During the month of May, we were able to take all the learning we have been doing in our debates, and extend it to run a mock trial in our classroom. We are so lucky to have a solicitor among the parents at our school. Rory Staines met with us (via Zoom) to teach us all about the Irish justice system. We had dozens of questions for him, which he answered very patiently.
We also had some lessons around the types of consequences that can follow when somebody breaks the law, and on the importance of considering all available evidence before making any decisions.
Then last week, we were ready to get down to business.

After figuring out who would play what roles, everybody had something to prepare for homework. The speaking roles are outlined above. Everyone else in the class was a member of the jury. 

The trial went off without a hitch, and Rory told us he was very impressed with the work we had put into it. It was a fantastic learning experience!

In Music this month, we were listening to Ceol Gaelach - Irish Music, played by a selection of traditional Irish instruments. We particularly listened to The Salamanca Reel, and learned about how many Irish pieces, including reels, have pieces that repeat.
In our groups, we composed pieces of 'music' using items that we had on our desks - in each piece we play 4 bars of part A, followed by 4 bars of part B. See if you can hear the change!

This month, in Science, we have been learning all about materials. Earlier in the month, we did an experiment to help us understand how materials can change one another when they come into contact.
We explored the effects of various materials on ice - recording how long it took for each material to melt a block of ice.

In week 2, we had an opportunity to look closely at some of the materials that are used in construction. We were also considering the question of whether the materials were raw or manufactured.

This week, we were lucky to be able to visit a building site right on our doorstep! In fact, the houses and apartments they are building surround our school campus. Pádraig from Harcourt Developments welcomed us and showed us around the site. He let us see inside an almost-complete house, and showed us the new-fangled heat extractor plants that are installed in all of the homes. Later, he introduced us to Gareth, who taught us all about some of the materials they use on site.
We all thoroughly enjoyed our field trip!

Here are some before and after photographs, of the view over the school wall over the past year. Yesterday, we were IN one of these houses!

We learned a lot about Georgian homes during distance learning, and since we came back to school. Over the past two weeks, we created some artwork inspired by Georgian homes.

On our first day back in the classroom, we did a quick recap on everything we learned during our weeks of distance learning. It was way more than anybody realised!!
We also gave some thought to which units we enjoyed the most, or found most interesting - and the pieces that we found less interesting or memorable.

​We were able to revisit some of these topics in the fortnight after we came back to school.

During the month of February, we were learning all about migration, and specifically about Direct Provision here in Ireland.
As a class, we brainstormed some of the reasons why children don't like living in Direct Provision. Then we each wrote a letter to the Minister for Justice about it. Some of us chose to post our letters, others didn't.

Here are some excerpts from some of our letters. Later in February we did projects about other activists in Ireland, past and present.

As part of our distance learning in January, our focus in our Learn Together lessons has been on Children's Rights. We learned all about the UNCRC and the National Children's Strategy, both of which were designed to promote and protect children's rights. 
We used padlet to record our thoughts on how life has improved for children in Ireland since the drawing up of the UNCRC and the establishment of the National Children's Strategy.
We will go on to learn about some children in Ireland whose rights are perhaps not being respected as well as they should be, as they and their families live in Direct Provision.
So we first needed to learn about Migration, push and pull factors, and what might cause children and their families to leave their home countries as Refugees. We used Jamboard to brainstorm our ideas on this.

This week, the children have been really busy at home coming up with all kinds of creative creations! They have been submitting them on Seesaw and we have enjoyed looking through them in class. Drawings, poetry, writing, origami, music, construction - it's been really impressive!
In school, we had our first foray into photography, as we used the classroom cameras for the first time. Needless to say, it was very exciting getting to take photographs, so we had 'free play' with the cameras - getting used to how to take and delete pictures. Over the coming weeks, we will develop our abilities with the cameras and ultimately photograph children from Junior Infants for a photography project.

This coming month, we will be focusing particularly hard on Maths - including playing lots of Maths games to improve our numeracy skills.
At home, it is so important that the children practice their tables every night. At this stage, many of the children have a reasonable recall of their times tables, but many of them could improve on their speed. Each Friday morning, we have a tables test, and I would love to see everybody improve on their personal best speed this month.
I find it is easiest for a child to improve their speed if they focus on one group of tables at a time - that is why we went back to x3 at the start of the year and we have built from there. If your child does not yet have all of the x3 tables on the tip of their tongue, please go back and start there with them again. Only when they have mastered x3, should you move on to x4. 
There are some ideas on this page to support you and your child with practicing tables as often as possible. 
Enjoy!

Last week, we were lucky to have a virtual visit from a historian - Leon's Dad! Our focus this month was on Medieval history, and Leon's Dad Maciek knows lots about the time period, so he offered to have a Zoom call with us.
Before our call with Maciek, we did some reading and talking about Medieval times, so that we had a basic understanding. Maciek then brought the period to life for us, with a brief talk about some interesting aspects of life at that time.
He referred to a map of Europe quite frequently, as he explained what came before the Middle Ages, and the conquests that took place during the period - with special mentions for the Vikings and Normans.
We were so grateful to him, particularly for his patience in answering all of our questions! At first, we were a little shy, but once we got going, we had an endless supply of questions!
Thank you so much, Maciek, for sharing some of your knowledge with us. No doubt, we will be in touch with you again later in the year. We are so lucky to have an expert parent in our midst!