We’re slowing down for Christmas break now, dreaming of cosy fires, hot chocolate and a good book! It’s been a very busy term with lots of visitors, lots of reading, library classes covering poetry, building comprehension skills and debating skills and lunchtime games and chess run by Mr. Quinn, Mr. McMahon and Mr. Doyle!
Our visitors included Anyone4Science, who ran workshops on CSI forensics, maths mind reading and geodesic domes. Magician Caolan MacBride saw all classes for astonishing card and number tricks, also for maths week.
Our cdetb writer-in-residence is poet and spoken word artist, Leon Dunne. He visits Ellenfield Ink writer’s group, run in the library with librarian Sarah and Ms. Leahy, every second Friday with workshops covering character, plot, playwriting and more! We have 22 students, a large percentage of the school from 1st to 6th year who are members of this group. Leon also gave a poetry workshop to all 3rd years recently, to help them with their Junior cycle English.
Ellenfield Ink also had a trip in November to the Fighting Words writing centre, founded by Roddy Doyle. Students had the opportunity to work in small groups with a writing mentor to create tiny plays which they then performed for each other. It was really different and much enjoyed.
Reading is at the heart of all we do in the library and 25 lucky 1st-3rd year students who read and passed 6 Accelerated Reader book quizzes at their level were rewarded with a pizza party in the library.
In the coming days we will celebrate our brilliant 1st year class in the annual JCSP Christmas celebration. The library elves have been busy preparing gifts and candy cane compliments for this and we can’t wait to meet the parents and guardians who will come to share in this lovely event.
Happy Christmas from the JCSP library!