HALLOWEEN!!

Today is our annual Halloween dress up day. I love coming in and seeing what everyone has dresses up as. Every year group has a different theme and this year;

First years are Cats and Witches 

Second years are Vampires and Werewolves

 Third years are Pirates 

TY are Zombies

Fifth year are Scary Circus 

Sixth years are Harry Potter

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Most people have made some effort to dress up and those who did look every good. It's always fun coming in and seeing all the different costumes. Even some of the teachers dress up too. 

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FUNKY SHOES!!

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Well last Friday, October 10th, was all about Mental Health Awareness. We got a non-uniform day to support the cause and it is called "Walk in my Shoes" where we got to wear funky shoes. Unfortunately I don't own any funky shoes so I just wore normal navy low top converse. Other people were wearing cool boots or wellies or even slippers!! The day was really fun and it was funny seeing everyone in their Funky Shoes.

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PICTURES SPEAK A THOUSAND WORDS

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THE WORKING GURL- week 3

Well this weeks work experience was fun. This time the class were not painting, thank God it's a messy business, but instead they were doing tree and leaf rubbings. So I brought the girls in groups of two outside where they did their tree rubbings. After they all did their tree rubbings it was time for break.

After break we started doing leaf rubbings, where they put a leaf under the page and use the side of a crayon to get the outline and details of the leaf. I even did one myself. They did the leaf rubbings until lunch, and a few continued after lunch. Then the girls went home and I stuck their tree and leave rubbings into their scrapbooks and then I was free to leave. 

I'm really enjoying my work experience in my old primary school, it's a good insight into what it's like to teach a class of junior infants. I still time primary teaching is a career option for me. 

Can't wait for next weeks work experience. 

FUN WALK!!

Yesterday was the annual Fun Walk. Brilliant fun! We all arrived in school in our colours- first year pink, second year purple, third year green, TY yellow, fifth year blue and sixth year black and white. The school was all colourful with all the different colours going around the school. 

"Fish are friends not food"

At about 1:30 we were called down to the tennis courts to perform our dances to the judges and the rest of the school. It started with the first years and worked its way around to the sixth years. My class, Ariel, were the first of the TY's to perform our dance. We decided to do a dance to a mix of songs- Under the Sea, Jaws, Part of Your World, Dangerous Love and On Top of the World. Our tutor dressed up a shark (he made a costume for it too), Sarah was Ariel and a brill one too, while the rest of us were Flounders since our colour was yellow. The "story line" to our dance was that the shark came in and everyone ran away since they were scared but all he wanted was to be friends and then in the end everyone is friends. 

We all thought our dance was really good since we only had two classes before to do it properly. Unfortunately we lost though. Aurora won. My class also didn't get to see all the performances because we helped out with the traffic coordinators for the walk so we left earlier than the rest of the school. 

All in all it was a really fun day, everyone enjoyed it.

Hope you enjoyed,

                               Aimee 

THE WORKING GURL- week 2

Well work experience this week was kinda the same as last week. I was helping the same class with their art but this week the girls were doing sponge paintings instead of self portraits. The girls weren't as messy this week as they were last week since they were using the sponges. The girls were painting Autumn Leaves. They used the leave shaped sponges to paint their leaves Green, Yellow, Red, Brown and Orange. This week everyone was quicker doing their paintings and everyone was finished before lunch. 

So after my lunch I cleaned away the paints and washed out the sponges and paint pots. I then went around the room and put a letter into the girl's folder for their parents. It was then time for them to go home.

After they all left, I went around the room sticking a page into their scrapbooks where they had drawn their Autumn drawing and I had to pick the best one. Their drawings were of a tree, with the leaves falling down and of some animals you see in Autumn, like hedgehogs, squirrels and bats. I also went around the made sure they all had the correct crayons in their crayon box and then my day was done. 

I'm enjoying my work experience so far and am looking forward to next week. I also should probably start looking for my next placement before it gets too late.

Hope you enjoyed,

                               Aimee

DIGITAL DOSSIER!!

Be Aware of Your Digital Dossier

Well I learned that everyone has a digital dossier (/footprint). This is a trace of all your digital tracks you leave behind, just to come back and haunt you!! Just kidding around, it's your digital tracks left behind from social media, emails, videos, uploads of photos/ videos, searches, anything you really do on the internet that is left behind. 

To be honest I think I may a kinda big digital dossier since I have quite a few social media accounts and always use Google for homework, but let's not tell the teachers that. But seriously, we all have a digital dossier no matter how big or small it is. It even starts before we're born and carries on even after we're gone! That's kinda scary thinking about it, everything we do on the internet stays there forever. 

