Hey everyone, we’re Taylor and Layla and we’re going to tell you all about what we have been doing in school since October to December.
It’s Layla here, we came back from our midterm break the day after Halloween. We were all a little bit tired but that day we learned all about 'Dia de los Muertos' which is the day of the dead. It's a festival held mainly in Mexico where people celebrate the lives of loved ones who have died. They do this by decorating alters and painting clay skulls in bright colours. We even decorated our own sugar skulls!
November is a time in the Catholic Church where we remember the loved ones that we know that have passed away. We wrote the names of a loved one we wanted to remember on a leaf and decorated it. We then put them on our wall to form a tree. While it is a very sad topic, we were able to talk openly and lovingly in class about what that person meant to us which made it a really nice experience.
We also started learning our prayers for our Confirmation. We know most of them but we are still struggling with the long one, the Nicene Creed but we’ll know it very soon! We still have no date for our big day but Mr. O’Callaghan says that as soon as he knows he’ll tell us, which will hopefully be soon!
Most of this part of term was taken up with learning all about World War Two. We learned all about the Allies and the Axis powers fought against each other, how Hitler put all the Jews into concentration camps. We looked at some of the main points of the war such as how it started, D-Day, the Battle of Britain and how it all ended when the Americans dropped two atomic bombs on Japan. We watched video clips of parts of the war which really help us understand as well as a lot of art too! Just last week we did a project on it. Me and my group did ours on Joseph Stalin. Now here’s Taylor!
Thanks Layla! Did you know that The Boy In The Striped Pyjamas is very sad? I won’t spoil it for you but it’s set in WWII and it’s about a boy who becomes friends with another boy who wears striped pyjamas. All I can say is that it is and an amazing book and I loved it and the movie too! It was our class novel and it tied into our study on WWII.
In maths we did long division and I swear at the start I thought it was a lot of random numbers ‘til I got it by learning ‘Mammy, Daddy, Sister, Brother, Rover.’ We would tick them when we are doing the sum and put them on the side of our page. By the end we all got it….. I think, well I hope so for Mr. O’Callaghan’s sake!
It wasn’t all serious work though. We visited the old graveyard, St Canice’s Cemetery. It was actually so much fun! We got to know how old the graveyard was, learned all about Dublin City’s only high cross that’s right in the middle of Finglas! We even did a fun activity at the end where we rubbed the old gravestones to reveal the details that were worn off over the years.
Also guess what, me and my class ran a marathon! Over 8 weeks we ran different lengths around the yard and altogether it added up to 42km! We got medals and T-shirts too. At the end we all but our T shirts on our heads and pretended we were nuns!!
Layla here again, even though he said he wasn’t going to Mr. O’Callaghan put up a Christmas tree in the class room. He let us decorate it with the baubles that he had. For art one week we made clay Christmas decorations and we each got to hang our decorations on the Christmas tree. We then had an official countdown and Zoe turned on the Christmas tree lights while Ghala and Zuzanna turned on the lights over the windows. To finish our decorating, we all made paper snow flakes that hang down from the ceiling and make our class feel all Christmassy!
You’re right Layla, our class is real Christmassy. It’s Taylor again and I’m going to wrap things up by telling you all about the Christmas drama we created. I wouldn’t mind if you watched it nut my class would be balling with embarrassment! It’s about Santa leaving on Christmas Eve and when he comes back the elves are having a party and Santa fired them. They end up going to Finglas and to our school and mess things up! While they do that, Santa is looking for new elves at an audition and the elves sneak in and decide to audition themselves and in the end everyone is one of Santa’s helpers!
That’s it from Layla and Taylor. While we’ve been really busy learning loads of new things this year we’ve also had a lot of fun along the way! We hope you enjoyed reading all about it.
Layla and Taylor OUT. Drops MIC
