
Kildare County Council welcomed His Excellency Lahcen Mahraoui, Ambassador of the Kingdom of Morocco to Ireland, to Kildare Town Community Library for the launch of the “Christians in Morocco: Living Together” Exhibition. Some of our 3rd and 4th class choir were invited to the library to sing some songs for the visiting Ambassador. Lina from 4th class presented him with a St. Brigid’s cross representing our countries friendship and cultural exchange.
Ms. Delaney’s class visit to Microsoft Dreamspace
0n the 29th of January we went on the bus to Dublin for a tour. We were invited by Microsoft because Isaac’s dad works for Microsoft and put our class forward for a visit to Dreamspace.
Dreamspce met us at Microsoft HQ and led us in and we put our bags in colourful lockers . After that, everyone got a nametag with a letter, everyone got in groups corresponding with their letter. When that was finished, we met our three tour guides who would do four activities with us.
For the first activity we did some puzzle solving , they gave us an example and we did the next two ourselves. Then we started the second activity each group A to I got a little robot with wheels around the size of a little toy car we also got some coloured card. When you placed the little robot on a piece of card it would do a different move. For the first activity, we had to find out what each card meant and for the second part we had to make a race track the tour guides looked at each one. The one they thought was the most creative, they gave some stickers to.
Next we had lunch and a little chat with our friends before getting a tour of the Microsoft building. We walked all around the building and we were really excited to see a Lego wall and a sleeping pod! It looks like such a cool place to work. We walked for a bit more and saw some offices and meeting rooms and to conclude the tour of the building we got a picture in front of a glass and LED light waterfall. When we returned the tour guides answered some of our questions and we started our last activity. It was coding a game. Everyone got in twos and threes , we did a step by step game coding activity. We coded our own game!! Everyone’s game was different because each group chose their own characters and background. When everyone was finished making them we walked around and tried each other’s games.
Overall, everyone had a great time and really enjoyed the experience.
St. Brigid’s Day
We celebrated St. Brigid’s day before the long weekend with a prayer service for the Junior classes and a mass for the Senior Classes. Thank you to Fr. Ger for being so generous with his time for us. Some of the 6th class children also went to the Friary to sing some songs.
Enrolments
We also met most of the children who will be joining us in Junior Infants in September. It was lovely to welcome them in to our school and we thank their parents for the time they put aside for this to happen.