November 2014 Newsletter
Welcome to our October newsletter. It has been a very busy month and some great activities have taken place!
Here is an article written by some of our students about our very successful Friendship Week. Make sure to have a look at the website to see photos of all the activities that took place.
On Monday 29th September, Friendship Week began in Mercy Primary School. Every class did something to show their appreciation for Friendship Week.
Junior Infants made beautiful Friendship Flowers. They made a Friendship Train and a Friendship Wreath. This was brought up as a gift in the mass at the end of the week.
Senior Infants had great fun! They did plenty of Friendship Art including a Rainbow Fish based on the story of a very generous fish. They used their handprints to make a Friendship Tree and a Friendship Chain. They played co-operative games to teach them how to share and they made a poster showing what a good friend should be.
1st class made little people holding hands to show Friendship. They also made lovely flowers and put pictures of themselves in the middle. They did a lot of chatting about what makes a good friend.
2nd class, who are preparing for their First Holy Communion enjoyed many Friendship related activities. They, along with 3rd class led the whole school in the hymn Circle of Friends at the Friendship Mass. At the start of the week they received a secret, special friend. They had to be extra nice to this friend for the week. Most of the classes did this – even the staff! Their teacher created a word search with all the girls’ names inside. They had great fun finding their names along with their friends.
3rd class learned a Friendship song called Viva la Compagna, which means “long live friendship”. They also made a friendship jigsaw – each child got a blank piece and wrote about themselves on it. At the end they put all the pieces together, showing how each child is different. 4th class took part in this with them.
As a matter of fact, 3rd and 4th classes did lots of activities together that week. They made lovely cartoon character posters of friends – Minnie and Mickey Mouse, Scooby-Doo and Shaggy and SpongeBob and Patrick. They also made Friendship Bunting in lots of vibrant colours. They had buddy reading together and really enjoyed this.
5th class painted their window with a Friendship theme. They had a conversation about cyber-bullying and wrote positive things about their friends. 5th joined forces with the two 6th classes to create a Friendship Café. Every girl in 5th and 6th got a chance to visit the café. They were given orange juice and buns and were allowed to chat freely for half an hour. The girls loved this and some new friendships were formed! 6th class made board games and 5th were invited to play with them also. They were very creative and artistic. Both classes put a lot of work into their Friendship Quotes on their classroom windows.
We held an art competition from 1st class to 6th class on the theme – “I can make a difference if I see someone being bullied!” What amazing entries we got. It was easy to see that everyone really understood what we were trying to teach this week. It was very hard to pick winners but, somehow we managed. They are displayed outside the school hall.
Last but not least we had a very successful Friendship Mass. There was a great atmosphere and a very good turnout. The
girls sang wonderfully and everyone was very proud of them. 6th class played the tin whistles and were lovely.
Overall Friendship Week was a huge success in Mercy Primary and we plan on making it an annual event.
Article written by: Megan Hough, Mia Byrne, Brodie Shiels and Eve Murray, 6th class students.
There were plenty of other activities throughout the month too. On Thursday 9th we had a visit from a storyteller as part of the Slieve Bloom Storytelling Festival. 2nd and 6th classes thoroughly enjoyed the stories and poems they heard.
On the same day, 6th class visited Birr Theatre and Arts Centre to see the mini-movies they created as part of the Offline Film Festival. There is a link on our website to the mini-movies if you would like to see the creative genius of our 6th classes!
All over Ireland, schools celebrated Maths Week from the 13th – 17th of October. 2nd to 6th classes took part in a fantastic Maths Trail around the school, compiled by Mrs. Fitzgerald. The girls really enjoyed carrying out the trail and they were amazed at how much they learned. Other Maths activities to mark the week took place in all classrooms.
On Thursday 16th, 3rd class had a Fire Safety talk given by members of the local Fire Service. This is a very important annual talk and we thank the firemen for giving up their time each year to come to us.
On Tuesday 21st, Senior Infants visited the library as part of the Reading Initiative.
On Wednesday 22nd, some of our 6th class girls took part in the Rosary Rally and represented the school very well.
We had a very interesting day on Thursday 23rd. Senior Infants to 4th class went to the Boy’s School and took part in the Street Smart programme. This is a Road Safety programme run by the RSA. It was excellently presented and the children learned a lot about Road Safety. Thanks to St. Brendan’s for hosting the programme – unfortunately our hall was too small to facilitate it.
On Friday 24th we had a scary day in school!! Our girls seemed to disappear and lots of witches and ghouls and all sorts of characters replaced them! We had a great day though and the mid-term break brought all our girls back safe and sound.
Congratulations to our Parents’ Association and St. Brendan’s PA for holding a very successful disco during the mid-term break. Thanks to all who supported it.
Dates for your diary:
Sunday November 16th – PA Fundraising Family Table Quiz in the County Arms at 3pm. Please come along and support – it will be a great family day out.
Scholastic Book Fair – Thursday 20th Nov – Thursday 27th Nov. There will be lots of lovely books on sale, great for Christmas presents. The school receives 60% of all sales back in books for our libraries, so the more we sell, the more books we get back.
Parent-Teacher meetings – Tuesday 25th November. Appointments will be sent home soon.