I think now that I'm more aware of my digital dossier I will be more careful of what I post on the internet, including what I write on my blog. 

THE WORKING GURL- week 1

This week was our first week of work experience! I went back to my old primary school in the village. It felt weird being back there but I was also excited to be back, feeling like a kid again. 

When I arrived at the school I met the 4 other TY students doing work experience in the school with me. It kinda felt weird seeing my old teachers again and I was surprised some of them remembered me!

I was helping out with a junior infant class. Wednesdays is their art day so this week they were painting self portraits. In groups of 4 they each came over to the art table where I gave them an A3 page with their name and helped them with the paint and things for their self portraits. Most girls painted their self portraits but others just painted the page random colours. I even managed to get some paint on myself, silly me, it washed off though which isn't too bad. The class where painting for the whole day so when they went home I helped the teacher tidy everything away and wash out the paint pots and brushes. I was also gluing some pages into the girls books. They had to colour in the head, shoulders, knees,and toes of a person since they were learning the song Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes. I got to use the stamp that teachers use with the date on, I had fun with that! 

All in all my day was quite busy but I enjoyed it. I learnt that to be a junior infant teacher you kinda need a lot of patience with them, but I think I still wanna do primary teaching when I'm older. Can't wait for next weeks experience!

Hope you enjoyed,

                                 Aimee 

CARLINGFORD!!

Okay so Monday was off to a very early start, 7 am in Esso before we headed off to Carlingford Adventure Centre. As soon as we arrived around 9 o'clock we got our rooms and headed out to the water. My group did Kayaking which was great fun, I was in a kayak with two other girls. We went over to a beach and played a few group games which was fun. We then went for lunch which was really nice, some sausages and chips yummy!!

After lunch my group went to do the Laser Tag. We had to hike up a quite steep hill which was not very fun but once we got to the woods and got kit up with the guns we were good to go.We started off playing a few shoot out games, red team against blue team. I was on the red team, we won the first game and then lost the second one. After them games we played a game called Queens. Basically we were Queens in a fort and we had to protect the fort. We had a flag on a rope and we had to prevent the blue team from changing the flag. After that we played a sniper game, the guns were silenced and we had 1 shot per magazine, so we had to make each shot count. After sniper we played a game of Capture the Flag, my team won the game of Capture the Flag, there were no blue players left by the end. For our final game we played a final Shoot Out game, unfortunately my team lost that game and it was the first time I was shot out of the game. All in all the laser tag was by far my favorite activity!!

"Bang Bang he shot me down"
"You miss one hundred percent of the shots you don't take"

We had dinner at 5 pm which alright, after dinner we had free time until 7 where we went to the Candy shop and messed around with our friends. At 7 then we went on our final activity of the day, nightline. In nightline we had to walk around the woods blindfolded! It was a good team building and bonding activity as we had to trust each other on where we were standing and walking. When we arrivied back to the centre we then had free time until we had to be in our rooms, during which we had a Disco in one of the common rooms! I had so much fun dancing around with my friends in my onesie. 

"I saw a bird with a yellow bill"

Our wake up call the next morning from the reception was at 7:30 in the morning! They played some music over the intercom which got annoying after a while. We packed our bags and had breakfast before heading out onto the water activities for 9 am. My group did the canoeing this time and we got to go on the water trampoline which was great fun! We also went into a cave where there is a waterfall. We were told it was a "nice hot spring" but we should have known not to believe them as the water was freezing cold! After we came out of the cave we played a game of Disco Detective to warm ourselfs up again before heading back to shore. We also learnt a new song on the way back about a yellow bird landing on your window sill and you snapping its knees and hitting its head. Its a good campfire song and its fun to sing. When we got dry we then went for lunch before we went out on our next activity.

The waterfall was not quite as big as this 

My groups next activity was a Combat Course. We went around doing different challenges to collect gems. Then the team with the most gems at the end won the Challenge. It was good fun and a good team building exercise as we had to work as a team to overcome the chaallenges. I had fun. After that activity we headed back to the centre to get the bus back home. 

Everyone arrived into school the next morning very tired after the trip. Thankfully we didn't have any classes that day, instead we had 3 different workshops. The first was etiquette where we had to bring in our makeup and got dolled up now knowing how to apply the makeup properly. We also learnt how to apply fake ta properly and what skin tones we have. Our second workshop was on work experience which will be starting next week! Finally our third workshop was on stress management. On Thursday we got to miss half the day as we went to Maynooth University for a talk about the Student Enterprise Awards Competition where we will have to build our own mini company and sell a product to the school. Hopefully I have gotten some ideas from that talk and won't be stuck when it comes to the brainstorming.

Hope you enjoyed,
                                   Aimee