October Newsletter

Mercy Primary School

October 2013 Newsletter

Welcome to our October Newsletter. We have had a busy month with lots of activities going on around the school.

On Wednesday 2^nd we had a visitor from Clara Bog.  She gave a talk to 2^nd, 3^rd and 4^th classes about our local bogs. The children and teachers found this very informative.

On Thursday 3^rd we had our Junior Infant Welcome Ceremony and Blessing. It was a lovely ceremony and the infants performed very well. It is great to see how much they have learned already. Thanks to Fr. David for the blessing and to all who attended.

Junior and Senior Infants completed their reading initiative in the library and enjoyed it very much.

Maths for Fun took place in 2^nd class and was a great success. Thanks to all the parents who took part.

On Friday 11^th, 1^st class had a speaker from the OSPCA. She spoke to them about caring for animals and their pets and the children thoroughly enjoyed the talk.

On Monday 14^th, we were delighted to welcome 2 members of our local Fire Brigade. They gave a talk on Fire Safety to 3^rd class. It was very informative and also a very important talk.

4^th, 5^th and 6^th classes continued their camogie coaching with Hughie Hannon. There will be another set of coaching in the spring term.

Choir resumed in October and we are busy practising for the Cross Border Peace Proms.

We finished our half term with a Halloween Dress-Up/Jersey Day on Friday 25^th October. Everyone looked very well – including the staff! €350 approx. was raised towards a new set of school jerseys. We are delighted and send thanks to all who donated. Have a look at the school website to see the photos from the day.

Plenty of activities have been happening in the classrooms. These are just a flavour of what’s going on around the school:

Junior & Senior  Infants:  Finished Dr. Seuss Reading initiative in Library and were awarded certificates.

Dressed up for Halloween and were very busy making lots of spooky things. Junior Infants went on a lovely autumn walk in park.

Senior Infants made rice krispie buns.

 

1^st Class:  Halloween provided great opportunities for drama, poetry, stories and art and craft in First Class.  The girls enjoyed Halloween games and dressed up in a great variety of costumes.  We were given a very interesting workshop on responsible pet ownership by Liz from Offaly S.P.C.A.  The girls were awarded certificates for becoming Junior Officers.  Liz complimented the girls on their involvement and enthusiasm.

Congratulations to Dominika Danczak who won 1^st Prize in her age category in the Credit Union ‘Gotta Lotta Colour’ poster competition.

 

2^nd Class – Girls are learning tin whistle. They are practising at home and in school and are enjoying it very much.  We visited Mill Island Park for National Tree Day.  We looked at lots of deciduous trees and noticed how the leaves, seeds and fruits differed from tree to tree.  We collected lots of leaves and seeds for our Autumn Table.  We got lovely colourful leaf rubbings and these were placed on our class Autumn Tree.  The girls also composed excellent poems about leaves.

Preparation masses have begun for First Penance and First Communion.  Next Mass for Mercy Primary is on Sunday  10^th November at 10.30 a.m.

We entered the Credit Union Art Competition entitled ‘Gotta Lotta Colour’.

 

3^rd Class:  Made wonderful  Halloween silhouettes against a beautiful evening sunset in art. Read lots of spooky Halloween stories and poems. We finished our series of chess lessons with John Alfred. To celebrate National Tree Day we visited Camcor park and chose a tree to monitor for the year  – will keep a tree diary and visit each term.

We are thoroughly enjoying our tin whistle tuition with Mrs. Kennedy learning exciting new tunes.

 

4^th Class:  We designed beautiful shoes.  We celebrated National Tree Day with a nature trail.  We recorded songs and uploaded them to our school website. We worked hard on Procedural Writing and we made lovely lemonade !

 

5^th/6^th Class:  are learning all about the skeleton and bones !

5^th Class:  are really enjoying music lessons and tin whistle tunes a plenty with Mrs. Kennedy !

We made Tornadoes in a bottle in science!

 

6^th Class:  Birr’s Postmaster, Garry Cahill visited 5^th and 6^th class to explain all about the postal system.  We are greatly looking forward to our visit to the Sorting Office in the near future.

6^th class girls have started their preparation programme for Confirmation by collecting worksheets regularly at Mass.

In SESE we looked at old census records in Birr and compared them to Birr today.

Dates to remember:

Parents’ Association meeting in the school hall on Wednesday 13^th November at 7.30 p.m. All very welcome to attend.

Parent/Teacher meetings will be held on Thursday 28^th November for 1^st to 6^th classes. An appointment will be sent out to you.

 

Don’t forget to look at our website – www.mercyprimaryschool.ie to catch up on all our school activities.