Today, our class went to visit  Ms. Scally’s Junior Infant class and we read stories that we wrote for them. We spent several weeks writing these stories. When we had finished our final drafts, we illustrated and decorated our books and they all turned out really well. The Junior Infants really enjoyed listening to our stories and we enjoyed the experience!

By Andreea, Lucy, Rosalyn & Ellen in Room 24

In Room 23, we were studying the work of Wassily Kandinsky, the Russian abstract artist who spent a lot of his life in Berlin. We decided to make a whole-class 3-D piece.

To design this project everyone brought in lids from bottles and jars. We then each painted 3 different sized lids in various colours and stuck them together. It was important to be able to see the various colours and then to ensure we had a contrasting coloured square to frame each set of lids. It took us 2 days to arrange and complete. We hope you like the finished display!

We were busy making tie-dye shirts in Art last week. They turned out great, and we had a lot of fun making them! We have been learning about procedural writing in class, so we decided to write about how to make your own tie-dye t-shirt! 

How to Tie Dye a T-Shirt

Ingredients & Materials:

• Dylon dye (200g each yellow, red, blue – enough for 26 people)
• 300g of salt
• Warm Water
• Large Tub and Jug
• 12 empty 500ml water bottles
• Plain white t-shirts, 100% cotton
• Rubber bands (lots!)
• Plastic bags e.g. Ikea bags

Method:

1. First, in your large tub mix 200g of dye, 100g of salt and 5 litres of warm water.
2. Next, get four 500ml bottles and pour the liquid from your large tub into a jug, then into the water bottles.
3. Repeat Steps 1 & 2 for each colour.
4. Get your t-shirt and put it into any shape you want {e.g. spiral} then wrap your rubber bands around the t-shirt to hold the shape in place.
5. Sprinkle all of your dye onto your t-shirt until you feel it is enough.
6. When you are finished, adding your dye put it into your plastic bag and let it set for 24 hours.
7. After that, take your t-shirt out of the bag and squeeze the water out.
8. Next, put your t-shirt in the dryer or on the radiator and let it dry.
9. Finally, iron your t-shirt if on radiator and enjoy wearing!

By: Lilly and Amy, Room 26

Last week on 16^th January, Room 24 took a trip to Dublin Castle. Before we visited the Castle, we had our lunch in the Dubhlinn Gardens. Next, our class got a private tour of the Dublin Castle and the grounds from our lovely tour guide Noreen. Firstly, she brought us to see the underground Powder Tower. Noreen showed us where the Normans would have stored their gunpowder. When we saw, it looked like a small cave. After that, she brought us to see the Chapel Royal, which was directly across from the Powder Tower. The Chapel had many beautiful paintings and sculptures. There was a big fancy organ on the wall of the Chapel. After we left the Chapel we headed over to the State Apartments and we continued on with our tour. We saw Queen Victoria’s tiny chair and St Patrick's Hall where Michael D Higgins got inaugurated last year. One interesting fact that we learned is that blue is Ireland’s National colour, most of us thought it was green! We saw the Throne Room, The Drawing Room and the bedroom that had lots of nice jewellery on show. After we finished the tour, we went to the Chester Beatty library, where we met our new tour guide Jesse. He told us lots of interesting facts about Chester Beatty and all of his collectibles. We ended the trip with a run around at the playground beside St Patrick's Cathedral. All of our class really enjoyed our trip to Dublin Castle. A special thanks to Ms Boland and Ms Steen for organising and bringing us on the trip.

Written by Lucy, Andreea, Rosalyn and Ellen. J!!!