A Song for Winter: ‘Winter Song’ by Sara Bareilles & Ingrid Michaelson

With the clocks going back this evening thoughts turn to Winter.

‘Winter Song’ by Sara Bareilles and Ingrid Michaelson


Below is a wonderful animation of this melodic song.

‘Winter Song’ by Sara Bareilles and Ingrid Michaelson

and here is some artwork in chalk  inspired by it:

A Word to the Wise:

Please don’t leave your child to explore Photopeach unattended  :)

The internet is a portal to the world outside. Children should be supervised.

 

Shane’s turn to read from Jenny Nimmo’s ‘The Snow Spider’

The Web We Weave
Creative Commons License Photo Credit: Jason Samfield via Compfight

Today we were also treated to Shane reading.

Matthew reads from ‘The Snow Spider’ by Jenny Nimmo

How to Catch Light in a Web
Creative Commons License Photo Credit: Evan Leeson via Compfight

Thanks to Matthew,

who today read to us

from the page of

‘The Snow Spider’

that he had prepared:

Zac reads from ‘The Snow Spider’ by Jenny Nimmo

Spiderweb reflecting light
Photo Credit: Thomas Leth-Olsen via Compfight

Today we were also treated to Zac reading from ‘The Snow Spider’.

As you will hear, Zac did this very competently

and like Senan earlier in the day

showed every sign of practicing this thoroughly at home.

Senan reads from ‘The Snow Spider’ by Jenny Nimmo

wintermorgen
Creative Commons License Photo Credit: westpark via Compfight

Sit back and relax and listen to Senan

reading another excerpt from

Jenny Nimmo’s ‘The Snow Spider’.

Well done Senan.

You read very well indeed and with excellent expression.

Isabella reads from ‘The Snow Spider’

Well done to Isabella who read for us in class today.

She had prepared this page well for homework.

Teacher particularly liked

the expression Isabella put in her voice

when she was pretending to be Gywn’s Mum.

When Isabella finished reading this in class,

the class gave her a round of applause,

which was well deserved.

Jake reads from ‘The Snow Spider’ by Jenny Nimmo

Today Jake read to us from ‘The Snow Spider’.


He prepared thoroughly at home.
A short coaching session from Adam 
who is a visiting TY student on Work Experience,
improved Jake’s confidence further.
Well done Jake.
I think you read this beautifully.
NA TEIA DA ARANHA- In The Net of Spider- FRONT PAGE
Photo Credit: Jônatas Cunha via Compfight

Lewis reads a description of the inside of Nain’s cottage from ‘The Snow Spider’ by Jenny Nimmo

Fiona reads about Nain gardening at midnight from ‘The Snow Spider’ by Jenny Nimmo

Today Fiona read to us about Gywn’s Granny gardening

in the dark on a Winter’s night!
We think you will agree,

that Fiona did a REALLY GOOD job.

She read SO well

and used very effective expression.

Fiona told us she read it twice for her Granny

and three times for her Mum last night,

Then this morning she read it twice again.

All in all she practiced reading it aloud seven times

and all this preparation really paid off.

 

Well done Fiona.

You are an independent reader now.

Tek Sen / Only You
Creative Commons License Photo Credit: Kuzeytac (will be back soon) via Compfight

Rebecca reads from ‘The Snow Spider’ by Jenny Nimmo

Starburst and Beach Grass On Turquoise free creative commons
Photo Credit: D. Sharon Pruitt via Compfight

Today Rebecca read to us from

‘The Snow Spider’ by Jenny Nimmo.

Rebecca read very clearly with good pronunciation

of all those tricky words and showed that she had

prepared this reading very well.

We heard how Gywn read by the light

from the glowing ‘Snow Spider’

Alice reads a page from ‘The Snow Spider’ by Jenny Nimmo

Nicole reads from ‘The Snow Spider’.

Today it was Nicole’s turn to prepare

a page of reading from ‘The Snow Spider’.

As you will hear Nicole read very well.

