Junior School News December 2024
Christmas Play Invitation Competition
We invited all the girls to submit an illustration for the Christmas invitation competition. With so many beautiful creations, it was hard to pick a design for the performances this year of 'Ralph the Reindeer' by KG Lower, KG Upper and J1, 'It's a Miracle' by J2, J3 and J4 and 'Cinderella and Rockerfella' by J5 and J6. I think the girls did a great job in capturing the spirit of Christmas in their designs. Season's greetings to everyone!
Ralph the Reindeer - Chloe (KG Lower)
It's a Miracle - Charlotte (J3W)
Cinderella and Rockerfella - Annika (J5W)
Special mention- Arina (J5W)
Junior School Christmas Shows
Congratulations to all of the Junior School girls and staff for their three outstanding Christmas shows.
Christmas in the Junior School
Christmas arrived at Alexandra College Junior School on the 27th of November with the tradition of decorating the reception area. We tried to be as sustainable as possible this year with handmade decorations. We are very grateful to Holly (J4W) and Aimee's (J5R) mum Sally for her amazing creations and contributions to our display every year, especially the Nutcrackers.
Junior School Post Boxes
In the Junior School at Christmas time, we design and create class post boxes. The girls can post cards to children in their own class or any other girl in the school. The post will be distributed on the last day of term. Well done to all of the classes on their creativity!
Music Assembly
On December 5th, we all enjoyed an assembly of Christmas music. Students of Ms Potinga, Mr Rycraft, Mr Wilson and some members of the orchestra directed by Ms O’Rourke played a selection of Christmas songs for us. Performing on the day were Elina, Eleanor, Emelia, Grace and Sophie. Members of the orchestra Helen, Labhina, Emily, and Cara were joined by 4th Year student Sophie. It really put us in a Christmas mood and we look forward to next term’s assemblies.
Junior School Orchestra performs at The Grange Golf Club
We had a really lovely afternoon at The Grange Golf Club with Gladys Ruddock and her Ladybirds! The Junior School orchestra performed beautifully and the Senior School girls sang and played instruments too. Many thanks to Ms O’Rourke, Mr Wilson and Mr Cooney for organising and accompanying the girls for this special event.
Winter in KG Lower
We have had a very busy month in KG Lower. We have loved learning all about winter and made cosy cups of kindness, filled with all the things that make us all kind friends. Each cup is different and unique, like us! We also learned all about snow globes. Ms Kenny cast a spell on us and trapped us inside our snow globes! Some of us got stuck inside with snowmen, some of us lived in extravagant castles and some of us met some winter animals like penguins. Our story which we focused on this month was the story of the Gingerbread Man. We led an assembly in front of the whole school where we performed our own version of the story. Everyone was very impressed with our acting. We then made cute gingerbread houses and even made ourselves into gingerbread girls. These are on display outside on our class window for everyone to admire. To end our crazy month, we were part of the cast of Ralph the Reindeer with KG Upper and J1. This was a fantastic experience to be part of this production and we really enjoyed being on stage performing for our families. We wish you all a very happy Christmas and we can't wait to see what 2025 has in store for us KG Lowers!
J1 at Christmas
J1 is feeling the holiday spirit! We got creative and made our own snowman Christmas tree ornaments, each one is full of personality and fun. They’re the perfect touch to make our trees extra special this year. Wishing you all a Merry Christmas and a joyful holiday season from everyone in J1!
J2W Assembly
J2W completed some great projects on board games over the past month to celebrate World Board Games and Puzzles’ Week. We started off by learning about games our grandparents and parents played when they were younger. We compared them to our favourite games. We used procedural writing to show how to play our favourite board games. We then designed boards and posters to go along with our projects. We presented all of our work in our class led assembly. We had a great time learning and writing about board games and showing our work in assembly!
J4R at Christmas
This month has been filled with fun, learning, and festive cheer! We kicked off the season with a wonderful trip to Butler's Chocolate Factory. It was a delicious experience, and we loved learning about how chocolate is made and even got to design some tasty treats!
