Our Local History Project

First of all our teacher, Mrs. Hassett explained to us about what we were going to do.  We were to study our local area.  We got things to help us do our project.  We looked at maps and saw where we lived.  In our project copies we did map scales.  We were twined with  Fairhill Primary school in Dromara, Co. Down. Our friends in Fairhill wrote to us and we wrote back and started to become pen-pals.  They sent us photos and we sent our photos to Fairhill.

We then started to learn about map co-ordinations.  We learned about St. Molaga also.  Mrs. Hassett managed to fit Irish in no matter what we learned.  We read a couple of Irish stories about St. Molaga.  We studied Bremore Castle, Bath Rd. and the Martello Tower.  I was very excited going on site visits.  We went to the castle many times but every time we loved it.  We went to the Martello Tower once and Bath Rd. once.  Each time we came back from our visits we wrote about them.  We loved finding out new and interesting things.  The Internet helped us a lot.

The day had come at last for us to visit Dromara.  We set off on a bus early one morning in April.  It was
a long journey but we had a T.V. on the bus.  When we got to Fairhill P.S. they greeted us and made us feel at home.  We had lunch that the staff in Fairhill had so kindly prepared for us.  We then went on a trail of their local history project.  I was curious to see what it was.  When we got there we found out that it was McConville's Scutch Mill.  We got a questionaire to fill in as they showed us around.  Our partners from Fairhill helped us.  We found it very interesting.  Then we went back to the school where we watched a video.  After a long day we said goodbye until the following week when thet would visit us.

Now we had to prepare our presentation.  First we went to the castle and painted pictures of Bremore castle.  Then we wrote our first thoughts on going to Dromara on a big poster.  We stuck lots of information on the charts about the Castle, Martello Tower, St. Molaga and Bath Rd.  Fourth Class also learned a song about St. Molaga which they planned to sing for our visitors. We prepared a speech to explain everything to them. We arranged tours of the castle and Bath Rd. and got the trail booklets ready.  The other Fifth Class were very helpful.
The day came at last.  They arrived at around 11:00 am.  We took them in to the hall and they had some snacks and drinks.  The Parent's Association had worked hard all morning to prepare some delicious food.  Then Fourth Class sang and recited a poem .  After that we were split into groups for the tours.  Some of the parents volunteered to help out with the groups.  We had questionaires to fill out as we followed the trail.  Ruth, Christian and myself went to the castle first and to Bath Rd and the Martello Tower after lunch.
I think they enjoyed themselves and learned a lot about our area.  After the tours we presented our projects in our classroom.
Fourth Class had made a model of a monastery and Sixth Class had made a model of Bremore Castle.  Mr.O'Toole thanked everybody and we all said goodbye.  Some people stayed in touch after this.  The person we in Fifth Class have to thank is Mrs. Hassett, we could not have done this without her help.

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