Saintpatricksschool's Blog

Last Project Day

saintpatricksschool — Mon, 25 May 2009 14:36:02 +0000

Art Project 15th May 2009

Nathan Mc Cartin

On the last day that Anke came we got to stuff and sew a Polar bear. It was great. We used chopsticks to put the stuffing in the bears. Fourth Class were invited in to take part and they got a chance to do the same as us. Colin, Jack and Tom made a short presentation about our project so far to the fourth class boys. Séamus Anke’s puppet bear had some sweets for us and I made my polar bear take it off him. My favorite part of this session was getting to stuff the bear. My favorite session was this one.

Dáire Maxwell

A Polar bear can swim up to 80km without stopping. There are eight species of bears. They are the Brown Bear, Polar Bear, Panda Bear, Black Bear, Sun Bear, Spectacle Bear, Sloth Bear & Asiatic Black Bear. During this project we made clay bears. We stuffed friendship bears and we decorated them as well. We also made a large polar bear together floating on ice. My favorite part of this project was everything.

Edwinas Matelis & Colin Smyth

We learned lots of bear facts especially about the polar bear. Some bears are very dangerous. Tom, Jack and myself Colin made a presentation about the project so far to the fourth class boys in the last session. I had to explain what we did in the project. We got to do lots of exciting things during the project, sewing, making bears with clay, stuffing bears. We both really enjoyed the project.

Jordan Cowdell

I loved it when we got to stuff our own polar bears. We used chopsticks to push the stuffing in. We had a lot of fun. When we were finished stuffing them we had to sew them. We talked about the different designs that we could put on them. We put scarves and bandannas on them. Tom showed the other class our clay bears and explained to them about our project. Jack showed them how we made our friendship bears. I enjoyed everything.

John Conway

Today we made teddy bears. I called mine Ice-Choc. Tom, Colin and Jack made a presentation about our project to fourth class. They were invited in for our last session. They thought the project was very good. Some people put bandannas on their polar bears. Séamus the teddy bear gave us some treats. They were very nice. The whole project was brilliant.

Barry Mc Govern

We had Anke today. We invited in fourth class to make polar bears with us. Tom, Colin and Jack did a presentation for them about the project. Séamus the bear had treats for us. There are lots more pictures and stories on our blog. Our teacher e-mails them to Anke who puts them onto our blog. James Hamill’s sister had Communion the next day and he made the polar bear for her as a present. I enjoyed every session with Anke, especially when we were making our own polar bears to bring home with us. I gave my polar bear to my little sister because she started to cry when she saw it so I gave it to her.

Cathal Mc Hugh

Today Anke came to our classroom. Fourth class got to take part in the project today. We made little polar bears today. We got to stuff them and sew them. Séamus the bear gave us some gummy bears as treats because we were very good. My favorite session was the one when we decorated the friendship bears. My favorite thing was when we made the small polar bears.

Christopher Maguire

I enjoyed everything about this project. We got to do lots of exciting things like sewing and making clay bears. It was really nice to have a polar bear to bring home with us at the end of our project. Blizzard our big polar bear will stay in the school so that everyone that comes to our school will be able to see it even when we are gone. Blizzard will also remind people about global warming and that we can all do something to help make a difference.

Do you like our little personalised polar bears?

We Adopted A Polar Bear

saintpatricksschool — Mon, 25 May 2009 14:11:09 +0000

We have adopted a bear from The Svalbard Islands off the coast of Norway. We did this through the WWF organisation. WWF organise the adoption of animals all around the world. They sent us a small replica bear and also lots of information about the Svalbard bears and a certificate. We have adopted a female polar bear. We are also going to get news letters keeping us up to date with the work of the WWF – World Wildlife Fund.

For more information on WWF view their website on www.wwf.org

Gulliver Visits St.Patrick’s School

saintpatricksschool — Mon, 25 May 2009 13:59:46 +0000

2nd and 3rd class

Gulliver a travel Ted who goes around the world came to visit us in our school

with Anke today.

Gulliver travels all around the world. He even has his own passport. We took photos

of him outside our school and we are going to put them on our blog so that everyone

will be able to see that he was here. Gulliver got to stay with us for a week and then we

had to say Goodbye to him as he headed off on another adventure. We wonder where he is now?????????? He came from Scottland to Bear Essentials Ireland and will leave Bear Essentials after the Teddy Bear Barbecue end of June.

