Welcome to our P.2 & P.3 Class Page.

We hope that you enjoy looking at

all our photographs and videos

of our school activities throughout the year.

Class Teacher: Mrs Norris

Teaching Assistants: Kerri, Sarah & Maggie

We celebrated 60 years GAA in Atticall. We had a special celebration day at school. Members of Atticall GAA visited the school and Mark McPolin and Liam Hardy came to give everyone in the school a coaching session. We were all invited to wear our favourite GAA jersey. We had a couple of "rebels" in our class. 

Every class took part in a Competition to mark the 60^th celebrations.  The winners of the Art Competition in our class were Ryan Murphy (P.2) and Aiyana Dhillon (P.3). It was announced that Aiyana was the overall winner of the Lower School Competition. She received a Down jersey.

The big news this week was our Class Trip to “Infinity!” We had so much fun. We travelled in a big bus to Banbridge. When we reached our destination, we were all given a pair of special “sticky socks!” We were given information on how to keep safe during our visit. We had lots of fun, bouncing on the different trampolines zones. We had to be brave to leap on to the giant air bag, from way up high. We battled each other on the battle beam, and practised our ninja skills in the Ninja Zone! We had great fun, swinging across the bars from one end to the other!! James and Avery showed us their skills at this, as they managed to get the whole way across. It didn’t matter if we fell off, because we fell into a big pile of sponges.

We had our lunch in "Solitude Park," where we were able to enoy the zip line, the great big twisting slides, climbing frames and swing beam. there was an enormous see-saw where it took lots of people on either end to move uo and down. 

Sports Day Presentation. 

Fitness Freddy” was on hand to help out with P.E. this week.  We had great fun following his dance routines and workouts. We sang along, at the top of our voices to all the jingles as we jumped, clapped, stepped, punched and shook our way through the session. We were so good that we all received certificates when the lesson was over. 

While working on capacity we compared a number of containers that looked similar. We wanted to find out how much each container actually held. As we were working with “non-standard units,” we checked out our answers by counting how many “scoops” of water were needed to fill each container.

We managed to get out in the sun into our Outside Play Area. It was great fun playing in the water, sand, on the scooters, painting and table top activities with the shining sun and the blue sky.

We had very special visitors to our class. Lisa took in four baby chicks to for us to see. They we very small and fluffy. They were only four days old.

We had a fabulous day at Sports Day. The sun shone, we ran our races, we had a picnic lunch. What more did we need?

We were discussing "Baby Firsts." The children took in some of their own "firsts." We had great fun discussing what "first" it was, and then "Who is the baby?"

Great fun playing with the mix of sand and water. The children were trying to create a mote around their castle. 

In P.E. we have been practising our skills for the events that we will take part in on School Sports Day. We are really looking to taking part in the races. We will have the bean bag race, egg and spoon, sack race, sprint and bat and ball to list but a few!!

In Numeracy we worked on our Logic and Reasoning Problem Solving Skills. We all had a set of five coloured cubes and five 2D shapes. We had to listen carefully to our instructions to know where to place each cube. This was not easy because the instructions told us where the cubes “did not” go, and which colours they may have been between. There was a lot of swapping around and repeating of instructions before we were happy with our results.

In Phonics  we took the opportunity to reinforce our target sound outside. With our “word caterpillar” we threw a large die, if we threw an even number we could move forward that number of squares and shout out the words on which we stepped over, then spell the word on which we landed. If we threw an odd number, we had to move backward that number of squares, again shouting out and spelling the words we met. It was great fun, working together and encouraging each other, in our effort to reach the head of the caterpillar. Not only did we work on phonics, but position and direction, and odd and even numbers too.

We visited Holy Cross Church and focused on what we could see inside the church We learned the names of some of the sacred items that we could see. We learned about the Holy Water Font as we enter, the Paschal Candle on the altar, the Tabernacle that is home to The Bread of Life, the Sanctuary Light that is always lit, the Baptismal Font, the Altar, the Ambo, the Crucifix and the beautiful Statues that are found all around the body of the church. We then drew our own pictures of the inside of the church. We created our own “churches” using envelopes and placed our “lollipop families” inside. 

During our church visit we studied the beautiful stained glass windows, so we created our own widows using card and tissue paper.

Patrick and Cyril from Atticall GAA Club visited the school to tell us about the 60th Birthday Celebrations that are to be held by the Club. They told us some of the history of the Club and how it was set up in 1962.

There was great excitment with the arrival of "The Book Fair!" We had the opporunity to browse through the books on offer before we made our decision on what we would like to buy.

