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Exploring the Outdoors in the Senior Classes!
Date posted: 10th June 2018
Category Blog, Class Work, Geography, Local Visits, Physical Education, Science, Senior Classroom, Sport, Visual Arts
Since Easter, 3rd – 6th Classes have been exploring the outdoors with Jo and Richard in the Discovery Park as part of a 4-week programme being rolled out by Kilkenny Recreation and Sports Partnership.
The children have thoroughly enjoyed all aspects of the workshop which were conducted both in the school environment and in the Discovery Park.
Below are some photos of the activities which the children engaged in, all of which supported various curricular areas such as Maths, Science, Geography, P.E. and Art.
Take a look at their participation in the programme.
The children engaged in various team building games during the first week!
Parachute Games
Clumps
The Tower of Hanoi
During the second week of the programme, the children engaged in activities relating to SESE
They explored the food chain and created a food web using string and each person had to represent a different animal that lives in the woods.
As well as this, the children had to work in teams to identify the number of years it would take for various materials to decompose! This was a difficult task and no group got the correct answers but we learned so much from this activity!
Did you know that it takes a banana skin up to 2 years to naturally decompose?
A plastic bottle depending on its size, could take up to 1,000,000 years to decompose naturally!!
As a final activity on Week 2, the children were given the task of creating a nest using anything they could find naturally in the forest. 
The challenge was to make sure the nest would stay together when it was lifted!
On the third week, the children explored maps, some of them were of the Discovery Park and others were from other parts of Ireland. 
The children once again worked in teams to identify the source of rivers as well as where lakes and other map features can be found.
In response to their work on maps and map reading, the children then worked outdoors to create their own map of the lakes and grounds within the Discovery Park. They had to find parts of nature in the school grounds that would help show areas within the map.
Below are some of their finished maps!
Didn’t they do a fantastic job?
They once again demonstrated good teamwork in this activity
The final week of the programme was back in the Discovery Park. For this week the children engaged in the PE curriculum and had to once again perform as team players.
They did wall climbing….
and they also had to wall climb as a team which wasn’t as easy!
As a final treat, the children did Archery!
On behalf of the school, I want to thank Kilkenny Recreation and Sports Partnership for providing the children with the opportunity to engage in this fantastic workshop. They thoroughly enjoyed the 4-week programme. Special thanks to Jo and Richard who implemented the programme so well from start to finish. Well done also to the children for engaging so well in all activities asked of them and showing what it takes to be a team player! 🙂
Date posted: 10th June 2018
Category Blog, Class Work, Geography, Local Visits, Physical Education, Science, Senior Classroom, Sport, Visual Arts
Building a great classroom with Infants!
Date posted: 6th June 2018
Category Blog, Class Work, Drama, Drama, English, Junior Classroom, Mathematics, Our Work on Display, School Outings, Science, Visual Arts
May has come and gone in the Junior Room and as always we’ve been busy this month!
Our play topic was ‘The Building Site’
We role played on site, worked in the sand, made constructions and various items related to building in junk art as well as making our own mini site in small world.
In English we drew plans for a building we’d like to construct and listed all the materials we would need to build it.
In Art we took inspiration from nature and made pretty blossom trees using crepe paper and bright, yellow, summer suns.
We wrote up what we have learned about the season of summer and made puffy paint to create delicious ice cream cones!
We had an interesting morning going on a nature walk to the Discovery Park. We spotted lots of signs of summer- green leaves, flowers growing, insects down by the river and we could hear lots of birds singing.
We had time after to head to the playground for some fun!
After our school tour to Hook Lighthouse and K-Bowl we drew pictures of our favourite activity.
In Maths Senior Infants were working on number and coloured pictures of crabs according to the number code. Meanwhile Junior Infants were working on cutting, colouring and gluing skills and created colourful rockets.
Date posted: 6th June 2018
Category Blog, Class Work, Drama, Drama, English, Junior Classroom, Mathematics, Our Work on Display, School Outings, Science, Visual Arts
School Tour 2018!
Date posted: 18th May 2018
Category Blog, Junior Classroom, Middle Classroom, School Outings, Senior Classroom, Sports, Visual Arts
We had a great day by the seaside and then bowling on our school tour this year. The Junior and Middle Rooms went to the Hook Lighthouse where we climbed 115 steps to the top! We heard lots of interesting information about why and how the lighthouse was built.