For more information visit Bear Essentials Blog.

Working on our project

saintpatricksschool — Wed, 13 May 2009 14:34:31 +0000

Cal Wogan: Anke came into our classroom today. We made a decision on material for the ice and we covered it. The material was dark blue, it looked like wavy water. We used a white towel for the ice and some see-through material. I got to cut out the ice. We put Blizzard on the ice and we had to try to think up of a name for our project.

James and Cathal did some ironing. Conor drew outlines in the ice. We also had to decide what way we would put our friendship bears around Blizzard. We had a competition and my team won.

Cathal Mc Hugh: We covered the ice cap today with two different types of materials. We also got a material for the sea. It was a blue shirt with black line that look like waves. we got a white towel and netting for the ice. We had to cut the ice-caps into shapes with knives and we had to be very careful. We decided on the name of the project. we picked “Let’s save Blizzard”. We tacked on the material to the ice cap. We put Blizzard sitting on the ice cap. James Óg and I ironed the material. All our friendship bears were sown together. We put our friendship bears in a circle around Blizzard.
At the end we played a game and Anke asked questions, if we knew the answer we put up our hand and put on the mask of the correct bear and say its name.

First Machine Sewing Lession

Stories from the boys

saintpatricksschool — Wed, 13 May 2009 14:33:23 +0000

Here are some stories that the boys wrote in school today.

Dáire Gleeson Age 9:
My name is Blizzard and I was born in a small den that my mother Polar bear made for me. I live in Alaska. When I was two months old and I drank my mother’s milk, two months later I began to eat seal meat. This is my favorite. At four months old I also moved out of my den and my mother taught me how to swim and how to hunt for seals. I can smell really well and sometimes I can get the scent of food along way off.

Thomas Darcy Age 9:
The Brave Polar Bear
It started when it was holidays in the Polar Regions. I saw loads of Polar bears. One of them was called Thalie. Thalie was a very cute polar bear. She was a female bear. She was 5 years old. I could tell by her teeth. One day hunters came and tried to shoot her. Thalie was very brave, she bit the two men and chased them away. Thalie smelt some yummy meat. She followed the smell and was the first polar bear there. At least ten more polar bears came along. Thalie made her own den because she was expecting a baby. Her den was about two metres high and four metres long. Thalie had twins a boy and a girl.

John Conway:
The Sad Polar Bear
Blizzard was out in the dark all alone, he was lost. Suddenly he saw a light and he got the scent of rotting chicken. He followed the smell and ended up on a farm. Blizzard was shot with a tranquiliser and taken back to safety the next day. He was back with his friends. He was very happy his two polar bear friends were there, Thalie and Mari.

Jack Gallogly:
My name is Blizzard. At the moment I live in a zoo but I was born in Norway. I was captured by hunters and sold to the zoo. I was eating a seal at the time and a herd of dogs started barking at me. They chased me to my den and I got away on them and slept well that night. The next morning I went hunting for seal once more and I heard the barking of dogs again. I heard a bang and I began to feel very drousy. When I woke up I was here at the zoo. I was happy that I was ok.

Friendship Bears

saintpatricksschool — Mon, 11 May 2009 09:53:01 +0000

Sarunas Gaidelionis
Anke came into our classroom today. We began by decorating our friendship bears. We used beads, ribbons and other bits and pieces. We also got to take it in turns to work on Blizzard. Edwinas, Dáire and I were putting in the joints. We stuffed the bear and put in a sound box. Other boys sowed his nose. We began to make the ice cap. When we were finished our bears, their hands were sowed together.

Barry Mc Govern

Today we were stuffing our bear Blizzard. We sowed his nose on and we put his legs onto his body by using special joints. We were decorating our friendship bears. We put beads on them. we are going to put the bears in a circle around Blizzard to show that we are trying to protect him. This week we have to try to think of a name for our project. On Monday a girl called Polly came into our classroom to see how we were getting on with our project.

Conor Mc Grath

Anke was with us today for the fifth time. She had brought beads, ribbons, dodos and other little things for using to decorate our friendship bears. Kevin and I got to sow the nose on our polar bear Blizzard. We started stuffing him and the joints were put in place. I decorated my friendship bear. We designed the ice cap for blizzard to float on. Anke also asked us to think up of a name for our project.

Cal Wogan

Today we decorated our friendship bears. I helped put the joints on the polar bear. We were designing the ice cap too. I put a flask in my friendship bears hand. I put a ribbon over his body and I wrote mayor on it. We also have to think of a name for the project. My friendship bear is representing Japan.

You can read more about this session on Anke’s blog under

” Boys can do it too!”

See below:

Our friendship bears meet our bears made of clay.

Blizzard meets our friendship bears.

We are sewing…

saintpatricksschool — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 10:34:35 +0000

Anke came in today and brought in a large Polar Bear called Knut.
( Not a real one but one made out of plush material called a Studio Bear.) He represents a polar bear born in captivity in Berlin Zoo in Germany. He was the first polar bear born in captivity. You can read all about him on Wikipedia following this link.

Anke Showed us a short DVD on polar bears and we learned lots of interesting facts about polar bears. Here are just some we remembered:

Other names for polar bears are “the riders of the iceberg”
Polar bear are curious and playful
They can swim up to 80 km in one stretch
Can see well ( eyes like sun glasses )
Can smell up to 30 km
Can run 57 km for a short distance
Cubs are born in December/January
Cubs weigh about 9 kg when coming out of den in April
Polar bears can brake ice with their head

We also saw polar bear eating a seal, his favorite food.

The polar bears need to live on ice, but because of global warming the ice is melting and so is the polar bears habitat.

Anke brought in some “off white” material from an old plush jacket (we are using recycled material for our project to make use of unwanted things and also to keep cost down). First we cut out templates of the different parts of the polar bears body. We had to use very sharp scissors, so we had to be extremely careful. We had to stitch the body together with a running stitch. We had to take turn. Then Anke showed us how to work on the sewing machine. Everyone got two turns in sewing the different part together. The machine moves very fast and it was hard to control it. It is also dangerous and we had to be very careful.

Now we have to think of a name for our polar bear. We are going to think of some suggestions and then get everyone to vote for their favorite one. Hopefully we have a name before Anke comes back.

Working With Clay

saintpatricksschool — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 15:49:39 +0000

Our Bear Sculptures!

Thomas Age 8:
Today we made bears from clay. We learned a lot about bears. we saw two DVDs. My favourite bear was the polar bear and the panda bear. The bears were hard to make with clay but we had fun.

Bartosz Age 9:
When Anke came into our classroom today we were learning all about bears. She showed us a big black bear called Bruno. We watched two short DVDs about bears. There are 8 species of bears. We each got a piece of clay which we had to knead first of all and then we were trying to make bears from the piece of clay. The clay felt like a big stone. It was fun!

Tom age 8:
First of all today we watched 2 DVDs about bears in the wild. Anke brought a brown bear into school. His name was Bruno. We made a bear from clay. Anke told us to knead the clay. I think I did quite well. We also learned that there are 8 species of bear; spectacle bear, polar bear, grizzly bear, black bear, sloth bear, panda bear, brown bear and sun bear. I did need a good bit of help but I enjoyed it!

Anke has also written about us on her blog.

If you are interested click here>>>

First Taster Session

saintpatricksschool — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 19:14:05 +0000

Tuesday 17th February Anke came to our classroom today. Anke is an artist who makes teddy bears. Anke is from Germany but has been living in Ireland for many years. Anke makes her teddy bears from mohair. She showed us some teddy bears, a very shy bear called Seamus
( he is a hand puppet bear ) and a very small bear called Tiny Ted. Anke gave us some postcards with pictures of teddy bears she had made.
Now we showed Anke our teddy bears we brought in from home. Everyone talked about their teddies name and attributes. We also talked about famous teddy bears in poems & strories like Paddington Bear.

We then discussed different types of fabric and had a quiz where we guessed where they came from. We got a chance to feel cotton, silk, wool and mohair. We matched the fibre & fabric with pictures; silk – silk worm, wool – sheep, mohair – goat, cotton – cotton plant and so on.
We then got a chance to do our first sewing. The stitch we practised was an overcast stitch. We sewed two pieces of card together which looked like book binding. In the future we can add more cards and make our own picture diary book.
Today’s art lession was fun, interesting and different. We enjoyed doing new and exciting things. We are really looking forward to our next class with Anke. We also look forward to learning more about bears and the relationship between teddy bears and bears.