We learned about King Solomon and how he built a house of worship for his people. We talked about how we, as a community come together, and the places where we all meet; school, shop, football club, community centre, play park etc. We then focused on our local house of worship.We went down to explore Holy Cross Church. We talked about the details on the building, the stained glass windows and the decorations on and around the altar. We got to walk around the back of the church too. We were told about an artist called Vincent Van Gogh and how he drew a Church at Auvers. We were shown these pictures and told that when Van Gogh was in a good mood he painted using yellow and orange, and when he was feeling sad he would use shades of blue. We then drew our own pictures of Holy Cross Church..

We took part in some Logic and Reasoning Problem Solving Activities. We were given cubes of five different colours and a selection of 2D shapes. We had to follow the instructions very carefully and figure out on what shape each cube was to be placed. Not as straightforward as it sounds, as we were only told where the cubes were NOT to be set...

Look at the fun we had making our way around our obstacle course, made up of only hoops. We had to follow the rules and pass through the hoops in many different ways! 

P.E. was extra fun, when Mr Hardy took us out to develop our ball skills. We had to make sure that we kept our heads up and focused, so that we did not bump into each other. We practised “dribbling,” and the many different ways we could throw, catch and bounce the ball too. 

In ICT we had the opportunity to work on programming using the Bee-Bot App on our tablets. We had to program the Bee-Bot to travel around the garden without hitting the wall, and work through each level. We had to plan our moves first and try to reach our destination using only one command. It took a lot of concentration and collaboration.

In Numeracy we developed both or subtraction and money counting skills when we visited “Bertie Baker’s Cake Sale.” We had to reduce the price of the buns and cakes on sale and then set out the correct coins to buy the treats. 

We took part in the “Daily Mile,” tenth Anniversary Challenge. We talked about how walking is good for us. It gives us the opportunity to get some fresh air, it keeps us healthy, it is good exercise and we can have a chat with our friends. We, however, also used the opportunity to have a “sing-song!”

We are so excited about our new WAU topic, “Castles and Knights.” We have our very own castle in the classroom, complete with a working drawbridge. We have dressed up as  kings, queens and knights. We have learned about William the Conqueror and how he fought Harold one thousand years ago to become King of England. 

The boys are trying to build their own castle.

We reinforced our subtraction skills, using the game “Four in a Row!” We had to roll 2 dice ( 6 sided or 10 sided) and subtract the numbers form each other. If the answer was on our game board we could cover it with one of our counters. We had to try to get four counters in a row to win.

There was great excitement when we had a visit from the Easter Bunny! We had great fun, searching for eggs all around the school. We all got an egg from the bunny! 

The winners of our Easter Art Competition and Easter Raffle

We developed our money counting skills, using “The Toy Shop,” on the IWB and coins. 

We had a visit from Conor and Neill, our local Neighbourhood Police Officers. They spoke to us about all the different ways that we keep safe; on our way to school, walking along the road, in the car, riding our bicycles, crossing the road etc. They reminded us of the importance of keeping safe online too, to make sure we are not accessing material that is not suitable for our age. They showed us theair uniform and told us about all the equipment that they must carry when they are on duty. We all got to look and feel how heavy the handcuffs are.

We have started to put together our Spring Display! We have been busy creating sheep using recycled/shredded paper. A few Easter bunnies have also been seen hopping around the field. 

The Finished Product!

We have been developing our subtracting skills. We have been using as many different words as we can that all mean subtraction; take away, minus, decrease, find the difference, how many more? We have been try to make our own subtraction “stories.” We have been working on how to record these activities using numbers. 

Our P.3's received the Sacrament of Reconciliation for the first time. We thank Fr. Sean Cahill for making this such special experience for everyone in the church. The children worked extremely hard in preparation for this event, learning their prayers and readings. They made us all very proud.

P.3 had a little well deserved “party” when they returned to the school after their First Penance and were presented with a lovely certificate, photo and gift bag, thanks to Denise, to mark the occasion.

In Literacy we have been developing our story telling skills. We have listened to stories being read by astronauts from the International Space Station.

We had great fun in our “Rocket Control Centre,” bringing spacecraft into land carefully on Earth and counting down for others to blast off to the moon. Lots of buttons to press and levers to push!

Didn’t we all look fantastic as we dressed up to celebrate “Green Day!” We had a great morning of dance, song and story from our very talented pupils. 

Congratulations to Ollie and Marykate, who won 1st and 2nd prize in the St. Patrick’s Day colouring in competition organised by the local Irish League.

We held a “Blue and Yellow Day,” as a show of solidarity with the Ukrainian Refugees. We made a donation to the “Hope for Youth Ministries” who have volunteers working directly with the refugees.

We have been learning about the “Good Shepherd,” as the P.3 children prepare for the Sacrament of First Reconciliation. We made our own sheep from recycled paper. It was messy, but it was fun. 