In class, we have been working hard on fractions and each girl has made her own fraction book so they can continue their fraction learning at home! We also brought some Christmas magic to life with our Christmas play. Everyone did an amazing job performing and it was wonderful to see the students shine on stage.
We had fun making our very own Christmas post box, for students to send Christmas cards to each other and get into the holiday spirit. It’s been a busy, productive month, and we're so proud of all the hard work and creativity our class has shown. Wishing you all a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!
J4W at Christmas
J4W are having lots of fun this festive season. We had a fantastic day at Butler’s chocolate factory. In class, we have been learning all about fair trade companies and where chocolate comes from. This tasty trip also integrated nicely with our history topics-the Aztecs. The girls worked in groups to create a book all about the Aztecs. We explored every aspect of the Aztec people, from how they were the first people to create hot chocolate to the many gods that they worshipped intently. We are now preparing for Christmas and have been creating some lovely Christmas artwork.
Design a Christmas Jumper for Ms Sheerin
There was great excitement in J5R last week when each girl got to design a Christmas jumper for their teacher. All of the girls’ designs were highly impressive; we have such fantastic artists in J5R!
J5 Christmas Hockey Challenge
Friday, December 13th, proved to be a lucky day for our non-bibs team, captained by Holly, as they won our annual Christmas hockey challenge. Teams were picked out of Santa’s bag at random and matches were played in a round robin format. We had non-bibs, pinks, greens and blues all participating with great enthusiasm and skilfully passing and encouraging their fellow teammates throughout all their games! Our official manning the record sheet for this event was Millie and she did an excellent job, writing up the scores as they came in and calculating the points for each team, culminating in an overall points leading winner. Well done to all of you and thank you to our helpers too!
J2-J3 Zookeeper Talk
The J2 and J3 students were treated to a fantastic STEM talk from Dublin Zoo zookeeper Louise McDermott. Louise has been working as a zookeeper for the last 25 years and has a wealth of experience with a wide range of the animals living there. She spoke to the girls about all the different animals she has helped to look after: penguins, sea lions, red pandas and more! Louise also outlined to the girls the importance of technology in keeping the animals healthy and their enclosures clean and safe. For example, special technology is required to ensure that the salt water enclosures have the right amount of salinity in them. The girls learned lots of new facts: did you know that baby flamingos join crèches as soon as they are old enough to walk and swim? These crèches can include up to 300,000 baby flamingos! The babies are still fed by their parents but they are guarded by an unrelated adult in the crèche. Both J2 and J3 classes really enjoyed Louise’s talk and learned a lot about Dublin Zoo and its animals.
J6 Hockey League
This is always an exciting time in our mini-hockey season when the league gets into go mode! Our J6 A and B squads played in their first away league fixture in Loreto, Beaufort and had two very competitive, sporting and goal-filled encounters with our A’s drawing 2-2 and our B’s losing 4-1, despite their many shots on goal. I have to say that all goalies on both teams made outstanding saves, so well done!
A week later, both teams played another fixture, at home this time, opposite Saint Mary’s, Belmont and both teams were in fine form, with our A’s winning 2-0 and our B’s winning 3-1.
Well played to all our teams who showed great passing and use of space throughout their matches. It was great to see so many shots on target, and again super goalkeeping skills in action. A big thank you goes to our umpires Gavin and Katie and to our helpers on the day Lila and Cadhla, who made sure everyone got their refreshments following the games.
Castle Park Away Mini-Hockey Fixture
Under a bright blue sky, our J6 mini-hockey teams took to the pitch in Castle Park Junior School, on a mission of trap, pass and go! Both teams were in goal seeking form with one team winning by four goals and the other by two in a closer game. Our goalies made some brilliant reactions, diving saves and they both kept a clean sheet. Very well played everyone and we look forward to our next matches in the near future, some of which will be in the primary schoolgirls’ league.
