This week we were learning all about narrative writing. As you can see the theme was all about Pirates and the Seven Seas! We spent the week planning our settings, characters and then our plot. We then wrote our first draft, edited it and began writing our final version to stick onto our treasure map to accompany our stories. Once we had this step done Ms Brown helped us tea stain our sheets to make them look old and we crinkled them up to stick up on the noticeboard outside our classroom. They look really effective and we really enjoyed our creative writing!

In Room 12 we celebrated World Earth Day 2021 which took place yesterday. We had lots of conversations about how we can help the Earth stay healthy and what small steps we can take to make big changes. Everybody got a footprint to write down one of these small steps and decorate afterwards. I was so impressed with how aware each of the boys and girls were of their impact on the world and what they can do to change it. Some of the goals were; not running the tap while they brush their teeth, walking where they can, switching off lights when they aren't being used and not leaving electronics on when we aren't using them. 

I want to wish you all a very Happy Easter! The boys and girls really deserved the break because they had all been working so hard in Room 12 on the run up to our Easter holidays. We had been getting ourselves ready for the Easter Bunny, you can see some of our Easter art below, somebody very cleverly named our Easter chicks as chick-inoes because when teacher lined them all up on the windowsill and the wind blew in the window they would all knock each other over like dominoes!!! 

We had been planning a top secret surprise for all the Grown Ups at home who have been like Mothers to all the children in Room 12. We created some beautiful bouquets of flowers, Mother's Day cards and very creative pictures for keepsakes! Although it may really look like it, none of the boys and girls were really sent to space for these pictures! (However they have all confirmed they really do love you all to the moon and back!!)

We have been looking at Force in Science this week. We had some great discussions about gravity and how things move in the air. One of the things we talked about was a parachute, how can it hold a person up in the air if it just made from material? So we decided to see how it really worked. Teacher helped us and suggested we use some modelling clay, wool and plastic to try recreate a parachute. 
We were each given the materials in pairs and had to figure out what we thought was the best way to create a parachute. The modelling clay was the object we were using as a weight. You can see below the children figured out removing the clay would make it lighter and help the parachute stay in the air longer. It was a very effective experiment!

It has been a busy week getting ourselves back into school but we were lucky that on Thursday the 4th of March we got to celebrate World Book Day. This was a time where we got to explore different genres of books, share our favourite characters, create comic book strips and even paint on the pages of an old book our teacher had!
Our class also began some novels by Roald Dahl, we look forward to our reading groups every afternoon because we are talking lots about what has already happened, what will happen next, the different characters, and exploring the setting of the tale. This helps our novels become less like any old story and more like a whole new world we can get lost in!

We had been talking a lot about our plans for the Christmas break and what might be different this year compared to last year. We discussed how some people who might be isolating or keeping themselves safe and might not have a lot of visitors this Christmas. With the help of Ms Gilligan and Ms Brown we made a hamper and had it delivered to our local nursing home to try bring some Christmas Cheer to those who might not have it. We wrote cards and decorated them with lovely bright Christmas pictures to hopefully send some smiles to our wider community. We included wool and knitting needles, puzzle books, toiletries, chocolates, sweets, biscuits, candy canes and Christmas crackers! The boys and girls were really proud of their efforts to be thoughtful and spread some kindness. 

We were so lucky this year, even with Covid19 we were able to get a post box that delivered our Santa Letters directly to the North Pole. There was a lot of time and effort that went into our letters and we took some time to remind Santa what we had asked for already. We wrote them on parchment paper and stuck lots of lovely sparkles on the outside. We double and triple checked we all had the correct address on them and tied a big red bow around our letters to keep them safe and for Santa's eyes only. As you can see there were lots of excited boys and girls in Room 12!

We had a very deserving pupil for the award this month! There has been a huge effort made by this student each and every day to do his best, believe in himself and put in the hard work. This great determination, resilience and perseverance was commented on by his peers, teachers and even Ms Mc Nulty too. There were huge celebrations in Room 12 when his name was called and we are all so impressed by what you have achieved this month MJ! Well done and keep up the great work! 

In Room 12 we have been looking closely at 'kindness' we had some great discussions over the past number of weeks on the topic. We each picked a Random Act of Kindness out of a jar and had to try do that task once a day for a week. We shared them with the class when the week was up and the children were so surprised but had noticed others going out of their way to help out, share smiles, jokes and show positivity where possible. We made Friendship Recipes and wrote up all the different ingredients we need to have great friendships, you can see them below on our 'Tree of Kindness' display outside our classroom. 
We also designed and made compliment envelopes, each child wrote something nice about each person in our class. We then put them in each person's envelope to quarantine for 72 hours. Once it was safe to do so, at the end of every day, we read 3 of our compliments before we went home. There were so many smiles and happy faces going home from school each day.