Well done to Isabella and Phoenix for winning the Write-a-Book competition from fourth class with their books 'The Hulaballoos Roam Free' and 'The Gummy Bear Mystery'. They enjoyed the awards ceremony at the Inn at Dromoland last week, where they were presented with prizes. Well done also to the other winners from Knockanean and everyone who took part. Congratulations on a great achievement!
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Having learned about one genre of persuasive writing, advertising, in the last few weeks we've moved on to discuss speeches and debates. We worked to prepare convincing arguments with strong introductions and conclusions to persuade our friends of our perspectives. We used techniques like rhetorical questions, statistics and emotive language to strengthen our arguments. We worked both individually and in groups to argue the following motions:
- Homework should be banned. - Children should be paid for going to school. - Children should only be allowed to play computer games for two hours per week. We learned that sometimes you have to put your personal feelings on a topic aside to present the best argument. Well done everyone! An seachtain seo, léamar dán le Uinsionn Ó Domhnaill, 'An Deoch Is Fearr'. Bhíomar ag caint faoi na deochanna is maith linn agus d'fhoghlaimíomar an dán véarsa ar véarsa. Féach ar an dán thíos:
Cupán tae Is maith liom é, Am ar bith I rith an lae. Cupán caife I ndiaidh a deich, Is tá mise réidh Do rud ar bith. Cupán bainne Le mo lón Am ar bith Thart fá nóin. Cupán cócó, Roimh am luí, Codail go sámh Ar feadh na hoíche. Ansin, ar an Déardaoin, rinneamar ealaín bunaithe ar an dán. Tharraing gach duine cupáin agus ansin, chuireamar dath orthu le péint. Bhaineamar úsáid as marcóir chun iad a chríochnú inniu. Cad a cheapann tú? Nach bhfuil siad go hálainn?! This week, we learned about Vincent Van Gogh, a famous Dutch artist that lived from 1853 to 1890. He was a Post-Impressionist artist and used line, colour and emotion in his paintings. He is most famous for masterpieces like ‘Still Life: Vase with Twelve Sunflowers’, ‘Starry Night’ and lots of ‘Self-Portraits’. We examined many of his paintings and discussed our favourites, giving justification for our preferences. We also liked 'Café Terrace at Night' and 'The Night Café in the Place Lamartine in Arles'. Van Gogh was a sick man throughout his life. He is also famous for chopping off part of his ear! During his life he painted about 900 paintings, but only ever sold 1. This week, our art was inspired by the above painting by Van Gogh. This still life painting is entitled 'The Chair and the Pipe', and we decided to create our own modern versions. We used card to create a box fold that would be the structure of our 3D chair. We then decorated the chairs, as well as the floor and wall in the background. They turned out very well as you can see above and below! So colourful and each one is completely different.
What would you do if you had wings? Recently, fourth class read the poem 'If I Had Wings' by Pie Corbett, which you can see below, and enjoyed examining the imaginative language and the metaphors used. We then composed and finally typed our own poems with the same title - If I Had Wings. Have a read below and see what you think!
If I Had Wings By Pie Corbett If I had wings I would touch the fingertips of clouds And glide on the winds breath. If I had wings I would taste a chunk of the sun As hot as peppered curry. If I had wings I would listen to the clouds of sheep bleat that graze on the blue. If I had wings I would breathe deep and sniff The scent of raindrops. If I had wings I would gaze at the people Who cling to the earth. If I had wings I would dream of swimming the deserts and walking the seas. Every now and again, we take on a big project for art - something that involves lots of effort, is linked with other subjects that we study, and takes more than a single class. These 3D maps of Co. Clare were an example of this! We started working on these maps last week as we had been learning about our home county of Clare and researching its history, geography, famous people, tourist attractions etc. The first step in creating these masterpieces was drawing our maps onto large sheets of card (which was kindly donated by lots of parents - thanks so much to all!). We used a map with a grid over the top and then divided our card into nine squares with careful measurement and maths skills. Then, each pair drew the map square by square. The next step was to make our salt dough...the messy part! We used a simple recipe, mixing together 4 cups of flour, 2 cups of salt and 1-2 cups of water. We stirred until a stiff dough formed, using our hands to bring it together. We then filled in our maps carefully with the salt dough, making sure we filled every inlet and headland. We then examined a physical map of Clare to see where the highland and mountainous areas are. We made sure to build up the dough into peaks at these areas. Then it was a matter of patience, as we left our maps for a week to dry in the classroom. Finally, we worked on finishing our maps. We painted them according to the colours of physical maps and included a legend to explain the colour coding. We labelled the neighbouring counties and other details, and the maps were complete. They are amazing! It was a fun way to mix Geography and Art together. Come and have a look at them in our classroom if you'd like to see!
Our latest writing genre was persuasive writing, and we started with a focus on a type of persuasive writing that's familiar to us all: advertising!
Advertisements are a special type of persuasive writing. Their purpose is to sell a product or a service. They do this by aiming at a particular type of customer. They use carefully chosen, positive language. They appeal to some aspect of the reader’s personality. How do they attract your attention and stick in your memory?
Having watched LOTS of TV advertisements, examined paper adverts and discussed our favourites, we brainstormed what we felt made a good ad. Finally, we designed our own adverts for a range of products (holidays, dog hotels, new cereal, food, games consoles etc.). Have a look! They'll be on display in our classroom. We worked very hard on our maths this week, and to make the most of the gorgeous sunshine, we got to do a Maths trail on Thursday. It was great fun! We worked together in groups of four, and Ms. Kirby was SO impressed with and proud of the team work and cooperation that everyone showed. Each group received a trail booklet and everyone had a role to play (leader, writer, reader, timekeeper). We agreed on the rules and the importance of safety throughout. There were three sections to our trail: we started at the front of the school, then moved to the back yard and finally to the field. The trail included questions on many topics, including all four operations, place value, shape and space, problem solving, area, time, data etc. Why not have a look at our trail booklet below? Would you be able to answer all the questions?
Every year, the Clare Education Centre holds the Write-a-Book competition. It encourages children of all ages from primary schools all around the county to write their own book, illustrate it and present it. A panel of judges will judge the books and a special awards ceremony will be held in May to reward the winners.
This year, we all participated in Write-a-Book. It was a big project, and our masterpieces went through lots of planning, drafting and redrafting before being typed and put together into our very own books. Ms. Kirby was amazed at the wonderfully descriptive, suspense-filled, varied and creative stories that everyone produced. While the books are now submitted for judging, they will be returned to the school later in the year, when you are welcome to come in and have a browse! As we continue to learn about writing genres, our most recent focus was explanation writing. The purpose of explanation writing is to explain the processes involved in something, or to explain how something works. Explanations answer questions that usually start with “how” or “why”. The structure of an explanation is very important. It has a logical sequence, uses a cause/effect relationship and is written in order. Explanations are written in the present tense and verbs are usually in the third person. An explanation is structured with an introduction, series of explanatory statements and conclusion to sum up. Having read lots of explanations and written some explanations together, everyone then chose their own “how” or “why” questions to answer. We had a great selection of questions… This is just a selection:
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Ms. Kirby's 4th ClassWelcome to our blog! Have a look and see some of the things we get up to, using the categories below to help you navigate different subjects. Categories
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June 2015
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