Recently, we learned about famous Irish musical maestros from the past, Turlough O Carolan and Sean O Riada, and afterwards, decided to complete a mini-project on a musician, singer, composer or band of our choice. The only rule was that the singer had to be Irish or have strong links to Ireland. We had a huge selection of artists, and we've enjoyed the presentations over the last few days. Some people presented PowerPoints, videos, posters, played music and much more. We learned about Hozier, U2, Bono, Bob Geldof, Phil Lynott, Boomtown Rats, Ed Sheeran, Maura O'Connell, Andrea Corr, Kilfenora Céilí Band, Imelda May, John Spillane, Macklemore, Una Foden, Niall Horan, Gavin James and many more. Come in and have a look in our classroom to admire all the hard work! |
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We recently learned about homes and houses in history. We created a timeline to trace the history of homes where humans have lived for many years, starting from caves right up to modern houses and ghost estates, which remain as a legacy of the recession in Ireland. We also talked about Georgian houses, which remain very popular today and can be seen in several cities in Ireland. Ross told us about his Dad's work as an architect designing houses, and Ella brought in some house drawings her Dad (an engineer) had worked on. It was very interesting to see the detail and measurements on the plans. In Art, we also created houses using cereal boxes. We had to cut, score and fold the cardboard to turn the box inside-out and change it into a house! We then painted the houses and added detail with permanent marker. What do you think? The houses in progress (above) ... and the finished product (below)!
So, after weeks of hard work and researching, our projects on World War One and Two are finally complete. On Friday and Monday, we presented our projects to the class. The topics we explored included: Hitler and the Nazis, Interviews with People Who Lived During the War, Weapons of WW1 and WW2, The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas, War Horse, Life for Jews in WW2, Life for Children during WW2 and Racism during WW2. The standard of the projects was amazing – we were all blown away by the hard work and effort that everyone had dedicated to their projects. We had everything from PowerPoints, drama, film scenes, video clips, colourful posters, song and dance, models, artwork… It was amazing! The project work is now on display in our classroom so feel free to come by and have a look if you’re interested. Here's a short summary of a fraction of what we learned in class about both wars... Why not have a read and then see how many of the questions you can answer?! We did these for homework this week.
As we've been recently studying World War 1 and World War Two (and our projects are almost ready for presentation!), Ms. Kirby chose art lessons that were related to our theme. First, we learned about propaganda posters, which were used to influence the public in different ways. During World Wars One and Two, propaganda posters were used on both sides in order to… - Recruit men to join the army; - Recruit women to work; - Encourage people to save food and not to waste it; - Keep spirits high; - Promote the leaders and government. Having examined some real propaganda posters, we set about making our own. They turned out very well! We also learned about the Blitz in London during WW2. We talked about the bombing that the British people in cities had to endure during the war. They had to use blackout curtains and bomb shelters, and many children were evacuated from the cities to the countryside. We created a silhouetted skyline of London using black card and layered it over a sunset. We had to use very intricate and careful cutting to create all the buildings and shapes of the skyline. Some people added planes and bombs, and we also used crepe paper and chalk pastels to create the effect of the smoke and fires caused by the bombs. These masterpieces are displayed in the main school! Why not have a look when you're passing by?
Recently in art, we created Viking longships, linking into the topic we had been recently learning about in history. There were many steps involved in creating the longships.
First, we had to create a sky using paint in vertical strokes and oil pastel for detail. We also painted an A3 sheet using various methods (sponging, scraping, spatter painting etc.) to create the sea. When dry, the sea had to be torn into wavy strips and adhered under the skyline. Then we made our longships from card, decorating them with marker, crayon and colouring pencil. We created effective dragon heads for the tops of our boats. Finally, we had to make 3D effect sails from paper and shade them with various tones to create texture. They turned out brilliantly! Why not pop in and see them if you're passing by? Following the huge success of our last project based on Space, we were all eager to start another project using the Project Approach. Following some discussion, a survey and a vote, we have decided that our new project will be based on life during World War One and World War Two. What an amazing and interesting topic!
So far, we have brainstormed what we already know about both wars (quite a lot!) and talked about grandparents and great-grandparents that lived through or even were involved in the wars. We divided into groups and chose a topic that would be the focus of our project. The project titles are as follows: - War Horse - Interviewing experts on the war - Weapons of WW1 and WW2 - Life for the Jews in WW2 - Racism in WW2 - Comparing the Lives of Children in WW2 - Hitler and the Nazis - The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas Ms. Kirby took some books out of the library that we could use for research, and some people from the class also brought in books, including the Horrible Histories version of WW1 and WW2. We are looking forward to learning more about both wars through this project. Recently, we have been learning about the Vikings, who originated from Scandinavia and lived over 1000 years ago. We read about the lives of Viking men, women and children. We discussed their daily lives, homes, clothes, food and the organisation of their society. The Vikings are known as a violent group of warriors (though not all of them were) and they invaded other lands and settled there. They attacked many monasteries in particular, because the monks were ill-prepared for battle, and monasteries also contained lots of valuables, including gold and silver chalices and precious gems.
We learned about the first attack of the Vikings on Ireland, which took place at the monastic settlement in Lambay Island off the Dublin coast. Having read about the violent raid, we acted out different moments from the story using tableaux (or still images). These are like photographs created with our bodies. Ms. Kirby took photos of each scene and then put them together in the comic strips you can see above. What do you think? Recently, we have been learning about Italy in Geography and Ancient Rome in History. We read about the boot-shaped country and the islands that are close to its coast, such as Sicily and Sardinia. Some of us had been on holidays to various places in Italy, including Sorrento, Venice, Bari, Sardinia and Rome. Ms. Kirby showed us her holiday photos from Italy! We found these places on the map. We learned about the delicious Italian food and drink, and created Italian menus featuring pasta, pizza, bruschetta, lasagne, cappuccino and gelato - yum! We explored some of the things Italy is famous for, such as fashion, cars, architecture and art. We also learned about the Ancient Roman Empire. We read the story of Romulus and Remus, the legendary founders of Rome. We found out about the powerful Roman army with its clever tactics and well-trained soldiers. Did you know that a century of soldiers in Roman times only meant 80 men? We compared the life of rich Romans living in villas to poorer citizens crammed into apartment blocks. We also read about Roman entertainment, from the bloody gladiator battles in the Colosseum to the relaxing public baths. Having learned about Roman mosaic art, we decided to create some mosaics of our own. We drew pictures that were representative of Italy and used 'tiles' of coloured card to fill them in. There were some amazing results, from pizza to Roman soldiers and shields, gelato and many more. What do you think? During the month of September, we learned about the Children of Lir in History. We discovered the meaning of legends, and brainstormed other examples of Irish mythical tales. We created comic strips of the important moments in the story, and we also dramatised the actions of Lir, Aoife and the swans using still images. Finally, we created some very eye-catching artwork which has got lots of compliments from other teachers! We painted the background using cool colours, and make swans for the top using tin foil. The details we added afterwards using a black marker.
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June 2015
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