Hello again, we're back to answer the rest of your questions and then we're going to brainstorm some questions for you. We thought our school day was long until we saw when you start and finish,so on second thoughts ours isn't that long. We have the next two weeks off school for our Easter holidays so we won't be back in touch til the middle of April. Do you get time off for Easter?

Here are our questions for you :

What do you do during bell work?

Read the magazine Time for Kids, sometimes play a game called Scategories, usually warm up type activites for our brain.

How many teachers and pupils are in your school and how many classes are in your school? We have ten teachers - our principal, a learning-support teacher, a resource teacher and seven class teachers, there are 8 classes - Junior Infants,Senior Infants and then 1st class to 6th class and there are about 193 pupils.

Our building has Young 5's, Kindergarten through fifth grade, usually two sections per grade (though three fourth grades this year) 27 kids in our class, about 300 in the building. We have a principal, two secretaries, gym, art, music, social worker, media center, two special education teachers, one kindergarten, two first grade teachers, two second grade teachers, two third, three fourth, and two fifth grade teachers, also a speech therapist, three reading aides, and lunch ladies.

Do you have a cafeteria at school? We don't. Yes, it's also our gymnasium. Tables fold out of the walls.

Would you have much homework as your school day is fairly long? We get about 30 mins to an hour. About the same.

Do you wear a school uniform? We wear a navy blue tracksuit and a blue polo shirt. No uniform for us, though we wear Brown School T-Shirts for field trips.

What sports/hobbies would you have out of school? Sports: soccer,basketball, baseball, swimming, hockey, football, bowling, softball, tennis,also music lessons twice a week at school sometimes private lessons outside of school, dance, gymnastics drawing, video games, trampoline in yards, instant messaging, playing with pets, listening to music

What different religious backgrounds are there in the school? Many types Catholics, Christians, Jewish, Protestant, etc. not really talked about at school

Do you celebrate Easter? Yes, variety of ways most go to church then Easter egg hunts, easter baskets at home, was very cold here that day couple inches of snow on the ground

What kind of tours do you go on from school? local nature center, state capitol, nearby state park to walk sand dunes, Chicago or Grand Rapids for museums

What different fastfood restaurants are near you? McDonalds, Burger King, Wendy's, Taco Bell, Subway, Quizno's, Dairy Queen are the most prevelant though lots of restaurants,

What do you think of Irish beliefs like leprechauns? Most don't believe though enjoy the stories or fables of them.

What type of houses do you live in? All types of houses most pretty typical of American home with backyard and in subdivisions.

Thanks for the questions, Hope to talk with you soon.

Mr. R's class

Thanks so much for sharing! We were excited to hear back from you, we have also read the book Holes and enjoyed the movie. Right now we are reading a book called Fever, which is about the yellow fever epidemic in Philadelphia 1793. Here's a typical day for us.

8:30 Bell Work

9:10 Science

10:10 Recess

10:25 Gym or Music

11:00 History

11:50 Recess then Lunch

12:40 Silent Reading

1:10 Math

2:10 Recess

2:25 Reading and Writing

3:50 Dismissal

We live on the coast of Lake Michigan in a small town.

Hope to hear back from you.

Mr. Rommel's Class

Good morning, we are typing this on Monday March 19 around 11:40. My students are really excited to learn about your school. We have a few questions:

How many languages can you speak? English is our main language but we learn Irish at school. It is our national language but it is not really used by many people in day to day life.

What would be a typical meal for you? For breakfast we usually eat toast or cereal. Lunch we bring fom home as we don't have a canteen at school, we eat sandwiches,fruit, yogurt,cheese string etc and we try and keep our treats for Friday. Fizzy drinks and crisps are banned from school. Dinner varies : curry, lasagne, pizza, chips, burgers, fish ,chops ,potatoes, carrots,spaghetti bolognaise ...

How many fast food restaurants are near you? We have Mc Donalds, KFC and Pizza Hut,as well as ordinary chippers and Chinese take-aways. We call fries, chips and what you call chips, we call crisps.

Do you live in the city or the country?Our school is in country. Its about halfway between two towns,about 5/10 minutes from both.

How do you feel about "Irish" beliefs such as leprechauns and pots of gold?

Do you celebrate St. Patrick's Day? We have a national holiday on St. Patricks Day. The local towns have parades and in Dublin there is a St. Patricks Festival which lasts for three or four days,they have concerts and fireworks etc.

What types of technology do you use? We use cd,dvd, video players at school, we have a computer room and also a computer in the classroom(but it is old and isn t going on line at the minute),we don't have any laptops at school but we are collecting tokens to get one,last year we collected tokens and got a digital camera for the school.

At home we have ipods,mp3 players, xbox, playstations(ps3 was released last week.

What are you studying right now? Maths : Fractions,Decimals and Percentages

English : Similes, Harry Houdini,Adverbs, Creative Writing

History : The Renaissance and The Reformation

Geography:Rocks and Fossils

Science : Heat and looking after the environment

Music : We play the recorder, we're learning This Ole House and The Can-Can

P.E(Physical Education): Olympic Handball

What are some of the books you have read? We read a wide selection of books, everything from Harry Potter to Goosebumps to Jacqueline Wilson. We read a novel in class earlier this year,Holes, it was very good.

What is your typical school day? A typical school day would be as follows - 9.20: Quiet reading time

Thanks for sharing, do you have any questions for us?