St. Mary's Woodside National School, Sandyford
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Fifth Class- Ms. Mulrooney

Our Favourite Films

In Fifth Class, we discussed our favourite films.      
During Art, we designed the covers for some of our favourite films. Here are some samples of our work:
Picture

Our Favourite Books

We recently studied the genre of Persuasive Writing in 
English class. We designed our own book covers
during Art. Here is some of our work!

The Maya
We learned all about "The Maya" in History. Mayan civilisation began around 2600 BC. It is thought that the Maya were descended from a race of Native Americans called "The Olmec", who lived along the Gulf of Mexico. Mayan lands stretched from what we now know as Mexico to El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras. Their civilisation reached its most advanced stage between 250 AD and 900 AD. Today, the Maya and their descendants still form part of the culture and population of Central America.

We each carried out some research on The Maya and in groups, we designed projects. Here is some of our work:

The Normans 

During our History class, we learned all about the Normans. In Ireland, in the twelfth century (the 1100s), there were many warring clans in Ireland. Each clan had their own king. The most powerful king was known as the high king. In order to become high king, a king had to fight against other powerful kings. Sometimes the king of Connacht would win, other times it might be the king of Leinster, Munster or Ulster. These constant fights meant that kings had many enemies. The reason the Normans first came to Ireland was in fact due to this fighting. 

In 1169, a group of Norman soldiers and knights arrived in Wexford to help the Irish king of Leinster, Diarmuid MacMurrough. They were invited by Diarmuid to help him fight his enemies and regain his kingdom in Leinster. Diarmuid MacMurrough particularly wanted to defeat Tiernan O’Rourke, the ruler of Breffini (now Roscommon), and Rory O’Connor, the king of Connaught, because they had joined armies and had forced Diarmuid out of his kingdom.

Strongbow was a Norman lord from Wales who started the Norman conquest of Ireland. He was initially brought to Ireland by Dermot Macmurrough, King of Leinster in 1170. At the time, the king was struggling to maintain his power against the attacks of other Irish chiefs. Strongbow brought with him an army of Welsh archers to help the King. This is why he gained the name Strongbow. When the King died in 1171, Strongbow succeeded him and became the first Norman king in Ireland.

Diarmuid MacMurrough knew that there were Norman knights and soldiers in England and he invited them to Ireland to help him. He first had to get permission from King Henry II, who at the time was the king of England and also the king of Normandy in France. In 1170, a Norman lord called Richard de Clare, nicknamed Strongbow, came to Ireland from Wales. Strongbow brought archers, knights and horsemen with him and helped Diarmuid to capture Waterford and Dublin. Strongbow later married Diarmuid’s daughter, Aoife. In 1171, when Diarmuid died, Strongbow became the King of Leinster. This meant that by 1170 AD the Normans had taken over much of the east of Ireland. By the 1300s, the Normans had castles and power in many parts of Ireland.


King Henry II, the Norman king of England and also part of France, came to Ireland in 1171. He allowed Strongbow to keep the rule of Leinster and he gave Meath to another Lord called Hugh de Lacy. Many of the important Irish leaders were afraid that they might be attacked by the Normans so they made friends with King Henry II and agreed that he would be their overlord and protector in return for certain deals and promises. King Henry left Ireland in 1172 but called himself the supreme lord of Ireland.

  The Norman lords soon took over some of the lands belonging to Irish clans. They were able to keep control because they had good weapons such as crossbows and were well protected by the armour they wore in battle and also by their castles. They built their castles on high ground. The castles were initially made of timber and later made of stone. These strong castles made it difficult for Irish clans to attack the Normans. The Normans mainly had control on the east of Ireland. They never conquered the whole country.

Our Norman Castles 

In groups, we designed our very own Norman castles. We had great fun designing and making our creations. Here we are, hard at work!

Friendship Week 

During Friendship Week, our class took part in many activities. We worked on building new friendships, including everyone in our games and helping out one another in class.

Still Life

When Mrs Clifford was working with us, she taught us about the famous artist, Paul Cezanne.
We were very inspired by his work and we created our own still life pictures using a variety of 
coloured pastels. Here is some of our work:

Lines and Angles, 2-D Shapes and Tangrams

In Maths class, we learned all about the various lines and angles. We then used matchsticks to make our own lines and angles. We loved this Maths lesson!
We then studied all about 2-D shapes and tangrams. We were challenged to put together various tangrams. After this, we designed our own tangram pictures! Here are some samples of our work:

Christmas Celebrations

We were very busy during the weeks coming up to Christmas. Our class joined 4th and 6th class to sing some beautiful hymns in the Church. We then sang some more beautiful Christmas hymns and jingles with First, Second and Third Class too. We all had a great night!

In our classroom, we put up a crib to remind us of the Christmas story. We also decorated our classroom with lots of colourful Christmas decorations. For our Christmas tree, we designed our own decorations using various fabrics. We learned a number of sewing techniques along the way too!  We had great fun! Here are some of the finished products, which we brought home to put on our own Christmas trees on the last day of the term.

Dublin Zoo

We were recently treated to an afternoon with one of the men who works in Dublin Zoo. He told us some fascinating stories about life in the zoo. He spoke to us about the history of the zoo, about the animals who live there and about how the animals are looked after in the zoo. We were enthralled by his stories and we thoroughly enjoyed viewing all the objects he brought in with him. These included an elephant's foot and tooth! 

Sound 

During one of our Science lessons recently, we learned all about sound. 

Did you know?

  • Sound comes from vibrations. These vibrations create sound waves which move through mediums such as air and water before reaching our ears.

  • Our ears vibrate in a similar way to the original source of the vibration, allowing us to hear many different sounds.

  • Dogs can hear sound at a higher frequency than humans, allowing them to hear noises that we can’t.

  • Sound is used by many animals to detect danger, warning them of possible attacks before they happen.

  • Sound can’t travel through a vacuum (an area empty of matter).

  • The speed of sound is around 767 miles per hour (1,230 kilometres per hour).

  • The loud noise you create by cracking a whip occurs because the tip is moving so fast it breaks the speed of sound!

  • When traveling through water, sound moves around four times faster than when it travels through air.

  • The scientific study of sound waves is known as acoustics.

  • Although music can be hard to define, it is often described as a pleasing or meaningful arrangement of sounds.

  • The sound of thunder is produced by rapidly heated air surrounding lightning which expands faster than the speed of sound.

Musical Instruments

As part of our Science lesson, we designed our own musical instruments in groups. We worked very hard over the coming days to make our instruments. 
Here are some of our finished products!
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