We played “Roll & Read” together to help us remember the different ways our target sound “air” can be written. Not only did we need to be able to read the word correctly, but we had to be careful where we placed our counters as we were also trying to achieve “4 in a row!”

 We had an interactive quiz in WAU this week. We had to answer 20 questions about our Solar System and the planets, correctly in order to remove a square and reveal the hidden picture. We did extremely well, correctly answering 18 out of the 20 to reveal a picture of Neill Armstrong the American astronaut who travelled to the moon with Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins in the Apollo 11 Mission in 1969.

We had characters of a different kind in our classroom as we celebrated “World Book Day.” We “Gangsta Granny” keeping an eye on everyone.

Working in groups we initially compared the weight of objects using our hands, stating which was heavier and which was lighter. Then using a two-pan balance, we used non-standard units such as beads, pegs and cubes to weigh a variety of objects in our classroom. We compared and discussed our results using the language of weight.

We had the opportunity to “blast off!” as we continued to explore our WAU Topic “Space.”

We learned about the tradition of “Pancake Tuesday,” before the beginning of Lent. We were all treated to pancakes on Pancake Tuesday and had them topped with our favourite toppings.

We explored “Area” We covered sheets of paper using a variety of shapes: circles, triangles, rectangles, ovals and squares. We realised that squares or rectangles were the best in order to measure area as they could be used without and spaces or overlapping.

We played “14” 

We had to find pairs of number cards, that when added together made fourteen. A game of memory and skill.

Our WAU Topic is “The Solar System.” We have had great fun investigating the planets. We have been playing in our new “Outer Space,” World. We have created rockets, aliens, stars, planets using 2D shapes, Lego, play dough and sand.

We read the story “Back to Earth with a Bump!” We knew this was a fiction text. We were able to identify the setting, characters, the problem and how it was resolved. We worked with the story mountain, where we had to sequence the pictures of the story correctly. 

In PE we played “Refuel the Rocket!” We worked in teams and had to “travel through space” to collect fuel to fill up our “Mothership.” We had to be careful not to fall into space.  We had to work collaboratively to be successful. 

We focused on positional language. We listened very carefully to our instructions and placed our Lego bricks together. We realised that although we followed the instructions, we could place the cubes above and below each other with different points of connections. We created unique pieces. 

We got very creative with our bespoke “finger-made” Valentine ♥️ 

We had great fun, working with position and grid references on the IWB. 

There was a few rogues, ruffians and skallywags in our class. There was a threatened “Mutiny!” but we managed to hold them off. 

Using the letters A, B, C, D and E, we were challenged to arrange them in a line but had to make sure that the letters next to each other in the alphabet were not together. 

BeeBot started its journey on number 2 on the grid. Working together we had to get him to number 8 in two moves. We had to record the different ways this journey was made. 

The theme for Catholic Schools Week is, “Living Life to the Full.” We are encouraged to do this by using our talents. God wants us to share our talents with others. We drew some pictures of ourselves using our talents. 

On “Grandparents Day,” we spoke of the activities we carry out with our Grandparents. We talked about the places we have visited with them and their special love for us! We created a keepsake to give to these extraordinary people.

We had great fun creating our own “Parrots of the Caribbean.”

We worked with a selection of 3D shapes. We explored the number of faces, sides and corners on each shape.

We had great fun, working with the “Pirate BeeBot.” We programmed the BeeBot to travel around the “island” trying to pass around and not over any object that may have been in our path. We had to carefully count the moves to be made and decide if the turn to be made was left or right.

Playing “Pirate Treasure,” we developed our Mathematical Language of position and our money counting skills.

We measured objects in our classroom using body parts, (non-standard units.) We used the language of measure as we did so; longer, shorter, taller, shorter. 

As our WAU Topic is “Pirates,” in PE this week we played “Raft.” We worked in pairs and had to travel across the “ocean” (playground) without falling in. Each pair had two pieces of equipment. These pieces could not be dragged so we really had to think carefully about our approach. We realised that both children had to step on one piece of equipment, place the second one in front, then step on to the second one, reach down and try to place the first piece in front again. We had to work together, listen to each other and work as a team. Most of all it was great fun!

We were given a selection of books and were asked to work in our groups and “sort” them what ever way we wanted. At the start many of us sorted them by size. We then were encouraged to look more closely at the content of the books. We sorted them into books about animals and people. On closer inspection we realised that some of the books were about “real life,” while the others were “not real life.” We were then told that the phrases were “Non-Fiction” and “Fiction.”

We looked closely at our selection of Non-Fiction Books to see if we could see what features they all had in common. 

We had great fun playing “Cone -Ball Relay.” We had to listen extremely carefully to our instructions. We then had to work together as a team to complete the task. Lots of shouts of encouragement came from our team mates!