In what she read to us,

we learned a little more about a mystery;

How Gywn’s older sister Bethan had disappeared

in the middle of a storm one night.

Clara reads an excerpt from our class novel ‘The Snow Spider’ by Jenny Nimmo

Today Clara read a 2nd excerpt

from our class novel ‘The Snow Spider’.

She prepared it at home, as part of her homework.

We think you will agree that she did a SUPER job.

JC’s visualization of Nain’s birthday gifts for Gywn.

Podcast: Julia reads the first page of Jenny Nimmo’s ‘The Snow Spider’

We have started reading ‘The Snow Spider’ by Jenny Nimmo.

It is a challenging read, but a great story.

Last night we were asked to practice reading the very first page,

with expression.

Julia volunteered  to read it out loud on Audioboo.

Here is the podcast:

 

We think the talented Julia has the potential

be a famous actress.

 

We have many other volunteers to read so

during the term, we will be posting more podcasts

of excerpts from this exciting and magical book.

 

Some of the children have started watching 

The Snow Spider – Part One ITV (1988)

and they tell me that this is helping

their understanding

and enjoyment of the book.

Visualizing Nain’s gifts for Gywn’s birthday. 

If My Mother Was A Piece of Furniture… (Thoughts for Mothers Day)

An Irish Greeting based on a Mihi from New Zealand

On this Link to Class Blog for Y7/8 Room 5, Melville Intermediate School, Hamilton, Waikato, New Zealand

we read how

A Mihi

is a Maori introduction or greeting,

which contains information about yourself”.

 

We saw the students introducing themselves.

It was very interesting.

They talk about the name of their canoe,

the nearest mountain to them,

the closest river,

their meeting place,

their tribe,

their chief

and last of all their names. .

 

We decided to make our introductions

to these students from

Room 5 Melville Intermediate School,

because we are working with them at the moment.

 

They are teaching us about New Zealand

and they are learning about Ireland.

 

This is our podcast:

‘Dia Dhaoibh (May God be with you)

to our new friends in Room 5,

Melville Intermediate School

in Hamilton

New Zealand

We liked your greeting,

your Mihi.

So we decided to send you one back

In Irish we say

‘Céad míle fáilte romhat!’

 

to a visitor.

 

This means

‘A hundred thousand welcomes’

We come from Ireland

We live close to the

Little Sugar Loaf Mountain.

 

The Three Trout River is our nearest river

 

The name of our county is Wicklow

This means ‘Viking Meadow’.

 

The Vikings were

fierce warriors

who came to Ireland

 from countries to the North 

from 795 AD

 

We meet in our local town Greystones

In the 1800s the sailors who had passed

our local beach would call it

‘The Grey Stones’.

They would say

‘There was a storm at the Greystones’,

or

‘There was good fishing at The Greystones’.

This is how our town got it’s name.

 

The name of our school is Saint Brigid’s.

She was born over fifteen hundred years ago!

But people remember her because

she was good to the poor, the sick and the old.

February 1st is her Feast Day

so we will have No Homework 😀 to celebrate.

Bye for now.

Click here for the earlier post on sharing learning with Room 5, Melville School

Podcast: What did you like about ‘The Owl who was Afraid of the Dark’?

We have just finished our class novel

‘The Owl who was Afraid of the Dark’

by Jill Tomlinson.

The children in 2nd Class, Room 6

enjoyed the humour

and appreciated

that the story followed a pattern.

But let them tell you about it.

Isabella is today’s interviewer.

As part of the work we are doing on owls,

the boys and girls enjoyed watching barn owls on this link today.

Perhaps they might like to check it out again at home.

Click on this link for a video of a barn owl in flight from a nature website called Arkive.org

Click on ‘Continue Reading’ below to comment.

The Advantages and Disadvantages of Living in Our Home Town

Today we made a podcast about

the advantages and disadvantages

of living in Greystones.

Senan was today’s interviewer.

The boys and girls in 2nd Class Room 6

could think of lots of advantages

and very few disadvantages.

We agreed Greystones is

a great place to live.

