What a great feeling to be back in Powerstown! And how lucky we were with the weather, so good that we managed to complete so much of our learning for the week outside. This meant that the children could more freely interact together, mix with their friends and work really hard to re-establish those great friendship bonds that had grown before lockdown. 
We started the week by creating chalk murals at the front of the school to lift our school community during these stressful and difficult times. The children got to plan, design and work collaboratively on their murals building all those important communication, collaboration and social skills that we didn't have the chance to build at home. 
We also did lots of maths outdoors completing group investigations and problem solving on topics ranging from lines and angles in nature to chance and fractions. Have a look at the fraction wall above that one of the group made using sticks, so impressive!
Of course this week was also Seachtain Na Gaeilge so we had a healthy amount of Irish thrown in to the pot of fun too! Though times are different and we couldn't hold hands to do the céilí, we did it outside in the sun and danced side by side instead. Bhí an chraic againn!
This week flew by and hopefully we get a few more dry days before the break so we can continue giving the class as much chance to play together, work together and enjoy being together as possible!

We hope our winter performances bring you some cheer and smiles for the new year!

We have had such a lovely time in 5th class for the last couple of weeks before winter break! 
On Thursday, we started our morning with hot chocolate and popcorn and enjoyed the lovely winter themed movie 'The Snowman'. As part of the Marathon kids programme, we completed our final mile. We went to Ladyswell park with Kamilah and Maple class where Daniel measured out a half mile track! We ran two laps non stop to complete our 8 week Marathon running fitness and health programme. 
When we finished we got our medals and went back to school to celebrate! We are all so proud of ourselves for running a whole marathon, it's such an achievement!
We also completed lots of winter themed art. In the Alder class we took inspiration from festivals of lights such as Diwali and New Years to create firework reflections lighting up a night sky using chalk and oil pastels!
This built on our learning in Learn Together where we read about, comparing and contrasting, several different celebrations from around the world. We looked at Ramadan, Kwanzaa, Christmas, Holi, Diwali and Hanukkah - focusing on Christmas, Diwali and Holi and Hanukkah as these are some of the festivals associated with the religions in focus in fifth class. 
We hope that you all have a lovely winter break at home and we look forward to seeing you all back in the new year. 

After two weeks of learning online, everyone in Kamilah class was happy to be back in the classroom again. We had lots of important work to do, including practising for our winter performance, doing some art inpsired by the Aztecs, learning an Aztec ball game in P.E. and, of course, decorating our classroom door for the 'Winter Themed Door Competition'. It was great to have lots of opportunities to work with our classmates on different projects and activities in class. 

For the past 3 weeks Alder class have been completing a unit of work in Science and Geography on weather forecasting and world climates. We looked at how the climate of an area influences the weather conditions on a local basis. We discovered that due to our location, exposed to the Atlantic ocean we have a cool temperate climate with lots of rain and warm moisture carrying wind blowing from the south west predominantly. 
We learned that though the wind can change direction, changing the weather condition depending on where it comes from, we usually have a warm wind carrying lots of rain from the Atlantic. 
We learned that this influences human activity on our island too - farming being one of the industries most affected by the weather. We linked our weather knowledge to our knowledge of soil and found that where there is most rain in Ireland (Galway and Kerry) farming mostly consists of sheep rearing due to their ability to survive and thrive on poor quality land. We discovered that the drier parts of Ireland, with sandier soils are more suited to market gardening. 
Each day we have been going out making use of the school weather station to collect the following data: temperature, rain fall, wind speed, wind direction, air pressure and humidity. We have also looked at cloud cover, measured using oktas, and cloud type. This data has informed our weather predictions and observations. We also made our own anemometers using cups, straws and pencils - they worked really well and managed to catch wind even on a calm day!

In Kamilah class, we have been learning about the weather and climate. We had learnt that Ireland has a mild climate, due to our location midway between the equator and the north pole and we made the connection between our mild climate and the reason why farming is so successful in Ireland.
We also studied the various instruments used to predict and measure weather. We learned about thermometers, barometers, anemometers and rain gauges. We made our own rain gauges, to measure the rainfall in our area over the next two weeks.
We then went out to the weather station and found a barometer, a thermometer and two anemometers! Then we selected where would be the best place to leave our rain gauges. Some students offered to bring their rain gauges home, so we can compare the levels of rainfall at their home to the measurements at school. We are looking forward to recording and analysing the results. 

What an exciting day! Today we had the privilege of hosting the Olympic athlete David Gillick, former European indoor 400m champion, in our school to complete our daily lap running as part of the Marathon Kids programme. 
We got our t-shirts for taking part in the programme and did our warm up with David. Then we ran our laps with him - all filmed by RTE as part of their News2Day show!
​Tune in at 4.20pm today on RTE 2 to see us running our marathon!
Find programme on RTE player here (Wednesday 11th November): 
​https://www.rte.ie/player/series/news2day/SI0000001210?epguid=IH000384680

Lots of learning links this week in the Alder class. Before the autumn break we were studying Mesopotamia and the civilisations of Sumeria, Assyria and Babylonia. We created google slide presentations looking at its location, the importance of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, skills, crafts and entertainment at the time, the roles of men and women in society, technology and tools and the alphabet system used at the time. 
We found that the Mesopotamians were one of the first advanced civilisations to exist, and we wondered why civilisation began where it did. 
We found that the fertility of the region was of huge importance and then made links between soil and farming in the past and now in Ireland. We found that although only 12% of the land in the world is farmable, in Ireland 60% of it is, most of which is highly fertile and productive. 
We are so lucky to have the geodome in our school so we took our historical and geographical knowledge outside and extended it in to the world of science carrying out soil composition tests and checks. We found that the soil used in the geodome varied from box to box with some being full of nutrient rich dead matter via the compost added, while some were full of clay type soil which was holding to much moisture. We suggested that sand could be added to increase the drainage of the soil.
Check out the pictures above to see us in action!

In November, all classes throughout the school complete the RSE (Relationships and Sexuality) programme. This is a legal requirement and will take place during our SPHE (Social, Personal and Health Education) lesson time.
Should you have any questions about what content we will be covering in class - please take the time to have a look at the attached photos above. Each photo details the content of each lesson and also gives some prompts for discussion topics that can be carried out at home.
If you still, after reading, have any questions please feel free to contact james@powerstownet.com or sinead@powerstownet.com.

We've had a busy week in Kamilah class. The students used clay to mould their own pumpkins. There was great creativity shown by the students - we even had a banana shaped pumpkin from Bnejamin! The students also worked in groups, in their pods, to design and paint pumpkins. Finally, each student submitted a design for our class pumpkin carving. We voted for our favourite design, and Sarah just pipped Sergey to the post for the win. Sarah painted the class pumpkin, with some help from Delisha. It was spectacular!
The students worked really hard on their projects about Mesopotamia. Most of the students had to opportunity to present their work to the class on Friday. 
Finally, we decorated biscuits on Friday, in lieu of our usual annual bake sale. We have some budding chefs in the class! The final creations were excellent.
​Have a great midterm!