Today we had a special visitor at St. Augustine’s during the younger girls’ (grades K-2) class: Father George from St. Patrick’s Church in Lookout stopped by to watch the class, so we had an audience! The girls did a great job showing him the “Cotton Eyed Joe” dance they’ve been working on for the past few weeks.

I was also thrilled to see that some of the girls are practicing jumps from Irish dance, and jumps that I’ve never even shown them! I’m not sure where they saw “quivers” and “scissors,” but they were doing them! Very impressive.

This week I gave them a short lesson so that they can learn a few Irish phrases, but I was surprised to find that they already know some! They didn’t know how to say “hello” (“dia dhuit”) but they do know how to say “thank you” (go raibh mait agat”) and “Happy St. Patrick’s Day” (“Lá fhéile Pádraig sona dhuit”). That last one was new to me, so, you see, I’m learning from them too!

The older (grades 2-6) girls worked on their performance piece since we have a couple opportunities to show off our new skills during the St. Patrick’s Festival…which is fast approaching! We still need to work on our straight lines and working together as a team, but overall things are looking good.

Here are the younger girls practicing their skips and kicks: