Welcome Back !!!
Half a year without SSP … granted, there are many sides to such a break.
But now we are back – alive and kicking.
Happy to see you all back fresh and chirpy as ever.
Some impressions from the first period after the summer holidays.
New Email Address
Please note that Sligo School Project has a new email address. You can contact us at:
sligosp@gmx.com
Famine Graveyard
The older children recently visited Sligo’s Famine Graveyard. After the visit Olivia wrote a report which we wish to share.
The Famine
One hundred and seventy-five years ago, the Famine, or in Irish, an Gorta Mór, started in Ireland. The Famine started when blight struck the potato crop. At that time, only rich people (the only rich people were landlords) had a variety of food, and poor people had only potatoes and milk to eat and drink. They ate potatoes and drank milk for breakfast, lunch, dinner and even dessert. Potatoes were rotting because of the blight, and now people had nothing else to eat.
Some people got all of their money and tried to emigrate to all over Europe and to the United States.They traveled in ‘coffin ships’. They were called that because only a few people got out of there alive. The people who stayed in Ireland went hungry and got sick with diseases. England ruled Ireland at that time, and it was starting to look bad when they did nothing. They decided to get the landlords to pay a few taxes so they could build workhouses. Workhouses are horrible places where you had to work a lot to get a little amount of money to buy food with. People were forced to go to workhouses, because they had nowhere else to get money and food. Loads of people died at the workhouse, so they built graveyards right next to the workhouses. The graveyards were just two big holes, one for the children, one for the adults. They just threw everyone in the holes, with no gravestone, no nothing. After six years, the Famine stopped.
Here in Sligo we have something called the Famine Graveyard. It is right beside the old workhouse. The workhouse building is now St. John’s Hospital. The graveyard is an old graveyard from the Famine times.
Our class went to visit the graveyard, and it is just a pretty big field of grass and a few bushes, with a tunnel made of trees to the children’s graveyard, which was slightly smaller and had loads of trees and bushes. I liked the graveyard, even if we had to walk forty minutes in total, because it made me realise that the Famine actually happened, that it was really real.
Winter Performance 2019
The winter performance has developed into an essential part of the first half of the school year. It is a highlight for everyone in the school. The children prepare over a couple of weeks for it, they rehearse, compose, direct, create and recite, dance, sing, play musical instruments and in all of that have a clear focus: bring a sound performance onto the stage in the last week before the winter holidays.
And … they did! Maybe pictures do not have a sound, but they can speak in their own language:
Based on the joy and fun that everyone got out of it this year, we are looking forward already to next year’s talent show!
Welcome to New Children and Their Families
We are happy to welcome all new children and their families in Sligo School Project. The first few days and weeks in a new school can always be a bit strange, but we hope everybody has found their way into the new environment. We wish you all a lovely time at Sligo School Project.
Electric Circuits & Science Week
Children in Carmel’s class have recently done experiments with electric circuits. That was quite enlightening …
In November we will also attend a MadLab-Workshop at the Model Gallery (in cooperation with Sligo IT for Science Week 2019).
MadLab is a unique, hands-on electronics workshop for children. In the workshop participants solder electronic components onto specially-designed circuit boards – the simplest being Flashing Lights, the most complicated a programmable robot. The excitement of MadLab is learning how to use a soldering iron, and actually being able to make and take home a working electronic circuit.
Andrew the Mathemagician
During Maths-Week at Sligo IT an event was organised with Andrew Jeffrey. The older children went to see and hear him speak about the magic of numbers, tricks to solve Maths problems, concepts, shapes, figures and … it was really fun.
Andrew explains Maths problems on all levels, here is an example of calculating angles.
Music Generation
The older children are working with Dave Flynn for 14 weeks in the ‘Music Generation’ program. At present they continue practicing the Ukulele. Often this is done in pairs whereby the children help each other finding their bearings on the instrument.
