January 2005
February 2005
March 2005
April 2005
May 2005
June 2005
September 2005
October 2005
November 2005
December 2005

Thank you for visiting our website. Our names are Meabh and Fiona. We are in 6th class, and we are the current editors.

Hello, my name is Meabh and I am in sixth class in Whitechurch N.S. I will be the editor for November and December with my cousin Fiona. I am eleven years old. I have two dogs and three guinea-pigs but one of my favourite animals is a horse. I go out to Therese White’s and I always ride a horse called Valley, she is a 15.2 black mare. There are three in my family: Mam, Dad and myself. My favourite food is an Irish fry and I live in Dungarvan, Abbeyside. My favourite horse-rider for show-jumping is Billy Toomey and my favourite jockey is Frankey Doireti. There are 11 people in my class, 9 boys and 2 girls.

Hi, my name is Fiona. I am 11 years old and I am in 6th class. I will be the editor for November and December. I play football and hurling and the piano & tin whistle. I have 1 brother and 1 sister. Their names are Marie and Micheál. I like Arsenal. I live in Ballinacourty. I wrote a story about the caves around here. Click here to see the story. My hobbies are Football, hurling, running and horse-riding. There are 11 in my class, there are two girls and nine boys. I used to the only girl in my class up until 4th class.

 (Fiona is on the left and Meabh is on the right, sketched by Jessica.) 

My great granny

In the 1920’s my great grandmother worked in a posh house in Burncourt in County Tipperary. She was in her twenties at the time. She used to walk half way home once a week to meet her brother to give him her wages to give to her mother. One day, when she arrived back at the posh house, it was blown up. Everything was destroyed, except for her trunk. The black-n-tans thought there was nothing in it!

by Meabh, 6th class

Aaron

Hi my name is Aaron. I am 11 years old. I have 3 sisters and a puppy. My favourite hobbies are quad biking, golfing and horse riding. My puppy’s name is Minnie, she is 3 months old. I have a goldfish too. My sister’s names are Daire, Eve and Maggie. Daire is 16, Eve is 8 and Maggie is 2.

by Aaron, 6th class

My Filly

We have a filly called Annie. She is one year old. She is brown a white face. She was lame. Her birthday is in January.

by Louis, 1st class

Letter to the President

Dear Madam President,

I hope you are well. The weather is very cold here in Ballinameela. I wish you and your family a happy Christmas.

by Ailbhe, 1st class

Spain

This year we went to Spain on our holidays. We flew out from Shannon airport. We landed in Rues airport. It was very hot and the sun shone every day of the week. We went to Port Ventura. The biggest roller coaster in Europe was there and it was called Dragon Khan. We went to Barcelona and we went to the cathedral. We saw a show of lights, music, water and surprises. On the building they have strange roofs.

by Shane, 3rd class

My Nana

My nana was born on the 17th of May 1924. She had one brother who was three years older. The 2 of them grew up in the country with no electricity or any central heating. They had an open fire in the kitchen where they sat every night. They had no radio or television. The local people came to visit them. They played 45 (a card game) to pass the time. She went to school when she was five years old. She went to a one-teacher school with 33 pupils. She had a very nice teacher. They played rounders at lunch time to keep warm because they had no heating. They had to bring sticks every morning to light the fire. They had a cup of cocoa at lunchtime with bread and jam they brought from home. On their way from school they picked cherries and raspberries and sometimes stole apples because they were hungry walking 2 miles. She received her first holy communion on the 20th of May in 1931. She had a lovely day. She loved her school days. When she passes by the school she thinks of the good old days she spent there. She often speaks to her class-mates on the phone and they talk of the good old days. She left school at fourteen years of age.

by Brendan, 6th class

Cappagh

I live in an area in Waterford called Cappagh. It spans a large area between the town of Dungarvan and Cappoquin and borders the Parishes of Ballinameela, Villierstown, Aglish, Affane, Modeligo, Carriglea and Glenbeg. The area is very rocky and the soil has a lot of lime. There is a limestone quarry down the road. They supply stone, rock, lime and ready-made cement to the public. Another landmark across the fields is Kilgraney Caves which have been there for hundreds of years. The river Finnisk runs close by. St. Cathaldus’ Holy Well is nearby too.

