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The ten children from second class who took part in the Time to Read programme celebrated the end of a 20 week reading intervention by volunteers from Gas Networks Ireland. Their parents and class teachers also attended, as did Melanie Flynn from Time to Read.

The children were presented with certificates and a very generous gift of book tokens for Easons!

A big thank you to all the volunteers from teachers, parents and most importantly, the children. We hope to have Time to Read in our school next year!

For more information on Time to Read see: http://www.bitc.ie/schools-business-partnership/programme-for-primary-schools/

A huge thank you to Ms Shallow who organised an Active Schools’ Week during May. Classes took part in a wide variety of activities both inside and outside. Activities included athletics, dance, games and orienteering to name but a few! A great week was had by all and there were even medals at the end.

Before the May Midterm Break, the whole school took part in a friendship and multicultural awareness week. Lots of activities occurred such as, storytelling, food sampling, show and tell of clothes, traditions and dance. The week was a huge success and promoted the values of telling, saying no, being a good friend, relationships, acceptance and tolerance that are key elements of the SPHE curriculum and of the school ethos.

The first Mother of Divine Grace Book Club was launched recently in the school library and has been running every Tuesday for the last five weeks. Everyone was very enthusiastic and excited about our chosen book, ‘How to train your Dragon’. We discussed the main characters in the book, compared the book to the film, discussed alternative endings and made a quiz based on the story. We also took part in a competition to design a book mark for our book club and to design your own dragon. We finished off with a special Character Day filled with many famous faces, such as; Harry Potter, Captain Underpants, Little Red Riding Hood, ER and many more. Even Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz and The Little Red Hen popped in to say hello! Thank you to all the enthusiastic book worms who came along. Watch this space for the next instalment of MDG’s Book Club and remember ‘The more that you read, the more things you will know, the more that you learn, the more places you’ll go!’

-Ms Leahy and Ms Prendergast

The children taking part in the Time to Read programme in second class went on a visit to Finglas Library. They were accompanied by their teachers, volunteers from Bord Gáis and some parents attended too! The children were given library joining cards and some people even withdrew some books to read! There was also a story telling session which was really entertaining!

Have you been to Finglas Library recently?

On Tuesday 10th February the children involved in the Time to Read Programme went to Gas Networks Ireland on a work place visit! The Time to Read project has been running very successfully in our school this year. Volunteers from Bord Gáis come every Tuesday morning to read with 10 children from second class. The children visited the workplace in order to learn more about where the volunteers work, the types of jobs they do and so that the children could visualise the working environment that the volunteers would be speaking about.

A great morning was had by all. The children got to see many aspects of the work of Gas Networks Ireland such as responding to emergencies, training technicians and engineers, gas safety and the various types of work that goes with an office environment. A lovely generous lunch was also provided! A big thank you to the Time to Read programme and Gas Networks Ireland for a great day!

Here is a link to listen to the interview with Radió na Life that took place with Mr McCarthy’s 4th class!

Seo é an nasc don agallamh le Radió na Life agus Rang a 4:

On Wednesday the 3rd of December Radio na Life came to record a radio show with Mr McCarthy’s 4th class!

Radio na Life is an Irish Language radio station and can be found on 106.4 FM. You can also access their site online: http://www.raidionalife.ie/

The class sang three songs as Gaeilge: Happy by Pharrell Williams, Hey and Cóisir Rap.

Luke, Varsha and Adam were also intervied by the station manager, Cian McCarthy.

The children had a great time working with the crew. The show is due to air next week.

The class would also like to thank Mr Kearney who played guitar on one of the songs.

Recently Mr Bourke’s class took apart some PCs and inspected how they worked, as well as learning about the internal components of a computer. These computers were old broken down computers.

NOTE: DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME WITHOUT ADULT SUPERVISION. NEVER TAMPER OR MESS WITH AN ELECTRICAL DEVICE. ELECTRICITY IS EXTREMELY DANGEROUS. TAKE CARE WHEN ANYTHING IS PLUGGED IN TO AN ELECTRICAL SOCKET.

Congratulations to the Early Start unit which were recently commended for their work and care of children. The Early Start programme is a pilot project run by the Department of Education and is a one-year preventative intervention scheme.