Active learning – conjunctions
Pictured:
Ms. Penston’s class having fun with conjunctions! A lovely example of ‘Active Learning’ in our beautifully bright and comfortable Rainforest Room!
Fostering a love of reading
5th and 6th class enjoying their novel War Horse in the Rainforest Room. While it looks unconventional, fostering the love of reading is crucial to encouraging readers, so being cosy on a beanbag with shoes off creates a situation that is conducive towards the enjoyment of reading! There is a strong correlation between those who read and those who perform well academically so we would encourage this at home. Tips for encouraging reading at home can be found on our website at the following link: http://castletownnationalschool.ie/parents-2/support-for-parents/. Both the Arklow and Gorey libraries are fantastic for encouraging young readers.
Published authors!!
Ms Walker’s class are published authors! Well done to each child who wrote with imagination, drafted, edited and illustrated a page each in this beautiful class book! We hope that this inspires our young authors towards a life of writing!
Celebrating #Wordsearchday today with a little competition! Well done to those whose names were pulled from the hat! We discussed why word searches were beneficial and students’ answers included; scanning for information, spelling, reading, vision and knowledge! Great answers!
Eliciting vocabulary
I came across some lovely literacy work being done by Ms Rolland and pupils. Eliciting vocabulary from children is so important. Reading each night aids this no end.
Spellings for Me
We are piloting a new spellings programme – Spellings for Me – in our middle classes. We hope that this tailored, digital approach will suit each individual learner and look forward to monitoring its progress.
Procedural Writing
This term our school focused on Procedural Writing and pupils have produced really lovely examples of work! Have a look at these displays from 2nd class!
THE BOOK CAFÉ: Welcome to the first class book cafe. In our cafe the cups are filled with questions that the boys and girls will think about as they read in the cafe. There is also the ‘don’t judge a book by it’s cover’ corner where we will vote for this Friday’s read aloud. Why not ask your child if they visited the book cafe today
A trip to Arklow Library
Ms. Russell, Fiadh, Teagan and Kaylin went on a mission to collect a haul of books from Arklow library. When there, Head librarian Kathy showed the pupils a book that had recently been returned after 46 years! The fine was due to be well over €4,000! It was waived thankfully! She also showed the girls the old rules of borrowing! The library is such a friendly place!! Kathy and team always go out of their way to help us find what we need and really help to foster a love of reading!
SPELLING BEE!
We would like to wish Jack Tallon all the luck in the world as he represents our school in the regional heats of The Eason Spelling Bee having won the school heat! We know you will be great, Jack!
World Book Day/Friendship Week
As part of Friendship week, we enjoyed buddy reading where older students read to younger students. It was a real hit!
THE GREAT GRAPHIC BOOK DEBATE!!
Here are some reasons why graphic novels are great!
OCTOBER 2022
Snr infant trip to Arklow library
Senior infants had a blast at the library in Arklow today! Huge thanks to Kathy Scott who dressed up as the witch in Julia Donaldson’s Room on the Broom and read to the children before they set off an a library hunt followed by a Hallowe’en an art lesson. We are so lucky to have such enthusiastic librarians in our locality!
A visit to meet author Emer Conlon!
Junior infants had so much fun hearing all about Emer Conlon’s Vroom Town series in Gorey library!
Autumn Poetry:
Some samples of autumn poetry from 3rd and 4th class. So descriptive!
Children’s Book Festival
Who remembers the library when it was a serious place where you had to be really quiet all the time?! How things have changed!! For Children’s Book Festival we were treated to two exciting visits to both Arklow and Gorey libraries. In Arklow, 3rd and 4th class visited an exhibition of illustrations around the folklore tale ‘The Way Home’. They responded to the various artists’ work and sketched before enjoying a good old root around the library itself. Then it was off to Joanne’s for some refreshments! 1st class visited Gorey library and enjoyed a riveting and funny talk from author Shane Hegarty about his book ‘The Shop of Impossible Icecreams’ before having fun designing their own imaginative ice cream! The sensory pod was a big hit too! They too enjoyed a little treat afterwards! Huge thanks to Kathy and Fiona in both libraries for making us so welcome!
September 2022 : We have resumed paired reading on Tuesday mornings and are really enjoying welcoming our parents and grandparents back! This year, we have stepped it up a notch and are using the time to develop critical thinking skills. Our volunteers will be asking questions based on the text, inference, use of the picture and making connections. We are so grateful to our volunteers who welcomed this progression so eagerly!
PEER TUTORING
A photo just won’t do this justice. Peer tutoring is proven to be a highly effective way of learning and benefits both parties. Here 5th and 6th class are working with senior infants and the sound is so heart warming! They haven’t even noticed the camera! Click the link to view!
Hearing reading
Hearing reading is an essential part of literacy and development. We do this in many ways. Pictured is buddy reading whereby 6th class students model reading for juniors and also listen to them reading. It is such a positive experience for all!
Procedural Writing Winners!
Well done to our Procedural Writing competition winners and thank you to Ms. Gilmartin Ryan for coordinating and judging! We have some very happy pupils here!
A VISIT TO THE LIBRARY!
Pictured: lucky 1st and 2nd class had a trip to the library today. Their speaker had to cancel at short notice but we arranged for them to go on a library detective hunt instead. They enjoyed stories there and received a free book to mark World Book Day tomorrow. I am delighted with how well they behaved.
Samples of Presentation of Work from 3rd/4th class
Some lovely samples of English and SESE research. We love to see pupils taking pride in their written work. I especially love the novel copy work I am seeing. 3rd/4th are enjoying reading When Jessie Came Across The Sea – thank you Gorey library for the bulk loan.
Aistear – oral language
Here are some fabulous pictures of Ms. Walker’s class engaging in the fun theme of pirates and the sea!! Aaarhh!
