Straffan National School Blog

We made these motte and bailey forts because we were learning about the Normans. We made them out of clay. We shaped the motte by getting our hands and making a hill. Instead of using real planks we used match sticks. Some of us made a moat, we painted the moat with blue paint to make it look like there was water. Some people also made little houses. Then we painted them with blue paint for the water, green paint for the ground.We also used brown paint to make the image of muck. Finally we let them dry to bring home.

  Second class are working hard practicing their tables in lots of fun ways this month. 

The day started very early following a week of anticipation and development. Charlie, Oisín, Séamas and Donnacha, started their project in late September and advanced from our school exhibition following a tough competition with other boys and girls from 5th and 6th class.  Today they represented Scoil Bhríde, Straffan NS in TU Dublin, Blanchardstown at the Mini Scientist Finals. There project "Can You Trust Your Eyes" continued to be developed since the first round in school. They proudly and passionately spoke about their project to everyone that visited their exhibition stand. We are immensely proud of their achievements in reaching the final. Well done boys.

Second class are working hard practicing their tables in lots of fun ways this month. 

Today in 5th and 6th class, children took part in an interactive webinar hosted by Dreamspace in Microsoft. Following the Theme of AI Aware: Safe, Smart and In Control.  Children learned what AI is, how it is being used and how they can use it safely themselves. Throughout the presentation, children were presented with computational thinking problems and worked in pairs to solve problems.  Following this, children made posters to highlight the importance of being safe online and how they support each other in being safe. Children also used information from Stay Safe lessons to advertise how to stay safe online using the Stop, Block, Tell motto. 

T oday in  Senior Infants , we read a lovely story called  Digiduck's Big Decision.  In this story a young duckling makes a strong point about how to be considerate online and the importance of kindness. The students created their own posters for "Safer Internet Day" based on the story of  Digiduck's Big Decision.   They really enjoyed listening to this story and using their creative skills to design a poster. 

To mark Internet Safety Day, our   Junior   Infants listened to the story   Digiduck’s Big Decision . The children really enjoyed the story and took part in a discussion about Digiduck’s big decision and how we can be good friends to others on the internet. The children were very engaged and finished the activity by completing a colouring page linked to Internet Safety Day. Well done to our  Junior  Infants for their great participation!