Religion & PDMU
🙂 Children’s Mental Health Week 🙂
The theme of this years ‘Children’s Mental Health Week’ is ‘Know Yourself, Grow Yourself’.
We considered how being accepting of ourselves, being confident in being different and getting to know what makes us unique helps us build resilience, grow and develop.
The children enjoyed carrying out an activity based on the film ‘Inside Out’. They worked in groups to create their own islands of personality and thought about how these aspects of their personality make them feel and what they love about the. The level of discussion was wonderful and it helped the boys and girls see their shared interests but also that it is fine to have differences. The children then worked independently to create an illustration depicting their own personality.
🌸 Catholic Schools Week 🌸
The children enjoyed making beautiful cards for their grandparents or a person in their life who looks after them. They enjoyed creating a card with the theme ‘Thank you for helping me grow’ and adding a special message for their special person.
Cash For Kids - Mission Christmas! 🎅🏼🎁🧸
As part of our Toys topic we decided to choose some toys to donate to the Cash for Kids Mission Christmas appeal. It was lovely to hear the children talk about how they had already donated some of their old toys to charity and the importance of helping others in need.
Advent Art! 🕯️✝️
Take a look at the wonderful Advent art the children created. 🤩 Their artwork was put on display in the chapel during our Christmas Carol Service for everyone to enjoy.
👦🏼👧🏽 Children’s Rights Week! 👩🏻🧑🏾
This week in school we took part in Children’s Rights week. We spent time in the outdoor classroom discussing needs and wants and we determined that rights were promises that ensure people have the things they need to keep them safe. We discussed how children have their own specific rights to make sure they are protected and listened to.
The boys and girls were excellent at considering which rights were being valued in various images of children around the world enjoying their rights.
Following our discussion the children worked in pairs to create a poster which would portray what a certain right meant to them. The posters they created were fantastic! 😁👏🏻
Credit Union Art Competition 🖌️
The children completed beautiful pieces of artwork on the theme of ‘The Joys in Life’ which will be entered into the Credit Union Art Competition. I am sure you will agree they worked very hard on these and the finished pieces are wonderful. Completing this task generated lots of super discussion on what things made us happiest in life. We talked about everything from family, friends, school, holidays and delicious foods. Well done everyone! 😍
The Holy Rosary
As it is the month of the Rosary the children have enjoyed learning about this form of prayer. We discussed how each of the beads represent a prayer and they are held by a person to help them count the parts of the prayer.
The children learnt the Hail Mary and also learnt that while reciting the prayers people think about important events in the lives of Jesus and Mary. The children enjoyed making and praying their own decade of the Rosary. 🙏🏻✝️
Exploring Emotions
During the first week the children spent time learning about their emotions. Using the story ‘The Colour Monster’ as a stimulus they learnt about the different range of emotions we might experience, what affects our emotions and considered what useful tools could be used to help regulate emotions throughout the school day. Everyone enjoyed making their own emotions posters on Pic Edu and colour monsters from modelling clay. The boys and girls also enjoyed exploring the class ‘calm space’ and sensory toys. As a class we will be using our ‘Verbal wellbeing’ online check in tool each morning to let Mrs O’Dowd and Mrs Flanagan know when we may need some help with our emotions and will have a useful worry box set up for everyone to use.
Primary 3A Time Capsule
On the first day of Primary 3A, the boys and girls enjoyed creating a time capsule. The activity started with the children spinning a wheel and answering questions about their favourite things. Next each child completed a written activity where they wrote down some of their favourite things. After that, the children measured each other’s height using string. Each child decorated and wrote their name on an envelope. They put the list of their favourite things, the piece of string representing their height and a self portrait into their personalised envelope. The time capsule will now be safely stored away until June 2025 when we will open it again. It will be very interesting to see how the children have changed over the course of the school year.
A Sense of Belonging
In our first few days in P3A our main focus has been on our sense of belonging. We have been reflecting on the idea that we are a class family that will spend most of our time together. As a starter activity we worked together to sort out different animals and creatures into their family group and we thought about the idea that just like these creatures that look and act differently we are still part of a family. We created collaborative art work together to symbolise our sense of teamwork and we were amazed to see our energy stick glow brighter when we were all connected. Each day we are celebrating one VIP in our classroom who will receive a beautiful poster complete with lots of compliments given by their peers. We will also continue to celebrate all of our special interests, achievements and milestones as the year progresses.
