Our first virtual meeting in the classroom took place last Thursday, February 5th. The children had their research done and they were looking forward to telling Vanya what they had found out.

We began the session with Vanya saying hello to all the children again and getting to know their names. They loved the fact that when they came up to the computer screen Vanya was able to take their photo and put it on the whiteboard.

They showed Vanya what they had written in their booklets since her visit and they told her about measuring the school and drawing the floorplan of the school.

The children then started to tell Vanya about their research. They told her many facts such as:

There were just two classrooms in the school.

There were four classes in each room.

There was a fireplace in each room and the children brought turf or wood to keep the rooms warm.

The pupils long ago brought bottles of milk to school for their lunch and warmer the milk by the fire.

The children got slapped if they didn’t know their lessons…….etc

All their research was very interesting and it threw up new questions.

Vanya then put some pictures of maps of the village up on the whiteboard. The children were asked to locate their own school, the old Ardfert school and many more local attractions. This was a good exercise in map work. We will definitely have another look at this type of activity in class.

The next activity involved the children listening to Vanya’s description of the front of her house and attempting to draw a picture of it. This was interesting to watch as the children were very unsure of the picture they were drawing and each child’s work was original!

The children then gave Vanya an update on their origami boxes. They now have a bucket full of them but they have to continue making! Vanya showed them a photo of what could be possible to make with them….

The children were quite shocked when they realised that the people in the picture are real people so therefore the buildings made out of origami boxes are quite big to say the least! This was the end of our first virtual session in the classroom.