National Museum, National Art Gallery and National Library trip

On Thursday we went into town to visit the National Museum, the National library and the National Art Gallery. The trip was part of our English class because there was an exhibition about WB Yeats in the National Library. We got the bus to Kildare street and first went to the National Museum. In the museum we looked at artefact's from the Stone Age the Iron age and the Bronze age. We also got to see bodies of people that were found in the bogs. These people are over three thousand years old but they were almost perfectly preserved by the bog. It was really interesting but kinda creepy! You could see the fingers of one man perfectly! It is believed that these people were put into the bog as a sacrifice to the gods. After the museum we went to the National Library to see the WB Yeats exhibition. A guide showed us around for a little while and then we could walk around ourselves. It was really cool, there was interactive screens to read his diaries and poems and lots of information about his life. After the Library we were free to have lunch in town and we went to McDonald's! After lunch we went to the National Art gallery to see paintings by Irish Artists. Some of the painting were really good. There was a exhibition of paintings by Jack Yeats, WB Yeats's brother, so this also tied in with English. It was a really fun day and everyone enjoyed it! :)

Percussion Workshop

Last Tuesday we had a Percusion workshop in the music room. Dave was teaching the workshop and he brought loads of djembe drums and other percusion intruments with him. We learned about where the djembe drums come from and how they are made and also how to play different beats on them. For the first while we just played with the drums and experiemented with different beats but after break he picked people to play the bass drums and we put the bass drums together with the djembe drums to make a song. It sounded really good! After lunch we watched a documentary about the djembe drums and other intruments for West Africa. It was really interesting! Then we played with some of the other percusion instruments and we played a samba song. It was really good and we learned alot about the djembe drums. We learned that they come from countries in West Africa like Ghana and Guinea. They are made of wood and goat skin is streched over the top of it. Sometimes cow skin is used but this is thicker and doesn't make the same sound. Cow skin is used to make the bass drums. One of the percussion instruments that we used is called the Asalato. These are two wooden balls on the end of a string. The balls are filled with seeds or small pebbles. It was a really great day and i would definatly recommend it for next year! :D

Margaret Aylward Drama

Last Tuesday we all went to Glasnevin to preform our plays for the Bi-Centenary of Margaret Aylward. Margaret Aylward set up the sisters of the Holy Faith which set up our school. We had four plays in the show and all of them were based on people that Margaret Aylward would have helped when she was alive. We arrived in Glasnevin at midday and we got to practise on the stage for a little while before we had lunch. After lunch we had a dress rehearsal and then we all got pizza for dinner! We were all nervously excited as it got closer to eight o'clock, and we all had to wait in a corridor behind the stage. The teachers had a hard time keeping us quiet! The play went really well and lots of the nuns there told us that they thought we were really good! Everyone had a really good day and really enjoyed it :)

Mini Company

Last Monday we went to the County final of our Mini Company competition in the Osprey hotel in Naas. Four of the nine mini company groups from our school got through; Knot a Problem, Spoover, The Just Desserts and Baby Cakes. The rest of the groups went to a competition in the Red Cow. We left the school at half ten and arrived at the Osprey with plenty of time to set up our stand. Rosette dressed up as a baby for the day to promote our group and she looked really cute! When we had everything set up we had a chance to look at the other mini companies that were there from other schools. The judging started after lunch and lasted for two hours. Three judges went around to every group and asked us questions about our mini company. They asked us what we learned, about any problems we encountered, where we got our idea and how we raised money. I was really nervous before the judging but everything went really well and the judges were really nice. The awards ceremony took place after every group had been judged. Our group didn't win any prizes but both Knot a Problem and The Just Desserts got a prize. The winning company was set up by a girl on her own and it was stickers for the sole of your high heels to make them look like designer shoes. I was a little disappointed that our group didn't win anything but I had a really good time at the competition anyway :)

Work Experience

For my second week of work experience i went to The Purple Penguin Creche and Montassori in Oldtown Mill. I really enjoyed the week and didn't want to leave when it was over! The Creche is divided into different rooms and the children are put into each room depending on their age. There are two baby rooms for babies under two, the wobbler room is for chldren between two and three, the toddler room is for three year olds and the Montassori is for children aged four and up. There is also an after school room to look after children up to ten years old. Both of the baby rooms have sleeping rooms next door where the babies sleep during the day, and there is also a kitchen where the cook Peggy cooks meals for the children. At the back of the Creche there is a huge playground. The creche is really well organised and the parents of the children are given sheets at the end of everyday describing what the child ate, how long he slept for, when their nappy was changed and and other things that happened during the day.