Here we are in the Watch Tower where the lighthouse keepers worked in years gone by.
The first lighthouse keepers at the Hook Lighthouse were actually monks and we saw where they lived in the tower 800 years ago!
The view from the top!
Later on we had an art workshop with resident artist Rose. We made colourful 3D scenes on slates.
We were treated to a magic show by our guide Noel, somehow the water in the jug just would not pour out on any pupils, however the teachers were not as lucky!!!
Poor Ms Hall!
The Senior Room went coasteering along the rocks near the lighthouse. They had great fun exploring and jumping into rock pools.
Before we left the Senior Class joined us for a picnic in the grounds of the lighthouse.
In the afternoon we came back to Kilkenny and went bowling, finally we had chips and pizza before heading back to school after a great day!
Date posted: 18th May 2018
Category Blog, Junior Classroom, Middle Classroom, School Outings, Senior Classroom, Sports, Visual Arts
Merry Christmas Everyone!
Date posted: 22nd December 2017
Category Blog, Christmas, Class Work, Drama, Drama, English, Fundraising Activities, Geography, Junior Classroom, Local Visits, Our Work on Display, Religious Education, Science, Visual Arts
December has flown by in Junior and Senior Infants and we’ve been very busy in the run up to Christmas. Here are some of the activities we completed this month.
To get into the Christmas spirit we went carol singing with the whole school in the Discovery Park.
In art we made owl babies by sponge painting after we read the book Owl Babies.
We painted and used crepe paper to make Christmas robins and also created a choir of singing reindeer!
In play we created Santa’s Workshop. We had great fun making toys and wrapping them, building his workshop with bricks and making our own toys in junk art.
We wrote letters to Santa and posted them and we were very excited to get a letter back which the postman delivered to us!
Senior Infants were working hard learning tricky words this month and practiced making them from play dough as well as writing them in sentences.
We learned lots of information about nocturnal animals such as owls, bats, badgers and foxes.
We performed in our school play ‘Superstar.’ We were angels and animals.
We learned all about the Nativity and birth of Jesus in Religion and practiced our cutting skills to create these Nativity scenes.
As a treat for Christmas we went to the cinema to see ‘The Star.’
Finally we were thrilled to receive a visit from Santa and have a Christmas party! 🙂
Merry Christmas everyone and Happy New Year from everyone in the Junior Room! 🙂
Date posted: 22nd December 2017
Category Blog, Christmas, Class Work, Drama, Drama, English, Fundraising Activities, Geography, Junior Classroom, Local Visits, Our Work on Display, Religious Education, Science, Visual Arts
A Busy November in the Middle Room!
Date posted: 12th December 2017
Category Blog, Class Work, English, History, Irish, Local Visits, Middle Classroom, Our Work on Display, Visual Arts
The year is flying by and we are well into December at this stage. Have a look at what we got up to in November in 1st, 2nd and 3rd Class!
In Art we created pictures with 4 tiles that are both colourful and symmetrical. We then stuck them together to create these lovely designs!
In History and English, we learned about “Thanksgiving” in America. We looked at a Powerpoint Presentation about the first Pilgrims that settled in America and how they travelled across the Atlantic Ocean on the “Mayflower”. We then created our own “Thanksgiving Turkeys”, the most popular choice of food at this time of year!
To mark Science Week which was from 12th-19th November 2017, we spent an afternoon in the library with Rob and Ciara, making catapults. The children were divided into teams, given a box, full of LEGO and instructions to make their own catapult. They did a super job!
We then had to put our catapults to the test to see if they could launch a rubber ring at a target! This was great fun for everybody!
When we returned to school, we wrote a report and drew a picture to display on the wall!
We were also asked to join in the “Yulefest” celebrations in Kilkenny by painting some stars that can be spotted around the city over the Festive Season. Here is one of our stars painted by the children in the school!
In Gaeilge, the 3rd Class were learning all about “Sa Bhaile”. They drew pictures of their bedrooms and labelled them in Irish.
Well done on all your hard work this month, boys and girls!
Date posted: 12th December 2017
Category Blog, Class Work, English, History, Irish, Local Visits, Middle Classroom, Our Work on Display, Visual Arts