Christmas Newsletter
Mercy Primary School
Christmas 2016
Welcome to our Christmas newsletter. It’s hard to believe we are at the end of a term already! The girls have been very busy and lots of great activities have taken place.
Junior Infants had a busy lead up to Christmas. During Science week in November we had great fun predicting and investigating sinking and floating items and learning about magnetic items. We performed our nativity play “Born in a Barn” which we really enjoyed rehearsing for and it went very well on the day. We visited Birr library for Christmas story time and St. Brendan’s church to see the crib. We also made a beautiful manger for baby Jesus and Christmas cards for our friends.
Senior Infants during science week we investigated the theme of “Our Senses”, this involved creating a “Feely Bag” activity where we explored the sensation of different texured items. We also identified sounds and smells using our sense of hearing and smell, we had great fun learning through this activity. We recently read the much loved book “Owl Babies” and created our own paperbag owls. We did lots of Christmas artwork including making our own Christmas cards. We paid a visit to Birr Library for Christmas storytime.
In 1st Class during science week, the girls were invited to join
5th Class and see their experiments. We had the chance to build our own rockets and launch them in the air!
5th Class were fabulous hosts during Science Week. 1st Class were also busy with that Christmas play “Children of the World” which highlighted various Christmas traditions and customs from all around the world.
2nd Class: First term has been very eventful for our class. We have had great fun this term. During December we explored the theme of Christmas through different subjects. In Geography children studied Christmas traditions around the world and we learned lots of interesting facts. In Gaeilge we were learning about the manger and Christmas vocabulary through games, songs, rhymes and drama. We were also busy preparing for our Christmas play “Children of the World”. The children were very excited to go to the Marian Hall to perform their play. We are all looking forward to our holidays and hope Santa comes to everyone!
3rd Class: We have been very busy since Halloween. We turned the classroom into a kitchen and made some rice krispie buns – having lots of fun and making a bit of a mess!! In history we designed our own family trees showing our family history. Science Week was fascinating and we could not believe how well coke worked to make our dirty coins shine again. We also saw lots more amazing experiments thanks to a trip up to 5th class. We have been reading a fabulous Christmas book ‘Fairs Fair’, which is reminding each of us to be kind, patient and generous over Christmas. We are having a very exciting lead up to Christmas, counting down each day with our Advent calendar. The girls are all very much looking forward to everything about Christmas, especially that long awaited visit from Santa!
4th Class: We have been doing lots of hard work. We had great fun around Science Week experimenting with electricity. We really enjoyed the various experiments and learned how important safety is when it comes to batteries and wire! The girls have gone mad for the comprehension boxes and cannot get enough of them! We all danced our hearts out for our school show this year and hope our parents liked the final product. Happy Christmas to you all from of 4th Class.
5th Class: 5th class have been very busy. We were very excited when preparing for our Christmas show and enjoyed performing for our friends and family on December 15th. In November we celebrated Science Week with experiments and investigations which included chromatography, transpiration, electric circuits, rockets, lava lamps and air pressure where we watched an egg getting sucked into a bottle. A new healthy smoothie was also created. We invited pupils from Senior Infants to 3rd Class to our classroom where we had great fun explaining and demonstrating all of our discoveries. We are learning to sew. We have learned the following stitches: tacking, running, backstitching, hemming and top stitching. We are using these skills to make our very own Christmas stockings. Finally, fingers crossed that our hyacinths will flower in time for Christmas!
Merry Christmas from 5th Class.
6th Class: As we approach our last Christmas season in Mercy P.S., we look back on great memories but also look forward with great excitement for Secondary School. We have had more great experiences this month, one being pottery with Fin O’Hara. We constructed clay pots, sculpted funny face pencil holders and crazy frogs. We made two visits to the Community School – one was the amazing show of “Guys and Dolls” and the other was the Open Night. Both were extremely enjoyable. Having picked up some stage tips from there – we put these into practice in our production of “The Peace Child” during the Christmas Concert. We attended a Table Quiz for Science Week in Birr Library and also had the pleasure of welcoming Birr native and award winning poet Eileen Casey into our class for a poetry lesson. See the website for some of our poems. We made a very special “November we Remember tree” to remember all of our past loves ones.
Wishing you all a very Merry Christmas and a Peaceful New Year.
Mrs. Murray’s Class has been busy counting, comparing, matching, ordering and playing lots of Maths games. We have become very good at puzzles and now have big jigsaws to work on. The highlight of our term was the Christmas show we were involved in “Born in a Barn” and “Children of the World” and thoroughly enjoyed performing on stage. Now we are counting the sleeps until Santa comes!
We have had a very busy but a great term in Mercy Primary.
Our Christmas Concert in the Marian Hall was a huge success. The girls gave a fantastic performance. The dedication and commitment of the staff really came to the fore in the weeks leading up to it and I want to thank them for their hard work.
We wish you all a peaceful Christmas and New Year.
School closes Thursday 22nd December at 12.15 p.m.
Re-opening on Monday 9th January 2017.
Le gach dea ghuí í gcomhair na Nollag agus
na hAthbhliana.
Barbara Hanamy, Principal