Take a look at our story on the ‘Storybird’ website


We had a visitor to our room this week. Her name was Aisling. Aisling is doing voluntary work in the school. She is thinking about becoming a teacher.

Happily after her week in Room 6 Aisling seems even more enthusiastic about teaching 🙂 Aisling completed a great body of work in our class this week.

In Art she helped the children with the construction of their names as seen earlier this week on Photopeach.

Link for Art Project ‘I Got A Name’ on Photopeach

Then she worked with each child on a collaborative story on the website called ‘Storybird’.

As described on the ‘Storybird’ site, ‘Storybird reverses the process of visual storytelling by starting with the image and “unlocking” the story inside’. The children choose an artist or a theme and base their stories on the pictures.

Unsurprisingly, the children chose the theme of ‘Halloween’! We have published these stories online.

BELOW ARE THE LINKS FOR THE TWO PARTS OF THE STORY.
If you like to read the story with your child, they will tell you which page they wrote.

Room Six and their teacher would like to thank Aisling for all her hard work 🙂

Halloween Story Part One on ‘Storybird’

Halloween Story Part Two on ‘Storybird’

If your child enjoys story writing you might consider signing up for a ‘Storybird’ account. To do so is free.
Though as with many of these sites, there is a ‘Pro’ option which you would pay for.

We are learning about maps and plans

The children enjoyed this activity in school today.

Maybe they would like to try it at home and you can see the kind of work we are doing.

‘A Game about using Keys or Legends on a Map from the National Geographic Website’

Silhouettes and Coloured Pictures

Link for ‘Colour My World’ on Photopeach

The pictures are displayed as a ‘spiral’ on this link.
Click on ‘story’ at the bottom right hand corner of the screen to change to a slide show.


The following link contains some online art activities for children from the Queensland Gallery of Modern Art.

Some online art activities for children

The children from Room 6 have found the following activities on that website interesting:

* Patterns of Infinity

* Kumasa’s World of Dots

* Justine Cooper’s ‘Call of the Wild’ – A memory game

You may have to scroll down that page to see them.

Prayer Service for the beginning of the school year.


Beginning of Year Prayer Service Tuesday October 4th @ 1.10 in the school hall.

Good afternoon & welcome. We are all here today in the hall with new friends
and old friends
and our kind teachers
and helpers.

We know that Jesus is our friend too.

Now we will say the Sign of the Cross in the three ways we know how
(In the name of the Father…
As Gaeilge…
and finally; God came down from heaven to earth, to remind us to love people on this side and this side and not to forget ourselves. Amen)

Candle Prayer; ‘Chase away the darkness. Fill the world with light, be a little candle flame and shine out bright’.

Why do we light a candle? To remind us that God our Father in Heaven is always with us.
Song:This little light of mine

The best way we can make a good beginning to this school year is to let our little light shine.
How can we ‘let our light shine’?

Now it is time to say HELLO to God our Father in Heaven.
Father in Heaven, you love me….
I’ll try to please you Father.
That is not easy. But if we are truly sorry in our hearts, then God our Father in Heaven will always forgive us.

So let’s say SORRY to God
O my God I thank you for loving me. I am sorry for all my sins, for not loving others and not loving you. Help me to live like Jesus and not sin again. Amen
Let’s sing a sorry song; Forgive and forget

And now it is time to say THANKS to God
God our Father I come to say, thank you for your love today. Thank you for my family and all the friends you give to me. Guard me in the dark of night and in the morning, please send your light. Amen

And now we’re going to sing Thank you to God If I were a butterfly

Yes today we are praying for the beginning of the school year. For some children it has been the beginning of going to school.
There are some children who are new to the school … and some grown ups too.

As we begin today, let us make our beginning special by going to the very beginning of the Bible, where we read about the beginning of the world!
A long, long, long, long, long time ago there was nothing – nothing except GOD. One day God said to Himself
I think I’ll create some things.
On the first day God said, ‘Let there be LIGHT’ and there was and God said it was good.
On the second day God said, ‘Let there be a SKY’ and there was and God said it was good
On the third day God said, ‘Let the LAND be here and let the SEA be there’ and it was and God said it was g…..
Then God put PLANTS and TREES all over the land and God said it was ……
On the fourth day God said, ‘Let there be lights in the sky’ and God created the SUN and the MOON and God said it was …….
On the fifth day God said, Let there be fish in the SEA and BIRDS in the air’ and there were and God said ……..
On the sixth day God said ‘Let there be ANIMALS all over the land’ and there were and God said …
Then God said ‘I want to create some thing really special. Something more like me’. So God created again.
What do you think God made? (People)
And God said it was ‘Great!’
On the seventh day God took a rest.

Let’s sing out the Good News; God made our beautiful world&God is everywhere:
If I go climbing x 3, If I go climbing, God is there. If I go climbing on the highest mountain, God is there cos, He is everywhere. If I go rowing … on the widest river …
If I go swimming … to the bottom of the ocean …
If I go driving … far away … If I go flying … on the biggest aeroplane … If I go sleeping … on the darkest night …

Lord God, Thank you for this new beginning. Help us to make the best of it so that we will do good growing and learning this year.

So we are going to sing our last song for today now; We have heard the Good News.
That makes us happy, so we are going to sing; I’ve got the joy, joy, joy, joy down in my heart.

If you wish to supplement homework given …

My priority this month is tables and reading and maintaining the ‘homework habit.’

Those of you with older children know how the amount of homework will build up over their years at school. However if you feel your child needs more of a challenge, here are some suggestions.

– If you haven’t already, join the local library and visit it weekly. Particularly in these recessionary times, the library is a wonderful service.

– On the internet kidsclick.com lists a wide range of sites. Click on
kids.org for games that help with maths and language

– Try games such as scrabble, draughts, chess, Monopoly, card games
– Here are some other ideas. I have tried to come up with a range of ideas that would address the different types of intelligences that individuals have.

1. Write a book review or a film review. What was it? What happened in it? Was it enjoyable? What mark would you give it out of 10? Why?
2. Make a bookmark.
3. Make a card or write a letter to a family member or friend.
4. Beginning with “A” list in alphabetical order as many names you can think of. (Other lists can include: places, animals, foods, sports, past times, jobs people have, things you would find in school, in the kitchen)
5. Write a story or poem.
6. Compose a tune. Write the words to the tune.
7. Write down all the things you are good at.
8. Describe how to play your favourite sport.
9. Write down 5 facts about something that interests you.
10. Listen to some music and draw what you see.
11. List as many adjectives you can think of to describe yourself
12. Describe yourself for an alien.
13. Who is the person you would most like to meet? What would you like to ask this person?
14. Design a useful invention.
15. Draw yourself as a cartoon character.
16. Make up 10 quiz questions you know the answer to and write them down. Bring them into school and we will have a quiz.
17. List all the verbs (doing/action activities) you will do today.
18. Paint how you are feeling using colours.
19. What would you do with 3 wishes?
20. Invent your own super hero. Describe and illustrate.

If your child does any of these and brings these in I would love to see them.

On this blog you can also find age appropriate educational websites that you and your child may find of interest. To access them put the keywords ‘Educational Websites’ in the search facility or follow this link
Websites to Supplement Homework