Inis Óirr Part 1

Miss Sunderland here. I'm having a serious case of FOMO that I couldn't go to the Aran Islands with the boys this year. Mark and Mr McIntyre have been keeping me up to date with how the boys are getting on. They look like they're having a ball. Here's a few snaps so far, including photographic evidence that the boys are going to heaven! Local legend has it that if you fit through the window in the old church you're guaranteed a spot up there. What I wanna know is where is the picture of Mark??? ;)

Congratulations Dane!

A huge congratulations to Dane McKenna who won the Art and Hobby Shop's Easter competition!

Each boy in the school was given a foam Easter egg to decorate. Dane chose to make his into a minion. His creative design was chosen not only as the best in the school but in the whole competition. 

It's currently on display in the Art and Hobby Shop in the Jervis Shopping Centre.

A big thanks to Ms Murphy for organising the completion entries  for us. 

Our Ceremony of Light

As part of our preparation for our Confirmation the boys had their Ceremony of Light in the church tonight.

All of the boys turned up at the church with a candle in hand and their sponsor or someone from home. 

Brandon did a great job reading the first reading and Nathan, Cian and Dane read the prayers of the faithful wonderfully.

Near the end of the ceremony all of the boys and girls were invited up onto the altar. The adults with them then lit their candles and passed them on to the boys in a symbol of passing on their faith.

We are all really looking forward to the big day now on June 13th!

Here are a few snaps from tonight 

It's all Greek!

We are doing a project at the moment all about Greece. We are learning all about the countries geography and it's ancient history.

Did you know Greece is one and a half times the size of Ireland? It has a population of 10 million.

We are learning all about Ancient Greek gods such as Ares, Apollo and Zeus. Here's a picture of us researching information for our projects.

Letter from the USA!

Today we received letters from out penpals in Toledo, Ohio! 

We wrote to them in February and we were very excited to see their replies today. 

We are going to write back tomorrow and tell them all about our Confirmation and Aran Islands trip that we have coming up. 

The Larriers are Victorious!!

It's official, the Larriers have brought home the glory!! The boys in 6th class have won the table quiz for the One Book One Community project.
Before we get into some more showboating let us tell you a bit more about the project.
One Book One Community is an innative run by the home school liason teachers in the North Inner City. Pupils in 6th class and in first year from 19 schools all read the same book as well as parents in the community too. This project has been taking place for over 5 years now and is a great success. This year we all read the book 'The Blue Horse' by Marita Conlon McKenna. The book explores themes such as predjudice and a sense of home and belonging and is told through the story of Kaite Connors, a 12 year old traveller. It proved to be a very popular novel and we were even lucky enough to have the author Marita speak at the opening and closing ceremonies.
Back to the good news ........ The brainbox team comprising of Dane, Ben, Adam and Callum narrowly beat off the competition to take home the trophy for the Larriers. This is the first time we have won at the quiz and the trophy will be proudly displayed in our reception area.

A Trip to Mud Island

On a sunny Wednesday morning in March, the boys from 6th class went on a trip with Martina Galvin as part of an ongoing art project that we are doing. We went to see the community gardens at Mud Island on the North Strand. We were also lucky enough to have a tour of the Dublin City Corporation gardens given to us by Marie Staunton. We set off and met Martina at the Charleville Library at 9.30 in the morning. It was a lovely day and we were glad not to be in the classroom. We walked down the gardens together. They are hidden in behind the Cosy Café on the strand, it was the first time a lot of us were there. We were told that they are called Mud Island gardens because long ago, all of the North Strand was mud due to how close the sea was and that now the land has been reclaimed and put to good use.
We walked around the garden and looked at all of the different plants that are growing there. We saw purple sprouting broccoli, spring onions, potatoes, garlic, spearmint, raspberries, strawberries, blueberries, cabbages, rocket and much more. We learnt that all of these are planted by people in our community and that anyone can go to the gardens to help out. They are open Tuesday and Saturday afternoons. During the summer there is plenty of fresh fruit and vegetables that you can take away.

After exploring the garden, we took some time out and sat and drew some of the things that we could see. A few of us drew daffodils, crab apple trees, figs and some of the art work that we saw on the railings. Martina took samples of the plants so that we could look at them and draw them in closer detail back in school.

Mr. Bailey was chatting to one of the men working in the next garden over. He said that it was part of the Larkin Centre run through Dublin City Corporation and that they would show us around. We learnt a lot of new things such as:

• If a growing potato comes in contact with the sun it will turn green. A green potato is poisonous.
• There is such a thing as ornamental cabbages!
• They grow herbaceous plants. Herbaceous plants come back every year, the flower dies but the roots are still alive under the ground.
• We saw figs for the first time, they make up the filling for fig rolls!
• We learnt how to make a clone of a tree, this saves money but it’s also good if the plant is a very good plant and you’d like a copy of it.
• RTE send out potato blight warnings. If a warning is sent out they spray the potato leaves with fungicide. If they had’ve cut off the leaves of the potato plants during the famine the potatoes would have been small but still ok to eat.
• We saw a stump of a tree that now has moss, ferns and mushrooms growing on it.
• We learnt that they cover the soil that strawberries are growing in with a black sacks with holes in it. This means that the strawberries grow above ground, aren’t covered in muck and don’t get mould on them.
• A lot of the plants that are grown there are sent all over Dublin to places like St. Annes Park and Stephens Green.


We got a chance to plant some cress. We were also given a plant for our school. It’s a baby plant so we have to keep it covered in plastic for a few weeks to keep it warm until it is strong enough to go outside. We can’t wait to go back because we are going to plant pumpkins that they are going to give us at Halloween!

We then went of a little walk around the canal and had a look at the memorial garden for the North Stand Bombing. After all of this we went back to the school where we did some drawing with Martina. We drew more plants but with greater detail. We had a great morning and learnt lots about plants and gardening. Adam, Shane, Ben and Dane.

Claude Monet

About a fortnight ago, our class was learning about the artist Claude Monet in the classroom. We were learning about him as an art lesson. We tried to copy a painting of his called 'The Japanese Bridge'. The painting was painted with painted with water colours. He was an Impressionist artist and was around in the late 1800's. Claude Monet joined the army when he was 21 and he went to Africa with them. His aunt begged him to leave the army and paid for him to go to art college if he gave it up. The Japenese Bridge is a colourful painting, full of flowers. I really enjoyed learning about it.

An Stoirm!

Seo scéal beag a scríobh rang a sé.
Oíche fuar agus fliuch a bhí ann. Bhí an spéir dorcha agus bhí sé ag stealladh báistí. Bhí mé sa bhaile le mo mhadra. Bhí mé ag féachaint ar scannán nuair a chonaic mé las tintreach mór sa spéir. Bhí eagla ar mo mhadra. Rith sé amach ón teach! Chuir mé hata agus cóta orm. Fuair mé Batman dána ón ghairdín.