We started back at school at the end of August and we have been very busy in the Senior Room.
A woman called Shailagh from the heritage council came and brought us on an interesting walk around the lake area. We learned about the various trees growing there.
We have been very active for the past nine weeks. We have had cycling lessons. Even though we all know how to cycle, we learned how to cycle safely. One of our instructors was none other than Irish National Champion Daire Feeley. Of course we also followed the exploits of last years coach as she represented Ireland at the Paralympics. A team of eleven athletes took part in the cross-country running competition in Kiltoom, three of which won medals and qualified for the Connacht finals. Congratulations to Senan who finished in 5th place on the day. We travelled to the Centre of Excellence to take part in the Daily Mile launch. Everybody got to try various athletics events. You never know, we might have some future Olympians among us!
With all of these activities happening it's hard to believe that we also had time for Gaelic training, a blitz, reading 2 Michael Morpurgo novels and a David Walliams book but we did! We have also been learning French once a week with Carol.
We are looking forward to what's in store after the midterm break.
Oh my goodness! Where has the time gone?
We have been so busy in the Senior Room that we have forgotten to tell you what we have been doing, so here is a brief synopsis.
After Christmas our learning theme was 'Heroes'. We got the opportunity to learn about our heroes and learn about other people who are heroes for lots of reasons. We learned about Nelson Mandela, Rosa Parks, Marie Curie, Mary Robinson, Adi Roche, Martin Luther King and Gandhi, to name but a few. A real life hero, Richael Timothy, paid a returning visit to us. This time she told us about her upcoming trip to Rio to attempt to qualify for the Olympics in Paris this summer. She brought her world championship medals to show us. This visit was part of the 'Dare to Believe' programme.
We have also been working towards our Bluestar award. In the Bluestar Programme we are encouraged to learn about different aspects of Europe; history, geography culture and politics/institutions. We spent a lot of time learning about World War 1 and life in Europe and Ireland at that time. We also read the novel 'Warhorse' by Michael Morpurgo and as a treat Mrs. Kelly showed us the video (with popcorn!)
We still managed to find time to do fun things. These included a trip to our friends in Cloonboniffe NS to play draughts, a trip with Mr. Healy to Boyle to play in a 5 a-side soccer tournament, a visit to the COE (Centre of Excellence) for a GAA skills training session (and another visit to play in a blitz) and a visit to the local library in Ballyhaunis for a storytelling session. We also got to ice cupcakes for Easter and then eat the results (yum!)
Since we came back after Easter we have been busy gardening. We have planted beans, peas, potatoes, radish, parsnips, onions, beetroot, garlic and tomatoes. Earlier this year we designed our garden and now we are busy making those drawings into reality (with a little help from the local community).
And if we haven't been busy enough, we have just started learning French. Carol comes in to us for an hour every week. These lessons are funded by the PPLI (post Primary Languages Ireland) and we were one of the lucky schools selected for this year.
Wishing you all the best for 2024
We started back at school on the 28th of August and we have done lots of fun things so far this term.
A man called Martin Curley from the heritage council came and told us some interesting things about the area. We compared ordinance survey maps from the early 1900's to those of today. We discovered the site of an old school, a forge and a constabulary hut. We then went for a walk to see these places for ourselves.
We have also been learning about rugby and the Rugby World Cup. Mrs. Kelly even arranged for a rugby coach to visit and teach us some rugby skills. We learned about the different countries taking part and even did projects on some of them. Ms. Coyle's room invited us to their room and told us what they had learned about Portugal. We even good to taste some Portuguese food. Then' the following week we invited them in to our room and told them all about Italy. We tasted tortellini and tiramisu. Yum!
Our room has also had cycling lessons. Even though we all know how to cycle, we learned how to cycle safely. One of our instructors was none other than Irish Olympian Richael Timothy. We were delighted when she agreed to tell us all about her journey so far, and we look forward to seeing her in Paris next year.