05/11/2021
3rd/4th class had a super interactive workshop with author Eve McDonnell. The brought in their own ‘treasure’ and really enjoyed the hour! Thank you @wexlibraries for this experience as part of The Wexford Book Festival!
We made the news!
The pupils of Mr. Breen’s 5th and 6th class were delighted to welcome Micheál O’Scannail from RTÉ news2Day to our school to record a feature on Budget 2022. It was a great experience from many perspectives. The children were enabled to experience the process of making a segment for television; the cuts, the outtakes, audio and visuals. Exploring film and digital media is an exciting way for children to learn and to have the opportunity to interact with people who work in this field was invaluable. Working on this feature enabled the children to have an opinion on the country’s budget and they prepared for the visit by discussing where the country’s money would be best invested. Isobelle Roland (5th class) believed that ‘some of the budget should go to mental health. Because of Covid, a lot of people without families haven’t been able to socialise’. She believes that some money ‘should go to paying counselors to go to people’s houses and chat to them to make them feel less lonely.’
We believe it is really important to foster the children’s independent thought and social consciences so that they are prepared when they reach voting age and know that their voices count. The RTÉ News2Day experience was a really fun way of learning about the country’s finances and we are very grateful to Micheál and his team for the opportunity.
If you would like to see the report, follow this link: https://twitter.com/Castletown_NS/status/1448328615335182336?s=20
https://twitter.com/news2dayRTE/status/1448322079766589449?s=20
A visit from author Caroline Busher
We had a wonderful day with author @CarolineBusher yesterday. Caroline captured the imaginations and creativity of our pupils with her wonderful storytelling. Thank you, we hope to have you back Caroline!
Wexford Children’s Book Festival 2021
How lucky were our junior classes today to access a Microsoft teams session with author Gerry Daly (Where are you puffling?) This was part of Wexford Library’s Children’s Book Festival 2021. We look forward to engaging in other such fun events!
Phonics outdoors in the sunshine!
Ms. Morris’ senior infants learning phonics in our outdoor classroom on a sunny day! We love our blackboards for days like this!
WORLD BOOK DAY 2021
Such a fun and creative end to our first week back! So much colour and an evident love of books!
What characters do you recognise? Can you name the books? How about the authors?
Click on the link to see Harry Potter!! Or will you?
World Book Day March 2021
Suggested reading! https://www.worldbookday.com/reading-recommendations/
This is great as it gives reading by general ability level and by interest – something for everyone.
It is also Engineers’ Week so here is some suggested reading for STEAM https://padlet.com/darrensheils1/STEMstories
Genre of literacy: Narrative
This term, we are looking at Narrative as a school. Ms. Gilmartin Ryan is currently organising a Narrative writing Christmas competition and we look forward to reading all your entries!
Well done to our winners in the Narrative writing competition and thank you to Ms. Gilmartin Ryan for coordinating.
Jnr infants: Hayley
Snr. Infants: Anna and Rachel
1st: class Robert and Fiadh
2nd class: Kate and Lily Mae
3rd class: Hannah and Éabha
4th class: Ellen and Isabelle
5th class: Cathar and Jessica
6th class: Cillian and Charlie
Commendation: Eoghan, Leon, Ella, Ross, Neasa, Eleana, Cian, Christopher, Lexi, Millie, Micahel, Caoimhe, Kayleigh, Harry, Thomás, Fraya, Sophia, Mary, Jamie.
Drop Everything And Read!
Today we came together in a shared love of reading as we dropped everything and read at 12 noon. DEAR (Drop Everything And Read) time was marked across the country and we decided to take it a step further by dressing up for the occasion! Our teachers, SNAs and pupils all got on board. It was a great feeling to be gathered in a school community (albeit a virtual one) until we can meet in person again. Enjoy the pictures !
Concern Primary Debating – county finalists!
We are delighted to be progressing to the final of the Concern Primary School debating tournament. It has been such an educational experience as we have explored issues such as world hunger and technology consumption. We look forward to the final motion!
Thank you to our opponents from Murrintown NS who gave us a great counter argument. We were most appreciative of the feedback from adjudicators Sally Stevens, Pat Gately and Cora Keane.
We will spend the next month researching and putting our speeches together! Well done to our panel on their success thus far! Sam Proctor, Lizzy Morris, Sophia White, Diarmuid O’Shaughnessy, Charlie Church and Cillian Blackwell
FIGHTING WORDS – WEXFORD LIBRARY
1st and 2nd class were lucky enough to be able to make the trip to Wexford Library for the renowned Fighting Words workshop. They really enjoyed experimenting with creative writing. Many thanks to Ms D’Arcy and Fiona for attending and encouraging the children.
Maths Wall
We are developing a Maths space in our corridor. It is envisaged that this space will be used to develop Mathematical thinking outside the Maths lesson. We hope that it will be an appealing wall of interest for those passing by. It is aimed that the wall will be used to promote whole school thinking around a given topic at any given time of the year. Here is an account from Ms. Carroll who coordinates the wall and makes it so attractive for our young learners. Thank you Ms. Carroll!
| ‘This year, there will be special maths wall in the school. Each fortnight brings a new topic and display for whole school use. Students can use the maths wall to support learning and there are some competitions and prizes also. The most recent topic is in relation to Maths Week! As part of Maths Week, students from 1st – 6th took part in iPad maths trails around the school where they scanned the codes and answered the questions. There was great team work shown by all class groups.
Well done all!’
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More Maths Week activities: Here are some photos of 1st and 2nd enjoying STEM LEGO activity in Gorey Library to ark Maths Week. Also pictured are students on teh hunt around school! They undertook digital Maths trails as part of Maths Week.