The boys built a pirate ship.  They also designed a treasure chest and put some treasure in it. The finishing touches were added with the ship’s wheel and anchor.

Lego was used to build this pirate ship, complete with wheel house and “plank!” 

Having great fun in our “Small World, Pirate” Area.

Having fun raiding the treasure chest!

Working together to build our “Jolly Roger,” jigsaw.

We were discussing alphabetical order and then we had great fun lining ourselves up in alphabetical order according to our first names. We discovered that if some of our names began with the same letter, we then had to look at the second letter to see which one came first. 

Christmas Jumper Day in P.2 & P.3

Hugh was the lucky winner in our class of one of the fabulous hampers. The raffle was organised by our School Council. 

We had great fun with our “Christmas Creations.”

We made some snow flakes and crackers!

We worked together, using a collection of 3D shapes to create a shelter for our Christmas Elf. 

Our focus text type this term is Instructional. We had to concentrate really hard and follow the given instructions to make a pirate 🏴‍☠️ hat. The illustrations were a great help. It was great fun! 

The Finished Products. 

Thanks to FHC and ASDA we are in the extremely privileged position of having IT hardware that each child in our school has access to. These pictures highlight how our children are encouraged to use IT to reinforce their mathematical learning.

We had great fun completing our “Christmas Style, Daily Mile.”

We reinforced our knowledge of 2D shapes playing, “Shape Monster Bingo!”

We very carefully followed the instructions to create “Farm yard masks.” We think we did a really good job! 

In Problem Solving, we had to cut the cakes into quarters and put them back together again to make sure that each whole cake was decorated with only five cherries 🍒 

We followed instructions to create

dinosaurs.  🦖  🦕 

We worked together to decide what coins we could use to find the correct cost of the items we wished to buy.

We had a fun Science experiment, creating rainbows 🌈 using Skittles and warm water.

Exploring 3D shapes. Matching shapes to their description. 

Math's Week 2021

We put on our “Magic Ears,” and went outside to discover what noises could be heard. 

In WAU we learned that humans have binocular vision, meaning that, they can see objects at a different distance with each eye. We covered one eye and then tried to touch the objects on the tray. Some of us didn’t reach far enough to touch the object, while others over reached. It was great fun! 

Sarah and Kerri had a go too!! 

We worked together to explore the ck digraph in phonics. 

We used geared clocks to set to given times. We revised o’clock and half past. We learned the names of different clocks, analogue and digital. We also learned about the “hands” on an analogue clock, the hour hand, the minute hand and sometimes even the second hand. 

We had to study the 10 images on the IWB. One was taken away, we had to figure out which one was missing. 

We worked together during phonics to see how many real cvc words we could create with the letters we were given.

In WAU we concentrated on using our eyes, we linked it to PE where we worked in pairs. One person was “blind” and their partner had to give them instructions to guide them safely around an obstacle course. We really needed to use our ears and the instructions had to be really clear.

In WAU we focused on our eyes this week. We learned about the different parts of the eye. We all put on our “magic glasses” and went on a walk around the school, where we noticed different shapes and colours all around.

We sequenced pictures of our walk in Silent Valley in preparation for writing our Recount Text.

We had great fun using the Chrome Books to reinforce our phonics.

In Numeracy we created a “Number Wall.” We were all given a number. When our name was called we had to decide where to stand. Should we go before, after or between our friends. We had to give a reason for our decision. 

This week, we had our Sponsored Walk, in Silent Valley. We were raising money for the Mourne First Responders. We had great fun. We all walked up to the first dam. We walked through the forest following the trail. We looked for the fairies in the trees, but didn’t see any no matter how quiet we were. We spotted the giant lily pads on the pond, there were too many to count. After lunch, and a much needed sit down, we had time to play in the park. A great way to end the week. 

Masks on and ready to go.

Enjoying our walk to the dam and around the trail.

Fun in the Park.

Our W.A.U. topic for this half term is “Our Senses.” We have discovered that we have five senses and we need them to keep us safe. We explored what senses we used when we were investigating the properties of different items. We used sandpaper, pot pourri, cookies and bells. The best one was the cookie as we got to eat it at the end.  🍪

In Numeracy this week we were exploring 2D shapes. We talked about sides, how many there were, if they were curved or straight, and corners, if there were any. We then reinforced what we had learned through ICT. 

During PE this week we had great fun playing parachute games. We learned the importance of listening to instructions and working together as a team. 

We had great fun Learning through Play, in our new Out Door Area. 

Playtime.

Outdoor Maths.

Counting numbers, forwards and backwards from any given number between 1 - 10 

Bingo! Numbers between 1 - 20 

_{Our First Day back to school, seeing all our friends.}