With all of these activities happening it's hard to believe that we also had time for Gaelic training, reading 2 Michael Morpurgo novels and a trip to BCS to see their fantastic musical, but we did! Ronan, Emily, Darrell and Mario represented the school at the county cross country running championships in Roscommon.
We are looking forward to what's in store after the midterm break.
GAA training continued every Wednesday and we have been very lucky to have a trainer from UL put us through our paces every week.
We celebrated St. Brigid's Day on the 1st of February. In the week leading up to one of our national saint's day we made St. Brigid's crosses. Mrs. Kelly taught us how to make two different types of cross and we also had fun trying to invent our own cross. Thank to to the local farmers who collected rushes for us.
St. Valentines Day followed and we had fun making cards and other art to celebrate the occasion. Another important occasion that we got busy preparing for was Mother's Day. Mrs. Kelly brought in cupcakes and we made icing and iced them in school. We then gave the cupcakes to the most important women in our lives - our Mammies!
We got to travel to Loughglynn this term for a return draughts tournament. We enjoyed this outing very much. We also had fun learning about electricity and spent time making our own circuits and wiring plugs.
Just before the Easter holidays we had an active week. We also had the final of our table-tennis league. We are looking forward to next term when we will travel to soccer and GAA matches.
We had a very busy time from the midterm break until Christmas. GAA training continued every Tuesday and just before Christmas we got to sample non-contact boxing. We will return to GAA training in February.
We also began practicing a Christmas play. We had hoped to invite parents and grandparents in to school before Christmas to watch it, but unfortunately we could not do this when the time came. We recorded our play instead and shared it with loved ones that way.
The Senior room also got busy making crafts for the craft fair that was held in the hall in December. We made stars, Christmas stockings, and chocolate stirrers to sell on the day. When the cold spell came in mid December Mrs. Kelly brought us outside to take some winter photos. These photos are in the gallery above. Some were chosen for the Irish Weather Online photo album!
We got busy decorating the school in the weeks leading up to the holidays. On the day of the holidays, the very generous owners of Supervalu in Ballyhaunis brought us selection boxes. It was the perfect end to the term.
Check out our Christmas video
Check out this video we made when we put our taste buds to the test.
October has been a good month but everyone is looking forward to the midterm break and Halloween. We finished our novel 'Holes' and Mrs. Kelly showed us the movie so we could compare them. We all agreed that the movie was a true representation of the novel.
We had our draughts tournament and it was very successful. Our friends from Loughglynn and Cloonbonniffe joined us in what was a great exhibition of tactical play. Look at the photos above for pictures of the prize winners.
We learned about all potatoes and their importance in Ireland. Mrs. Kelly made boxty for us to try, and also set of the smoke alarm in the process. That meant that we also got to have a fire drill. We hosted assembly that day and shared the boxty with the other classes. We also taught them a song from Ghana that we had learned
We all dressed up the day of the midterm break in our Halloween costumes.
We came back to school on the 29th of August and this is a flavour of what we have learned over the last five weeks.
In Maths we tried to break Usain Bolt's world record and discovered that it wasn't as easy as we thought! We also learned about lines, angles and 2D shapes.
We are reading the novel 'Holes' and are about halfway through the book. We are looking forward to seeing how it finishes.
Some days we play 'Wordle', 'Worldle', 'Globle', 'Flagle', 'Numbrd', 'Foodle' and draughts. These games help to develop our vocabulary, problem solving skills, reasoning skills and our geography knowledge. We will be hosting a draughts tournament next month and two local schools will come here to compete.
We used the iPads to look at the NASA website and research the Apollo 11 mission to the moon. We then also painted pictures of the moon in Art.
Friday is Funday in our classroom. Some of our Friday highlights include; Art, putting together our new rebounder, our visit to Erritt Lake to investigate the plant life and a tasting science experiment.
Other enjoyable moments include; Gaelic training, playing Kahoot, the time the classroom almost flooded, Mrs. Kelly giving us Match Attack cards and Mr. Prenty coming to visit. We hope next month will be as much fun!