What do you think is  good about living in your home town?

Click on ‘Continue Reading’ below to tell us what you think.

 

 

Read more we have written about the town we live in here.

Being A Child – The Advantages and Disadvantages

2nd Class Room 6 talked about the

advantages and disadvantages of being a child.

Cian was the interviewer.

Did you ever call your Teacher Mum? How did it make you feel?

We talked about this question

and we recorded our answers in a podcast.

Each time we made a podcast, we found we had more to say.

This is the first one. Rebecca is the interviewer.

We talked about how we could improve on this podcast.

Rebecca thought about the questions she could ask,

that would help the class, to tell her their stories.

The class thought about how they could give more details

in their answers.

All the children interviewed said that they had called their

Teacher Mum, at some stage but all said that it wasn’t the

most embarrassing thing that ever happened to them.

 

So we decided to make a podcast of the most embarrassing

thing that had ever happened to the children in the class.

This was good practice and each time we made a podcast,

the children had more to say and said it,

I think you will agree in a better way.

Audioboo – Time for Grammar – Nouns and Naming Words

We are learning about nouns and naming words.

A noun is the name of anything.

 

Sometimes it is helpful to say

‘If I can take a photograph of something, it is a noun’.

But this is not always true.

Some nouns would be hard to take pictures of.

Many of these special nouns end in -ness.

For example: happiness and sadness.

These special nouns are called ‘abstract’ nouns.

 

Love is a noun but it would be hard to take a picture of it.


Clara drew of picture of what love means to her.

Nicole also drew one.

So did Niamh.

 

Learn a little more about nouns that you could not take a photograph of!

 

We gave examples of nouns we knew on this Audioboo:

 

These are nouns you could not take a photograph of:

 

Abstract Nouns – Part 2


Senan drew a picture to illustrate the abstract noun ‘sound’.

It would be challenging to take a photograph of a ‘noise’ or a ‘sound’.

2nd Class Room 6 received an e-mail from Audioboo

Recently 2nd Class, Room 6 made a podcast,

of the class singing this melodic song

by Sara Bareilles and Ingrid Michaelson!

 

 

UPDATE: 27th December 2012.

This morning Teacher received an e-mail from Audioboo

which she thought would interest 2nd class, Room 6

 

Hi  Merrybeau,

 

Congratulations.

Your boo http://audioboo.fm/boos/1126073-2nd-class-room-6-sings-winter-song 

has had 1,000 listens and probably more by the time you read this. 

 

That makes us, and hopefully you, very happy.

Thanks,

 

The Audioboo team”

Amazing!


Lovely work Isabella!

2nd Class Room 6 wish all their friends and families a Very Happy Christmas!

Create your own Animation


Illustration by Senan.

Merry Christmas Everyone 🙂

Advent – Talking about ‘the real meaning of Christmas’ – ‘Happy Birthday Jesus’

It is the beginning of Advent

and the children in 2nd Class, Room 6

have been talking about

‘the real meaning of Christmas’

We have changed our ‘sacred space’ in the classroom

to reflect the change in season.

(Thanks again to Rebecca’s Mum and Dad for the resources
they sent us at the beginning of the year).

Practicing Songs for the Kilcoole Feis

There has been a buzz in the school and music in the air over the past few weeks as Ms. Ahern prepared a number of students to sing in the Kilcoole Feis. At home the children practiced diligently with the help of their parents.

Here is what we heard today when some singers from 3rd Class came sing in Room 6. They were getting practice singing in front of an audience and the children in Room 6 were very attentive.

I love my music !
‘I Love My Music’ by Shankar, Shiv on Flickr

Singing ‘Can you tell me the way to somewhere’ are some past pupils of Room 6: Aoibhin, Riona and Nadine.

Jessica sang ‘Humpty Dumpty’

Finally this is Alice singing ‘Can you tell me the way to somewhere’. Alice is in 2nd Class, Room 6.

We are lucky to have Kilcoole Feis in the locality and to have this opportunity to let our light shine!