December was a very busy month for all the boys and girls in Ms. Beirne's Junior Infants. We had lots of visitors to our classroom and really enjoyed learning all about the Arctic.

Our Aistear theme for December was The Arctic. We learned all about Arctic animals and had lots of fun pretending to be elves in Santa's workshop!

We were also lucky enough to have a special visitor from the North Pole. Santa sent a special elf called Buddy to make sure all the children were being good in the run up to Christmas. He did all sorts of silly things and we all enjoyed finding his new hiding place each morning.

We had lots of fun preparing for our Christmas play 'The Nursery Rhyme Nativity' with Ms. Dempsey's and Ms, Owens' Junior Infants during December. Everybody had a line to say and we dressed up as angels, shepherds, innkeepers, Mary and Joseph and the three wise men. Here are some photos pf us all dressed up!

Some senior classes are currently participating in a cycling safety course for 6 weeks. With more and more people cycling on our roads this initiative is very welcome. It will no doubt ensure that the children are more aware of bike safety and indeed safety on the roads in general. Here are some images of Mr. Walshe's 6th class enjoying the course recently.

More photos from our day dressing up in school before Halloween....

 The children of 2nd Class had a very fun packed and eventful week before the mid term break. The children had great fun making Halloween themed characters in Art and dressing up for the witchety walk. The parents and children made huge efforts and the costumes were amazing. The parents association organised halloween activities for the children in the school hall after our walk.  We were also lucky enough to be asked by the transition year students to attend a Halloween party in the Tearmann Community Garden. It was very well oragnised and the children had a spooktacular time!! 

The 5th class children reached the summit of Keadeen today, with spectacular views and a great sense of humour all the way. More images and reflections to follow in the coming days. 

Our Trip Up Mt. Keadeen
                It was 10:30am, the 11th of October 2016 and we were walking out of our school, Scoil Naomh and getting on a bus to hike up Keadeen Mountain. I was sitting beside Callum. We were going through Rathdangan. It was very quiet as most of the children were in school and the adults were in work. We arrived at the foot of Keadeen at 11:00. We started our walk after we met Ms. Murtagh, Mr. Hannafin, Pat and Ms. Casey’s dad, Michael Casey.
                As we climbed Michael told us about his breathtaking mountain climbs in the Alps and Kilimanjaro. On some he had dangerous experiences. Mr. Murphy was very excited as it was the first mountain he had climbed in Wicklow. As we progressed near the top we had to go through a squelshy, unpleasant, mucky bog. Lots of people got mucky and lost some shoes. Ms. Casey had to do a few search and rescues for shoes!!!
                As we progressed we finally got to the top. We put some stones on the cairn for good luck. We ate our lunch, took a few photos and made our way back down the mountain and we came to the bog again. I told Charli and Clare that I was going to take a ‘‘photo’’ and they walked backwatds into a pool of boggy water. When we came near the bus we had to pass through by bellowing fire and the smoke stank. We arrived at the bus and went home. Shout out to Ms. Casey for organising the day.

The Mt. Keadeen Trip
We went up Mt. Keadeen on Tuesday the 11th of October. We went up because our teachers wanted us to learn more about history and geography. Ms. Casey, Pat (our wonderful caretaker), Ms. Murtagh,  Mr. Hannafin, Mr. Murphy, Dave (our savage bus driver) and Michael Casey (Ms. Casey’s dad) came with us. Ms. Casey organised it. My partner on the trip was Katie. It took us about 30 minutes to get there.
               We arrived there about 10:05am. We then started our climb. In the middle we stopped and found deer footprints. Then we all took a drink of water. It took us about two hours to get up. When we arrived at the top there was a pile of rocks on top of each other. Ms. Casey said to place a rock on the top for good luck. Then there was a load of pictures take. We then had some lunch. After that we started climbing down. There was a lot of bogs. Clare and I fell into them face first!! Then Clare and I were linking arms and Clare slipped into a muddy hole and she dragged me in too.  We then went around a bunch of smoke. It smelled awful!!! We eventually arrived at the bus. My rating for the trip was 100 out of 100.