by Aaron, 6th class

A letter to Bono

Dear Bono,

I like your songs. My favourite song is Vertigo. My Daddy likes your songs too. I like the Edge too.

from Louis, 1st class

The Bubble Show

We went to WIT on Tuesday, November 15th.  We went at 9:30 in the morning. Toby and Mark showed us the Bubble Show. We learned that they can be big and round.  We saw them making a square bubble.  There was a cage for the bubble to go in.  If you burst the sides it will turn into a circle or an oval.  It was wobbly. They put lots of water and just a tiny bit of washing up liquid into a bucket.  If you just use wate it will not work. They put a teacher into a giant bubble.  His name was Paddy.  We came back to school at big lunch.

by Ailbhe, Jade, Caoimhe & Tara, 1st class

Nanny’s hens

My nanny always keeps hens. She used to have six but now there are only three. I am glad that we have hens as they give us fresh eggs. I like scrambled eggs. I feed the hens for nanny most days.

by Eamonn, 1st class

Taste

We had a new teacher for a couple of weeks. Her name is Miss Fenton. We have done fun things. Today we played a good game. We had to taste all sorts of stuff. We tasted lemon, tonic water, snacks, I can’t remember the next thing... then crackers, chocolate buttons and vinegar. Some of them were sour, some bitter, some salty and some sweet. It was very funny! I liked it. What are we going to do tomorrow? It would be lovely if we could do more of that in school. It is lovely to have Miss Fenton teaching us. She does lots of fun stuff, and I’d like to say thank you, Miss Fenton.

By Ailbhe and Caoimhe, 1st class

W.I.T.

We went to W.I.T. Toby and Mark talked to us. They were from the London Science Museum. When we think of force we usually think of push and pull. First we learned about Isaac Newton. He had 3 laws of motion.

1. No movement unless force makes it. Moving it continues unless force changes it. Toby explained that by taking the cloth up without moving the teapot and cups

2. The harder the push, and the lighter the object you’re pushing, the faster it will speed up

3. If a force pushes something in one direction, it pushes in the opposite direction just as hard. Force of magnetism…opposite poles attract and repel

• Force of gravity: Galileo went up on top of the Leaning tower of Pisa and threw down cannon balls of the top. He said everything falls at the same speed and the same time

• Friction: force of 2 things rubbing off each other.

• Force of up-thrust: makes lighter things rise up

• Archimedes: He was having a bath and the water overflowed. He discovered up-thrust, so he ran down the street and shouted “Eureka!”, but then he realised he had no clothes on

It was a very good day at W.I.T. 

by Evie, 4th Class.

Ag's Field

When my granny was younger she used to have a pig called Agnes. They used to feed her and keep her in her field. We still call that field Ag’s Field today. They also used to ride her to mass. They put a tea towel over her back. They took it in turns riding on her back.

By Joseph, 6th Class

Here are some interesting RIDDLES for you...

Trip to Poland (continued from last month...)

Today we met Mam in Brussels. We went to a camping-site called Leuranne. We put up the trailer-tent and me and dad went to pick mam up at the airport. After picking mam up we went back to the campsite. We went swimming and played golf there. We left after four days.  We drove to Germany and stayed in a campsite. We met an Irishman there. He was from Carlow. There was a big statue with a man on a horse. Here’s a picture of it. It rained all the time there. We left and we went to Czech Republic. We stayed in a really nice campsite called Cape-Valec. We stayed here for a week. I met three girls from Holland. They had no English. We went to Prague today and saw beautiful buildings there.

While we stayed in Cape-Valec we went to a village called Lades. It had been wiped out by Adolf Hitler. All the men got shot and the women went to the camp-site. Some children that had blue eyes and blond hair were sent to Germany. When the mothers came back they were expecting their husbands and their children to be there. There was only 17 children and 18 mothers left still alive. Lades was really sad. We were on our way back to Cape-Valec when our car broke down at a roundabout. Dad and Shane got the car towed to the nearest garage. We got a taxi back to the camp-site. We had to stay there for 3 more days!

by Ellen in 4th class...to be continued....

The girls and boys in 1st and 2nd class made their own acrostic poems. Here are some of them...