Each day I was in a different room, on Monday i was in the baby room and the wobbler room, on Tuesday I spent the day with the toddlers, on Wednesday I went back to the wobbler room, on Thursday I was with the babies again and on Friday I was with the wobblers and the toddlers. I didn't get a chance to go to the Montassori because there was three girls on college work experience up there. I learned a lot while on work experience, like that working with so many young children is really really hard and how to properly look after children. I really really enjoyed this week but I don't think that I would like to work in a creche as big as the Purple Penguin. Its extremely stressfull with all the little kids!

Desert Flower - Waris Dirie

In religion class we read part of the book Desert Flower by Waris Dirie. It ties into us learning about Gender Equality.

This is a true story about the life of the Somalian model Waris Dirie. She grew up with a nomadic family in rural Somalia but ran away from home when her father insisted that she marry a much older man. She went to the capital city, Mogadishu, and then eventually moved to London with her aunt and uncle. In London she met a photographer and became a well known supermodel. In the book Waris talks a bout Female Genitil Mutilation, something that is commanly done to young girls in Africa to ensure that they can get a husband. In her book Waris describes how the procedre is hardly ever preformed in a hospital and that no anestic is used. After it is done the girls are put into a hut to recover for a week, and many of them die from infection. When she was much older Waris went to the doctor in Londen and she had an operation to try and fix the damage that had been done, the operation helped with the pain alot but it could not reverse the damage that had been done. Reading the part of the book that talks about FGM made me very uncomfortable and angry. It was horrible to find out that thousands of girls go through all that pain and suffering unnesscarily and it is something that affects them for life. Waris describes how the BBC made a documentary about her life in Somalia and she got to go back and find her mother, who knew nothing of her new life. Waris spoke to Marie Claire magazine about FGM and became a UN ambassador. She is now working hard to try to stop FGM. I really really enjoyed reading this book and I would definatly reccomend it. Its sad but has a happy ending, and also gives an insight into the lives of girls in Africa.

Projects!

Right now we have lots of different projects to do! In Home Ec we were put into pairs and are researching a country and cooking three dishes associated with that country. I'm with Mia and our country is Spain! We cook one dish a week so last week we made churros con chocolate which are a bit like doughnuts dipped in chocolate sauce, and today we made paella. The churros didn't work out very well last week because they didn't cook in the middle, but the paella was really nice and really easy to make! We also have to make a power point presentation to our home ec class about Spain aftet we have cooked all the dishes. In Art our project is based on the same country that we are doing in home ec and we have the same partners. We have to look at the architecture of Spain or a Spanish artist and make a poster of pictures inspired by this. In Geography our current project is about diseases that you can get while traveling in third world countries. This ties in with the last geography project that we had because we have to choose one of the third world countries that we researched. We have to write about the causes, symptoms and treatment of this disease. I'm doing Typoid fever a disease that you can get in the Philippines. We have just finished a French project on French speaking countries in the world. We got to work in pairs again and me and Danielle did Lebanon. We learned loads of interesting stuff but it was hard to translate it into French! We'll be presenting them in class this week and I'm looking forward to seeing everybodies! :)

Mini Company

Our mini company group is called Baby Cakes and we sell baby clothes wrapped to look like cupcakes. It was quite hard to get everything started but we've started taking orders from students in our school now. We've gotten a few orders so right now its kinda stressfull trying to meet the orders in time! We are also getting ready to sell the Baby Cakes in the farmers market in Naas. Hopefully loads more people will buy them there! We make the baby cakes in boxes of 1, four and six and for boys and girls. You can also get 1 cake wrapped instead of boxed. We have loads of different coloured boxes and the Cakes look really pretty when their finished! The competition is in March and we're really looking forward to it! :)

Young Scientist

Last Friday we went to the Young Scientist exhibition in the RDS. Our year and the second years got to go. Our school had two groups with projects in the competition, a group from fifth year and a group from TY. The day was really good we got to look at all the projects from other schools and loads of organisations had stands set up too. The stands were really interesting because we got to learn loads about the organisations and some of them gave us free stuff! I got my fingerprints taken at the CSI stand and I got a tree, which i planted in my garden. Trinity college had a stand and they had snakes, a giant cockroach, a scorpion and a frog that you could hold. At the Intel stand you could watch a movie about how microchips are made. It was a really good day and a great way to end the week!