Junior School News 1 April 2022

 

 

Dates for your Diary

2nd April                                     Open Day 10 am - 12 pm and 1 pm virtually

4th April                                      J6W RSE 8.45-9.45am (final session)

4th April                                      J6R RSE (packed lunch required)

5th April                                      J6R online marine workshop

5th April                                      J6W online marine workshop

8th April                                     Easter Cake Sale and Star Baker Competitions 1.30-2.30 in the gym (Preschool 1.15-1.30pm)

8th April                                     End of term

25th April                                   Start of summer term

26th April                                   J3 Go Quest trip

29th April                                   School closed

2nd May                                     Bank Holiday

JACA Update

The JACA Newsletter went home with all the girls last week. If you missed your copy, you will find additional copies at the entrance of the JS reception!

 JACA Spring Auction 2022

The JACA Auction & Kids Experience Raffle is off to a great start, with over 190 tickets purchased! It comes as no surprise that the most popular is the Ice Cream Party, followed by Principal for the Day and Ms. Boyds’ famous Arty Party!

We look forward to announcing the winners next Friday, 8th April.

The auction is building in momentum with a number of additional generous items added this week from Trendy Bendy, Michels Restaurants, 4 Ball in Milltown Golf Club, beautiful prints from illustrator Rachel Corcoran, cookery lesson in your home from Sospan Saspan and premium seats for the GAA All Ireland Hurling final to name but a few! We are all overwhelmed by the generosity of the Alexandra School Community.

To learn more about where this year’s funds will be used, I would encourage you to watch the videos’ recorded by Ms. Smith, the Art Teacher and our class representative Megan Schiassi in the School Project section of the Auction website below:

JACA Spring Auction 2022

Easter Bake Sale 

Taking place on Friday, 8th April in the Junior School Gym from 1.30pm – 2.30pm. All parents are welcome. Please note: Preschool Lower & Upper will have access to the Bake Sale from 1.15pm – 1.30pm.

The JACA Team will be in the JS Gym from 8am on Friday morning to receive all your bakes! Please note the school’s no nuts policy (no Nutella, almonds, peanut butter etc.)

To celebrate the wonderful Bee, this year’s Bake Sale will be named – The Bee Kind Bake Sale!

We are thrilled to see the return of the baking competition for both the parents and the girls. Parents can enter the Star Baker Awards – submit a cake of their choice, prizes awarded for the Best Decorated Cake and the Tastiest Cake using the Bee Kind theme and the Junior Cupcake Competition, where the girls are to submit 6 decorated cupcakes each.  Please make sure that all entries are named and labelled with the name of the type of cake.

We look forward to a great day of celebration on Friday 8th!

Sarah Jane Dempsey

JACA Chairperson

Seachtain na Gaeilge Poster Competition Winners

We had a very difficult job trying to pick winners for the poster competition from Seachtain na Gaeilge. Each girl who entered put a massive effort into their entry and everyone did a fantastic job. Each of the winners listed below received an Easter Egg as a prize. Maith sibh cailíní!

Ms Kenny & Ms McMahon

 

  

Outstanding entries: Martha Molloy, Maggie Gilmore, and Ellie Archer

Overall winner: Emily O’Hanlon

Seachtain na Gaeilge Poster Competition 2022

Preschool Lower

In Preschool Lower, we love changing our tuff trays according to our themes. This week we made an Easter tray full of different textures and bright Easter colours. The girls hid the eggs and played Easter bunny games. Tuff trays offer the children a sensorial experience and allow them to use their imagination and develop their group play and language skills. 

Preschool Lower Easter 2022

KG Lower

We had some very special visitors in KG Lower! On Tuesday, the girls in KG Lower were invited to bring their favourite teddies to school for our Teddy Bear's Picnic! On Wednesday, we decided to create beautiful invitations for our special friends. We were all so excited! We started the "Teddy Bear" day with a roll call for all our special guests. Each girl introduced her teddy to the class and we spoke about how many legs they had, what colours they were and how they felt. Next, the girls wrote all about why they loved the teddy they brought to school. We measured our teddies using cubes and brought them outside for our little break. We even had a teddy bear ballet class! To finish the day, we had some rice crispie buns and juice at the special Teddy Bears’ picnic. The girls, teddies and Ms Kenny had a great day and were certainly exhausted by 3 o'clock from entertaining our very important guests!

Ms Kenny & KG Lower

KG Lower Teddy Bear Picnic

Springtime and Oil Pastels

This week saw J1 exploring oil pastels inspired by the artist Claude Monet. The girls looked at the art principle of shape and texture while experimenting with blending oil pastels. We talked about the importance of plants for the pollinators. We look forward to seeing their final piece.

Ms. Smith

J2R Assembly

This term the J2Rs really enjoyed reading their class novel, The Hodgeheg by Dick King-Smith. Max the main character was in a road traffic accident. We have been learning all about road safety. We taught the girls in the school all about this topic when we took assembly on Friday, April 1st. We also performed the song ‘Safe Cross Code’. 

Ms. Upton

The Alex DramFest 2022

The Alex DramFest 2022 returned last weekend and what a fantastic weekend! The Speech & Drama and Public Speaking students took over the Senior School with over 50 competitions taking place over two days! We were especially delighted to welcome our Junior School students to their first live Festival. 

We asked three of our Drama students, who also happen to be Drama Captains, to tell us what they thought of Alex DramFest … 

Ms. Crowley & Ms. Nordon 

This weekend the Junior School was involved in the drama festival. It was a great experience for everyone, and everyone had fun! We decided to interview two of the girls who participated in the drama festival. The first of the girls that we interviewed was Annabelle Power. Annabelle is in J3W. She performed her poem, ‘Coming Home’ by Eric Finne on Sunday. Annabelle really enjoyed the experience and would do it again. Annabelle thinks that the event taught her to face her fears of public speaking. Annabelle came in first place! 

Next we interviewed India Frawley in J4R. India performed in the J4 Mime Competition. India thought it was a good learning experience. She was nervous at first but when she went up to perform, India found it fun and she liked that it was a small group of people. India’s mime was called ‘The Toffee’ and she came in second place! Well done to all of the girls who performed over the weekend!

By Ella, Joey & Katie J6

Alex DramFest 2022 Junior School

 

The Jellicoe Cup

Mini-hockey tournament in Alexandra College Junior School

First played in March 2019, this little cup is a big deal to our J5 and J6 students. It is an interclass mini-hockey tournament where fun and participation are the key ingredients! Teams are chosen at random and each team then selects a player to captain her team. A separate round robin tournament then follows for each class group, culminating in a winner from each section moving onto the final, playing them in front of their peers. It is always an exciting match where J5 finalists pit their skills against the J6 finalists. 

Ms.Tracey